by Beth Bolden
He banged on the front door, and then again when Bastian didn’t come to the door. It seemed unbelievable that he wouldn’t be home, because where else could Bastian be?
Picking up another young, naïve kid because he steadfastly refused to touch Kian? He’d never believed that was even a remote possibility. First, it didn’t even seem like something Bastian would do, and second, he’d never caught even the tiniest bit of gossip that Bastian was out in Napa, hooking up with random guys.
But where else would he be?
It was so late, the only thing open this late were some of the seedier bars on the outskirts of town. And while Kian had believed at the beginning that Bastian led this incredibly glamorous life, he’d long since learned that Bastian did exactly what all his chefs did: go to the restaurant early and leave late and go straight home after.
He pounded on the door again, not because he really thought Bastian was going to answer, but because he had to get some of this goddamn frustration out somehow.
Maybe Bastian was right after all, Kian thought despairingly, maybe there really was never a right time for them. He’d refused to believe it before—when you felt something this strongly, it needed to be for a reason—but fate was currently, very forcibly, reminding Kian of all the realities that he didn’t want to face.
He nearly pulled out his phone and called Bastian. He imagined barking into the phone, demanding to know his whereabouts, the way Bastian did when any of his employees dared to be even five minutes late.
But before he could dial, he heard tires on the gravel turnoff to Bastian’s house, then he saw lights.
A moment later, Bastian pulled up, parking his very fancy car right next to Kian’s junker.
He got out, and even in the dim light, Kian could see he was frowning.
“What are you doing?” Bastian asked. “Is everything okay?”
It was Bastian’s normal MO to ask a series of fast-paced questions. The practice tended to put the other person on edge, and immediately established in any personal encounter who was in charge.
Kian had recognized the technique after being subjected to it hundreds of times, and afterwards, he’d continued to let Bastian do it. Because at Terroir, he was in charge, and Kian was supposed to be learning from him.
But they weren’t at Terroir now, and Kian had zero intention of letting Bastian just take over the way he always did.
He’d come here to flip the script, and he intended to follow through.
“Where were you?” he challenged right back.
Bastian looked gratifyingly surprised. “Where was I?”
Kian crossed his arms over his chest, and tried, despite his babyface, to look stern. “Where were you?”
“Uh,” Bastian said, pausing on the top step. “I was visiting my mom.”
Now Bastian wasn’t the only one looking surprised. “Your mom lives here?” Kian asked.
“Yeah, a few miles up that way. Sometimes I visit her when I can’t sleep.”
That was the opening Kian had been waiting for—not Bastian talking about his mother, but Bastian admitting that he was struggling just as much as Kian was.
“You can’t sleep?” Kian questioned as Bastian typed in the code to unlock the front door.
Bastian shot him an incredulous look.
“Me either,” Kian admitted, because while he’d intended to control this conversation, honesty was also important. They walked into the foyer, and then into the living room.
Bastian’s house was on the extreme end of the open-floor-plan concept. The kitchen sat to the left, with a long counter and barstools set neatly in a row. A long bank of windows, with the terrace that looked out across the valley, let in the only ambient light.
Kian assumed the bedroom lay to the right, but he’d never been in there before. Maybe tonight that would finally change.
“I came here tonight because I’m done not doing anything about it,” Kian continued, walking over to the windows. He wondered if anyone could see in, and then decided he didn’t give a fuck. If they wanted to watch, let them watch.
“What do you mean?” Bastian sounded guarded and uneasy. Not surprising, considering he was a control freak and Kian had just yanked all his control away.
“I’m done playing around,” Kian said, turning around. “We’ve played around for two years.”
Bastian gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Is that what we were doing? I thought I was teaching you to become a great chef.”
“You were, you have, at least enough that I know what it takes to be one. And I intend to be one.” Kian paused, gesturing between them. “What I’m talking about is a little more personal.”
Bastian opened his mouth, no doubt to deny that anything personal between them existed, which was a huge fucking lie, and that set Kian’s determination on fire.
He was going to keep denying this as long as he could. As long as Kian let him.
“Yeah,” Kian interrupted. “About that.” And he reached behind his head and tugged his t-shirt off. “I told you I’m done fucking around, and that means I’m done fucking around.” He tossed the garment onto the arm of the couch.
Bastian laughed again, but it wasn’t quite so bitter and it wasn’t quite as controlled as before. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Toeing off his shoes, Kian kept his gaze steady on Bastian. “You know what I’m doing.”
It would have made this a hell of lot more dramatic if he’d been wearing more clothes, but he was wearing enough. He leaned down and tugged his socks off, first one and then the other. They landed next to his t-shirt.
Fists clenched at his side, Bastian looked torn—like he wasn’t sure if he should demand Kian put his clothes back on, or join him, instead.
Kian knew exactly which way he wanted Bastian to fall.
He unbuttoned his jeans and then unzipped them, but didn’t shuck them quite as quickly, just let them hang on his hip bones. Raising an eyebrow, he shot Bastian a very frank look.
“Are you going to join me?” Kian asked finally when Bastian just kept staring, like he was the angel and the devil, wrapped up in one altogether too-tempting package.
If Bastian continued to emphatically deny it, Kian wasn’t sure what else he could do. Could he stand, for an extended period of time, naked in Bastian’s living room until he made up his mind?
Fuck yes, he could.
Shoving away the last remnants of modesty, he shoved his jeans past his hips and let them fall to the floor. Bastian continued to stare; Kian wasn’t sure he’d even blinked in the last few minutes.
“Are you really going to stand there and tell me you don’t want this?” Kian challenged. He tucked a finger under his boxer briefs and saying a quick prayer—probably not to God, who wouldn’t approve of this at all, but maybe the Devil instead, because he sure as fuck would—he pulled them down.
He stood there proudly and completely naked and let Bastian just look.
For a long, interminable second, Kian wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Was he going to end up going back home, heart heavy and the worst case of raging blue balls that he’d ever experienced?
“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” Bastian said and he sounded absolutely wretched. “Put your goddamn clothes back on.”
“No,” Kian said.
“Goddamn it, you’re killing me.” Bastian’s voice had grown dark and deep, gravelly at the edges, and it seemed impossible, but Kian’s cock grew even harder.
He’d never imagined he was much of an exhibitionist, but standing here, naked as the day he was born, and letting Bastian just look was an incredible turn-on. Of course, he’d rather if Bastian got his stubborn ass over here and finally touched him, but just this felt like almost enough.
“This is me saying to you, I’ve thought about it. I’ve considered the pros and the cons,” Kian finally said, when the tension and the silence ratcheted even tighter between them. “This is me choosing you.”
“D
on’t I get a say?” Bastian challenged.
Kian had to nod. “Of course you get a say, you can tell me to fuck off, and I’ll go home. But I don’t think you want to tell me to fuck off, Bastian.”
When he said his name, Bastian closed his eyes, praying to someone—or something, maybe?
“No,” Kian said tightly, “no, you don’t get to close your eyes and not look when you turn me down.”
“I’m not turning you down.”
“No?” Kian raised an eyebrow and considered his next step. Bastian was so close to breaking—he could feel it, his self-control falling to pieces, but how to get it to crumble the rest of the way? “Then why are you still over there?”
Bastian laughed despairingly. “I don’t fucking know.”
In that moment, Kian knew. He knew what would break Bastian. Was he willing to play that dirty? You’ve already shown up at his house in the middle of the night, Kian reasoned, and taken all your clothes off. What’s a little further?
He reached down, and hoping Bastian didn’t see his fingers trembling, wrapped them around his cock. Pleasure rocketed through him. It wasn’t like Bastian touching him, not exactly, but with his gaze on him, it was different and better than just doing this by himself, in his sad lonely room.
Bastian gasped sharply in the silence stewing between them. Rhythmically, he clenched and unclenched his fists, and Kian was so selfish—he wanted to know what those hands felt like instead of his own.
“I’m so fucking horny,” Kian said, “and all I want is you. I don’t want to go down to the Tavern and pick someone up. It wouldn’t be enough. But if you won’t help me, I guess I’ll have to help myself.”
Letting out a shaky breath, Bastian took a step closer, then another, until he was standing right in front of Kian. His eyes were so dark, Kian thought he could drown in the pupils. His breath was uneven, shaky even, and then Bastian dropped to his knees, and Kian couldn’t breathe at all.
How many times had he imagined this? A dozen? A hundred? A thousand?
But Kian had never imagined that it might actually happen. If anything ever happened between them, Kian had always expected that he’d end up fulfilling somewhat of a subservient role, because those were the places they occupied in real life. But this wasn’t reality, it was an aching fulfillment torn from the pages of a fantasy.
Kian’s hand had frozen on his dick, and Bastian reached up slowly, his eyes never leaving Kian’s. “This,” he said, as his fingers slowly and carefully removed his own from his cock, “this isn’t yours, this is mine. And I didn’t say you could touch yourself.”
He couldn’t help it, he groaned as Bastian’s calloused palm closed around him, pumping him so slowly, Kian wanted to cry.
“You came here, and you asked for it,” Bastian growled. “You’re goddamn gonna get it.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” Kian demanded.
Bastian’s hand slowed to a crawl, and it shouldn’t have been so incandescently hot, to feel each and every ridge and scar and burn, sliding painfully slowly across his cock, but it was.
Still, he’d only dipped his toe into the fire, and it burned so good that he wanted more, he wanted to jump in and be consumed by it.
“More,” he insisted. “Goddamn it, Bastian. Don’t tease.”
Bastian grinned wickedly, and it shot another pulse of heat through Kian. “What, like you teased me earlier?”
“Someone had to do it, or else we’d be stuck at the edge forever,” Kian said, his voice so rough. The slow yet confident twist of Bastian’s hand was driving him insane.
“Somehow,” Bastian said, and he sounded way too cocky, way too sure of himself, “I always thought we’d go over the edge together.”
Without another word, he leaned down and slid Kian’s cock into his mouth, wrapping around him so tight, he had to bite his lip so he wouldn’t yell.
“Oh, god,” Kian moaned as Bastian proceeded to suck him so thoroughly, he wasn’t sure he’d have any brain cells left when this finally ended.
And it was getting closer, faster, the pleasure spiraling out of control way too quickly. Kian tried to hang on, to prolong the dirty joy of seeing Bastian on the floor, sucking his cock. Nobody else, he knew, would ever see him like this. Fingertips pressed into his thighs and Kian panted, increasingly losing control.
Then Bastian’s tongue twisted cleverly across the head and Kian did yell. “God fucking damnit, Bastian,” he shrieked as he emptied down Bastian’s throat.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Kian was panting and so was Bastian. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and they stared at each other. Maybe Bastian couldn’t believe he’d finally touched him; Kian knew he couldn’t believe it had actually happened. Part of him wanted to reach down and pinch his bare arm, to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
Instead, he reached down and wrapped his fingers around Bastian’s arm, tugging him up. I always thought we’d go over the edge together, Bastian had said. And even though he’d been obsessing over who had the control before, suddenly it felt important that they were standing as equals, together.
Bastian stared at him for a second, then curled into him, cradling his cheeks between his palms, and kissed him. Kian could taste himself, and even deeper still, the rich dark, cappuccino flavor that he remembered from San Francisco.
They kissed and kissed, like they were trying to make up for lost time, all those times that they’d desperately wanted to do this and hadn’t. Bastian’s jean-clad legs slid against Kian’s bare ones, and he reached around, tugging off his own shirt. Kian gasped loudly into Bastian’s mouth as their bare chests collided together. It felt even more intimate somehow, than when Bastian had been sucking his cock.
Kian reached down and thumbed open the button on Bastian’s jeans, cupping his palm around his straining erection.
“Fuck,” Bastian exhaled after he’d wrenched his mouth off Kian’s. “Fuck, if you keep that up . . .”
Kian finished tugging down his jeans, and then shoved his underwear down too, Bastian’s cock finally bobbing free of the constraining fabric. It was impressive, and even though Kian had just come, he felt a little frisson of desire just seeing it for the first time.
“Then come,” Kian said, wrapping his hand around it. “I’ve teased you enough today.”
Bastian’s eyes stared back at him, wide and shocked, and he mumbled, “You can’t tease me too much. Not you. Never you.”
But he’d clearly been on edge, probably from the moment Kian had stripped his t-shirt off, and so Kian spit on his hand and fit it next to his other one, giving Bastian a steady and tight rhythm as he jerked him off.
It didn’t take very long, but then Kian hadn’t imagined it would, the very first time. They’d been torturing each other with some form or another of foreplay for the last two years. There was plenty of time to take their time and make it good—and not like this wasn’t spectacular already. The novelty of the touch actually really felt like more than enough.
Bastian spilled into Kian’s hand with a groan, his eyes fluttering shut. He didn’t think he’d ever seen something as beautiful in his life as Bastian giving up control to him, letting Kian pleasure him.
They were going to have to do this all the damn time.
Kian grabbed for his t-shirt and wiped his hand off, and Bastian’s cock. He was still staring at him, like he couldn’t quite believe this was real, and not a dream he didn’t want to wake up from.
“Yeah,” Kian finally said, with a smile, “that really happened.”
And then, unexpectedly, Bastian grinned too—and it was wide and bright and like nothing Kian had ever seen before. “Yeah,” he said, and somehow his grin grew even wider, even brighter, nearly bright enough to blind Kian, “yeah, it really did.”
“You sound surprised,” Kian said.
“Well, you did just show up here in the middle of the night and take off your clothes.” Bastian didn’t sound mad, or even conflicted
, he just sounded . . . happy. And Kian realized that he hadn’t ever really heard him happy before. Not like this.
There was always a deep, contented exhaustion in his voice after a long, successful service. Sometimes Kian saw the joy of creating something unexpected and wonderful, during those test kitchen Sundays. But it had never been like this before.
“I don’t regret doing this,” Kian said seriously.
Bastian’s grin turned conspiratorial, another look that Kian had never imagined he’d see on Bastian’s face. “Neither do I.” He looked skyward, like he was thanking God or maybe even the Devil. It was hard to say with Bastian. “I probably should, but I don’t. I can’t. It’s been so long coming.” He hesitated. “You want something to eat?”
Kian had never turned down food in his life, and definitely not food prepared by Bastian Aquino, in a post-sex haze.
“Sure,” he said.
“And then we can do that again, but better,” Bastian promised as they headed towards the kitchen.
Kian raised an eyebrow. “Better?”
“I mean, that was pretty fucking mind-blowing,” Bastian said, “but I think we can do better, don’t you?”
Kian had never been so eager to try in his whole life, so he nodded.
“Laundry’s just down the hall,” he said, “if you wanted to wash your shirt.”
Bastian had moved towards the kitchen but hadn’t made any move to put clothes on. He was just as powerfully built as Kian had always imagined, staring at him in his loose chef’s whites. His thighs and arms looked like they could snap Kian in half, and he sort of wanted Bastian to try.
Kian gathered up his clothes and figured what the hell. He’d already stripped in front of him, what was staying naked a little longer?
And, he thought, as he headed down the hallway, it would definitely wrench the tension that still simmered between them a little tighter.
* * *
Bastian stood in front of his fridge, staring at the contents, but not really seeing them, as the cold air rushed over the cooling sweat on his body.
