29. Rhys

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Rhys

I lean back against the bar.

It’s slow for a Tuesday night at XO, but I’m not complaining. Instead of serving customers and busting my ass, I’m given the perfect opportunity to watch my baby tease the fuck out of me on the dance floor.

The hurricane came and went, leaving Miami with minimal damage. With the passing of the storm, the relationship Everest and I had has been swept away as well. We weren’t trapped very long, but with his classes canceled for the week, and Davis closing XO for a few days, we were able to spend all our time together. Because of that, the list of things that endear me to him has grown to be a mile long.

I love his laugh. The way he lets out a nasally snort when he thinks something is too hilarious. He’s considerate too, always asking about my preferences and wishes, whether it’s about dinner or what movie we’re going to watch. When he listens, he listens , like nothing else exists besides me. He can be sweet and shy, but turns on that confident slutty monster when we sleep together. More and more now, Everest is growing to be someone I wouldn’t mind spending all my time with.

One thing I’ve resolved myself to do is to knock out every single one of his insecurities. I can’t describe the way I ached when he said all that terrible shit about himself. It hurt almost as much as knowing that he might believe it just because I’ve said it. It might take time, but I think we’ll have more than enough, at least if I have anything to say about it.

I turn my attention back to the man on the dance floor. Everest rolls his hips, his hands in the air as the neon strobe lights bounce off his muscular arms. There’s sweat on his chest, glistening and begging for my tongue. When he catches my eyes, he runs his hands up his thighs, licking his lips as he winks at me. That little fucker is asking for a spanking once we get home. Well, right after I fuck the sense out of him.

“Everest here alone tonight?” Britt asks, suddenly appearing beside me. She’s got a shit-eating grin on her face, but I’m too worked up watching Everest to care.

“He better fucking be,” I say, not bothering to hide my obvious irritation at the thought of him coming with someone else. Sue me for being possessive of someone as hot and amazing as him. He wasn’t originally going to go out tonight, but all I had to do was promise to fuck him in my Superman glasses for him to give in.

“So, Skylar was right?—”

“Skylar was right about what?”

Almost as if out of thin air, the green-haired tiny terror pops up literally between the two of us. “Where did you come from?”

“No, no, no,” he sings, waving a freshly manicured finger at me. “We’re not changing the subject. Are you and Everest boning now? Is Rheverest a thing?”

I hesitate for a moment to consider my next move, and it’s not because of fucking Rheverest . I’m not too sure how to define what Everest and I are yet. I don’t want to rush into labels that can scare both of us off. What we have now is growing to be great, something enjoyable and real. Definitely friends, but more… Still, there’s an itch—a need —to make one thing exceedingly clear.

“He’s mine,” I grunt, crossing my arms over my chest, daring either of them to say something.

Britt’s eyes widen, but it’s Skylar’s reaction that almost has the entire bar turning in our direction.

“Yes!” he screams. Grabbing onto my shoulders, he tries to force me to jump with him. “Bless possessive hotties and their bisexual curiosity!”

“Jesus,” I snort, gently tugging myself away. “You’re kind of creeping me out.”

He shakes his head with a damn near manic laugh. “Don’t care. My wish upon the star came true and now Cass owes me a foot rub.”

Britt scoffs with a roll of her eyes. “As if he wouldn’t if you just asked.”

“It’s more fun this way,” he says with a cheeky smile. “Victory foot rubs just hit differently.”

Ignoring him, Britt turns back to me, but she doesn’t seem as excited as Skylar. “Have you thought this through?”

I wrinkle my nose. “What do you mean?”

“Fucking genius,” she mutters under her breath as she shakes her head. “Elton, dumbass. Have you thought about what your codependent bestie is going to say when he finds out you’re hooking up with his little brother?”

I drop my arms, my throat suddenly dry. It’s not that I haven’t thought of Elton; I’ve just pushed it to the side. He’s still in Valencia for another month, so it’s seemed like such a faraway problem. Like I said, Everest and I are… Well, I don’t know what I would tell Elton besides ‘I really like your brother and not just for his tight ass.’ Until I can come to terms with my own feelings about this, I don’t care to include Elton in the equation, even though that’s always what I’ve done.

I open my mouth to dodge the question until a sexy as fuck voice cuts me off. “Hello, bartender. I’d like it Bareback, please.”

I completely turn away from Britt and Skylar, focusing all my attention on the man on the other side of the bar. Everest is beautifully flushed pink with his hair slightly matted and sweat on his bare chest. Fuck, if that doesn’t do it for me.

“That depends,” I say with a smirk, placing both hands on the bar as I lean toward him, my lips hovering above his so I can smell his pine aftershave. “Do you think you could take it?”

“Get a room,” Britt mutters as she walks away.

Skylar, on the other hand, likes the front-row seat. “You two are so hot. I want to make dirty chibis for the two of you.”

I don’t know what the fuck chibis are, nor do I care, because I’m too overwhelmed with Everest and how fucking delicious he looks right now. Carefree, confident, and sexy as hell. He laces his fingers through mine, cocking his head to the side like a tease. “What if I want that big cock to tear me in half? What if I’m aching for it?”

I bite down hard on my bottom lip, suddenly pissed as hell that I’m working and not locked in my room with him. Unless…

I glance over my shoulder, seeing that Britt and Skylar have the customers handled. There aren’t many to begin with, and I am due for a break…

With lightning speed, I’m biting down on his bottom lip, dragging it between my teeth and letting it go with a pop. “There’s a backroom behind the stage. Be there with your pants around your ankles and your ass out in five minutes.”

His green eyes widen, but there’s excitement flickering in them. He chews the inside of his cheek, glancing around at all the people in the club, and his hands tighten around mine. “Really?”

“What? You scared, baby?” I tease. “I thought you were aching for me.”

“I’m not scared,” he snaps, fiery as hell and turning me on even more. He yanks his hands back with an almost irritated determination. “Five minutes.”

“Five minutes,” I say, blowing him a kiss as he stalks away. I shake my head with a chuckle. “Fucking Everest.” I go to hop over the bar divider but stop short when I realize something. “Shit.”

“Need one of these?”

I can’t find it in me to be mad at Britt, who’s standing in front of me, playfully waving a foil packet in the air. “Why are you carrying around condoms?”

“The question is, why aren’t you?” She goes to hand me the packet but snatches it away quickly with a shit-eating grin. “Hope it’s the right size.”

“Oh, fuck off,” I laugh, yanking it from her hand. “Thanks for looking out.”

“My pleasure, just don’t tell Skylar. He’ll be distracted all shift if he knew you and Everest were about to?—”

“Better left unsaid then,” I joke, kissing her cheek. “Be back in fifteen.”

“Is that really all it takes?”

I flip her off as I leave the back of the bar. Working my way through the crowd of drunk customers, my blood boils with anticipation as I reach the backroom. The only ones that would ever need to come here are Britt, Skylar, and I, so I’m not worried about anybody interrupting what’s about to happen. I open the door just an inch, using my body to block anyone from potentially seeing the glorious sight in front of me.

“ Fuck , baby.”

Everest is perfection. He’s done exactly what I asked of him. He’s leaning against a metal rack we store extra glassware on, his jeans around his ankles, his shirt on the ground, and his back arched in a way that I have the perfect view of him finger-fucking himself.

He looks over his shoulder, green eyes already fogged with helpless lust as he pants. “Rhys. Please …”

I slam the door shut behind me, making sure to lock it before I pounce on him. Spinning him around, I press his back against the rack and claim his mouth. This was just meant to be a quick fuck, but forgive me for being unable to resist his lips. He fumbles with my belt, whimpering as he tries to get my cock free in record time. I chuckle against him. “Eager, Ev?”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” he hisses. “Don’t act like you don’t want to fuck me just as badly.”

As I open my mouth to tease him a bit more, I get taken by surprise when I’m shoved ass-first onto his shirt on the ground. Everest is a big guy—more muscular and bulky than I am—but he’s never used his considerable size and strength against me. It’s…kind of hot, actually. I never thought I’d like being manhandled, but as Everest forces my pants down just enough to get my cock out and climbs on my lap, I realize this is doing it for me.

“Condom,” he grunts as he dives down to leave wet, sloppy kisses on my neck. “Tell me you have a condom.”

Once again, I go to answer him, but the second he sees the condom, he rips it out of my hand and smashes his mouth against mine. It’s all hot and needy, tongue and teeth, a battle for which one of us wants the other more. His hand quickly slides the latex down my length, and I’m too consumed with his tongue fucking into my mouth to notice where he gets the lube he slicks onto me. He lifts his hips up, and it’s a bit awkward since he still has his pants dangling from one ankle, but Everest is nothing if not persistent. Angling my cock against his entrance, in one swift movement, he slams down onto my length.

“Jesus Christ!” I shout, hit with the overwhelming feeling of his heat. My hands latch onto his hips, holding him in place. “Give yourself a second.”

“Fuck you,” he growls, slapping my hands away before bracing his on my shoulders. He starts bouncing on my cock, not giving me a second to recover, causing my head to spin. He must see what he’s doing to me because he nearly cackles like a super villain. “Can’t handle it? Do you need me to slow down for you?”

“Don’t be a brat,” I hiss through gritted teeth. I’m losing the battle to keep any semblance of composure as the curling ball of tension within me grows.

“Don’t you like me bratty?” he taunts. Leaning back, he braces his hands on the floor to give me a perfect view of his muscular figure. His eyes snap shut, head thrown back in pure ecstasy as he chases his relief. “Rhys. Love this cock. You fill me up so well.”

I spit between us and take his dick in my hand. If he keeps on bouncing on me like a porn star, this isn’t going to last long, and I’m determined to leave him as satisfied as he’ll leave me. I start tugging on him roughly, knowing he likes a bit of the dry friction, and I’m rewarded with a guttural groan that breaks the silence of the wet sounds of our fucking.

“No more condoms,” he gasps, whimpering and whining when I speed up my movements. “Get tested. Need— fuck —need your cum inside me.”

I chuckle, letting him run the show for just a bit longer before I’m pushing him back until he’s lying on the ground. I keep myself inside him as I curl around his body and hook his legs over my shoulders. “Does my bratty baby want my cum inside him? You want to feel it dripping out of that pretty hole, Ev?”

“ Yes !”

“God, you’re so hot,” I groan. Using his legs like ‘ oh shit ’ handles to fuck him deeper, I make sure every snap of my hips is deliberate and punishing. “I wish Cass would turn the music down so everyone could hear how fucking dirty you get for me. Would you like that? Having everyone know that once there’s a fat cock in your ass, you’re just a slut for me?”

“I’m gonna come,” he cries, scratching at the ground and trying to claw for anything to hold on to. “I’m?—”

“Come,” I command. Knowing that all it’s going to take is more of Everest’s filthy sounds and tight ass, I’m seconds from exploding. “But not before you tell me who owns this. This hole. This cock. You . Who do you belong to, baby? Let me hear it.”

“Fuck! Rhys, Rhys, Rhys !”

And it’s with my name like a chant on his lips that he comes. I don’t even care that he’s covering my shirt with his release, jetting out of him like a goddamn firehose. The sight of him squirming on the ground and begging me to fuck him through it is enough for me to let go. I come with a shout, holding myself inside him as everything in my body trembles with relief.

I slump over him in an exhausted mess, dropping kiss after kiss to his exposed shoulder, trying to soothe his shudders. After a moment, I pry apart our sweat-slicked bodies so I can push his matted hair away from his forehead. “You good?”

“Wrecked,” he mumbles, but with a sleepy and hazy smile on his lips. “I was serious about getting tested. I don’t want anything between us anymore.”

He looks a little shy admitting this, and I laugh. Not at him, but at the way he can be such a sex-crazed monster one second and then bashful the next. I help him sit up, dragging him onto my lap as I wrap my arms around his waist. “I want that too, baby.”

“I should get up. I’m guessing you need to get back to work?” he asks, nuzzling his face in the crook of my neck and making no move to do what he suggested.

I nod. “Are you going to go home?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he says. “Probably going to pass out as soon as I get there.”

Working my jaw over, I hold on to him as I think through my next words. It might not be the smartest thing to say—fuck, I don’t even know what smart is anymore. All I know is what I want burns through me so fiercely that I don’t think anything could stop me. “Go to my room.”

He pulls back with an adorably confused wrinkle in his brow. “What?”

“Sleep in my room,” I continue, a ball lodged in my throat as I watch his face transform from confusion to shock. “I’ll join you as soon as I get home.”

“Oh, okay,” he mumbles, almost uncertainly. “You sure?”

Do I want Everest in my bed? Absolutely. Do I want him there when we’re doing nothing more than sleeping side by side, wrapped in each other’s arms, knowing we’ll wake up to be the first thing the other sees in the morning? The answer to that question knocks me onto my ass.

Fuck yeah, I do.

“Yeah,” I tell him confidently, kissing his cheek. “It’s no big deal.”

But the significance of it doesn’t go over my head. We said friends . I didn’t want to label it anything else—I still won’t—but I don’t want him anywhere besides with me. Whatever we are consumes me like the weathering of rocks, carving itself into the side of the Earth by sheer will and strength. I’m trapped underneath the hardened surface, not sure if I want to crack through or not, knowing what it feels like to be overcome.

We don’t say anything else as we quickly get dressed. Britt pretends to not know what we were doing when I walk Everest to his ride, but Skylar nearly spills a drink on a customer when he sees our rumpled state. I wait with Everest outside, smoking a cigarette and holding his hand, and kiss him goodbye when he leaves.

And when I come home that night and find him naked and asleep in my bed, I get undressed and crawl in beside him. I don’t actively do it, but my hands find his hips so his warm chest meets mine. Even exhausted, I’m wide awake, listening to the steady beat of his heart and the way my whispered name leaves his lips when I kiss his cheek.

I know, no matter how hard I try to deny it, that I wouldn’t want it any other way.