CHAPTER SIXTEEN Benedict

Six Months Ago

" Y ou could come with me," I said. "LA needs trash guys."

"Thanks for that," he replied, adjusting his balls in his boxers. "Always great to be called the trash guy."

"You know what I mean, Rocco. Sanitation coordinator, or whatever."

It was Wednesday. Rocco stayed over on Wednesdays and Sundays. That was his schedule, and what he could give to me. I had the choice to accept it or not—he didn't care either way. He wasn't gay, according to him, and it didn't matter the days as long they fit his days off, and he could get sexual release twice a week.

"I ain't going to LA, baby. I done told you that," he stated, reaching for the remote. "This was temporary for the both of us."

"You said you liked me," I reminded him.

"You had my dick in your mouth, baby. I always say shit like that when getting my nuts drained. Go wash your ass and I'll remind you why you like me so much."

"You're gross," I hissed, staring at him like I was surprised he acted the way he did.

I'd met Rocco one day while slamming down lunch in the alley behind the hospital in between rounds. That was back when I was a third-year resident. Now I was completing a fellowship, inches from the finish line. I was Chief Resident and controlled the schedule for all residents, but I still busted my ass because I wanted to work at one of the best hospitals in LA or New York City.

"I told you we'd fuck till you was done with your fancy doctoring shit, and then if you hadda move, well, goodbye, buddy boy."

"Jesus!" I muttered, stunned I'd allowed myself to think we had a future. "We've been together for nearly three years. I thought you might see me as more than just sex."

"What gave you that impression?" he grunted, turning ESPN on. "Just cuz I fuck you so good, don't mean I wanna be livin' some gay-ass lifestyle, sweet cheeks."

"So?" I asked, lifting my arms from my side, and then dropping them. "That's it? Just like that? In five months we're done?"

"If you move out of New York we is," he confirmed. "What part of I ain't no fag, ain't you understandin'?"

I sat across him, and rested my chin in my hands, staring at a man I'd had my heart set on. He was rough around the edges, the type that turned my crank, and I'd been far too busy to examine what we were, but I had assumed we were something more than weekly hook-ups.

"I love you, Rocco," I whispered. "I can take care of us in California."

He clicked the TV off and slouched back against the distressed leather couch, gazing at me. "I ain't gay. And I can sure as fuck take care of myself. I make a hundred and fifty a year, baby."

"You are gay," I disagreed. "You have to be after all this," I added, waving around the room. "Your stuff is everywhere. We live like a couple."

I come over two nights a week, Tinkerbell. That's it. I ain't livin' here."

I felt tears building in my eyes, breaking down the ice wall I'd developed around my heart. Rocca was my idea in the beginning. A huge, hulking, stud of a man who smiled at me in an alley three years before. I blew him in his truck the next week, and every week after, until I invited him over to my loft.

"You're saying we have nothing? We are nothing?" I asked, almost pleading and ruining what I thought had been a well-crafted, devil-may-care attitude about the two of us.

"Go wash that pussy of yours, and you'll remember what we are to each other, sexy," he growled, eyeing me like I was a tender baby deer on the Serengeti, and he was a leopard. "Nobody fucks your pretty little boy-pussy like me. Now hurry up and shower, baby. I need to catch Sportscenter , and then I'll be in with this."

He opened the slit in his boxers and pulled out his huge dick, slapping it against his bare abdomen. I was too weak to resist. Maybe I could stay in New York instead of LA?

"Okay," I said, standing and heading for the shower.

He waved me off as I walked to the bedroom. He'd give in if I actually moved away. As good as his dick was, my skills were just as good. Yep! He'd be following me wherever I went.