by Beth Bolden
It was Bastian’s turn to smile cockily as Kian looked. “Like what you see?” he asked, running a hand lightly up Kian’s jean-clad leg. “I think you do,” he said, answering his own question as he cupped his cock in his palm. “I think you love it.”
“I do,” Kian moaned. “Fuck, you’re so gorgeous.”
“The first time I ever saw you,” Bastian said, reaching up to unbutton Kian’s jeans, then lowering his zipper, “I wanted to bend you right over the counter you were standing by. Just pull your pants down and tease you until you were begging me for it.”
It was scary how similar Kian had felt. He’d gone home that first night and alternating between his determination for Bastian to teach him how to be a great chef had been a truly stupendous orgasm, as he imagined Bastian punishing him for his snarky comment.
Bastian tugged his jeans off, his slow, methodical movements deliberate. Kian bit his lip. “Is that what you want me to do now, beg you for it?”
“Would you?” Bastian asked, the dark edge to his voice sending a thrill right through him.
“Maybe.” Definitely. Kian met his eyes in the dim room as Bastian pulled his boxer briefs off, still moving in that very slow, very deliberate manner, like there was no need to rush at all. They’d been waiting for two fucking years. That felt like a pretty good reason to Kian. His cock bobbed free, hard and aching.
“Maybe,” Kian breathed out unsteadily, “maybe if you did something worth me begging.”
Bastian rolled his eyes. “You hold that thought.” He leaned over and opened a drawer behind Kian.
“What’s that?” Kian asked, trying to see, but the room was too dark.
“You want me to fuck you raw?”
“Oh.” Kian told himself that this was already the best sex he’d already had, that it was totally fine and he wasn’t disappointed at all that Bastian had already moved past the really spectacular foreplay. But he sort of was. He’d expected better—or at least something different, with the teasing promises he’d been making and the deliberately slow way he’d stripped his clothes off.
“Too quick for you?” Bastian raised an eyebrow. “We’ll see what you say when you’re begging for my cock.”
Kian gasped as Bastian’s fingers glided down his thigh, barely brushing against his cock and then his balls, and then found his hole. But instead of immediately inserting a finger, he just stroked around the rim, little teasing touches that had Kian squirming within moments.
He leaned over and his breath barely ghosted over Kian’s cock, which twitched against his belly, the wet head rubbing against his skin. “Did you want something?” Bastian asked, sounding very satisfied.
Something that Kian wasn’t—at all. “Yes,” he demanded.
Bastian chuckled, a dark, warm sound, and Kian shivered.
Finally, he slid the tip of his finger inside as he licked a long stripe up Kian’s cock. “Yeah,” Bastian said as Kian moaned at the fleeting brush of pleasure, “you’re definitely going to be begging for me.”
Kian almost said something back—something like, you wish—but then Bastian’s mouth was back on his dick and the finger was moving and pleasure crashed through him.
It went on and on and on: Bastian’s mouth barely skimming along the length of his cock, his finger breaching him a little further on each thrust, only to retreat back a second later.
Kian’s hands fisted in the sheets and he felt caught in a vise of pleasurable agony, and no matter how he moved, how he shifted, he couldn’t escape the inexorable, slow burn of Bastian’s hands and his mouth.
He wasn’t even particularly against begging, but something about the playful glint in Bastian’s eyes made him bite his lip and hold back the cries to do more, please god, anything.
“Nothing to say?” Bastian asked, as a second finger teased around the first. “Maybe you don’t want this at all.”
Kian moaned even though that wasn’t really what Bastian wanted. He wanted to know just how desperate Kian was for it—which was frankly ridiculous because he’d been desperate for it for years. And all that had changed in that time was that he’d impossibly wanted it even more.
“Enough,” he finally gritted out. “I fucking want it.”
Bastian’s grin lit up the room. “That wasn’t really begging.”
“Did you really think I would, if you challenged me?”
“Not really, but it was fun to try,” Bastian said, his smile somehow growing even brighter. He slid the second finger in and leaned down, wrapping his tongue around the head of Kian’s cock, sucking hard.
Spots dotted Kian’s vision at the sudden onslaught of bliss sizzling through his veins.
“God, you’re so good,” Bastian grunted, almost to himself more than Kian. “So goddamn perfect.”
“Fuck me already,” Kian demanded.
“So bossy.” But Bastian slid another finger in with his two and this time it wasn’t just Kian who groaned.
A minute later, he slid his fingers out and Kian watched as he ripped open the condom with trembling fingers. And he thought, through a haze of satisfaction, that he’d done that. He’d made Bastian’s fingers shake, he wanted him so goddamn much.
“Please,” Kian wailed, finally breaking as Bastian’s cock brushed his thigh, and then lower, then slipping in an inch.
Kian had only had penetrative sex with one other person, and it had been nothing to write home about. But then, the prep and the foreplay had been nothing like it was with Bastian. And Bastian was definitely in a whole other universe than the other guy.
It was a revelation to feel Bastian slide further and further inside him, until he didn’t know where he ended and Bastian began. He slipped in farther and then froze, Bastian’s fingers digging into his skin as Kian squirmed against the fullness.
“God, no, stop,” Bastian begged, the sound practically wrenched out of him. “I can’t . . .”
And it was so good to hear the desperation in his voice, Kian couldn’t help it. He pushed back against Bastian’s grip, until all of his cock was buried inside him.
“I can’t,” Bastian repeated, this time his voice a plea.
“Fuck me,” Kian demanded. His hand slipped down to grasp his own cock, and they both moaned again.
Bastian was the worst at taking orders—he only gave them at Terroir—but he listened to Kian now, and started to move. Kian’s fingers shakily circled his cock, tugging it carefully because he felt right on the edge, and he knew as soon as he came, Bastian was done for. They’d both needed this for so long, and their earlier orgasms had barely taken the edge off all that wanting.
His thrusts picked up speed and then he hit a spot inside that had Kian seeing not just stars but the whole goddamn galaxy. He was right on the precipice, he just needed a little more, and he wanted Bastian to be the one to give it to him.
“Kiss me,” Kian commanded.
Bastian froze, like he was surprised by the sudden demand, and then his face softened. He leaned down, and the kiss was softer, and sweeter than Kian had expected. He’d braced for the hot rush of a sloppy, wet hungry kiss, something like what their bodies were already doing, but the tenderness of it unwound him until he was gasping into Bastian’s mouth, come spurting between them, clenching around Bastian until he too, gasped and came.
For a long moment, neither of them moved, or spoke. Most of Bastian’s weight was still back on his elbows, but Kian liked that he was covering him, enveloping him. He’d wondered forever what this might feel like, and now that he’d felt it, he didn’t know what he’d do if he lost it.
Before, there was always that fleeting, niggling worry in the back of his mind—that he’d dreamt all those moments, a whole chain of them, that led up to this one. That San Francisco was the product of a tired, fantasizing mind. That he’d imagined all those hot, dirty looks. That the times he’d caught Bastian staring at his ass had been all a mistake.
He hadn’t been wrong. It wasn’t only him that had suffered i
n silence, wanting but never taking.
But now that they’d both taken—and no matter who’d taken the cock, Kian believed they’d definitely taken each other, Bastian’s currently awestruck expression was evidence enough of that—what were they going to do?
It was easy enough to banter and flirt in Bastian’s kitchen. But what about the Terroir kitchen? It was so easy to say, oh that stays at home, but could it? Was it even possible?
Kian felt a shiver of something real and concrete enter into the little golden bubble he’d been living in since Bastian had finally touched him for the first time.
How the fuck were they going to do this?
It was like the moment hit Bastian at the exact same time, because it was then that he retreated, carefully sliding out of Kian and purposefully looking away to dispose of the condom. He grabbed a tissue from the box on the beside table and wiped Kian and then his own torso. He disposed of that, and then there was nothing to do but look at each other and wonder.
What are we going to do?
Bastian sat down on the side of the bed and rested his elbows on his knees. He still hadn’t looked at Kian.
There was a part of Kian that wanted to shamelessly beg now. Don’t say you regret it.
Clearly he didn’t, not really, anyway. You couldn’t regret something you were such an enthusiastic participant in. But the chances of him saying it were too real for Kian to wait for the words.
Instead, he spoke first. “I thought you were going to make me dinner?” Kian asked.
Bastian’s glance his direction was swift and amused. “Don’t say you wish I’d done that instead.”
“I don’t,” Kian said steadily. “But now I’m starving.”
It wasn’t really a solution, to get half dressed again and go back to the kitchen, but Kian knew that was the place he retreated to when he felt lost, and he had a hunch Bastian was the same.
“Then I’ll make you dinner,” Bastian said, reaching for his shirt and tugging it on. “Come, get dressed. I’m hungry too.”
When Kian came back to the kitchen and resumed his spot on the barstool, Bastian had the gas on the stove back on, and he was poking at the mushrooms in the oven.
“Salvageable?” Kian asked.
“Not really,” Bastian grumbled and grabbed the pan bare, not even bothering with a towel, and dumped out the contents into the trash. He looked up and then smiled, which surprised Kian because nothing bothered Bastian more than good food wasted. “But it was totally worth it.”
“Of course it was.” Like after waiting so long, the sex wouldn’t be crazy hot. He’d known it had to be; he’d needed it to be. And it had still eclipsed even his wildest dreams.
“Get over here,” Bastian grumbled. “You’re completely capable of prepping these mushrooms while I try to salvage the risotto.”
Kian thought it was the height of the fantasy to sit here, watching as Bastian made him dinner with his own hands, crafting the flavors just for the two of them. But it turned out that he’d been wrong.
The real fantasy? The fantasy that bled into real life until Kian didn’t know where one ended and the other began?
It was standing hip to hip with Bastian in his kitchen, preparing dinner with him.
Maybe, Kian thought as he chopped the mushrooms into chunks, dropping them onto a fresh sheet pan, it was because this felt like something a couple might do together. Because his deepest, most closely held fantasy, the one he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to confess to Bastian was just that: living as an established couple. Fighting, loving, working—doing it all together.
They’d just taken the very first step towards that, but there were a hundred roadblocks and those were just the ones he’d thought of. In the end, it might not be possible, but Kian knew now that he could at least say he’d tried.
And tonight, that was enough.
Bastian finished the risotto, Kian pulled the mushrooms from the oven, and together, they plated.
Nothing fancy like at Terroir, but aesthetics were still important. They dished up the pale risotto in dark brown enameled bowls, Kian arranged the mushrooms over the top and then Bastian grabbed a bottle of basil oil, drizzling that over everything.
Kian picked up one of the bowls as Bastian grabbed spoons, hesitating over the silverware choice. “Forks maybe?” he asked.
“Bring both,” Kian suggested, and hesitated, because he didn’t know where to go. Were they eating in the kitchen? The living room? It was far too cold to eat on the table on the terrace. And Bastian was fairly fastidious—Kian couldn’t imagine he’d ever want to eat in bed.
In the end, Bastian surprised him by balancing his bowl and the silverware in one hand, and gently placing the other on the small of Kian’s back and leading him to the couch.
Kian played it safe and sat on one end, curling his bare legs underneath him.
Glancing over at Bastian, he was surprised to see a hurt flash through the other man’s eyes.
“Do I smell bad or something?” Bastian asked.
Hardly. He smelled spicy and dark and wonderful, like bergamot and rosemary with the slightest hint of espresso and chocolate. Kian wanted to bury his nose into his neck and not move, but the last thing he wanted was to make Bastian uncomfortable with his clinginess.
He shook his head.
“Then why are you all the way over there?” Bastian asked.
Kian knew exactly how to sit, where to go, what to do, when they were at Terroir. He knew better than to ever touch Bastian, always leaving a buffer between them.
But this wasn’t Terroir, so he slid a little closer. Bastian made a frustrated noise and reached out, crowding Kian against him with the arm he’d slung over the back of the couch. He reached up and stroked the back of Kian’s head with his fingers, absently toying with the strands of his hair. “This is better, isn’t it?”
Bastian had astonished him more than once tonight, but this was the biggest surprise of all. That Bastian Aquino, head chef of Terroir and not-so-affectionately known by his staff as the Bastard, was a cuddler.
“What?” Bastian questioned, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I wasn’t allowed before.”
“You didn’t allow yourself,” Kian grumbled, barely able to hide his own smile as he scooped up a bite of risotto and mushrooms.
“Still, I’m going to take advantage of it now,” Bastian said, eating deftly with only one hand as he balanced the bowl in his lap. “If you don’t have any objections.”
Kian laughed because all of a sudden he felt a little teary and more than a little overemotional, and he absolutely was not going to bawl his eyes out on Bastian’s couch over a little cuddling. “Just don’t tell me tomorrow you’ve changed your mind.”
Bastian’s gaze was steady and soft. “You must not know me very well. I’m rather . . . intractable when I’ve set my mind to something.”
“I might be familiar with that particular tendency,” Kian said, sniffing.
“Eat your food,” Bastian said. “Then we’ll go to bed.”
* * *
It was after noon the next day when Kian let himself in the house with his key. He’d definitely hoped that Xander would already be gone, or might be at Damon’s, but no, he was right there, at the kitchen table with his laptop and a huge mug of coffee.
“You’re back,” Xander said steadily, not looking up from what he was typing. “There’s coffee on and I brought some bread from the restaurant.”
Kian set his keys on the counter and grabbed a mug from the cupboard. He was definitely a little sore this morning, muscles used in places that felt like they’d only ever gotten occasional use. When he looked up from pouring his coffee, Xander was watching him.
“So, it finally happened,” Xander said conversationally. Like he hadn’t been arguing against it happening for the full two years they’d known each other. “Or maybe you just braided each other’s hair and told ghost stories.”
It really wasn’t any of X
ander’s business but Xander was also his best friend. Kian hesitated.
“Please, like I would tell anyone,” Xander added as he rolled his eyes.
“You’re right,” Kian conceded. “You’re not exactly the person I’d go to for hot gossip. And for the record, no, we didn’t braid each other’s hair or tell ghost stories.”
A smile flitted across Xander’s features. “I didn’t think so. Wouldn’t have pegged Aquino as that type.”
“And me?” Kian asked as he sat down next to his friend. He tried not to worry if Xander was going to see the fairly obvious marks on his neck or if he was going to mention them. It wasn’t like he and Damon weren’t always practically fucking on their couch, when they had an empty house of Damon’s they could screw in.
“You’re the type, but I can see that’s not all you were up to,” Xander said in a shockingly judgement-free tone. He tilted his head, as if to see the marks in a slightly better light. “Aquino is thorough, I guess.”
Kian fought against the blush, but it rose across his cheeks anyway. “Very,” he admitted.
This morning, as Kian had finally pulled on his clothes for the trip home, Bastian lazing on the bed, watching like a great big tabby, he’d said, “I think I got a little carried away last night.”
There was so much to remember, that it had taken Kian a minute to remember that after eating, they’d ended up making out on the couch, Kian perched in Bastian’s lap, mindlessly rubbing against each other as Bastian had kissed and bit up the sensitive tendon just behind his ear.
“It’s fine,” Kian had said, brushing away his concern. “I’ll just make sure to wear my coat buttoned all the way up.”
But from his own glance in the rearview mirror this morning and the buried astonishment in Xander’s gaze as he looked at the marks, that probably wasn’t going to cut it.
“As long as you’re happy,” Xander said.
Kian had not been expecting such full acceptance of his developing relationship with Bastian. “No more concerned lectures?”
Xander sighed and set his elbows on the edge of the table. “I know that sometimes I’ve been a shitty friend,” he admitted, “but I was worried. I was afraid he’d take advantage, I was worried he’d use you up and throw you away, but none of that happened. Instead you fucking pined after each other for years. Those are feelings with power. Who am I to argue with that?”
