Page 24 of Sour Candy (Sour Candy #1)

Noah walked up behind him, close enough to touch.

His gaze met Benji’s in the mirror, and Benji shivered, thinking of his cock straining his babydoll.

Of Noah sucking him through the fabric, something he’d jerked off to so many times since it happened.

Even if Noah ended this right now, he’d given Benji enough spank bank material to last the rest of his life.

“He took your popcorn,” Noah murmured.

“Fucking bet he did.” Benji held his breath, waiting.

Sure enough, Noah stepped forward. Pressing his front to Benji’s back, his arm coming up to circle Benji’s waist.

“You’re having trouble,” Noah said into his ear.

Benji shook his head. “It’s just a lot.”

“I know. You don’t have to worry about it. Just let yourself feel good.” Noah kissed his neck, a short, hot press that made Benji arch back against him. “You take what I give you. Remember?”

“I don’t want you to regret it.”

“I won’t. I promise.” Noah turned him around, taking his face in those big, warm hands. “Anything I give you, you keep. Alright?”

Benji knew what he meant. He meant that when he ended things, he wouldn’t chase Benji down for his lingerie and fancy fucking suits.

He was a billionaire; renting out a movie theater was nothing to him.

Benji could stop freaking out over it. Benji wanted to stop freaking out over it.

To let himself have a good time while it lasted.

How many other people were getting this opportunity?

And here he was, ruining it by feeling guilty and stressing over the inevitable.

“Benjamin,” Noah prompted.

Benji stomped down the guilt hard. He could be happy, he decided. At least for tonight. He could be happy for Max, and he could let himself fucking have something.

“Alright,” he said. “Yeah, alright.”

After the movie, Max wanted Noah to come back to their apartment.

“I need to show him my robot,” he yelled as they strode through the empty theater halls. “It’s gotten so much better! It can do flips !”

“I’d like to see a flip,” Noah said, watching Benji carefully.

Benji smiled stiffly. Noah didn’t have to handle him with kid gloves, the way he tried to do sometimes. So what if he freaked out over getting nice shit? He was fine. He could do this.

“Let’s show him the flip,” he said.

Noah nodded and smiled and said all the right things as Max made the robot do three-quarters of a successful flip. But his eyes kept flickering up to Benji. Curious. Searching. Benji tried not to react, nodding like he hadn’t heard all of this before and wasn’t sweating bullets.

Finally, Max let Noah go.

“I’m going to tell my friends which theories are wrong,” he said gleefully. “But I won’t tell them what actually happens, because spoilers.”

With that, he ushered them out of his room, slamming the door.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then Noah cleared his throat. “Nice place. Didn’t get to look at it much last time.”

Benji snorted. “Sure. Thanks.”

“I mean it,” Noah said. “It’s homey.”

Benji made a fart noise, shifting awkwardly.

He still couldn’t shake his nerves. He wanted Noah to hold him.

Wanted to be in Noah’s bed, incoherent and well-fucked, nothing on his mind except how good he felt.

He’d never been able to sink into that in this apartment; he’d only ever gotten glimpses during phone sex.

He swallowed. “My room’s pretty homey. If you want to see it.”

Noah followed him down the hall. Benji let him in, quietly dying inside as Noah looked around at his piles of unfinished art projects and dirty laundry and pathetic single bed.

Even if he had cleaned up, the single bed was damning.

He’d told Daphne the room was too small for a double, but the truth was that he knew he wasn’t going to get laid, and a single bed was cheaper, so why bother spending extra cash he didn’t have?

He waved an arm self-consciously. “So, this is it. Where the magic happens.”

Noah hummed. He was examining one of Benji’s latest paintings, ghosting his fingers over the canvas.

Benji’s heart spasmed. Out of all the art in Benji’s room, Noah had picked the most damning: a watercolor of two takeout containers spilling over with pasta. The painting was bright and warm, the sauce spilling over the plastic onto the table below.

“This is nice,” Noah said mildly. “Intimate.”

Benji bit his cheek to stop his smile. He leaned over, pushing his chin into Noah’s shoulder. “Hey, Noah.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m wearing those panties you like.”

Noah’s head twisted toward him. Their noses brushed.

“Let me see,” he said.

Benji’s stomach crackled with excitement. This he could do. Sex was getting less and less complicated the more he did it. Something to enjoy, not stress over. He wanted to stop thinking about all the things Noah was doing for him, the massive debt he’d never be able to repay.

He pulled his jeans down, slow and teasing, to expose the red lace. His cock was already half-hard, which was embarrassing but to be expected.

Noah’s eyes darkened. “All of it.”

Cock filling further, Benji turned. He heard Noah’s breath hitch and grinned. The panties came with a heart-shaped hole in the back, something that they had taken advantage of several times before.

“I don’t know if you can fuck me here,” Benji warned as Noah pressed up against him, rubbing his clothed cock against Benji’s hole. “The walls are thin. We both know I can’t stay quiet for shit. Max wears headphones on his calls, but…”

“I could gag you,” Noah suggested.

Benji shivered as Noah’s fingers brushed his throat. “The—the headboard. It would be loud.”

“I could fuck you on the floor.”

Benji’s hips jerked helplessly, precum seeping through the strained fabric. “Y-yeah?”

Noah kissed his shoulder. “Hands and knees.”

Benji scrambled to comply. But instead of following him down, Noah kept standing. Watching him, rubbing himself lazily over his slacks.

“Lube?” he asked.

Benji nodded toward his chest of drawers. “Second left. Under my boxers.”

It was only when Noah’s rummaging paused that Benji remembered what else he’d hidden under his boxers.

“Wait,” he blurted.

Too late. Noah held up the bright green dildo, shaking it so it wobbled.

“Green,” Noah said. “Your favorite color. I should’ve known. Just how deep does your thing for Kermit go?”

“The green one was on sale, you weirdo. Shut the fuck up about the Muppets and fuck me.” Then, before Noah could tease him for being rude, “ Please .”

Noah chuckled. He knelt behind Benji, who waited for the click of the bottle of lube. It didn’t come. Noah just sat there, thumbing Benji’s ass cheeks open, hooking his fingers into the lace.

“Do you want to suck it?” he asked. “Or fuck it?”

The question felt strange. Benji turned to find the dildo lying across Noah’s tented lap, the lube sitting next to it.

Benji sighed, pushing back against his hands. “I want you , jackass.”

“You get this first.” Noah trailed the dildo over Benji’s ass, the cool plastic a boring compromise for Noah’s warm cock. “Suck or fuck?”

Benji bit his lip. Noah had fucked him with a dildo a few times now. It was good, but more than that, it was a taste : a tantalizing glimpse of what he really wanted.

“Fuck,” he decided. “And can you tie my hands?”

Noah’s eyes glinted. There was something under the lust that made Benji shudder with pleasure.

“Good boy,” Noah said. “Asking for what you want.”

Benji squirmed, crossing his wrists behind his back and bracing his cheek and shoulders on the floor. He knew what Noah was thinking of: that stammering mess from their first time, tensing up when Noah kissed him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said as Noah slid his tie off and wrapped it around his wrists. “Gag me already.”

Noah gagged him with a clean pair of boxers. The heavy weight of them on his tongue, the tie around his wrists, his limited movement—Benji’s head was already swimming with it.

Noah teased two lubed fingers over his entrance.

“If we do have to stop,” he said. “I won’t be mad. You’re still my good boy.”

Benji squirmed, cheek squished up against the carpet. He kicked Noah lightly, hoping it communicated what he wanted: hurry up.

“And remember to be quiet,” Noah continued. “The gag only does so much.”

Then he pushed in.

Time lost meaning. Benji only knew it was passing because of his chafing cheek, his aching shoulders, the dildo deep in his hole. Benji begged for it, of course, he did. Even through the gag, he begged with his body, rocking back desperately when Noah asked if he was ready for it.

Noah pushed the dildo in all at once. Benji moaned, muffled, into his gag. He’d never been more glad that Max wore headphones when he was talking to his friends.

“How many times have you fucked yourself with this?” Noah asked, thrusting the dildo in maddeningly long thrusts, all the way to the ridged head before slamming back in. “Thinking about a nice big cock? You can’t even count it, can you? So hungry for it. You waited so long.”

Benji whimpered, tears springing to his eyes. He had been waiting. Full of guilty fantasies and half-baked longings. So convinced he’d never get to have it. And now it was here, and it felt so good, and he’d never get to have it again when Noah left, not the way he needed it.

He closed his eyes. Focused on the dildo plunging into him, Noah’s hand under his shirt, pushing into the small of his back.

On the carpet, grinding against his knees, his scraped shoulders, his boxers getting wet in his mouth.

His legs, straining against his jeans, trying to spread wider.

Every sensation was a reminder of how much Noah had him.

Please , he grunted into the makeshift gag. Please, please, please.

“It’s good,” Noah continued. “Isn’t it? Lighting you up inside. All that time wanting a nice, big cock fuck you properly, and nobody gave it to you, huh?”

Benji writhed. How did Noah see him? So easy, so effortless. All this time of being a closed book, and Noah had walked in and started flicking through his pages.

“It’s okay,” Noah soothed. “I know what you need, baby. I’ll give it to you.”

He pulled the dildo out. Before Benji could even whine at the loss, Noah’s cock was slamming in, replacing it.

Benji cried out against the gag. Noah leaned over him, shushing him.

Getting Benji’s knees out from under him, pressing him into the carpet, and fucking him fast and quiet.

Not waiting for Benji to adjust to the biggest thing he’d had inside of him, all the dildos paling in comparison.

He just held him down and fucked inside.

Benji lay there, letting himself be used.

There was no guilt with Noah on top of him.

No stress. There was no room for anything else but Noah.

He wished Noah had fucked him in the movie theater bathroom, had fucked him in the dressing room, had fucked him in the elevator on that first night.

Everything was okay with Noah inside him.

Noah pounded into him, faster and harder than he usually dared.

They had to be quick, Benji realized hazily.

They couldn’t get caught. The smack of Noah driving into him so desperately made him moan into the carpet, drool dripping around the gag.

Noah was taking him so hard, and yet he never felt so treasured.

So desired . Noah’s hand was covering his cock, keeping it from scraping the carpet.

Taking care of him, like he always did. Benji didn’t have to concentrate on anything else. He could just… let go.

He came into Noah’s hand with a muffled yell.

Then he floated. He lost time, distantly aware of Noah kissing his forehead, wiping something over his cock.

His panties were gone when he drifted groggily back into consciousness.

He was lying under his covers on his single bed.

Noah was crammed into the laughable space beside him, fully clothed, almost falling off the mattress.

“Hey,” Noah said, unbearably gentle. “Want some water?”

Benji nodded. Noah pressed a water bottle to his lips that Benji belatedly recognized from his art table, something he’d added after too many accidental sips from his paintbrush mug.

“You kept saying something,” Noah told Benji, wiping water from his lips. “When I was taking the gag off. It sounded pretty urgent.”

Benji frowned. His face flushed as memories trickled back: Noah soothing him as he eased the shirt out of his mouth, Benji trying to make his tongue work. Trying to say Don’t go. To say, keep me.

Noah smiled. “Benjamin? What was it?”

“Nothing,” Benji said. “Forget about it.”