Matt struggled with the cuffs at his wrist and when they were undone he shrugged out of his shirt, pushing it off with rough, frustrated motions and dropping it to the floor with a huff. “Happy?” he snapped, opening his eyes to glare as his chest still heaved with harsh, raspy breaths.
“Not yet.”
Alex admired the impressive contours of Matt’s bare chest, arms, and abdomen, noting that he was bigger and more cut than he had been before. Alex reached around with his free hand, refusing to release the hold he had on Matt’s hair as he ran his fingers over his taut stomach. Then he reached down to cup Matt’s cock through his pants, finding it hard and thick while Matt arched into Alex’s touch, his eyes closing once more.
“Pants too. Take ’em off.”
“Shit.” Matt squeezed his eyes shut tighter. “I shouldn’t give this to you.”
“No you shouldn’t,” Alex agreed with him wholeheartedly. “But you will, because you know how good it’s gonna be, and you’ve missed it. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve missed it too.”
Matt opened his eyes once more, giving him a look of confusion. “Then why—”
“Pants,” Alex cut him off, feeling far too raw where Matt was concerned to touch that subject. “Now!”
Matt toed off his shoes in response, kicking one aside and then the other before his fingers went to his belt buckle. The art of slow seduction was missing as Matt made quick work of pushing his pants and underwear past his hips. He kicked them aside to rest in a pile next to his shoes once they reached the floor.
“God,” Alex groaned, pushing his hips into the small of Matt’s back when he looked over his shoulder to see Matt standing there naked in nothing but his white socks. His thick, cut cock jutted up out of a nest of brown curls, and Alex licked his lips hungrily. “I love your dick.”
“Just not quite enough to stick it out for,” Matt said bitterly.
“Shhh,” he whispered, worried Matt’s bitterness and tendency to say whatever was on his mind would ruin something that needed to sustain Alex for a very long time. He used the hold he still had on Matt’s hair to tug his head to the side, exposing the curve of his neck. He leaned down to brush his lips over the hard, erratic thump of Matt’s pulse. “Will you play a game with me, Matty?”
Matt sucked in a hard breath, his body shuddering from just the small touch of Alex’s lips against his neck. “I’m listening,” he finally whispered when Alex waited for a response.
“We’re gonna play pretend,” Alex said, his lips trailing up to Matt’s ear.
“Oh fuck.” Matt’s voice dripped with both desire and sadness. “No, no, no. Don’t—”
“We’re gonna pretend that day never happened,” Alex went on, trying desperately to hold himself together. “That we have forever.”
“No.” Matt’s hands flew to his face as a sob he didn’t bother to hide burst out of him. “Don’t do this to me.”
“I’m sorry.” Alex lost the precarious hold he had on his emotions as easily as Matt did. After six years of loneliness and with a lifetime of it stretching out in front of him, Matt being there suddenly became a gift he couldn’t let pass him by. “Please, Matty. Be mine.”
“I was yours,” Matt said, his face still in his hands. “You ruined it.”
“I know.” Alex felt the tears roll down his cheeks as Matt became a watery blur. “I don’t deserve it, but can you please give it to me anyway? Just tonight, just this once.”
“I hate you.” The tears sounded in Matt’s voice as clearly as Alex’s. “Why’d I come?”
“You’re doing it wrong.” Alex tugged on his hair halfheartedly. “Try again. Do it right.”
Matt took a long shuddering breath as if debating with himself. The silence magnified in the room to the point that Alex’s own ragged breathing seemed deafening as he struggled to keep himself from falling to his knees. The agony he worked so hard at suppressing rose to the surface with a violence that was terrifying.
Matt finally cracked the silence with the hoarse whisper of, “I need you.”
It wasn’t a profession of love, but Alex sucked in a breath from the confession because it sounded true. He slipped his fingers out of Matt’s hair to cup his cheek while he reeled over how desperately he craved hearing that—even if it was pretend. He wanted to be needed by Matt again, if just once more.
When Matt turned in his arms, Alex clung to him like a lifeline. He wrapped his arms around Matt and pulled his body tight against his until they were chest to chest, sharing the same air as their breathing remained heavy with heartache and desire.
Matt looked up at him, his eyes crystalline with tears rolling down his cheeks. “I need you, Lexie,” he repeated, this time louder and more confidently as if he wanted this game as badly as Alex did. “Please.”
“I need you too,” Alex said, finding it easier than he thought it would be. He cupped Matt’s cheeks with both hands as he struggled to see him past the tears. “You look really good. Sexy.”
Matt laughed, rolling his eyes as he said, “Thanks. You too.”
“I mean, really,” Alex said, still cupping his cheeks as he smiled at Matt. “You look so good it makes me feel like it’s the first time. Like I haven’t touched you in years.”
“Funny, I feel the same way,” Matt said, closing his eyes as more tears rolled down his cheeks. “Feels like it’s been a
really
long time.”
“Come here.” Alex tilted Matt’s face up and leaned down to kiss him, their lips meeting with a soft caress.
“It’d be easier for me in the long-term if you could go back to being toppy and aggressive,” Matt spoke against his lips in response. “That needs to be stated.”
“Shut up, Matty,” Alex said, feeling a smile tug at his lips when he realized Matt really couldn’t turn off that honesty sensor in his brain. “We’re pretending.”
“Fine.” Matt sighed, taking the lead as his fingers tangled in Alex’s hair, his tongue pushing past his lips and deepening the kiss.
The wash of desire was overwhelming. It was softer, sweeter, infinitely purer, but it was also a thousand times more powerful. Alex was helpless in the face of it, and he surrendered to it without even a fight. The salty taste of tears mingled with the tang of beer as their tongues brushed, and they kissed in hot, openmouthed desperation.
Hands caressed muscles long neglected as soft sighs gave way to breathy moans when the passion boiled and pleasure started to force the need for more intimate contact. Always honest about his needs, Matt grabbed Alex’s wandering hand. He pulled away, his lips red and swollen from bruising kisses, and brought Alex’s hand to his mouth, dragging his tongue across the palm of it in one long, slow sweep that had Alex’s vision going foggy as he watched.
“Hot,” Alex whispered, feeling entranced as Matt repeated the action a few more times.
Matt’s eyes were soft and sensual while he continued to lick Alex’s palm. Then he reached out. His fingers tangled in Alex’s hair once more and pulled him forward for another kiss. Matt pushed Alex’s hand to his cock, still hard and heavy between them, making his wishes blatantly obvious. Alex took the invitation and stroked the thick length of Matt’s cock, savoring the slide of silky skin against his spit-slicked hand.
God, he had forgotten how responsive Matt was. His own cock jerked as Matt moaned into his mouth, his hips thrusting into the slide of Alex’s hand. Loving to hear him, he released his mouth to run his lips down the curve of Matt’s neck, licking and nipping at sensitive skin prickled with goose bumps everywhere Alex touched.
“Fuck,” Matt grunted, thrusting his hips into Alex’s hold on his cock once more.
“Want more?”
“God, yes.” Matt’s breathing was labored, his head falling back heavily.
“Mmm,” Alex hummed, leaning down to lap at the line of Matt’s collarbone. “Say you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” Matt agreed as Alex continued to stroke his cock with slow, torturously gentle strokes when Matt had always liked it rough and dirty. “Forever.”
For a man who had always been honest to a fault, Matt was a little too good at playing this game of pretend, because Alex believed him. Appreciating the gift in a way he hadn’t at twenty-two, Alex fell to his knees in the face of it, and savored Matt’s gasp of surprise as he looked down at Alex with eyes wide in stunned desire.
Alex wrapped his arms around Matt. His palms pressed against the small of his back, forcing him forward. He leaned down to lave his tongue over the beautiful lines of Matt’s abdominal muscles and then nipped at his hip bone. Unable to resist, he trailed one hand down to cup Matt’s firm, muscled ass, groaning when he thought of tasting it, fingering it—fucking it.
“Alex, come on,” Matt growled, jerking Alex out of his fantasies.
Taking a leaf out of Matt’s book, Alex fell back to his haunches and licked his own palm, doing it in the same slow, deliberate way Matt had. Then he stroked the cock in front of him.
“Fuck.” Matt ran both hands through his own hair and gripped the dark strands tightly, making him look gorgeous as he tossed his head back in pure sexual abandon. Loving to see him let go, Alex took the head of Matt’s cock in his mouth. He kept his eyes on Matt who arched into the intimate embrace of Alex’s mouth. “Suck me.”
Alex groaned, his mouth full of cock as his eyes closed to the beautiful image of Matt lost to desire. He took him deep, savoring the feel of him against his tongue. The musk of cock and soap and Matt permeated Alex’s senses and set off so many memory sensors it was easy to get lost in the fantasy.
He cupped Matt’s balls while sucking him in long, deep strokes as if it hadn’t been six years since he had done this. God, he loved this. Part of him wanted to stay on his knees for Matt all night just to taste him, smell him, hear the low groans of pleasure and abandon as he got closer to coming.
“Yes, Lexie,” Matt moaned, reaching down to hold Alex to him, his fingers tightening in the hair at the back of Alex’s neck. “Yes, fuck, I’m gonna—”
Alex took him deeper, the stroke of his hand firmer, almost painful in a way only Matt would enjoy, and the response was immediate. Matt’s hips jerked forward as a shouted obscenity burst out of his lips when he started coming. Thick spurts of salty, sweet cum hit the back of Alex’s throat, and he savored the taste and the feel of Matt’s cock throbbing in his mouth to the rhythm of release.
He sucked him until the tension fell out of Matt’s body and his cock started to soften. Even then he wanted more, knowing he wouldn’t taste Matt’s desire for a long time. He released him only to drag his tongue over his balls, breathing deeply as he tried to commit the smell of his release to memory.
“I need a bed,” Matt said, his voice sated and gravelly with sex.
“I got one of those. I’ll show it to you in a second.” Alex buried his nose in the curls at the base of Matt’s cock. “God, you smell so good. I just wanna live here.”
Matt stroked Alex’s hair as the fierceness slipped out of his voice, “That’s a lie.”
“Pretending,” Alex reminded him.
Matt sighed, his fingers still soft in Alex’s hair. “Then lucky me.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Wow, you have a lot of laundry,” Matt stared at the piles of laundry in the corner of Alex’s bedroom. “That’s got to be all the clothes you own.”
“It’s Holly’s clothes too,” Alex mumbled, his face pressed into the curve of Matt’s neck as he licked at the sensitive skin there. “Our last day off was Christmas day. You try keeping up with laundry when you’re working seven days a week.”
“Is that true?” Matt turned around in Alex’s arms to stare at him in concern. “You never take a day off?”
“Easter’s a breakfast holiday; can’t close,” Alex said as if it was totally normal to have only one day off a year. His lips trailed over the nape of Matt’s neck, his breath warm against Matt’s skin still hypersensitive after such an extreme orgasm. Alex ran rough palms over Matt’s stomach, then slipped lower. He cupped Matt’s ass possessively as his other arm tightened around his midsection, forcing him into a tighter embrace. “I wanna fuck you.”
Matt couldn’t help himself, he snorted. “No shit.”
“I remember what you like.”
Alex’s fingers dug deeper into Matt’s left ass cheek, his voice demanding in a way that set off all Matt’s sexual sensors in a fresh wave of desire. He couldn’t help the way his head lowered, giving Alex easier access to the sensitive skin at the back of his neck as a shiver made his arousal obvious. Never one to let something like that go, Alex bit at the curve of Matt’s shoulder, his teeth sinking deeper than before, tugging at skin and muscle in a way that would mark. Matt felt his knees weakening and found himself sagging against Alex’s steely embrace.
Alex laved his tongue over the mark, soothing the sting with the caress of pleasure. “You want me to own you, don’t you, Matty? Tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”
Matt bit down hard on his bottom lip to keep himself from admitting how true it was. How desperately he had searched for a replacement for what Alex had to offer, and how miserably he had failed at finding anything close.
“Tell me,” Alex urged as if he deserved it, as if he hadn’t offered Matt nirvana and then snatched it back without even an explanation. His fingers tangled in Matt’s hair, tugging his head back. “I want to hear. I
need
to hear it.”
“Too fucking bad.” Matt squeezed his eyes shut when he felt Alex’s gaze studying his face. He tried to focus on the feeling of Alex’s fingers tangled painfully in his hair because if he acknowledged the throb in his cock—hard once more despite just coming—he’d give Alex everything he didn’t deserve. “You want to fuck me, then do it. But I’m not playing pretend with you anymore, and I’m not catering to your delusions. We’re not lovers, Lexie. We’re not even friends. We’re drunk strangers in the night—that’s it.”
“I don’t like your habit of honesty,” Alex growled, his breath fanning across Matt’s lips. “You’re gonna ruin everything.”
“Yeah, I’m the one who ruins everything,” Matt said bitterly, feeling like a broken record. “You—”
Alex bit at Matt’s bottom lip, silencing his tirade with a bruising kiss. Alex’s tongue invaded his mouth like he owned it, and Matt moaned in response, sagging in his arms once more as Alex’s soap-and-sea-breeze scent reminded Matt of a magical, carefree time when everything was new and exciting.