“Xander,”—oh, right, of course, Xander Romano—“This is…Christ.”
“The Messiah, huh?” Xander says, raising one of his stupid, strong eyebrows. “Wow. This party really is A-list.”
Ben hisses something at Xander under his breath, and then gives Byron an easy smile. “Sorry. It’s Byron, right?”
He remembers. Ben Ballard remembers him. “Right!”
“Byron and I met a while ago. When you and I were, uh. I met Byron…”
“We met online,” Byron supplies. And then takes a tiny step backwards. The look on Xander’s face is abruptly murderous and sure, maybe Byron is sending out back off signals, but it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. He just wants a shot with Ben, just a shot, that’s all. But Xander looks like he’s about to go Jasper Crane on his ass, or worse.
Maybe the rumors about Ben Ballard getting back together with Xander Romano are true. The thought makes him utterly miserable.
“Benjamin, is this the guy—”
“No,” Ben says, and Byron glances down to see that he’s holding Xander by the wrist, his fingers white with tension. “No, Xander. This is Byron.” And Xander settles visibly, although his hands are still clenched up into fists.
“Oh. Hello, Byron,” Xander says.
“Hello,” Byron says, his muscles still tensed for action. The rapid deceleration from homicidal to friendly is disconcerting.
“Ben has spoken about you. Pleasure to meet you.” Ben is glaring at Xander now, but with nowhere near the same scary intensity that Xander managed to project with his thunderous brows.
“Xander—”
“Alright, alright.” Xander holds up conciliatory hands. “I was just wondering when you wanted to leave. I thought you might be reaching your interaction threshold. Come get me when you want to go.” He saunters back into the crowd, raising a finger in a brief nice-to-meet-you gesture at Byron.
“Look, Byron—” Ben starts.
“You told him about me?” Byron tries to quell it, the sense of betrayal. “What did you say? I never told anyone about you. I didn’t think you’d want me to. I was trying to do what you wanted.” He doesn’t add, I was trying to be what you wanted.
Ben puts a gentle hand on Byron’s shoulder. His face is close now, so close that Byron can pick out the individual eyelashes around his eyes, and actually, those eyes are little lighter in color than the waters at Sounion. But no less spectacular. The sensuous cast of his mouth is like a replica of those of the endless statues his mother dragged him to see in Athens, and he can’t stop staring at it.
Ben opens it to say, “Thank you. Really. And listen, I told Xander because…”
“Oh.” Everything becomes clear in a rush. “Oh. You are back together again.” But then he has to know. “Do you do stuff to him?” he asks, whispering. “Like we did?” Or didn’t, actually, but Ben doesn’t correct him.
“In a manner of speaking,” Ben says slowly. He looks cautious, his eyes darting to the sides to make sure no-one’s listening and Byron, despite the disappointment and regret in his gut, feels privileged. It’s a secret, and he’s part of the exclusive group who knows this stuff about Ben Ballard.
“I wish you’d emailed me back.” Byron’s voice is small and sad, and he wishes like hell he sounded less pathetic, but the look on Ben’s face—regretful, slightly guilty—makes it worthwhile. “But I get why you didn’t.” He gestures in Xander’s direction.
Ben squeezes his shoulder lightly and makes a trite excuse about needing to circulate. “Stay safe, okay? Promise me.”
Watching Ben Ballard’s retreating ass is one of the most melancholy moments of Byron’s life so far.
Chapter Eighteen
The upstairs portion of the house is dark and quiet, and Byron is sure no one will see him trudging up there. He pulls dejection around him like a shield of invisibility, and it works—he slips up the staircase unnoticed. The first door he comes to is ajar. It’s a bedroom with the full moon hanging outside the window like a miserable, jaundiced eye, its light bleaching color from every surface in the room.
The en suite bathroom is cold but darker, so Byron stays in there. He leans against the counter, staring at the indecipherable lines of his reflection in the mirror, and wishes he had a cigarette, or a drink, or something other than nothing.
“Dumbass,” he tells the looming figure in the mirror, and leans up against the chilly tile to wait until he can leave without awkward questions from his mother about why he’s home so early.
Once his eyes adjust, Byron can see that the bathroom is large and fancy. There’s an old-fashioned claw-footed tub with exposed copper pipes against the wall and a range of mini-bottles for guests on the counter, along with some Kleenex and cotton pads. The Kims sure have a nice place.
Before he can take out his phone to check his feeds, there’s a noise in the bedroom. The door opens, and Byron freezes. The angles of the en suite gives him a perfect view in the mirror of the two people entering, Xander Romano and oh fuck, Ben Ballard.
“Just for a second,” Ben whispers.
“Yeah, we shouldn’t be doing this,” Xander says, but his indulgent tone doesn’t match the words.
“Sure we should.” Ben fiddles with the bedroom door, feeling around for a lock, but there is none. He glances around the room—Byron stays perfectly still, praying he won’t be noticed skulking in the shadowy en suite—and then Ben Ballard pulls a heavy chair over and shoves it up under the handle of the door.
“Jae’s not gonna mind,” Ben continues. “And you were right, I’m tired of people. I just want to be alone with you for a while. Clear my head.”
Byron chews on a cuticle, frantically replaying all the online BDSM etiquette manuals he’s ever read. Nope. He recalls no advice on what to do if you’re stuck in a bathroom accidentally spying on people who seem like they’re about to do…something.
“We can just go. Don’t want you to tire yourself out.”
“No, I know you’re enjoying it. We can stay another hour. I just need a moment.”
Xander laughs. “Oh, okay. Sir.”
They smile at each other, teeth flashing white but muted in the dim light. “You’re not funny, Alexander,” Ben says, and then kisses him. Byron touches a finger to his lips, wondering how it might feel to be kissed by that incredible mouth. “And I feel bad about that,” Ben continues, pulling away.
“There’s no reason to. It was what it was at the time. And anyway…” Xander leans in to kiss him again, and Byron figures that their dynamic must be more relaxed than he’s read about and seen, because he sure wouldn’t be so pushy as to kiss without permission.
But Ben doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, he’s pulling Xander closer, and the way they break and rest forehead-on-forehead looking into each other’s eyes makes Byron’s cheeks burn.
Xander says something too quiet for him to hear.
This isn’t something Byron should be witnessing. This is private, and he’s an awful person for looking.
Byron turns away from the mirror, determined to sit on the closed toilet seat or perch on the edge of the bath and just be silent, ignore the two men in the other room, and wait for them to leave. He’ll cover his ears if he has to. He’s still determined to live up to the standards he thinks Ben Ballard would have for a submissive, and Byron is sure clandestine voyeurism would be on the Do Not list.
But then Ben chuckles, and what he says makes Byron listen intently despite himself. “I thought you were going to deck him.”
Xander sounds contrite when he says, “I thought he was that other one. Jack.”
“Jake.”
“Whatever.”
More kissing noises, and then Ben admonishes, “Even if he had been, you can’t go around hitting people.”
“We seem to have swapped roles.”
“I’m serious, Xander.”
Byron creeps to the door, fascinated. They’re standing side-on, although he has a better view of Ben’s fac
e, his gaze grave and unwavering. He’s frowning slightly, and looks like he’s trying to read Xander’s face, holding it in his hands. “I mean it. It was a long time ago, and it wasn’t your fight to begin with.”
“I told you I wasn’t going to do anything about that guy. And I haven’t.”
“Zee already blackballed him.”
“He deserved a lot worse than that.” Xander sounds like he’s on the verge of sulking, and Byron rolls his eyes. The Ben Ballard of his fantasies wouldn’t put up with that kind of bullshit. He’d say—
“Stop sulking.”
Yeah, he’d say that, but maybe punctuate it with a tug of hair.
Xander doesn’t seem chastened. “Make me,” he says, and Byron frowns. Ben Ballard apparently likes his subs bratty.
“Xander.”
“Don’t you want to…Sir?”
“Oh, gimme a break.”
Byron is fleetingly puzzled by the amused expression on Ben’s face, but the way he cranes his neck when Xander leans in to kiss it chases any thoughts out of his head. Furtively, and with a squirming feeling of shame in his gut, Byron places his palm gently over his hardening cock and presses.
If he were Ben Ballard’s sub? He wouldn’t make demands like that and he would always make sure he kept close-shaven so he didn’t scratch up that golden skin. Not like Xander is doing, rubbing his face into Ben’s neck and making it blossom an angry pink, visible even in the dull moonlight.
Although…Ben seems to be enjoying it, pulling him closer and making a perfect little noise that Byron is sure he’ll be thinking about every time he jacks off for months.
“But we should do that again, soon,” Xander says, pushing Ben rapidly backwards across the room until they bump up into a wall. “Swap roles.” Byron has to come closer to the crack in the door to keep them in view, even as he berates himself for watching. But he’s so curious.
And confused.
This is not how he envisioned Ben Ballard acting in-scene, unless he’s letting Xander get away with stuff before reasserting himself. That thought gets Byron semi-hard and he has to concentrate to quiet his breathing.
“You think?” Ben says. Xander has his arm up on the wall, blocking both their faces from Byron’s view, but he can still hear them clearly.
“You’re getting antsy sometimes. I can feel it.”
“I am not. You’re projecting.”
“Ooh. Big term for someone who hates Jungian analysis so much.”
Ben slides his hand around Xander and hangs his thumb in the waistband of his jeans, stroking idly with his fingers against the denim. “I don’t hate it, I—” He breaks off so abruptly, and it’s so quiet, that Byron chances looking around the door a little further. “Xander?”
“Mm?”
“Is that…”
Byron can see that Ben’s hand has stalled over the back pocket of Xander’s jeans.
“Would you like to see?” Xander asks. His voice is all low and throaty.
Ben gives a nervous laugh, and Byron frowns, rubs his nose in irritation, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
“Not really?” There’s a pleading tone in Ben’s voice that just sounds wrong to Byron. It’s not dominant at all.
“Why don’t you take it out?” Xander suggests, but it’s absolutely not a suggestion, that much is clear. Byron watches, fascinated, as Ben’s fingers inch slowly, carefully into Xander’s pocket as though he’s expecting to find a mouse trap in there. They re-emerge with something black and shiny. Ben’s fingers curl, drawing the object up into his palm, but Byron has already recognized it as a knife.
His mouth goes slack, and his heart starts thumping. It’s too loud.
Xander asks, “Are you going to look at it?” and although he still can’t see Ben’s face properly, Byron can see him shaking his head. “I think you are. I think you’re going to look at it.”
Byron takes a small step back, squeezing his head in his hands. There is definitely something not right in that tone as well, and he’s not sure what he should do. This whole situation is fucked up, and getting more so, and it’s weird, really weird. It feels like the whole world is spinning.
Xander takes a step back, and Ben’s arm falls back from his waist. Byron can see Ben’s face clearly now, and the look on it is a shock to him. Adoration and apprehension and lust.
“You’re going to look at it, aren’t you Benjamin?”
Ben licks his lips. “Whatever you want, Xander.”
No way. No way.
If Byron could move, he would. The sense of betrayal from earlier is returning in a big, big way, and with it, disgust—at himself, for holding on to stupid childish fantasies for so long, and at Ben Ballard, who is not who he said he was.
Liar.
But Byron is frozen, and his dick is still pulsing as he watches, getting harder even though he feels like crying.
Xander reaches out to touch Ben’s face, gently rubbing the back of a finger under his jaw and Ben leans into the touch, despite his fearful expression.
“Why did you bring it here? Are you going to—”
“No questions. Not at the moment.”
Ben nods, his eyes heavy-lidded and dreamy. Xander slides his hand down, loosely ringing his neck, thumb stroking up the jugular. Byron, craving the touch, lifts a hand to clutch around his own neck. His mouth parts when Ben’s does. Judging by the way Ben shifts his hips, his cock is growing heavy too.
“Hold it up and look at it, Benjamin.”
Ben gradually raises his arm and uncurls his fingers slowly, but keeps his eyes on Xander’s face. Xander removes the hand from Ben’s throat and threads fingers into his hair instead, clutching a fistful of it. Byron can see, from the wince Ben gives, that Xander is pulling it tight.
“You’re not looking at it,” Xander says, and Ben closes his eyes. When he opens his eyes again, he focuses on the knife in his hand. “Good. You’re being very good.” His hand relaxes in Ben’s hair, as Byron’s does in his own—he’s unconsciously been grabbing at his hair, mimicking Xander’s action. And then Xander coaxes Ben forward from the wall, eases him into the middle of the room again. “How are you doing, Benjamin? Are you afraid?”
Ben gives a short nod, and Byron sees then that his hand, still raised with the knife lying in his palm, is shaking.
Xander starts walking around him in a slow circle, which means that Byron can occasionally see both their faces at the same time. Xander’s gaze roams up and down Ben’s body, stopping on his rigid legs and trembling hands, on his crotch and, when he walks behind, on his ass.
“Why are you afraid?”
Ben licks his lips and Byron can see that he wants to answer, but can’t. Ben Ballard is a liar and a fraud, but Byron can’t help feeling deeply sorry for him, a shiver of empathy that runs right through his body. If he were in Ben’s shoes, Byron doesn’t think he’d be able to talk right now either. Knives are scary.
And Xander looks predatory.
At last Ben says, “You said you were going to cut me tonight.”
“Do you think I’m going to cut you here?”
“I don’t know.” There’s a long, long pause, and Byron waits anxiously. “I don’t think so.”
Xander stops behind him and reaches around into his hand, takes the knife. He wraps his arms around Ben and brushes his lips against Ben’s ear. “No. I definitely wouldn’t ask you to do that. But thank you for trusting me. You’re very brave.”
Once the knife is out of sight, the tension leaves Ben’s body, and he relaxes back into Xander’s embrace. “Brave? I’m terrified.”
“But you work through the fear. That’s what courage is about, keeping your reactions in check.”
“Like with the fucking paps and our stalker and all that shit?”
“Like that.”
A thought seems to strike Ben. “Do you think…maybe Byron—?”
“No,” Xander says. “The blinds were about me, not you. And anyway, they’ve st
opped.”
“For now. I know you don’t want me walking around being suspicious all the time,” Ben sighs. “I swear I’m putting it out of my mind.”
“Well, we’ll call that one thought an aberration. Benjamin, do you know how proud I am of you? If I’d known how amazing it would be to work with you, I would have done Blood Bond right from the start.” Ben wriggles, looks self-conscious but pleased. “But then, I’m always proud of you.”
“You’re embarrassing me.”
“You like that, though,” Xander says, smiling, nuzzling his neck. “And I like watching the way you blush. But it’s true, Benjamin, I’m proud of everything you do. It’s a privilege to be able to work with you, let alone fuck you. I can’t stop talking about you tonight.”
The flattery is making Ben squirm, but he can’t stop his huge grin. “You’re probably boring everyone.”
“Nah. In between talking about how brilliant Blood Bond is, I’m giving graphic descriptions of the noises you make when I rim you.”
“You are not!” But Ben looks and sounds delighted.
Byron slinks back further into the darkened bathroom, his face hot and tears stinging his eyes.
All of his fantasies, all the things he’s imagined having done to himself, none of them have had any tenderness behind them. Pain and humiliation and degradation, sure. He’s been attracted to the idea of obliterating his self, because…fuck.
His cheeks are wet.
Care has never been part of his vocabulary when he tries to define the kind of relationship he wants. He’s never, not for a second, really thought that any Dom would actually care about him.
Want him, lust after him, fuck him, hurt him, be pleased by him, control him, make decisions for him: all of that. But care?
He’s never even thought about it before, and now, seeing it between them, so strong that it’s just about tangible, he’s overcome with a horrible, painful envy. And he thinks about the fantasies he’s had about Ben Ballard, for so long now, every night, every day, wishing for him and wanting marks from his hands.
But that man—he doesn’t exist. And the real Ben has exactly what Byron wants. It’s not fair.
Flying Free (Rough Love Book 8) Page 15
