“Fuck,” he whispers, and Xander works him through his orgasm, teasing it out to the last drops, until Ben whimpers at how sensitive he is.
They clean up as fast as possible, because by this time both of them are exhausted, and Xander flings his arms and legs around Ben like a koala hugging a tree. “Love you,” he murmurs, inching his nose between Ben’s neck and the pillow.
And Ben remembers then. “Xander, there’s something I want you to do for me, if you can. If you want to. If you agree.”
Xander gives a groan. “You really pick your moments, Ballard. What is it?”
“I want to know more about how it feels for you.”
Chapter Five
Our spies say this actor beats up his boyfriends—only he tells them it’s his kink so they don’t open their mouths. He hasn’t met many over the years who wanted to bond in blood, but maybe now he’s met his match? Let’s hope the paramedics don’t have to be called this time round.
It’s Ramona who sends him the next blind, and Ben is begrudgingly impressed by her data-crawling or whatever she has going on, because it’s only been up for seven minutes by the time Ben sees it.
This is becoming a problem, she texts.
And that’s all she texts. Ben wonders if it’s a threat, or a suggestion that he think about it, or a demand that he come in for that crisis management planning session he never got around to.
But it’s Xander’s reaction that worries Ben more. He brushes it off with a shake of the head, but for the rest of the day he’s quiet.
Very quiet.
“I think we should talk about this Adam situation,” Ben announces over dinner.
Xander gives him a sharp look. “What Adam situation?”
“Come on, man. We both know Adam’s the leak.”
Xander takes another mouthful. Ben waits, staring at him, because he’s not done with this conversation. Not by a long shot.
At last, Xander rolls his eyes. “First of all, calling these ‘leaks’ is a little over the top. Second, I’m really not sure it is Adam. And third, even if it is Adam, I don’t see what we can do about it.”
Ben puts his fork down carefully. “There are lots of things we can do.”
“There are lots of things we could do, but those things have consequences, and I’m not interested in wasting my time on that stuff when I could be doing positive things in the world. Like creating art. Or making you cry.”
“I don’t cry. And you can still create art and get your Evil Ex to back the fuck off. And what do you mean, you don’t think it’s him? Who else would it be? He threatened to do something; he’s doing it. QED.”
Xander looks down at his plate. “Adam threatened to drag my name through the mud, publicly, not seed blind items about me. And besides…I don’t think you really appreciate the wreckage I left behind me in my younger years. I was a grade-A asshole back in the day.” He’s gone very pale. “Now that I’m stomping around the same grounds, it might piss some people off.”
Ben isn’t convinced. “The blinds might be Adam’s way of showing us how much more he could do if we don’t pay up. And as for your past…” He hesitates. “I think I would like to know some more about it, if you’re still okay to talk about it. I know there are some bad parts, but—whoa.” He hesitates for a second as Xander’s expression flashes from placid to pissed.
Xander catches his eye. “Sorry,” he says awkwardly. “My Shadow jumps up from time to time when I think about that stuff.”
“Do you talk about it with Paul?”
Xander is still going to therapy, or analysis as he sometimes calls it, although he’s dropped to once a week now; video conferences or Skype with Paul the Jungian, or in person when Xander is in New York.
“I have talked about some of it with him,” Xander says. “But it’s a meandering kind of conversation. That’s the nature of Jungian analysis.”
“Uh huh,” Ben says, hoping to move the conversation on before Xander really gets going on Jungian theory. “Well, maybe you should tell me more about it, too. When I’m out with people sometimes, they bring up stuff that you’ve allegedly done, and…I don’t know. Sometimes it’s hard knowing what’s truth and what’s just rumor. So I think I’d like to know a little more.”
Xander reaches across the table to put a hand on Ben’s. “I really don’t mean this to come across as an ‘I told you so,’” he says, “but one of the reasons I withdrew from the community over the last few years, and didn’t really want to introduce you to anyone in the scene, was because the acting was getting more serious, and I know how gossipy the community can be. Also, I didn’t want to have to deal with that layer of my life, along with the fame, which isn’t exactly a walk in the park—and yeah, I know, first world problems—” Xander’s response is getting faster and faster.
“You don’t have to apologize for saying that kind of thing to me,” Ben interrupts quietly. “I know what it’s like to have photographers hanging around, after all. And I know things are only getting worse for you.”
A week back, Xander got mobbed by photographers and cameramen following him down the street, calling out things just to try to get a reaction. Xander was his usual stoic self, except when one photographer tripped over and he actually helped them up.
But someone had filmed it all on their phone and put it up on social media with a comment about how crazy it was to see Jasper Crane being nice to someone like that. And then a bunch of people had started an internet-war about how actors aren’t their characters, and whether being stalked by paparazzi was just part of the job of a famous actor, or whether it was an invasion of privacy.
Ben saw it thanks to Jon, who only sent the wide-eyed emoji along with the link. After watching it, Ben had demanded to know why Xander hadn’t mentioned it, because it looked damn scary. Dangerous, even. But Xander had shrugged and said, “It happens.”
And then Ben had figured it out: this time just happened to be the one that got posted on social media. But this kind of thing must be happening to Xander a lot these days.
Now, Xander just shrugs again. “I get paid a ridiculous amount for Hunter,” he points out. “That helps a lot. Although I really wish they’d leave you alone. You didn’t choose this, and I feel like you’re collateral damage in this situation.”
“Don’t worry about me. It’s just the universe testing my anger management techniques,” Ben jokes, but in reality, he’s worried one day he really will slap down those bloodsuckers, and they’ll get it all on tape, and it’ll make Xander look really bad. Not to mention, make Ben look really bad, especially with the studio’s morality clauses in his current contract. They checked his social media accounts three times before they made a deal, Ramona told him.
“They’ll lose interest in both of us eventually, blinds or no blinds,” Xander says.
Ben isn’t so sure. He can’t imagine anyone ever losing interest in Xander Romano. And Xander’s continuing reputation in the community just seems to support that theory.
“It just feels like a cage right now,” Ben says. “The attention. The blinds. Your past.”
Xander’s mouth twists. “I can’t change my past, baby.”
“I know that,” Ben says. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just wish…”
“What?” Xander asks, after a minute. “What do you wish?”
“I wish we could be free from it all.”
II
Xander's Dragons
Chapter Six
He wanted to know what it’s like, how I feel when I’m doing it. Strong? Powerful? Dominant?
Oh, Benjamin, I told him. I couldn’t explain it if I tried. But he persisted. He had to know. He’s curious, so curious, all-the-time curious with those big blue eyes fixed on me like I have the answers to everything. My God, if only I did.
“Alright,” I told him finally. “Next time I’ll try to stay aware of what I’m thinking and feeling. Whilst also maintaining control of myself and keeping an eye on you and making
sure I’m not hitting you too hard and—”
“Thanks,” he said, grinning at me.
“It’s a big ask, is what I’m saying.”
“Yeah, I know. But if anyone can do it—hold that balance, I mean—you can, Xander.”
Well. Flattery and fluttery eyelashes tend to get him everywhere, and it’s my own fault anyway that I let him figure out how to bend me to his will.
I smiled. “Alright, you silver-tongued devil.”
And now here we are at Next Time, and he reminded me. As if he wouldn’t; but I’d still hoped he might forget. I have to stay so aware anyway, stay in the here and now when I do these things to him, that it seems unfair to layer another level of awareness over that.
Catalogue my emotional highs and lows. Think about what I’m thinking about. But for Benjamin, I’d do anything.
Bury-a-body level of anything, which scares me sometimes.
He’s kneeling in front of me, naked and beautiful, hands bound behind his back. He’s blindfolded too, because I want him uncertain. It adds to the way he startles when I touch him. He can’t see if it’s going to be a caress or a slap, so everything makes him jump. I love it. That’s the first thing I can tell him about afterwards, I guess: I love to see the way his muscles flinch and move under his golden skin. It makes my heart speed up to know he’s starting to feel that frisson of unease already. It’s not close to fear yet, but that might be where I’m leading him.
Or it might not.
I haven’t decided yet.
I tip his face up by the chin and run my thumb across his lower lip. He opens his mouth on cue. That need and want he has for me—it hits me harder than he probably knows. The tranquil way he accepts whatever I want to give him, even when he doesn’t know what it is…it makes me hard, without fail.
I’m still dressed, but I let him suck on my thumb while I used my other hand to open my fly. He sucks a little harder when he hears the noise of the zipper, and harder still when I say, “You’re such a good boy, Benjamin.”
He makes a noise of agreement, and I trail the wet pad of my thumb across his cheek, along his jawline. It’s rough. He hasn’t shaved today.
“Open your mouth. Wide.”
He does, and waits.
This is the third thing I suppose I should tell him about: his willingness and his obedience. It evokes the predator in me, but also the protector. I can’t help thinking mine, mine. No one else is allowed to touch him this way. Sometimes I feel like I would rip apart anyone who tried, but I also know that is not an okay feeling.
That is one of the feelings I try very hard to ignore, to tamp down, to pretend doesn’t exist. Perhaps I’ll keep that to myself when I recount all this to him.
On the other hand, ignoring a Shadow only makes it stronger.
I touch the head of my cock to his bottom lip, and he flicks his tongue out eagerly. I pull away and give him a light slap, just the way he likes, against the fullness of his cheek. It doesn’t hurt him, but he gasps.
“I told you to open your mouth wide. I did not tell you to do anything else.”
“Sorry,” he pants, and opens his mouth again.
The rush is starting. I can’t keep thinking about what I’m doing, what I’m feeling, not now, because it’s all feeling. The feeling it gives me—it’s why I do what I do.
It starts with a surge through my whole body; adrenaline probably, some serotonin to sweeten it, and a testosterone chaser. Whatever it is, whatever mix is in that cocktail, it’s a high. It’s the weightless feeling at the top of a rollercoaster. It’s lucid dreaming.
It is having and owning and dominating.
I could conquer the whole world right now if I wanted to, but the only thing I want in this world is here in front of me, kneeling and naked and with his mouth wide open for me.
I push in, deep, to the back of his throat, until it’s hard for him to stay open and still. I can feel him struggling. “Alright,” I say. “You can suck.”
Everything he does, everything he is, belongs to me in this moment. From his base functions to whatever poetry is running through his mind—mine.
This place, this time is the only thing that exists. The whole universe is here, crammed into this bedroom, into the space between my cock and his tongue as I withdraw from his mouth, only to push back in again.
I take him like that for a while, my perfectly obedient Benjamin, until I tire of it and rearrange him over the end of the bed. It’s nice to be sucked, but I want to make him hurt and make him cry before I fuck him.
I use the riding crop first for his sake. He likes it, and I like the way it makes him wriggle. It makes me almost affectionate towards him, watching him clench and unclench his fingers, the noises he makes, the heavy breathing. The way he tries to get some friction on his dick by humping against the side of the bed, as though I won’t notice. Adorable.
The rush surges through me again, though, when I pick up the cane. Colors get brighter, more saturated. Reality is heightened. I can feel every breath filling my lungs, every beat my heart takes. This is why I do what I do; this is why I love it. I can live from moment to moment during these times, and there is nothing else to worry about, because I have perfect control.
When I cane him, he sags before his muscles go taut. He quivers like a bow after the arrow has flown, and I can just about hear the vibrations. A red stripe blooms on his ass, vicious against his tender flesh. It’s hard for me to keep going sometimes, because every mark I make on him has an effect on me, too. I want to throw down my cane and fuck him, bite him, make him scream underneath my hands.
Make him shout my name until his voice cracks, so my name is the last thing he ever says.
I know these thoughts are probably-definitely Not Okay as well, but I can’t help having them all the same. And if he wants to know what it’s like for me, it would only be telling him half the story if I kept those parts to myself.
I keep control. I keep using the cane. I keep whipping it into him, because it’s beautiful to watch and because he can’t take it much more and he’s going to cry…oh yes, he is. He’s crying now, crying for me, and I can’t stand it. I can’t hold back anymore. I throw myself on top of him and rip off that blindfold before it can soak up all of those hard-earned tears.
I get to taste them, like a chef tasting his signature dish. Maybe it needs more seasoning. Maybe it needs a little more cooking time. But not tonight; tonight I have perfected it on my first try. He hates crying as much as I love it when he does, and his denial, the way he insists he doesn’t, just makes it better for me.
The rush hits me again when I taste the salt on my tongue, and I have to stop to catch my breath.
I untie him. He’s floppy like a ragdoll, so I roll him over onto his back, and make sure he’s okay. He makes a noise when his ass hits the covers. Must be tender. At the back of my mind, I’m already thinking about aftercare. What he might need.
But I still have my needs. That’s the kind of selfishness he sees in me sometimes and although I don’t like it, I can’t deny it. I want things. I need things. This is not just for his benefit.
“Benjamin.” I only have to say his name, and his eyes crack open, wet still and unfocused. “I want to fuck you.”
Just like that, he pulls up his legs and spreads them for me, and the predator in me comes out again. He’s so easy. He’s mine; whatever I want, he’s mine, no questions asked. I give him minimal prep, because I want him to really feel it. I like getting my fingers into him, the way he squirms and pants, pushing back to get more inside him. But that’s enough for now. I don’t want him too ready for me.
When I push inside him, he goes rigid. He makes one small noise at the back of his throat, and I know it’s uncomfortable for him. I get all the way in and then bend down to whisper in his ear.
“You love this, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” he says, but he doesn’t sound like he’s quite where I want him to be. Not yet. So I grab a handful of hair and
pull his head back, exposing his neck. His eyes go wide and his mouth drops open.
“I said, you love taking my cock up your ass, don’t you, Benjamin?”
He breathes a yesss and then it’s like a floodgate has opened. He’s babbling, not making any sense, just begging for things. He doesn’t even know what he’s asking for; some of them are things I can’t give him—a cock in every hole, for example—and some are things I won’t.
My Benjamin has some very dark desires of his own.
They come out occasionally, in strange existential bursts, a desire to be one with the universe. A longing for oblivion.
I get it.
But now I tell him to be quiet, and he falls silent. After a short time of working away in him, slow and steady, I know he’s flying.
I love hearing him talk, but he can’t fly when he does. I learned that long ago. I even asked Zee about it, about whether she knew of a technique to make him talk and fly at the same time.
“If you’re going to make him chat through the whole thing, of course he’s not going to go under,” she told me. “It’s not a social occasion, X.”
“But I like to hear him,” I whined.
“You’re being stubborn for the sake of it,” she snapped back. “Do you want to hear him or do you want him to fly? Which is more important to you? Make a choice and stop bothering me about it.”
So it is a pity, but I made my choice. I love knowing that I’ve sent him off among the clouds.
It’s always about control, you see. I can make him fly, and I can reel him back in.
I can make him hurt, and I can make him feel better.
I bite him when I come inside him, but he’s so high he barely twitches. It’s times like these I worry about consent. It’s a nagging issue at the border of my mind, every time we do this. He’s so out of it. Could he even safe-word if he wanted to?
Flying Free (Rough Love Book 8) Page 5
