Chapter 5Helio

5

Helio

H elio should have known better.

He did know better.

He knew enough to stay inside the villa tonight; that was for certain.

He’d known what he was going to find if he ventured outside, and he’d known exactly what that was going to do to his self-control.

He’d known, and he’d stepped onto the beach anyway.

And he’d found exactly what he’d known he was going to find—a naked Benny, standing on the sand at the ocean’s edge, the pale slices of skin on his buttocks that the sun hadn’t been able to reach practically glowing in the moonlight.

Clearly he hadn’t been tanning naked yet. (Which Helio already knew because Helio watched him like a hawk every second of every day, unable to bring himself to do anything else.)

Benny twisted at the waist to greet him with a grin. “Hey! You coming swimming tonight?”

Helio didn’t answer.

And Benny, as usual, was unfazed by his silence. He just turned back to face the ocean with a happy sigh. “It looks so beautiful tonight, doesn’t it? And it’s the perfect temperature.”

Of course it’s beautiful and perfect, you gorgeous idiot! Helio wanted to shout. You’re in the fae realm. You’ve been kidnapped to the fae realm, and you’re too good-natured to notice, and it’s driving me insane.

Oblivious as always, Benny was already wading into the water. As soon as it was up to his knees, he dove in fully, his muscled arms slicing through it with lazy strokes.

Helio watched him for a long while. Too long, really. Long enough to catch more than a few glimpses of Benny’s soft cock in the moonlight.

Eventually—as if sensing what would drive Helio mad the fastest—Benny turned to float on his back in the water, displaying that substantial cock to its fullest, uncaring of his nudity.

“This is heaven!” he called out.

He wasn’t put out by Helio not joining him. He didn’t hold a grudge about being left alone. It had been part of what had been so enticing about him, back at the bar in Miami. He’d been handsome, sure, but so had many of the men that night. It had been more about the way Benny had carried himself. Friendly but also…distanced, in some genial way. Twink after twink had been throwing themselves at him—one of them quite literally—and he hadn’t so much as noticed. He’d been friendly to everyone but partial to none, happy in his own world.

As he was happy in Helio’s.

It was completely foreign to Helio. Everything with the fae was subtle barbs and calculations—how much one could take from another without giving anything away in turn. Half-truths and secret bargains and lying by omission.

But Benny said exactly what he meant and meant exactly what he said. Always.

He’d be happy to have Helio join him in the water, and he meant that with uncomplicated sincerity. Just as he’d be happy to have Helio touch him. He’d be pleased and grateful, and he wouldn’t hold either of those emotions back for fear of them being used against him.

Benny went back to swimming back and forth in front of Helio, giving him glimpses of those beautiful buttocks again in replacement of that beautiful cock.

Fuck it. Who was Helio fooling with his resistance? There was no one here but Benny, and what did Benny care for Helio’s pride?

Helio stripped his clothes off and stepped into the water.

As he went deeper and made his presence known, Benny stopped midstroke, standing upright, the water chest-deep on him. “You’re swimming with me?” he asked with obvious delight. “Awesome!”

The moon was full—it was always full here, not that Benny had noticed—and the simple pleasure on his face was clear as day.

As was the lustful look as his eyes dipped below the water. “Are you…naked?” Benny licked his lips—as unsubtle as he could possibly be—then pulled his gaze back up to Helio’s face with obvious difficulty. “Awesome,” he repeated, a bit quieter this time.

“Come here, Benny,” Helio commanded, his voice soft.

Benny stepped closer in the water, staying just out of arm’s reach in a move that could have been deliberately tantalizing but was most likely completely innocent. Respecting Helio’s space.

“Repeat what you told me earlier.”

Benny’s brow furrowed. “Um…the water’s beautiful tonight?”

Helio scoffed. “Before that. What you told me earlier today.”

“Oh. Um…” Benny’s eyes widened in realization. “ Oh . That if you wanted an arrangement, I’d be down with that.”

“And you’d be…,” Helio prompted, needing to hear it again.

“Grateful,” Benny finished for him with enthusiasm. He smiled happily. “Yeah, I’d owe you one. I already owe you everything, man.”

It was too much. Helio shut his eyes, trying to rein in the surge of want those words brought up. “That’s enough,” he bit out, his voice rougher than it should have been. “Come here , Benny.”

As soon as Benny was close enough, Helio grabbed him by the backs of the thighs, wrapping Benny’s legs around his waist. Benny hooked his arms obediently around Helio’s neck, and Helio let out a sigh of relief at the contact.

Benny’s skin was soft against his in the water, his cock already hardening, his bottom sliding against Helio’s own length, which had filled rapidly at Benny’s insistence on “owing him everything.”

It felt…perfect. Right. Why shouldn’t Helio touch Benny? Benny was his, chained to Helio by multiple unwitting bargains. His to torment or plunder. It was Helio’s choice. It always had been. He’d let himself forget.

He wouldn’t let himself forget again.

“Is this okay?” Benny asked. “I’m pretty heavy.”

Helio tsked. “It’s salt water, Benny. You weigh nothing at the moment.” Not that it would matter if he did, considering Helio’s substantial fae strength.

“Oh. Right.” Benny grinned at him sheepishly, squirming in his arms, his cock rubbing against Helio’s stomach. “Also, I’m probably gonna come, like, super fast, if you touch me. You’re really hot. And I’ve been…” He trailed off.

“Horny,” Helio finished for him.

Benny nodded seriously. “Yeah. Really horny.”

“Poor baby,” Helio crooned, releasing his hold on Benny’s hips to caress his face, pleased beyond measure when Benny kept his legs wrapped tightly around him. “Have you been yearning for my touch?”

“Yeah.” Benny nodded again. “That’s a good word. Yearning .”

“And what will you give me?” Helio asked, unable to help himself. His hands found their way back down to those pale globes that had been tormenting him, squeezing hard. “To put a stop to it.”

“I don’t have much,” Benny told him with a gasp, beginning to move his hips in Helio’s hold, rutting in earnest.

Helio clamped his hands tighter, halting his movement. “Your devotion?” he asked.

“Sure,” Benny said on a sigh. So easy. So giving.

“Your loyalty?” Helio pressed.

“Yeah, man.”

“Your heart?”

And why would Helio ask for that? The one thing that couldn’t be tricked out of a human in a bargain. The one thing that had to be given willingly.

But Benny was always willing, wasn’t he?

As this very moment demonstrated, since Benny wasn’t scared off by Helio’s demands the way he should have been. He just tucked his head against Helio’s neck, murmuring, “You’re so intense. It’s really hot, actually.”

Helio loosened his hold on Benny’s ass, letting Benny move as he would. He slid against Helio again and again, his movements fluid in the seawater. There was no finesse, no seduction. Just fervent, feverish rutting.

But still, this was it. This was what Helio should have been doing this whole time. Trapping Benny in his realm had been easy. Child’s play, really. But taking him in body as well as spirit? That was what had been missing from this arrangement.

Helio had been wasting his time lurking when he could have been possessing.

He pressed Benny’s head to his neck and facilitated his rutting, murmuring encouragements in his ear. “There you are, my pet. That’s it.”

The night rang out with Benny’s soft grunts and low moans. And then Benny was shuddering in his arms, his release coating Helio’s stomach only briefly before being washed away by the water.

Benny lifted his head from the crook of Helio’s neck, his eyes heavy-lidded with satisfaction. “Hey. Your skin kind of sparkles in the moonlight. Did you know that?”

Helio cursed to himself, fortifying his glamour. Now was not the time to get careless. “That orgasm went to your head,” he chastised.

Benny only hummed, then glanced down. “What about you though? Don’t you want to come?”

Helio let out a harsh breath, speaking before he knew it. “Benny, what if I told you that you were trapped here? That I have no intention of letting you go.”

Benny cocked his head, looking for all the world like a confused puppy. “But I like it here. This has been the best summer ever.” He grinned, his hips pulsing slightly. “Even better now. Although—” His brow furrowed, and his gyrating stopped. “I do have to go back home eventually. Check in with the fam, you know?”

Helio gritted his teeth. “And what if I said I wouldn’t let you go? Not ever.”

Benny met his eyes fully then, and the force of his gaze was surprisingly powerful. Like he wasn’t just seeing Helio for what he was but seeing through him. When he finally spoke, the words cut like glass, for all that the delivery was gentle. “I don’t think you’d really do that,” he said slowly. “You’re not cruel, Helio. A little lonely and possessive, maybe.”

Helio shut his eyes tight, wondering if when he opened them, Benny would have disappeared. A figment of Helio’s imagination. A fever dream.

But he was still there a moment later.

“You’re maddening,” Helio hissed.

“Maybe you’d feel better if you came,” Benny told him sedately. “Want me to jerk you off?”

“No.” Helio started gliding out of the water, still carrying Benny. He didn’t need the buoyancy of salt water to keep him in his hold. He was fae, damn it. “I’m going to fuck you now, Benny. Because I’m lonely and possessive and you’re mine.”

“Okay.” Benny wound his arms tighter around Helio’s neck. “Whatever you want, babe.”

For fuck’s sake.

This human was going to be the death of him.