Foster Siblings 3: Brokedown Hearts (22 page)

“Would the father really be that adverse to Mikael knowing you?” Drawing his legs into a folded position, David rested his chin on his knees, his focus entirely on Ben. “To allowing his child, a blood relative, his son’s only sibling, to form a relationship with you?”

Darkness edged back into Ben, and he flattened his lips to a hard, thin line. “As a young man, Goran spent one summer crossing the US, but he’s very anti-American now. He’s also very antigay.”

“Oh.” David went still as a statue, and Ben wondered if in his mind he’d jumped back to his family’s response to the very public reveal of his homosexuality.

David’s voice went tinny as he said, “You told him you were gay right when you met him?”

“It’s not something I hide. Plus, back then, I had a boyfriend I thought might be long-term.” Braden had been a major part of Ben’s life during the time Ben had found his father, and even though he’d never told Braden about Mikael, he’d believed when the time was right, when their commitment to each other was laid out on the table, he would. That day had never come. Ben finished, “I wanted to share that part of my life with Goran so he could know who I really was.”

“And it ended up backfiring on you.” Shivering, David wrapped his arms around his folded legs. “Damn.”

Even though his chest ached, Ben still waved David’s concern aside. “Nah. It wouldn’t have worked out anyway. Looking back, upon first meeting him, if I’d assessed him with my normal critical eye, I would have seen he was looking for what it would take to buy me off enough to go away forever.”

Blinking away more brightness, David whispered, “I’m sorry, Ben.” He made a squeaking noise, and then in a bundle of speed, he unfurled and launched himself onto Ben’s lap. Burrowing fast, David wrapped his arms around Ben’s waist and tucked his face against the side of his neck. “It’s not fair. This shouldn’t have happened to you.”

As naturally as breathing, Ben circled his arms around David and hugged the man to him. “I keep telling you, don’t be sorry.” Even though Ben didn’t need the embrace, the generosity and kindness David radiated in waves enveloped Ben like a hot bath on a freezing-cold day. He mumbled into David’s hair, “Mika’s a better trade-off anyway.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” With a few shifts that rubbed Ben’s cock in all the best ways, David wiggled into sitting on Ben’s lap and draped an arm around his shoulders. As he played with the ends of Ben’s hair, he stared off at a wall, looking a million miles away. “I don’t have relationships with my parents or any of my siblings any longer, but I do have the trade-off of a sister-in-law.” He nodded, as if backing himself up, before going on. “Her name is Brittany, and she’s probably better for me than all the others put together.” David’s voice trailed to something very soft, and his fingers stilled in Ben’s hair. “When I got moved up to the Pensacola prison and was able to have visitors and regular phone calls, her visits and calls kept me going and believing I would get out one day.”

“Hey.” Responding to the sudden stillness in David, Ben guided the guy’s head around until their gazes met. He smiled at the sweet, vulnerable man, hoping to coax a smile out of him in turn. “I’d love to meet Brittany. She sounds like a firecracker.”

David’s grin came fast and big, and it lit up his whole face. “Oh, she’d love you. She probably wouldn’t come up much higher than your stomach, but I swear if she put the force of her will behind it, she’d be able to flip you over her shoulder and lay you out flat on the ground.”

“Now I’m scared to meet her.” Pulling back comically, Ben laughed. “I might not measure up.”

“You’d measure up just fine. Better than fine.” Turning solemn, David held Ben’s stare in the light of his. “I know you don’t want me to say it, but I’m sorry your biological father can’t see what a treasure he’d have in you as a son.” David feathered his thumbs across Ben’s cheekbones and brushed a kiss against his lips. “It’s his loss. And it’s a big one.”

“I’m just worried about Mika,” Ben admitted, unbidden. Christ, though, it felt good to lift the weight of being uncertain and frightened alone from his shoulders. “He came out to Goran and his mother last week. It didn’t go well, and it’s still rocky as hell. That’s where I was these past few days. In Sweden.” The physical distance between Ben and his brother, especially now, chafed against his need to grasp control of the situation. “I needed to have a talk with Mika in person, give him some reassurances on my end, and make sure he doesn’t make any dangerous, stupid moves in response to any threats or fights from his dad.”

David’s brows pulled together, and he looked down, giving some serious study to Ben’s lap. “I’m sorry I got mad at you about him.”

“You didn’t know.” Ben gave David a squeeze around the middle and brought his focus back up. “It didn’t occur to me that you’d seen Mika’s picture on my phone. I can see now how it must have looked suspicious when I left your room so fast and then disappeared.” Fresh memories of sliding his cock between David’s pert ass cheeks that night drew out a groan. “Especially after what we’d just done.”

“Thank you for telling me about Mika.” Tangling his hand in Ben’s T-shirt and tugging—a nervous gesture if Ben had ever observed one—David kept connected to Ben’s gaze, and Ben swelled with pride. “And about everything else too. You didn’t need to. You could have just let me leave. But you didn’t.”

Ben exhaled heavily, and he swore the breath released a hundred pounds’ worth of worry from his shoulders. “Hell, if you want full disclosure, I fought telling you. But when it came down to it, I couldn’t let you walk away. Right before you asked me about him”—Ben chuckled as he revealed even more about himself—“I was looking at you all naked and sexy in my bed, looking happy and well fucked, and I started thinking about how nice it would be to share it with you all night.” Getting up, Ben moved David into standing with him and tickled his side. “As long as Elsa will be okay by herself, I don’t want to let you get away.”

“She has everything she needs, and she was asleep when I ran out.” Instead of moving to the bed, David remained in front of Ben, and his fingers started twisting in Ben’s shirt again, pulling at the material. “Before, when I walked out, I didn’t really want to leave.” David’s voice shook a little. “I wanted you to tell me about Mikael. I didn’t want to leave and have my fears and worries fester in my head and start to create thoughts about me doing destructive stuff.” A dark shade of midnight washed across David’s stare, and his voice dropped to a murmur. “I have a problem with that sometimes.”

Ben put a finger to David’s lips. “Shh. It’s okay. Don’t lose sleep over it tonight.” Ben did not want David to get into his history before he could share why he was in Coleman and what he already knew. “There’s always tomorrow to talk.”

“I am tired.” Yawning, David stumbled to the bed and crawled in. “It’s been a long day.”

“A hot one too. Take off your clothes.” With that suggestion, David shot right back to sitting up. His mouth gaped, and Ben rushed to explain, “No, honey, it’s all right. Don’t worry about what’s going to happen. Nothing will. I know you’re sore. I’m just going to hold you.”

Once David nodded and pulled off his clothes, Ben stripped out of his sweats and shirt and put out the light. He climbed into bed next to David, sidled up to him from behind, and wrapped his arm around David’s waist. Pressing his lips to the back of David’s neck, absorbing his warmth, Ben luxuriated in the low-key swelling in his nuts. “Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy feeling your skin touching mine when I do it, though.”

Sighing, David pulled Ben’s hand up and trapped it against his chest. “Feels good.”

“It does. Go ahead and go to sleep.” Easing a leg between David’s, Ben kissed his nape. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get up in time for work in the morning.”

“Six o’clock.” Eyes closed, his voice already waning, David said, “I have to leave in time to catch the bus.”

Ben grinned against the man’s sweaty, smooth skin. “You won’t be late. Night.”

Already breathing heavier, fast asleep, David didn’t answer.

Tucking David closer to him, Ben settled in for a long night of thinking, devising, and mapping out his next steps in regard to both David and Mikael.

Within five minutes, though, spooning David in a way he hadn’t done with anyone in years, thinking ridiculous thoughts about how his size seemed created to hold this man, Ben drifted to sleep.

* * * *

Ben yawned and blinked, naturally waking up before sunrise in a routine ingrained in him for close to twenty years. This morning, though, he breathed in the sight and smell of the clean-cut, sexy blond sleeping next to him, and a slow and easy smile followed.

Tangled in the sheets, gloriously nude, his skin pale with hints of golden shades, David lay stretched half on his stomach and half on his side, his head partially buried under a pillow. Right in that moment, with his next breath trapped in his chest, Ben vowed with a hand to God that he’d never witnessed such a beautiful creature as David Joyner.

Just as Ben started to snuggle in, aiming to admire for a while, pressure pushed against his bladder, and with a soft groan of protest, he rolled out of bed. As quietly as Ben could, he shuffled to the bathroom. Taking his morning piss, he sighed with relief and then washed his hands. Grit covered every surface in Ben’s mouth, and with a grimace, he turned on the water, got one of the plastic cups, swirled the liquid in his mouth, and spit. His toothbrush and paste were somewhere on the floor or in the bed in the darkened room, a casualty of David’s frantic search for the condoms and lube last night.

After drying his hands, Ben turned to tiptoe around the mess and instead met a blue, blue gaze in the shadows of the bed.
Fuck
. “Sorry. I tried to be quiet. I didn’t mean to wake you.” David worked a physically laborious job; he deserved all the z’s he could get. As Ben climbed back into bed, he glanced over David’s shoulder to the alarm clock. “You still have twenty minutes before you have to get up.”

“It’s all right.” With his hands folded under his cheek, David looked a picture of sleepy, sexy innocence. “In prison you get to a place where every noise wakes you up.” He chewed on his lip and then admitted, “Besides, I have to pee.” Halfway pushed upright, he paused. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Honey, of course you can. You don’t have to ask.”

Jesus God
. As David sidestepped and hopped over the clutter on his way to the bathroom, Ben watched him, and his chest panged in an untapped, deeper place, one that made his arms itch to drag David back into bed and keep him there all day.
Which is why he needs to leave as soon as he finishes using the toilet.

By having sex with David last night—not to mention revealing so much about Mikael—Ben had thrown his universe wildly out of order. He needed to get some separation from David, successfully this time, end his agreement with Jonah, figure out the best way to tell David about the job that had brought him to Coleman, and then pray like hell he had the skills to seduce David into forgiving him for the deception. Ben had technically never lied to David, mostly because David hadn’t asked very many questions, but he’d not been forthcoming either, and in this case, in David’s eyes, Ben knew that would feel the same as outright lying.
If he doesn’t forgive me, I’ll never get to share a bed with him again
. And Ben didn’t mean fucking him.

Snarling at himself, Ben jammed his fist into the bedding.

“Hey, hey.” Without Ben realizing, David had returned and now knelt on the floor at his side. David covered Ben’s balled-up hand with his and held Ben with a steady, sure stare. “What’s the matter?”

Driven by newly unearthed need, Ben surged forward and captured David’s mouth with a hard kiss. He fused their lips together, hungry for anything he could get from this man. “I’m not ready to let you leave yet.” With his breath fanning hot across David’s cheek, Ben tunneled his fingers into David’s hair and kept him close. “Stay with me for a little while longer.” His dick already pushed with half wood against the bedding, awakened once more. “Please.”

David wiggled his nose against Ben’s and nipped a small kiss. “Of course I will.” His gaze twinkled with hints of the sky as he added, “You don’t have to ask.”

Fuck, baby
. Blood roaring through his system, Ben latched on to David and delivered another rough kiss, as if stealing David’s breath would make him more alive. At the same time, he dragged David over him, back into bed, and lined their bodies up so he could feel every glorious inch of David’s bare flesh.

Lips to lips, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, cock to cock, Ben and David were plastered to each other from top to bottom. Without having to ask, Ben knew David could not take him again; he would be much too tender to accept anything into his ass without a lot of discomfort. That was okay. Ben didn’t have to fuck David in order to get the closeness he needed to achieve release. Instead of rolling David over to screw him, Ben wrapped an arm around David’s waist, anchored the man to him, and began grinding himself against David.

David gasped into Ben’s mouth, and he dug his hand into Ben’s hip with a bruising-tight hold. With his fingers buried halfway into Ben’s flesh, David pushed back against the force of Ben’s thrusts and slid his rigid cock against Ben’s again and again and again. He teased Ben’s lips with the softest, most erotically charged little flicks from his tongue and quickly drove Ben to madness.

Thrown into overdrive, Ben pulled David’s leg over his and shoved his leg between David’s parted thighs, twisting them together in an even more intricate bow. This additional closeness still not enough to satisfy the starved beast within Ben, he tangled his hand in David’s hair and yanked his head back to break their kiss, desperate to see David’s eyes. The man’s gaze stormed with a blue sea of open need. David clutched Ben’s forearm and writhed against his front, their pricks leaking rivers of precum onto each other’s bellies.

Holding David’s head in place, not giving either one of them room to hide, Ben circled his achingly hard shaft against David’s long, stiff pole and hissed as delicious friction ignited every nerve ending in his prick. David moaned and jolted, and his fingers flexed in Ben’s arm, but he didn’t look away. His face inches from Ben’s, David didn’t blink, and he breathed in unsteady jags. David rocked himself against Ben in time with Ben’s thrusts, and the slow dance of their grinding turned into an impassioned tango.