Page 21

Chapter 21

Benji Morrison

Benji

“Come on, Lucky, I’ve got some business to handle today.”

Lucky glanced up at me with a sassy side-eye before going back to leisurely sniffing at the suspicious-looking stain on the concrete. I gently tugged him away and continued on our morning walk around the city block.

It was a perk I found that came with owning a dog. You were forced to go outside for at least two short intervals a day. Vitamin D and a change of scenery were welcome when the alternative was staying locked up inside, fighting the urge to kick lunch off with two shots and a jerk-off session to some of Eli’s old clips.

Fucking hell.

Eli.

He’d streaked into my life like a comet slamming into the surface of the Earth. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d survive the impact, but one that I was certainly sure of?

I was falling for Eli. Hard.

I wasn’t supposed to fall for him. I was supposed to protect him. But somewhere between the fear and the fire, I lost control.

That news may not have been extremely surprising, considering I had been admiring him ever since I came across his online profile, but I hadn’t actually thought I’d meet with him in person. That idea had felt like such a fantasy. Such an impossibility. Eli was someone inside my laptop who liked to show off and play with himself for hundreds of others to watch. Sure, I had made a connection with him through my NightOwl account, but he didn’t know that was me.

I didn’t think… I mean, I hoped , but I didn’t think I’d actually get a chance to meet him in person. To kiss him, touch him, fuck him.

Now that I had done all those things, it was simply game over.

Eli was all I wanted from the moment I woke up to the second my head hit the pillow. I’d text him randomly throughout the day under the guise of checking in. I’d work out with him, have lunch and dinner with him, watch stupid shit on YouTube with him.

And most nights since the Broadway incident, I’d sleep with him. I wasn’t sure what I enjoyed more: the fuck sessions or the cuddle sessions. Feeling him twitch and stir in his sleep or feeling him pulse and spasm as he came inside me.

Both sensations were heavenly. I didn’t ever want to give it up.

Except we weren’t even anything official. And beyond that, there was still the thorny guilt that implanted itself in my chest and reverberated through me with every heartbeat.

I’d watched him. Chatted with him. Sent him directly to my doorstep before he had any idea of who I even was.

Was that fucked-up? Maybe… but I never posed a threat to him. My actions never had any malicious intent behind them. I was just… lost. I’d been lost. I’ve been frantically beating my legs under the surface of a seemingly calm ocean since I was a kid, trying to stay afloat. I was getting tired. So fucking tired.

But Eli—he was my life raft. He helped me feel like I wasn’t struggling to simply take in a breath. Everything around him was easy, whether we were in a dark and sex-charged party or taking a stroll through a busy Central Park. It was like I’d known him my entire life.

But… fuck. I have to tell him about NightOwl.

My phone buzzed with a text from Jace, pulling me out of my thoughts.

Hey man, me and Theo are thinking of having lunch at Ray’s Garden. Want to meet us?

The invite was certainly tempting. I could use a distraction. Some day drinking at a nice restaurant with good friends sounded great.

And then, another notification appeared on my phone.

Eli was online. He’d just started to stream.

Ah damn, I’ve got some plans today. Sorry. Let me know where you guys are at in a couple of hours.

I knew the better, more productive thing to do would be to just join Jace and Theo, but my cock held the reins in this situation, and it was currently getting harder and harder to ignore.

I took Lucky back upstairs, grateful to be home where I could peel off the shorts that had started to feel annoyingly tight around my crotch. I dropped them at the entrance, leaving me naked from the waist down. It felt liberating, my cock swinging freely as I walked toward the kitchen. A quick peek at my reflection in the microwave made me smirk—I was already getting hard. I shook my head. Eli really had me fucked-up in all the best ways.

I cupped my balls, wishing Eli’s face was nuzzled up underneath them. He had spent the morning doing exactly that, licking and sucking me awake. I wanted to spend the entire day with him, but he told me he had to take the afternoon to “cock in,” as he jokingly put it.

I initially went for a water bottle, but when I opened my fridge and saw the half bottle of vodka sitting there, looking lonely as hell, I decided that the water could wait. I uncapped the bottle and took a swig. The vodka burned on its way down. I used to be more affected by the sensation, but now, I barely even blinked.

The warmth spread instantly, relaxing the tightness in my chest. I put the handle of vodka back and grabbed a cold beer from the fridge. I cracked it open and took a long sip before wandering over to the couch. Just a topper. Something to help me enjoy this jerk-off session even more.

My laptop sat on the coffee table, screen still on. I nudged the mouse, waking it up. My notes on Damon were open from earlier this morning. Ever since Eli thought he saw Damon at the theater, I’d shifted nearly all my attention to him. The neighbor and landlord had become less likely suspects, their behaviors less alarming compared to Damon’s escalating red flags.

Still, I hadn’t found anything concrete yet—nothing linking him explicitly to Nomad.

I clicked away from the notes and went to my web browser, where I typed in “CamStar.” Surprisingly, Damon’s profile flashed with a live tag toward the very top of the page. He had a “Sponsored” tag on his picture, which meant he was spending money to boost his placement.

Hmm. Maybe observing him in action would give me something useful, some kind of lead. I clicked over to his stream. Damon was lounging in a tight pair of briefs, running a hand down his torso and flexing for the camera. His room appeared messy, closet doors thrown open, wrinkled clothes sitting in an overflowing hamper, socks and underwear littered about the carpet. His chat was pretty dead, too.

Nothing else really jumped out as unusual, but the cold glare in Damon’s eyes gave me an uneasy feeling.

Someone sent a hundred-token tip, making my speakers sound with the jingles of falling coins. “Thanks, KillahJim, I can finally take these off.” He tugged off his underwear, his semi-hard dick flopping out. He started to stroke, but a message dinged on his phone. He reached over, read it, and instantly looked pissed.

“Fuck this,” he said before reaching forward and typing something, the furious clacks of the keyboard coming in louder than the music he’d been playing. I wondered what had triggered him and was about to type out a message before his screen went black.

Offline.

Shit. That wasn’t too informative. I hoped the background report I was waiting on would give me some more information. I navigated back to the homepage, clicking away from Damon’s page.

And there he was—Elijah, live, sitting at the top of the ranks.

My pulse quickened. Eli was lying on his bed, fully naked, gently stroking his cock. He bit his lower lip, eyes half-lidded, completely lost in the pleasure of his own touch. I stared, my breath catching as heat flooded through me, settling heavy and hard between my legs. My hand drifted downward, wrapping around my cock, now rigid and throbbing. Fuck.

His chat was blowing up with people sending him tokens and telling him how hot he was, what they wanted him to do to them. I jerked off faster, turned on by the fact that I’d just had Eli in my arms this morning. I knew exactly how his cock tasted, how his lips felt, how his love was a drug. I didn’t feel a lick of jealousy. Possessiveness? Possibly. I wanted to make him mine and only mine, but I was okay with others watching him. Like art being appreciated in a museum. Except I was the only one who got to take this art home, to study and memorize every stroke of the brush and speckle of paint.

And yet, as horny as this made me, I still had a job to do.

I kept an eye on the comments, on alert for any from Nomad. It seemed to just be regular comments from thirsty viewers. Nothing major.

I took another deep chug of beer, setting the near-empty bottle aside. Eli pumped his cock harder now, arching slightly, his smooth skin flushed pink. God, I wished my mouth was there, tasting the precum dripping from his tip, my tongue tracing the veins along his shaft.

My breath grew ragged as I stroked myself, hips beginning to thrust up into my palm. Pleasure surged through me like wildfire, hot and unstoppable. My chest tightened, breath hitching in my throat. Fuck, Eli was beautiful, erotic, irresistible.

Perfection.

That’s when I saw it. A comment from Nomad.

NOMAD79: You can’t keep ignoring me. I’m closer to you than you think, Eli. I will have you.

Shit. Eli saw the comment at the same time I did. He stopped his strokes, his expression blanching. I fucking hated this. He went from a moment of pure pleasure to one laced with dread in the span of seconds.

I leaned forward and clicked on the button requesting a private show. Eli appeared to consider it for a moment. He was likely about to log off altogether, but he accepted my invite instead. The screen went black to denote a private show was about to begin. Moments later, it was just me and Eli. A small timer kept track in the bottom of the video. I had fifteen minutes on the clock.

“Sorry about the vibe shift, Night. I’m sure you saw that comment from Nomad…”

NightOwl: I did. Sorry that fucker is still bothering you.

“Yeah, it’s not great.” Eli leaned back in bed and spread his legs. He was soft now, which I found just as attractive as when he was rock hard. He rubbed his chest. “But I’ve got someone helping me out. I don’t think I ever told you, but I went to that Stonewall Investigations place you suggested. Thanks. I found a detective and a possible boyfriend.”

I nearly fell off my couch in shock.

He was talking to me about me. And he could see us together. Holy shit.

NightOwl: Nice. I’m happy for you. You deserve it.

I decided to try and play it cool. Simple.

But… fuck. Guilt began to mount inside my gut. This was wrong on a hundred different levels. How much longer could I keep this up? I could just log off, never go back in this account again, pretend like NightOwl just never existed.

“Yeah, for a while, I didn’t think I was going to find someone. But he’s really special. Like, special enough for me to be bringing him up right now. Which is not what you’re paying for.” He palmed at his balls, getting himself hard again.

My cursor hovered over the X. I should have just closed out of the window. Gone on with my day. Eli would still get paid for the private show and hopefully log off so Nomad couldn’t harass him.

Guilt twisted sharply like a stab between the ribs. What the fuck was I doing? Eli had no idea who NightOwl really was—he had no idea it was me. He trusted me, spent time with me, fucked me, confided in me.

My heart sank, desire mingling with nausea. This was wrong.

I needed to tell him. Couldn’t overthink things. Just had to do it. Come clean.

About everything.

NightOwl: Eli, I don’t know how else to do this. It’s going to be a shock, but I need to come clean. This is Benji.

Eli read the message. Then read it again. Then again. He arched his brow, cocked his head. He scratched at the back of his neck. “That’s… what? This isn’t funny. How do you know the guy’s name is Benji? I never said it.”

Shit, shit, shit. I wanted to shout through the screen, “It’s me! I’m sorry!” I also wanted to erase the message. I shouldn’t have sent it. I couldn’t really think too clearly. Maybe this would have been better news to break in person. What the fuck was I thinking?

I finished what was left of the beer.

“Seriously, what the fuck is going on?” Eli was getting pissed. I’d seen his temper flare on a few occasions and could tell that this was one of those occasions. The tips of his ears were turning fire-truck red, his brows furrowing together.

I knew one way I could put this to bed. I grabbed my phone and sent Eli a text.

NightOwl really is me. I’m sorry for just telling you now.

I watched Eli reach for his phone and read the text message. He dropped the phone and looked directly into the camera.

“Benji… what the fuck? Come to my house right now. We need to talk.”

The screen switched to black as Eli slammed his laptop shut.