Some Assembly Required

by Lex Chase

  Patrick hooked two fingers under Benji’s chin, guiding him to meet his gaze. Patrick rumbled his approval of Benji’s blown pupils and slightly parted lips, high on taking an aura charge down the throat. Living blow jobs seemed mundane in comparison. He ran his thumb over Benji’s bottom lip, and Benji sucked the digit into his mouth.

  “Is that a suggestion?” Patrick asked as he appraised Benji’s bravado. The poor guy still retained his humanity, and it was admirable. Perhaps a blow job wouldn’t be out of the question. As much as he’d goaded Benji about them, he had forgotten what they could be like.

  Benji leaned into Patrick and tucked his face against the crook of his neck and shoulder, his voice a raspy whisper. “Did you just fuck me?”

  Patrick chuckled deep in his throat. He rewarded Benji with a firm pat on the rise of his ass. “Gold star for you.”

  Pulling away, Benji gave Patrick a scrutinizing look that he did not appreciate. “Do you even remember how to have sex like the living?” he asked.

  Patrick snorted, spitting water from his mouth. “Of course I do.”

  “Well, we are dead. Can you even get it up?”

  “What kind of fucking question is that?” Patrick snapped.

  Benji grazed his fingers across the crotch of Patrick’s wet jeans and gave a purposeful, grinding rub with his palm. He hummed in delight. “Seems you can,” he coyly whispered.

  “Shit,” Patrick hissed as Benji took the initiative with fondling him. “You’re a damned kindergarten teacher.”

  Benji tilted his head and watched Patrick under his heavy-lidded gaze. “No, I’m not,” he purred, his voice almost getting lost in the hiss of the water. He boldly went for the button and fly of Patrick’s jeans, and Patrick’s thighs tightened in anticipation.

  Patrick slipped his fingers under the waistband of Benji’s jeans and sunk his fingernails into the supple flesh of his rear. He clenched his jaw as Benji took control. He couldn’t help the harsh growl of release when Benji took his cock in hand and gave a long languorous stroke. Screw aura charges. Patrick shook at the memory of physical contact.

  Benji pressed forward against him, and Patrick’s lashes fluttered. Shit. He was losing it already.

  “I’m not a kindergarten teacher,” Benji whispered into the shell of Patrick’s ear, his voice deep inside Patrick’s head like a demonic warning. “Not anymore.” He caught his earlobe in his teeth and dragged them across the flesh. “I’m a Guide.”

  Patrick flailed under Benji’s touch. Benji’s confession rocked him. Had he finally given up his humanity, the idea of passing on, so they could stay here? Benji couldn’t understand what it meant. It was the passion talking, and Patrick would let it ride to the end. He clung onto Benji by the neck and waist, desperate for something to hold while he fell into the needs he had long denied. He angled Benji for a crushing kiss to avoid screaming from the agony and ecstasy of remembering what it was like to be alive. He had been all talk when it came to offering below-the-belt pleasures. He never expected he’d be the first. Out of defense, need, and reciprocation, Patrick channeled another aura charge through the kiss.

  Benji pulled back, howling in heat as he shuddered hard. Patrick held him tight, watching him ride it out. That perfect arch of the back was enough to drive out the final scraps of logic he had left.

  Touching, making out, expressing passion was secondary.

  The second Benjamin Goss walked into his café, Patrick came alive.

  Benji blinked, and Patrick grinned as he noticed him struggle for focus. He was too blitzed out on repeated charges. Patrick had more experience with them; he could keep going for a while yet. Benji slapped his hands over Patrick’s jaw and their foreheads met. Benji glared in determination, his pupils blown wide enough to resemble a shark in frenzy.

  “Are you going to fuck me like a man, or are you going to keep fucking me like the shell you once were?” Benji snarled.

  There were no words for Patrick, all his rationalizing, analyzing, and hard data gone in an instant. Who knew if the robins would ever return. Who knew when the CASA would be repaired. How many cycles of customers wearing shorts and flip-flops and then winter coats and boots. The need, the hunger, the very ache to take what Benji had long offered consumed him.

  He gripped Benji by the wrists, tearing his touch off his person. Benji protested and tried to jerk free.

  “Stop,” Patrick warned him.

  With a measure of his will, he flickered them both out of existence and materialized on his waterlogged MILAN bed.

  The sprinklers streamed throughout CASA, ruining the particleboard and fabrics. None of Patrick’s mending ability could fix any of it. He had to learn to accept he was never in control. He could never fix anything. Not even himself.

  In this moment, as he pinned Benji to the mattress, hands around his wrists, straddling his waist, Patrick realized he had become so irreparably broken that he had fallen in love with a man he’d already said good-bye to in his mind.

  If he lied to himself long enough that Alec had tricked him into loving him, he could believe it. He also thought if he could perpetuate the same lie that he didn’t love Benji, he could believe that too.

  But fuck it all. He couldn’t make himself believe either.

  As Benji shifted and struggled under him, Patrick watched him as if inspecting him for flaws, imperfections. Like he was nothing more than a piece of particleboard furniture. But he wasn’t furniture. He was never ornamental.

  Patrick eased his grip on Benji’s wrists, and Benji drew his eyebrows upward in question. He went still, seeming to sense Patrick’s change in dominance. Reaching out, Patrick slipped his fingers over Benji’s cheek, finding his hard data to bring him back from his lapse in humanity.

  He swallowed down the lump in his throat. Charles was an asshole to let Benji go. Patrick was a douche bag to think himself worthy.

  Patrick had taught Benji how to eat, and the catharsis on Benji’s face made him believe for once life in CASA wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Hey,” Benji said softly, barely audible over the shower of water. He cupped Patrick’s cheek, running his thumb over one of his eyelids. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Patrick chuckled but couldn’t hide his vulnerability under an impenetrable wall of bullshit this time. He bent forward over Benji, kissing him with the care and gentleness that they hadn’t had until now.

  “Take off your pants,” he whispered against Benji’s mouth.

  With a nod, Benji obeyed, and his soggy jeans and boxers dispersed in trails of smoke and then were smothered by the sprinklers.

  Patrick followed suit, his jeans gone and nothing but the open air of CASA between them. Patrick kissed him again, giving in to the human contact. He reminded himself that this was what it was like once, and experiencing it with Benji would change him forever after he was gone.

  Patrick shifted to plant a hot trail of kisses down Benji’s jugular, over the ridge of his collarbone, and then paid special attention to his breastbone. Benji tilted his head back, pressing it into the ruined MODENA mattress. He threaded his fingers through Patrick’s wet hair as Patrick moved lower, licking over Benji’s taut abdomen with the flat of his tongue.

  “Fuck…,” Benji let out in a slow sigh.

  Patrick said nothing as he took Benji in hand. Benji clenched his fingers, pulling at Patrick’s hair. Heh, right where he wanted him. He’d show Benji he definitely remembered what it was like to fuck like he was human.

  It was like riding a bike.

  Or so he assumed.

  After a series of strokes to coax Benji into readiness, Patrick then made a long savoring lick up the base of Benji’s length to the glistening head.

  “You’re doing what?” Benji squealed. It didn’t come out as a question, instead a squeal of surprise.

  “Relax,” Patrick cooed. “Just go with it.”

  He caught Benji knitting his brows in that adorable way and added biting his lip to the mix.
It took every ounce of Patrick’s will not to cut the foreplay short and get on to screwing Benji senseless. Oh, he’d give him something to remember him by, wherever he ended up.

  Patrick took Benji in his mouth, and his lashes fluttered with the silken skin against his tongue. He had forgotten how good it could be. Benji’s grip on his hair faltered and then tightened as Patrick settled into the rhythm. Not needing to breathe had definite advantages.

  Benji probably thought he was being sneaky about it when he started to rock his hips just slightly with Patrick’s ministrations. Before long, Benji was guiding the pace on his own with his grip in Patrick’s hair.

  Patrick welcomed his brazenness. What started out as an appreciative blow job turned into a wanton face fuck. He surrendered to Benji’s control. Sex was always about the other, or it was supposed to be, anyhow. What tricks he learned from one partner wouldn’t work the same with another. He let Benji set the pace, let him know what he liked, how he wanted it, and who was truly in control of the situation.

  “Shit!” Benji cried out as he spent himself into Patrick’s throat.

  Patrick blinked, surprised at the salty sweetness. It wasn’t revulsion, or asking if he had a preference. Moaning around Benji’s cock, he gladly swallowed.

  Benji hissed a string of breathless cussing as he relaxed his grip and went limp.

  Patrick could have been a jackass and channeled a charge from his mouth straight to Benji’s cock, but he didn’t want to overdose the guy and risk him dissipating into the ball pit. He released Benji and took care to suck him clean.

  Benji watched him with a pleasure-drunk expression, his cheeks ruddy, looking ready for a nap.

  Patrick laid his head on Benji’s stomach, listening to the silence inside his body and the hiss of the water overhead. “I see someone enjoyed themselves,” he said as he licked his bottom lip.

  “Mmm-hmm,” Benji murmured. “Sorry about… uh… you know….”

  “Coming in my mouth?” Patrick asked with a devious grin. “Don’t worry. Swallowing is one of the things I’ve missed.”

  “So…?” Benji asked, his tone hesitant. “You haven’t done this in a while?”

  Instead of running from the question, Patrick gave honesty a shot. “We only fucked via aura charges,” he said as he watched Benji’s expression become concerned. “Alec and I, and later me and any Impression who was down for it. Didn’t even need to take our clothes off. Just a casual tap in passing would do it.”

  “Did you even kiss him?” Benji reached out and petted Patrick’s wet hair.

  “I haven’t kissed anyone since I came here, until you.”

  Benji maintained his gentle touch, and the kindness steadied Patrick’s potential for anxiety.

  “He really dehumanized you,” Benji said, and his mouth drew into a deep frown.

  Patrick patted Benji’s flat stomach. “Well, I have you now.”

  Benji laughed. “This lovey-dovey thing is definitely a new thing for you.”

  “I thought I’d try it on for size,” Patrick said as he sat up. “Until the next time you piss me off.”

  They laughed together. But Patrick understood the irony of the phrase. There wouldn’t be a next time. Dammit. He had been doing well until he reminded himself.

  He had thought it would be easier to tear them apart while it was all still new and fresh. Easier to heal in time. But it was excruciating to feel the newness of deep possessive love only to let it go. He would have welcomed the years of falling out of love and anticipating the day he’d be rid of Benji.

  But even the latter wasn’t true. Patrick wanted Benji with him forever, and he would have done anything to keep him. He did do anything. But he couldn’t hide from the truth.

  And now, with Benji lying next to him, naked and honest, Patrick understood what it meant to let himself be open.

  Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

  Patrick was not one for the arts; logic was his speed. He only believed what was in front of him.

  But as Benji watched him and seemed to wait for him to sort through it all, Patrick decided things like love are best left unexplained.

  He leaned down to kiss Benji with a gentle chasteness.

  Benji blinked, confused by the gesture.

  “I want you on top of me, now,” Patrick whispered and waited for Benji to understand. “Please.”

  Benji smiled and wrapped his arms around Patrick’s neck. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for that.”

  Chapter Fifteen: RIMINI

  Sex with Patrick was a revelation. And not in a biblical way, though the screaming of the fire alarms and the cold, wet mist from the sprinklers did give it an air of the end of times. As did the obvious resignation that seemed to weigh Patrick down. This was good-bye for Patrick. It was hard to castigate him for being so selfish when giving himself to Benji like this was such a selfless act.

  Benji had lost count of the number of Impressions he’d helped. So many lives saved, but none of them had been his ticket to moving on.

  He took a minute to collect himself, gentling Patrick with soft caresses over his wet torso. No goose bumps, despite the chill from the water. Another benefit of being dead, he supposed. Patrick’s skin seemed to glow from the inside. The golden hue conjured thoughts of lazy island vacations and hot summer nights. The kinds of things they’d never be able to share.

  It wasn’t just the energy transfer. Benji’s skin was still as marble-pale as always, bluish in the cast of the shadows from the weak emergency lights.

  So this was how Impressions knew who they had to help. It wasn’t a question—Benji instinctively knew. The magnetic pull he’d always felt, tugging him insistently toward Patrick, suddenly made sense. It was more than just the attraction that had thrummed through him from their first meeting. It was CASA.

  Benji had been a doormat all his life. He put himself last. He catered to others’ needs while ignoring his own. It had gotten him killed. The DEL TORO bookcase had been the instrument, but his own lack of self-worth had been the real cause.

  And now he had the chance to save Patrick from the same fate. Even though he was already dead, he couldn’t move on if he was missing that important piece. Patrick’s fear of the unknown kept him here, sure. But so did his belief that he wasn’t good enough to move on. He wasn’t worthy.

  Benji felt warmth coalesce in his chest. This was the right path.

  And it wasn’t a hardship by a long shot. He already loved and respected Patrick. Now he just had to convince Patrick to love and respect himself, and he knew exactly how to do it. He’d worship him the way Alec should have. The way Patrick should have demanded that anyone who had the fortune to take him to bed did. He’d show Patrick how much he was worth, and how treasured he was.

  Patrick threw himself into carnal pleasures the same way he did into everything else—wholly and with no thought to the consequences.

  That wasn’t a surprise. Anyone who spent any time at all with Patrick could tell he was a fallout-be-damned kind of guy. All action and no forethought. And Benji probably knew that better than most, given that he’d spent the last eight years with him.

  Benji drew in a breath, reveling in the way he could feel his lungs expand. He felt more alive than he had in a long time. Ironic, since he’d never been so certain he was dead.

  Patrick’s kisses were insistent. He went in with hard edges and no finesse. Benji nipped at his lip to slow him down, showing him how he wanted to be kissed. Softly, slowly, with no urgency. Like they had all the time in the world. Like there was no one else anywhere on any plane of existence who deserved Benji’s time and focus more.

  Patrick tensed, and Benji shifted until he was straddling him, holding his hips back so Patrick didn’t rush into more frottage. Benji deepened the kiss, delving languorously into Patrick’s mouth, stroking over the sharp points of his teeth and the tongue that was just as sharp in its own way. It didn’t take long for Patrick
to catch on, and Benji relaxed against him when Patrick gave himself over to the kiss, all of the tension flowing out of his body as Benji settled on top of him.

  He brought a hand up to card through Patrick’s hair, scratching his nails against Patrick’s scalp. Patrick groaned softly, melting into Benji’s gentle touch.

  “No energy exchanges,” Benji murmured. He tucked his face against Patrick’s neck and licked at the skin, disappointed that it didn’t have the salty tang of sweat. It wouldn’t, of course, but he missed it all the same. “I’m going to make love to you in a very—” He nipped at the supple skin under his teeth, making Patrick squirm and laugh. “mortal—” He nosed up the column of Patrick’s throat, pressing a kiss to where his pulse should be thrumming. “—way,” he finished, and he punctuated it with a nuzzle against his jaw and a quick kiss on his swollen lips.

  Patrick rolled his eyes but didn’t protest. Benji lowered his head and pressed a row of kisses down his chest, paying special attention to each of Patrick’s nipples, which reddened and stood up pertly after being laved by Benji’s tongue.

  He continued down, sucking what he hoped would be a hickey at the hard ridge of Patrick’s hip. The sprinklers had stopped at some point, and the quality of light was different. Brighter. The emergency lights had been replaced by the soft glow of the overhead fixtures that stayed on even at night. How could he not have noticed how time passed here? It was so glaringly obvious now.

  Benji laughed inwardly at the thought that he’d been kissing Patrick for days. He’d said that to a lover once, caught up in the poetry of promising to worship someone for days on end. It had been melodramatic and overdone at the time, but now it was just a truth. He could easily spend weeks, months, years tangled up with Patrick here in this corner of CASA where no one existed but them.

  But he wouldn’t. It wasn’t fair to either of them. They needed to move on so Benji could make similar promises to Patrick wherever the next plane of existence took them.

  He kissed his way down the crease of Patrick’s hip, carefully skirting around the hot flesh that waited there and continuing his thorough adulation down Patrick’s muscled thigh instead.