by Lucy Lennox
I glanced down at his legs— curvy and muscled between the worn edge of his hiking shorts and the scrunched top of his wool socks and leather hiking boots. I wanted to lick his legs.
Was that weird?
As I fantasized about running my tongue up the inside of one of his thighs while my hand ran up the inside of the other, into his shorts, I felt my cock stir in my own shorts.
“So do you?” Xander said. My head snapped up to meet his eyes.
“Do I what?”
“Want a taste?”
“What?” I barked, my voice going ultrasonic. How the fuck was he reading my mind? And more importantly, why was he bringing it up here and now when I couldn’t do a goddamned thing about it? “No! No, I don’t,” I blurted before noticing he was holding out some kind of pressed fruit bar to me. “Shit,” I muttered.
There was a noticeable twinkle in his eye as he lifted the bar to his lips and made a big fucking production out of wrapping his tongue around it before gently pulling off a piece with his teeth.
He never took his eyes off mine the entire time, and by the time he was finished, my dick was leaking into my fucking underwear.
It was going to be a long day.
“What do you mean, we have to wait?” I asked impatiently. I scanned the sky above the mountain pass ahead of us and it looked fine to me. Sure, there was some lightning, but it was barely noticeable. It made no sense why Xander would say we couldn’t cross the pass because of it.
“It’s not safe, Bennett. Lightning strikes the tallest thing and we’d be the tallest things on the pass. A high mountain pass is one of the worst places to be when lightning strikes,” Xander said as he began removing his pack. He leaned back against a tree and pulled the hair tie from his hair, releasing the gorgeous locks. I desperately wanted to run my hands through the soft tangle of wavy hair.
“I thought it wasn’t safe to stand near trees during lightning,” I groused, looking around at the thick cluster of pines around us. I worked my own pack off and let it fall to the ground. We’d been hiking for hours and unlike with the kids, the pace had been much quicker and the terrain more difficult. I’d known that the several breaks Xander had made us take throughout the morning hadn’t been for his benefit, and that had just pissed me off. For some reason I didn’t want to think too much about, I wanted him to see me as his equal… especially out here.
In his world.
“Bennett, just take a few minutes to catch your breath,” he said gently.
If he’d said it with a pissy attitude, I would have been fine. But knowing it was exactly as I’d thought— that he was doing all this for my benefit— set me off. I jerked my pack off the ground and said, “Stop fucking around, Xander.”
Then I was striding towards the clearing. I ignored him when he shouted my name, but I couldn’t ignore it when he grabbed my arm.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he yelled as he dragged me backwards.
“Let go!” I snapped as I turned to swipe at him. But he was stronger than me, and he easily pulled me back into the woods and then slammed me up against the tree he’d been leaning against moments earlier.
“I told you it wasn’t safe!” he bit out.
“And I’m calling bullshit,” I retorted. “Stop fucking babying me, Xander. You made your point, okay!”
“What point?” His fingers were biting into my arms and the pack was digging into my back, but I didn’t give a shit. All the emotions I’d been holding in for the past few days came rushing forward all at once and full force.
“That I don’t fit! That I don’t belong here!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I know you think what I did to you when we were kids was about that, but it wasn’t!”
I needed to stop, because I was saying things I’d vowed to leave behind us. But it was like my mouth was on autopilot. “You want to get back at me, fine! But don’t do it while one of my kids is out there!”
Xander released me and stepped back. He shook his head. “What are you saying, Bennett? You think I’m getting some kind of revenge on you by what? Slowing us down? Purposely keeping us from reaching Jake and Jimmy?”
“Yes… no… I don’t fucking know. I think you’re pissed I insisted on coming, and I think you want me to know that I don’t belong out here. That I don’t belong with…”
“With what?”
But my brain finally caught up with my mouth and I snapped it shut. “Never mind.” Since he’d released me, I lowered the pack to the ground just to give my hands something to do.
“Answer me, damn it,” Xander bit out.
“No. It’s not important.”
He was on me just like that. His big body forced mine flush with the tree and he pinned me in with his arms. “Do you actually think I see you as less? Like the way people saw me when we were kids?”
His voice was so soft and gentle; it was my undoing.
“I think you see me as one of them.” I swallowed hard and whispered, “I hate it.”
“I don’t,” he said with a shake of his head. “I could never see you that way, Benny.”
I wanted to believe him. I really did. “Then why didn’t you want me to come with you? Why did you make that crack about me needing to do everything you told me to?”
“Jesus, Bennett,” he said with a heavy sigh as he straightened and ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back off his face. “I said that because I need to be able to keep you safe. I told you I didn’t want you to come because I was worried about you getting hurt.”
“What?” I asked.
“Worried isn’t even the right word,” he muttered. “I’m so freaking terrified of what could happen to you…” He shook his head. “Yes, it’s a relatively safe hike, but you’re never truly safe out here,” he said as he motioned to the woods around us. “And I took lots of breaks today to make sure you were okay and not pushing yourself too hard, because I know what a stubborn ass you can be and that you wouldn’t tell me when you needed to rest.”
I would have laughed if I wasn’t reeling from everything he’d said.
And the way he’d said it.
I sagged back against the tree. “I’m sorry, Xander. I thought…” I paused because I didn’t even know how to make him understand.
Suddenly his hands were on my face and he was tilting my head up. “I don’t care, Benny,” he said urgently. “I don’t care,” he repeated, and then his mouth was closing over mine. His tongue surged between my lips and I let out a cry of relief. It had only been days since he’d kissed me like this, but it may as well have been a thousand lifetimes.
Only, unlike last time, I was going to take everything I wanted from him. I hungrily kissed him back, even as I straightened my body to its full height. I used my hands on Xander’s shoulders to spin us so it was his back against the tree, and then I went all in. I nipped at his jaw, licked the corded muscles of his neck, and kissed my way down to where the collar of his shirt hid his delicious skin from view. I fisted my hand in the hem of his shirt and lifted it as I sank to my knees and settled my mouth on his tight abs.
“Fuck,” Xander groaned as I licked my way down each ridge of muscle and then nuzzled his happy trail, breathing in his unique scent. I sensed Xander taking off his shirt completely, but as much as I wanted to explore the rest of his gorgeous chest with my mouth, my hands would have to do, because I had another target in mind for my unslaked lust.
But first, I had to get to said target. I quickly worked Xander’s shorts open and pulled his turgid flesh free of his underwear. His cock was thick and leaking like a faucet. I lifted my eyes to his for the briefest of moments before I went in for the kill.
His reaction to my mouth on his dick was instantaneous and almost painful because his fingers fisted in my hair. If I hadn’t been holding his base, he’d have jammed all eight inches of perfection down my throat before I was ready to take him that deep.
I teased the ridge
of his crown with tiny licks, then tickled his slit a few times before closing my lips around the head and sucking up the pre-cum that kept bubbling up. I used my free hand to play with his heavy balls.
“Benny,” I heard him whisper. I kept his dick in my mouth as I looked up at him. His eyes were wide, the pupils blown. I knew what he wanted… needed. It was an amazing feeling to know how badly he needed me in this moment. To know that I finally had the chance to give him something that should have been his all along.
I held his gaze for a moment longer, then closed my eyes and sucked him deep to the back of my throat before swallowing. He shouted and began fucking my mouth, and I let him. My lips ached because they were stretched so wide, but I still wanted more of him. I managed to relax my jaw even more and focused on my gag reflex until Xander was hitting the back of my throat with every pump and my nose was pressed against his groin. I lifted one hand so I could stroke it across his chest while I grabbed his ass with the other hand and massaged the perfectly rounded flesh.
Tears began to sting my eyes as Xander used my mouth, but the last thing I wanted was for him to stop, so I increased the suction and hummed around his shaft. Xander let out a ragged moan as he pulled out of me. Before I could protest, his mouth was on mine, and then he pushed me to my back on the ground.
“So fucking hot,” he practically snarled against my lips. “Need inside you.”
“Yes,” I moaned. I would have been happy to have him shoot his load down my throat, but this was so much fucking better. All that hot flesh buried inside of me again… no way I was going to pass that up.
Fingers plucked at the button and zipper of my shorts and then they were yanked down. Xander released my mouth, but only to put it someplace I wasn’t expecting. And it wasn’t my dick.
Nope.
He flipped me over, split my ass open with his big hands, and went in for the kill.
Chapter 25
Xander
If I stopped to think too much about having Bennett Crawford, my Benny, bare-assed and on his hands and knees in front of me, I’d come before I even got inside him. He moaned and whimpered with every pass of my tongue across his gorgeous hole.
The man’s ass was perfection. Two tight, rounded cheeks at the base of a beautifully arched spine. My hands didn’t know where to be— squeezing those ass cheeks or wandering up and down the long, lean muscles of his back.
My mouth, however, knew exactly where it wanted to be. I used the tip of my tongue to toy with the puckered skin around his entrance and felt him contract around me. Fuck, he was tight and hot. I wanted inside him so badly, but I wanted to make sure he was plenty ready for me when the time came.
I used my tongue to stretch him out as I heard him mumble and babble incoherently. He sounded so lost in pleasure, I wanted to laugh.
“You okay up there?” I asked, pulling my mouth away long enough to slide a finger inside him in place of my tongue.
“Mngh,” he groaned. “Don’t stop. Fuck.”
I pulled my finger out and rubbed it gently around the outside of his hole. The touch was soft and reverent as I enjoyed the sight of him and anticipated pushing into all that tight heat.
“Dammit, Xander, stop fucking around,” he griped. “Get my wallet. In my shorts. Condom. Lube.”
His words came out in a staccato rhythm punctuated with gasping breaths. My own breathing was just as rapid and heavy, but I was doing a better job of hiding it from him. For some reason, I didn’t want him to know the effect he had on me— that the idea of fucking him again in these mountains was enough to make my head spin and my heart nearly explode out of my chest.
I fumbled through the shorts still tangled around his lower legs and came out with his wallet. My hands shook as the wallet opened to reveal a New York driver’s license. I flipped past it as quickly as I could, hell-bent on blocking out all reminders that Bennett didn’t live here— that he had his own life to go back to, so very far away from mine.
I found the condom and lube and grabbed them, shoving the wallet back in the shorts pocket as quickly as I could while sneaking another nibble of one of Bennett’s ass cheeks at the same time.
“Xander,” he warned.
“Patience, Benny,” I teased. “Good things come to those who wait.”
“No, the early bird gets the worm, jackass. Now get that anaconda in here.”
I finally couldn’t help it and barked out a laugh, ripping open the condom and rolling it on as quickly as I could. I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt this light and happy during sex before. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this light and happy at all. Being back around my best friend was like finding a part of myself I hadn’t realized was missing— the ability to fully relax and just have fun. To stop taking everything so goddamned seriously.
My hands were kneading Bennett’s ass as I stared at his hole and the back side of his balls hanging down. I felt my mouth water as I tried to figure out how to have him in my mouth at the same time I was fucking him. I didn’t even realize I was just kneeling there, drooling, when he straightened up on his knees and turned to face me.
“What the hell are you doing?” His frustration was fucking adorable, and I was pretty sure I just grinned at him stupidly. “Do you need a map?”
I grinned some more. God, he was even cuter when he was miffed.
“Xander?” he asked. “Babe, are you even in there? Did you have a stroke?”
“Just enjoying the view,” I said, raising my eyebrows and looking him up and down slowly.
His skin flushed pinker and his lips dropped open in response to my words. I took the opportunity to lean in for a kiss, brushing my lips softly over his before pressing harder and invading his mouth with my tongue. My hand went to his cock to stroke it in time with the thrusts of my tongue into his mouth. By the time I was done with the kiss, his pupils were blown, and he was mumbling unintelligible shit again.
“What, baby?” I teased again. “Are you trying to say something?”
“Huh?” he asked, blinking.
“Turn over and get on your hands and knees,” I commanded in a low voice. “I’m going to fuck you until you can’t remember anything except the feeling of my body inside of yours.”
Bennett whimpered and turned to resume the position. I opened the lube and quickly slathered it on myself before rubbing it onto the outside of his hole and pressing lubed fingers inside of him.
Once finished with the lube, I leaned over his back until my lips brushed his ear. “You’re so beautiful, Benny,” I whispered. I felt his entire body shudder before I moved my cock to his entrance and began to push inside of him. “I want you so badly. The way you make me feel, the way you trust me with your body…”
His muscles tightened around me for a moment before relaxing enough to let me in.
“That’s it, baby,” I murmured. “Let me in. Want to feel you.” I pushed carefully until my entire length was encased in his warmth, and I let out a groan of my own. He felt amazing— like his body had been molded specially to fit me and I was the only person meant to be inside him like this.
One of Bennett’s hands reached over his head to slide fingers into my hair, pulling my head tighter against his face.
“Xander,” he breathed. “Xander.”
“I know, baby,” I cooed in his ear. “I’m here.”
I began to move slowly in and out until I couldn’t keep myself from picking up the pace and slamming into him. He dropped his hand from my head back to the ground to hold himself up— to keep from collapsing onto the rough forest floor from the impact of my thrusts.
The need to own him came over me like a fog of aggressive lust. Suddenly, I found myself fucking him with everything I had. Sharp pine needles bit into the skin of my knees with every shift of my weight, but I didn’t care. Cold pinpricks of rain stung our heated skin, but we barely noticed.
It was just me inside of the one person on earth who had the power to both fill me up and leave m
e empty and alone. And in that moment, he was filling me up. Every sound, every clench of his responsiveness made me feel alive and on fire. I felt wanted and needed, like I was the only person who could bring Bennett to his knees with pleasure and make him feel whole again.
Was that actually the case? Surely not. But in that moment, I felt like we were both giving each other everything we’d ever needed— trust, pleasure, comfort, warmth, and the absolute knowledge of being safe and cared for above all else.
“Xander, I can’t… I want… Have to—”
“S’okay,” I grunted. “Come.”
I reached around and grabbed his cock over his own grip and helped him stroke himself until hot shots of fluid coated our joined hands. His shouts echoed in the trees around us and seemed to be joined by thunderous growls from the skies above us. The sky had grown dark and the rain was pelting down in the pass nearby as my own release struck, and I cried out— slamming into him one last time and feeling his channel tighten around me again in response.
After the pulses of my orgasm died down, I realized I’d pushed Bennett face-first into the forest floor. I was collapsed on top of him, and I quickly pulled out before helping him sit up so that he was on his knees. I shucked off the condom, tying it off before gathering the trash bits and shoving them into a little trash bag in a pocket of my backpack.
As I began to straighten my clothes, I realized Bennett was still kneeling, bare-assed on the ground. I dropped to the ground next to him. Fuck, had I hurt him somehow?
“Benny?” I asked softly, stroking his damp hair back from his forehead. “You okay?”
“Hmm,” was all he said as he turned and gave me a goofy grin. His eyes were at half-mast and he looked completely blissed out.
“It’s raining. It’ll start filtering through the trees here in a minute and drench us. C’mon, let’s get our rain gear on before we get soaked.”
