Don't Read in the Closet volume one (51 page)

He had to make
it last.

Gritting his
teeth, Ben managed to pull himself away, his fingertips looking for purchase in
the short strands of Duke's hair. Grabbing him by the jaw, he panted out,
"Up. Up." Duke rose, smiling, and then Ben had him in his arms.
Naked. Hard cocks touching.

Ben swore
beneath his breath as he turned, keeping one hand on Duke's hip as he reached
for the control on the shower. Waiting just a few seconds for the water to get
up to a bearable temperature, Ben pulled the curtain back and then prodded
Duke, motioning for him to get in.

After kicking
his pants the rest of the way off, Duke complied, stepping beneath the spray.
And for a moment, all Ben could do was
stare
. Slick
with water, warm, tan flesh rippling, and that ass. Those arms.

Ben still
couldn't believe that this was happening.

Duke broke his
reverie, twisting beneath the spray to look at him, his mouth tilting up with a
knowing grin. "So you gonna wash this tat or what?"

Letting a low
growl build in his throat, Ben stepped into the shower behind him, wrapping his
arms around Duke's waist and letting his erection press against his skin.
"That and more," he breathed, searching for Duke's ear and sucking on
the flesh there, scraping his teeth against the lobe.

Ben made a
point of moving carefully and tenderly as he reached for the soap, lathering up
his hands before moving toward the marked skin above Duke's hip.

He made sure he
washed it thoroughly. But he didn't exactly take his time with it either.

As soon as he
was done, Ben reached forward to turn off the water, then returned his hands to
Duke's skin, tracing from hip to shoulder and back again, making teasing
brushes against his length without ever giving him enough to really enjoy it.
He brushed his lips along the side of Duke's throat too, scraping teeth over
skin and reveling in the warm sounds of pleasure falling from the other man's
mouth.

At first, Duke
seemed willing to just stand there and be touched, but before long, he was
twisting in Ben's arms, turning to him and capturing Ben's mouth with his.
"Bed?"

"My
bed."

How many times
had Ben dreamed of that? Of tearing down the walls and demolishing the damned
guest room? Of having Duke in his arms. In his bed.

They dried off
quickly, and Duke grabbed Ben's wrist as if to drag him bodily from the room,
but Ben resisted. At Duke's answering growl, he just laughed. "One
minute." He stepped over to the medicine cabinet and pulled out the jar of
ointment he still had from his last tattoo,
then
forced
Duke to keep still for long enough to rub a thin layer of it over the ink.
"There."

There wasn't
any stopping them after that. A tumble of limbs and dancing tongues, they
stumbled through the house and backwards into Ben's room. Together, they fell onto
the bed, first one of them on top and then the other. With more purpose now,
Ben felt the hot flesh of Duke's erection in his hand, the soft weight of his
balls. When Duke touched him too, his hand drifting even lower toward the tight
opening between his cheeks, he groaned, wanting more. He
needed
more.

As he was
pushed to his back again, Ben inched his way up higher on the bed, reaching out
blindly while still kissing hard at Duke's lips. Finally, his hand connected
with the drawer of his night stand, and when Duke realized what he was doing,
he let up slightly, holding more of his weight off of Ben's body and directing
his mouth downward. Ben's hand connected with the bottle he was looking for,
and he grasped it,
then
passed it to Duke with a
pleading look in his eye.

Duke took it
and continued his downward path. This time, when Ben felt that hot breath on
his cock, he gave in, and a minute later, feeling slick fingers push into him,
he let his legs fall open, begging quietly in a low voice. He begged Duke to
touch him and to take him. To fuck him and to make love to him.

When his body
was fully open, Ben intensified his pleas, and before long, he felt cold air on
his cock. He looked up to find Duke staring at him, blue eyes burning. Slowly,
Duke pulled his fingers away, and then he crawled up Ben's torso, holding
himself up above his body.

Their cocks
brushed, and Ben's breath caught. "Please."

Duke reached
over to the side of the bed, grabbing a couple of tissues to wipe his hand and
then plucking a packet from the nightstand drawer. He tore the wrapper with his
teeth and extracted the rubber before reaching down to roll it over himself.

Spying the
bottle of lube on the bed where Duke had discarded it, Ben reached down, opened
the cap and then drizzled a little into his palm. Looking at Duke's heavy
length, bobbing between his legs, he felt his own cock throb, his body longing
to be filled – his soul longing to share this one last thing with the man he'd
shared everything else with.

"Hey,"
Duke said quietly, touching Ben's jaw. "You all right?"

"So much
more than alright." With that, Ben reached down and wrapped his hand
around the sheathed length of Duke's cock, slicking it.

Then there was
nothing to do but feel. Feel the blunt head of it pressing. His body yielding.
The stretch and the burn.

"God,
Duke," he hissed. His nails dug into Duke's skin, one hand at his hip and
the other at his neck.

"You feel
so good, baby. So tight. So
... "

Ben watched
Duke's head tilt back and felt the last slow slide, the hot press of hips
against his ass. He lifted one leg to curl it around Duke's hips, heel digging
into his thighs. There was nothing he wanted more in the world than to keep him
there. To make this moment last.

But then Duke
was moving
,
the steady push of his cock into Ben's
body making nerves flare. Already, Ben was reaching for his cock, only to have
his hand knocked away.

"Just
watch," Duke breathed as he wrapped his hand around him. Ben obeyed
happily, but he had to drop his head back after only a few seconds. It was too
much – the slick length of Duke's cock pushing in and out of him. The curled
fist of his hand pumping. "I can't believe I'm inside you."

Ben groaned.
"Me neither." He couldn't say anything else. Reaching for Duke's
face, he connected their mouths, but that was all he had the energy to do.
Thrusting against each other, their bodies were strung taut, muscles straining.

"Fuck. I'm
gonna
– "

"Yes,"
Ben exhaled. He felt one more hard push into his body. A second.

And then all he
could feel was the sensation of his balls rising, his orgasm exploding in a hot
rush, come pulsing across his abdomen, and Duke's cock. Duke's mouth.

Duke.

Duke.

Duke.

They both
collapsed down into the mattress in a sweaty heap. Ben twined his arms around
the naked body atop his, feeling the warm rush of breath against his neck. And
he never wanted to let go.

Too soon, Duke
was pulling back to press a soft kiss against his lips. Ben loosened his arms
with reluctance, trying to keep the frown from his face as he watched Duke pad
across the room. He returned a minute later without the
condom,
a washcloth in his hand, and Ben lay still as he let his friend wash the
evidence of what they'd done from his body.

When Duke began
to pull away again, Ben stopped him, holding onto his wrist and taking the
cloth from his hand. In a practiced move, he tossed it at the hamper in the
corner and then tried to tug Duke to lie back down with him. "Stay?"
he asked, suddenly vulnerable, nervous. "Don't go."

"I
won't," Duke promised, leaning down to kiss him. "But I don't want to
sleep in the spare room tonight."

Wrapping his
arms around Duke and pulling him close, Ben swore, "Never again. Never,
ever again."

****

Ben opened his
eyes to a dim wash of light. It took him a moment to realize that the bed was
cold and that he was curled around nothing but a pillow. It took a little
longer to remember why that was wrong.

He sat up with
a start and looked around, searching for anything to prove that what had
happened the night before had been real. His heart was just starting to sink
when he spied the blue sheet of paper on the other pillow. The pillow that
smelled like Duke.

Ben
–

Had
to get to work early and didn't want to wake you. Meet me at Madigan's tonight?

D

He read it
three times, but there wasn't anything to read, either between the lines or in
them. Nothing about the note showed that anything had changed.

Still, he
folded it carefully and, after retrieving it from the pile of clothes still
sitting on the floor in his bathroom, he placed the slip of paper in his
wallet. There was a small pocket of doubt in his chest, something black and
painful.

But there was
nothing he could do except wait.

All day at the
office, his mind kept darting back to flashes from the night before. The
feeling of Duke's mouth on his. The taste of him. What it felt like to come
with their bodies entwined. As the day wore on, though, those thoughts were
interspersed with other things. Memories of all the years they'd spent as
friends and of all the times he'd thought that maybe...

He told himself
that fucking your best friend was more than 'maybe.' But in the end, he still
didn't know.

A series of
meetings conspired to keep him at work far later than he'd planned, and by the
time Ben finally pulled into Madigan's, it was almost seven. His body tightly
wound with nerves and fear, he had to keep himself from running to the door.

But then he
stepped inside and stopped short. There, just a few feet in front of him, was
the head of short-cropped black hair and those muscled shoulders. The lines of
ink he'd felt beneath his fingertips. The ones he'd tasted.

Ben didn't
bother to look at Mike as he strode across the room. Singularly focused, he
pulled out the barstool and settled onto it, feeling simultaneously like a man
who'd won the lottery and one who was about to be led to his hanging. Duke
turned to look at him, and Ben's heart nearly cracked open.

He wanted to
touch him. To kiss him and to love him.

And he wanted
it for always.

A shiver swept
up his spine when Duke made no motion toward him, just smiling and waving at
Mike to bring another couple beers. "So how was your day?"

Ben's mouth
hung open, and he had to force it to work. "My day?"

"Well, I
know how your night was," Duke said, smirking.

To hear it
referred to so flippantly made Ben feel cold.

Fortunately,
Mike chose that moment to plunk down his beer in front of him, and Ben grabbed
it quickly, swallowing down a few long pulls to stall. The doubt ballooned
inside his chest, pushing out everything else.

Ben put the
glass down and wiped his mouth, but remained staring forward, uncertain if he
could meet Duke's eyes without giving far too much away. They passed a minute
or two in strained silence. Ben's muscles felt corded, an impulse to run
welling up inside of him.

He didn't know
if he could go back to being just friends.

In his
periphery, Ben noticed Duke fidgeting. It was unlike him; usually he had a
graceful stillness to him, the long lines of his body not prone to nervous
movement. And for a second, Ben wondered if maybe Duke was just as nervous as
he was.

If Ben's own
silence could be mistaken for doubt.

As Ben was
resolving to speak, Duke opened his mouth. "So I made another appointment
with Kiley."

Ben's mouth
went dry. His chest hurt.

"What?"

Duke looked
over at him, blue eyes twinkling. But there was something vulnerable about him.
Something he'd only really shown to Ben the night before.

"Yeah,"
he said slowly. He dragged one hand across his scalp. "I was thinking. To
have all these mementos of how things ended
... "

Ben sucked in a
breath and held it.