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“But something tells me you’ve called loads of people that. Fuckin’ bottom brat like you’s used to those. They don’t mean shit to you.”

“Fu-fuckin’ Firecrotch,” Malcolm grunts.

“No. You’ve given everyone here shitty nicknames all night. When I make you come this time, you’re gonna say my fuckin’ name .”

“Fuck y—hah!”

Rowan wraps his free hand around the base of Malcolm’s cock, tight enough to stave off the orgasm he can sense building from the rippling of his walls.

“It’s Rowan . That’s the only thing that’s gonna let you come on my cock tonight.”

He strokes Malcolm but keeps his grip tight, right to the edge of what he knows is painful.

“I can feel how fuckin’ close you are. Cock dripping over my fingers. Slutty ass tightening around me. Didn’t think you’d still be able to clench after all the cock you took tonight.”

“Fuck me, si—”

Breathy, but monotone.

And while the instant switch from cursing him out to near begging is insanely hot, it’s not what Rowan wants. Judging by the lungfuls of air Malcolm is gulping down as Rowan slows his hips more, angling up to brush against his prostate, not what he wants either.

“Name’s not sir.”

“M—”

Rowan grips him tighter around the base, stills his hips to a torturously slow crawl.

“I said no . My name or I pass you off to one’a these fuckin’ pussies and let them try to make you come.”

It’s a bluff. A boldfaced lie. Rowan doesn’t trust any of these people to treat Malcolm as well as he knows he can, as well as he already has tonight, and they’ve hardly exchanged any words in the mere hours they’ve known each other.

But the threat is enough.

Malcolm’s voice is low, barely audible over the pants and groans and slick sounds of men jerking off around them. If his head wasn’t dipped back onto Rowan’s shoulder, Rowan might have missed it altogether.

But it’s there.

He hears it.

“ Rowan ….”

A tiny rasp of a thing, whispered in one single syllable rather than two. And God if it isn’t the hottest fucking thing he’s heard in his life.

“Again.”

Rowan speeds up his hips, loosens his grip on Malcolm’s cock and pumps him in time with his thrusts, angling up to hit his prostate on every stroke.

His name comes easier this time. Louder. Breathier. Properly, with two syllables.

“Rowan.”

He pistons into Malcolm, driving his full length into Malcolm’s ass hard enough to bruise his cheeks and Rowan’s hips alike. The cock in his hand twitches as he strokes and twists and flicks his fingers over the tip.

“That’s it. Again.”

“Rowan, please —”

He thought it’d be harder to get him begging, whimpering his name in pure desperation, but really, it wasn’t difficult at all. Like he’d been waiting for someone to make him do it. Doesn’t beg for anyone, my ass, Rowan thinks.

Everything is a blur, all of Rowan’s senses going into overdrive as he gives everything he has to the man in front of him. He can feel him shaking, vibrating under his ministrations, muscles taut like a bowstring poised to snap the second it’s touched the right way.

“Once more. Then you can come.”

That way.

“Rowan!” Malcolm cries out, voice hoarse but the name loud and clear on his lips, body quaking through the orgasm that Rowan can feel as sinuous pulses around his cock and sticky wetness in his hand.

He’s so good for him, perfect , and Rowan fucks him through it, echoes of his name dripping from his lips like a chanted prayer.

The pure ferality of Malcolm, the god of the Menagerie, moaning out Rowan’s name in front of a room full of men he had reduced to base physical characteristics rips Rowan’s own orgasm from him. He spills inside Malcolm hard, come mixing with the release of nine other men.

“Fuck yeah,” someone calls out. “Put ’im in his place.”

“Such a good fuckin’ slut.”

“Gonna jerk off to that for weeks.”

Echoes of the same sentiment come from all around them, along with groans and grunts as more men finish. In his periphery, Rowan can see their come splattering onto the bed, but he couldn’t care less about it when Malcolm slumps against him, back heaving against Rowan’s chest, slick with sweat.

He rocks his hips gently against Malcolm and strokes him through the aftershocks of his orgasm, conscious of not hurting him in case he’s oversensitive. And Christ, he must be after having been fucked almost nonstop for hours.

The crowd starts to clear as the men leave one by one to clean themselves off and re-dress, chatting excitedly, until it’s only Rowan and Malcolm left on the bed.

“Did so good,” Rowan whispers low in his ear. “So perfect. God, you’re incredible.”

It might be a little much, but he means it. And shit, Malcolm never discussed aftercare, but he must need something , so Rowan talks to him in a low voice about how good he was and how Rowan can’t believe he’s real and pets over his chest and arms and sides until Malcolm stops shaking and his breathing slows. Only then does he pull out, a gush of come following and dripping down the backs of Malcolm’s thighs.

This is definitely the end of the night, but Rowan wishes he could keep going. Keep being inside Malcolm and making him come on his tongue and fingers and cock over and over until he’s worn him out this much all on his own.

He hopes he’ll get to try. Hopes he wasn’t imagining their connection. Their chemistry .

Because there’s something there, right? You can fake a lot of stuff during sex, even if you’re a guy with a dick, but you can’t fake everything. Not blown pupils or dripping sweat or full-body shudders or any of the dozens of miniscule facial expressions Malcolm made while Rowan was touching him.

But he doesn’t get to dwell on it any longer, Malcolm slumping onto his knees, still partially leaning back against Rowan’s hips and thighs. Rowan places a steadying hand on his upper back and shuffles around on his knees to look at him. His eyes are closed, nostrils flaring slightly as he breathes. Rowan watches his chest rise and fall, counts his breaths, notes his fingertips flexing where they’re pressed flat onto the soiled bed.

“You okay?” he asks gently.

Malcolm nods with his eyes still closed, then clears his throat. He blinks up at Rowan, the gold catching him off guard as Malcolm’s pupils shrink in the light and make something stir in Rowan’s rib cage.

“’M good, man.”

Rowan watches him for a few seconds more, trying to gauge whether he’s actually okay or not. He watches Malcolm’s abs flex as he reaches his arms above his head in a stretch, the popping of his spine audible even over the chatter of the men and the shuffling of their clothes as they dress.

There’s nothing to suggest he isn’t okay, at least not right this second, so Rowan rolls off the bed, wincing at the mess he picks up along the way, and crosses the room to the supply table. He grabs a bottle of water from the fridge as well as two washcloths, wets one in the sink and tucks both under his arm when someone slaps him on the back.

Startled, he whips around to find Leg Day grinning at him.

“You were so hot out there, dude.”

Out there , like they had a pickup game of basketball rather than a fucking gangbang.

“Uh, thanks?”

“Any chance you wanna meet up next time you come? I’d love to try that thing out for myself,” he says, flicking his eyes to Rowan’s still very exposed dick.

He’s hot. He is, even with his skinny legs and the frat boy thing he’s got going on, and Rowan wants to kick himself for what he’s about to say, but he’s gonna say it anyway.

“I’m not really lookin’ for anything right now.”

The guy laughs. “It doesn’t have to be anything serious, dude. No one comes here looking for the love of their life.”

Rowan’s eyes wander over to the bed, to where Malcolm is now sitting up straighter and stretching his neck from side to side. He said he didn’t want anything serious, but really, the guy talking to him isn’t who he wants. Rowan watched him all night, watched everyone all night, some more than others, inevitably, but no one as much as Malcolm. God, how could he? That would be like going to some museum and looking at the pedestals instead of the sculptures or the frames instead of the paintings. It wouldn’t make sense.

And when Malcolm’s gaze sweeps the room and lands on Rowan’s before snapping away, he can’t help but wonder again if the feeling is mutual.

“Sorry,” he finally says.

He barely registers the guy leaving, only catching the tail end of his “Whatever, dude,” when he sees the Van Damme look-alike approach the bed, hover, say something to Malcolm. The little pang Rowan felt earlier in his chest migrates to his stomach, barely more noticeable than a mosquito bite, but there and persistent and making Rowan pay attention. Malcolm shakes his head, and the other man leaves with the start of a scowl on his face.

What…? Had he been propositioned the same way Rowan had and turned the guy down?

The wetness seeping into his skin from the washcloths he’d tucked under his arm snaps him back to his senses and reminds him of why he came over here in the first place. Shaking his head at himself, he discards one of the washcloths, now both damp, and grabs a dry one before returning to the bed.

“Here,” Rowan says, cracks open the seal on the bottle of water and hands it to Malcolm.

The other man looks at him with wide eyes, slightly parted lips. Like Rowan handed him a bar of gold he’d mined and smelted himself rather than a bottle of water he’d gotten from the mini fridge a few feet away.

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

Rowan can’t help but watch the pretty bob of his throat as he chugs nearly the entire bottle. When he’s finished, Rowan hands him the washcloths. Normally, he’d do it himself—clean up his mess, so to speak—but Malcolm is still a stranger, even if he’d been filled with Rowan in more ways than one, and that’s something that some people find too personal.

He gets the same incredulous look as before, but Malcolm takes the washcloths from him and wipes his face, Rowan turning to get another bottle of water to give him some semblance of privacy as he starts wiping down the rest of himself. When he returns, Malcolm seems to be finished, pulling on his briefs straight from the floor with little finesse.

“Do you need anything?” Rowan asks, handing him the other water bottle. “I mean, aftercare-wise?”

He takes the water with a nod and replies, “’M good.”

Rowan waits a beat, eyeing him again to make sure he actually is okay after such an intense session. But the other man doesn’t give him any indication that he needs or wants anything else from him.

That’s that, then.

The swell of disappointment in Rowan’s chest at Malcolm’s silent brush-off stings more than he cares to admit. He’d hoped that he’d done enough to get his attention—made an impression worthy of a second go and maybe more after that.

But he lets it go. Maybe Malcolm really is as hard to please as everyone said he was. And maybe the orgasms Rowan had fucked out of him were plain old Tuesday night lazy jerk-off orgasms rather than the mind-blowing experiences he’d thought they might have been.

Defeated, he gets his own bottle of water and washcloth, wipes off his junk quickly before tossing the cloth into the hamper and finding his pile of clothes. He pulls on his briefs, then downs half of his water, surprised at how thirsty he is after a couple of hours of on-and-off exertion.

He’s pulling on his button-up shirt over his tank top when he hears Malcolm’s voice from across the room.

“Ay, Shirley Temple.”

Rowan’s head snaps up as Malcolm calls out to the twinky blond guy who fucked him fourth, maybe fifth. Utterly forgettable. Nothing impressive by any account.

“Me?” the guy asks. Timid. Weak.

“Yeah, you. C’mere. You lookin’ for a sub?”

The blood in Rowan’s veins boils. Malcolm would eat that man alive and not get a damn thing out of it.

“Uh, I mean….” The guy’s gaze flicks to Rowan—barely ten feet away, watching the exchange like a hawk—like even he knows that he shouldn’t be the one Malcolm is talking to right now.

And Rowan wants to respect his decision. He does, honestly. Wants to be the bigger person and not be a possessive fucking creep , especially over a literal stranger, especially when he’d already resigned himself to this being a one-night stand bang, but there’s no way in hell that kid rocked Malcolm’s world enough for a repeat.

The words tumble out of Rowan’s mouth before he can think better of it. “No fuckin’ way.”

Both men snap their attention to him, Malcolm looking curious, maybe a little smug even, and the other man wide-eyed and jumpy. Scared.

Rowan stalks up to Malcolm, using every inch of his height advantage and gazing down at him. The smirk on Malcolm’s lips widens.

“’Scuse me?”

“No fucking way did that kid impress you more than me.”

“That so? What makes you say that?”

“The fact that you refused to blow anyone while my spit was in your mouth. The fact that you came super fuckin’ hard on my dick. Twice . The fact that you know my name and you’re still callin’ him Shirley Temple.”

“Maybe I’m lookin’ for someone a little less rough.”

Rowan stares at him.

I like it rough, so don’t hold back.

He searches his eyes and finds nothing readable in the steely gold, somehow so different from a few minutes ago when they’d locked eyes on the bed. He takes a steadying deep breath.

“If that’s actually true, then fine, I’ll leave. But I highly fuckin’ doubt it.”

Malcolm’s eyes flash. “Good.”

Rowan’s eyebrows knit together, but he can still feel the heat in his own eyes. “Good?”

“Wanted to see if you’d fight for me. Fuck off, Shirley Temple.”

The man turns and all but runs out of the room.

“A fuckin’ test?”

“And you passed with flyin’ colors.”

It’s not the best way to start off any kind of a relationship, sexual or otherwise. And Rowan could be mad about it—he probably should be—but he finds that he really doesn’t want to be.

“Pretty shit test,” he muses instead, feeling the surge of angry heat dissipate. “You wanted to really test me, shoulda picked that guy who looked like Dwayne Johnson or someone I couldn’t fight in my sleep.”

Malcolm laughs, a short, clipped thing that sounds like he doesn’t do it very often, and Rowan instantly wants to hear it again.

“So, Rowan , you lookin’ for a sub?”

And that’s the thing.

Until a few hours ago, he wasn’t. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind as a possibility. He was only looking for a way to blow off some steam, feel good about himself while he was feeling good. But now that Malcolm has brought it up as a possibility, a for-real possibility and not a fantasy rattling around in Rowan’s brain, the idea of this being a regular thing between them is utterly tantalizing.

But if they’re going to do this, he should be honest with him. Rowan’s never been a true Dom in his life. He’s always taken the lead in his sexual relationships, both long-term and one-night stands, and he’s had kinky sex more often than vanilla in all of those. But a casual, purely sexual relationship with a stranger entirely about satisfying specific needs?

That’s new. That’s different .

And he wants it, but only if Malcolm is okay with Rowan being fairly new to the game.

He’s apparently been silent for too long, having been lost in his thoughts.

“Well? Yes or no, tough guy?”

“I’ve uh… never really done it in an official capacity before.”

Malcolm laughs and rubs a hand across his mouth. “Ain’t like you need a license to rail me, man.”

Rowan feels his cheeks flame but manages to hold on to a scrap of dignity and roll his eyes for good measure. “No shit. I just meant most of this is new to me, at least outside of relationships and hookups. Y’know, in case you wanted someone more experienced.”

Malcolm curls his lips under his teeth. Looks at Rowan like he’s sizing him up. He takes a slow, steady breath, and Rowan’s worried he’s going to tell him to fuck off after his admission. But instead, he surprises him, speaking earnestly.

“You seemed to know what you were doin’. You respected my boundaries and had the foresight to know you’d need to stop if I called you ‘Red.’ You helped me come down at the end, which doesn’t usually happen in group scenes unless I ask someone ahead of time. And you could gauge what I wanted in one session in a room full’a people—that’s pretty fuckin’ rare. All that tells me you’re experienced enough. The rest is just logistics.”

Despite the sexual nature of his words, the sincerity in Malcolm’s voice and eyes sends a tingling warmth through Rowan’s core, and he can’t help the smile that forms on his lips.

“Okay. Then yeah, let’s do this, Malcolm.”

The other man winces. “Mal.”

“What?”

“That’s my name, Red. Hate it when people call me Malcolm. Pretentious as fuck.”

“But why—”

“You think people’re gonna line up around the block to fuck a guy named Mal ?”

Rowan shrugs. “If they knew how tight your ass was, then yeah, probably.”

Malcolm— Mal —smirks. “Yeah. You’re gonna work out fine.”