Chapter 9

NINE

ROWE

How was real life more unbelievable than any lie I’d dreamed up as Sterling Chase?

I’d confessed who I was to Bash, put all my cards on the table. This should have been the sad end of the movie—the scene where he kicked me out of his suite, leaving me to wander the streets alone in a bleak montage while Adele’s “Someone Like You” played in the background.

Instead, he was carrying me to his bed like the hero in a rom-com—or a fairy-tale prince—growling erotic promises in my ear that made my dick leak as it pressed against the front of my jeans.

One of us had clearly gotten our lines wrong, but I wasn’t going to question it. In fact, I wished this was a movie so I could rewatch it all later when my mind inevitably tricked me into believing it had never happened in the first place.

No, really, Rowe… you did once go to New York City and have wild, passionate sex with a rich beefcake. Here’s the video to prove it.

Was it possible to wear out digital video from rewatching it too often?

“You look like you’re scheming,” Bash said, clearly holding back a laugh as he placed me on the bed. His heated gaze roamed my body, stealing all logical thought from my brain. “There’s no need. I’m a sure thing, I promise.”

I kicked off my shoes while his hands returned to finish unbuttoning my shirt. I shoved them away and tackled the buttons faster than he ever could. “You do you. Me do me.”

He laughed, deep and easy, and it lit up his face—as if he needed to become more attractive. “You going to watch me, caveman?”

I scrambled up onto my knees and faced him, pulling my shirt off as if I was a brave Lothario who’d done this many, many times. “Yes. Me watch. Me like.”

Bash’s eyes roamed over my naked skin, and somehow, impossibly, something about my pale, scrawny chest made his eyes go dark with need. “Me like more.”

My nipples tightened, and air became harder to drag into my lungs.

“Bash,” I said almost under my breath. “Take off your clothes. Please ?”

My whispered plea flipped a switch in him, but instead of hurrying, he began to move in a kind of sultry slow motion, removing his clothes one stitch at a time with a liquid rhythm that made me salivate.

“Wha… what’re you doing?” I breathed.

“You wanted me to remove my clothes, correct? I’m removing them. Thoroughly.”

Bash’s fake-innocent act was like a stroke to my already hard dick. I let out a noise of need and idly wondered how long a man could go without blinking before it became a risk to his eyesight. Because I needed my eyesight very, very badly, if only for this one night.

His abs contracted and stretched as his hips moved to a slow, relentless beat only he could hear. Meanwhile, my own heart pounded frantically, shuttling all of my blood south, and I was so busy watching the play of his muscles as he caressed his own chest that I forgot to take off my damned clothes.

“Pants off, Prince,” he reminded me with a smirk. “You do you, me do me, remember?”

Right. Shit . I had one job.

I attempted to yank down my pants but forgot I hadn’t unbuttoned them. When I remembered, I found the mechanics of unbuttoning way too complex for my trembling fingers. I ended up with my pants around my hips, trapped in a pathetic heap of desperation on the pristine bedding, my eyes still glued to Bash’s hypnotic movements.

“I… I think I changed my mind,” I panted. “ You should do me.”

Bash laughed, and without missing a beat, he shucked the rest of his clothing. He yanked me to the edge of the bed and got my pants and underwear off in one smooth movement.

“You’re so good at unbuttoning,” I said reverently.

Bash laughed again and pushed me back on the crisp duvet, then climbed on the bed, holding himself directly over me like he was performing the world’s sexiest push-up. “Jesus. I swear, I’ve laughed more in the past twenty-four hours than I have in… months . Who knew laughter was so damn sexy?” He leaned forward and kissed me, pressing the entire hot length of his body against mine.

My brain was overloaded, overwhelmed by sensation. I tried to focus on all that was happening—every single place our skin touched, every tiny, growly sound that emerged from his throat, the perfect taste and texture of his tongue as it tangled with mine. There was no room in my mind for the niggling thoughts and worries that kept trying to surface—like Crap, has there been a horrible mistake? Surely a guy like Bash cannot be fucking Linden, Indiana’s shortest and least remarkable gay man on purpose .—so I let my doubts go and focused on the opportunity right… on top of me.

Bash’s warmth covered me from head to toe, and my hands couldn’t get enough of him. They roamed over his back and shoulders hungrily while my lips mapped his throat and chest. He sucked on my earlobe and tugged it between his teeth while his hard cock dug into my upper thigh.

It was so much sensory input I realized I was making whimpering noises while trying to take it all in. But one thought emerged insistently: I wanted to see his cock. I wanted to feel its weight on my tongue and see his face when I sucked on the tip.

“Suck you,” I gasped, falling back into the brain-dead one-syllable words from earlier.

Bash seemed to be totally on board with this. He flipped us over so that he was lying on his back while I was draped on top of him like a blanket. As delightful as it was to have him as my personal mattress, his erection pushing insistently against my leg reminded me of my quest, and I quickly moved down to kneel between his thighs and surveyed the terrain.

God , that was some good terrain. The best.

My new favorite kind of terrain, if I had to select one.

I glanced up at him and wondered how I could obsess over his package without seeming creepy. The look on Bash’s face was intense enough to zap me right in the chest.

“Good enough?” he asked in a rough voice.

“It’ll do,” I said, sounding not at all cool.

I leaned closer and breathed him in, closing my eyes in pleasure and relief. He smelled so good, felt so good, and was about to taste amazing.

“You’re driving me batshit,” Bash gritted out. “Christ , Rowe.”

“Am I?”

My breath against his skin made his dick jump in a very satisfying way. Well, satisfying for me, at least. Bash let out a frustrated groan and shifted his head on the pillow.

His big hand reached down to thread into my curls, tugging gently, but the words he spoke were not gentle at all. “If you don’t put your hand or your mouth on me in the next five seconds, I’m going to have to find someone who will.”

Bash’s deep rumble made me light-headed, even as his words made me want to laugh out loud.

I leaned in and ran the tip of my tongue over the soft warmth of his cockhead. My eyes were still locked on his, and it took me a second to notice he’d started running his fingers through my hair, carding them over my scalp. Goose bumps prickled on my skin.

“You’re fucking beautiful like this,” he murmured.

I felt the truth and conviction of his words deep in my gut. This wasn’t some kind of joke or payback or even simple convenience. He was really here for me, with me. He wanted me .

I wrapped my tongue around him, savoring the taste and the weight of it, the aliveness of it. The sounds of his irregular breathing and grunts of pleasure spurred me on until I was slurping and gagging like some of the men I’d seen in videos online. Holy shit, I’d been missing out all these years.

Or maybe not. Maybe it was only this good because it was Bash .

“That’s it,” he ground out. “Fuck, Rowe. Fuck . Don’t tell me you haven’t done this before.”

I blinked up at him, my wet lashes sticking together. Before I could move off him enough to speak, he brushed his giant palm along my cheek. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous. Get up here.”

He pulled me back on top of him until our mouths crashed together in a hungry series of deep kisses. “Haven’t,” I heaved between kisses. “Haven’t done it. Promise.”

“Shh. ‘S’okay. C’mere. More.” Now who was the caveman? Hearing how affected he was by this, by me , was heady. It made me want to do whatever I could to drive him even crazier.

Bash’s hands gripped my ass and squeezed roughly, making my dick painfully hard. I arched into his belly with a whine, seeking friction. I wasn’t exactly sure what was supposed to come next, but I knew it needed to include an orgasm. Preferably quickly.

He hooked a muscular leg behind mine and pulled it, rolling us both over until he was on top of me again. He ground his cock into my hip and reached down to stroke me with his large fist.

“Bash,” I croaked. “Want to come. Make me come.”

His hand moved down to my balls before one of his fingers brushed behind them and across the tender skin of my hole. The needy sound I made would have been humiliating if I’d still given any fucks at that point.

“So empty there, isn’t it? Poor Rowe. Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll fix that.”

He knelt up and spat into his hand before gripping my cock again and sucking on the middle finger of his other hand. When he slid the finger inside of me and jacked me at the same time, I untethered from Earth completely and flew straight into the stars. Hot fluid landed across my chest and belly as I arched up and cried out.

The orgasm was as different from anything I’d experienced before as… well, as Linden was from New York. Rather than a simple release, it felt like my entire mind had separated from my body, leaving me loose-limbed and euphoric.

In a dim part of my brain, I wondered if I’d inadvertently unlocked a happy whore from inside of myself who would wander the world from here on out in search of greater and more mind-melting orgasms now that I knew what was possible.

Bash released his hold on me to shuttle his fist over his own cock while hungrily eating me up with his eyes. His gaze flicked from the jizz splattered across my skin to the little tattoo on my hip to the patchy flush that surely mottled the skin of my chest and neck to the glassy eyes I probably blinked at him dreamily. I couldn’t imagine any of that was particularly sexy, but the total picture seemed to be working for him. His breath went choppy, his fist flew faster, and my breath caught at the pure want written on his face.

I reached out to run my fingers over the tight skin of his balls, and that was it.

When his release hit, the view was enough to perk my dick up again in a pathetic attempt to get back in the game. Bash barked out a curse, the tendons in his neck stark and the look in his eyes wild. The rhythm of his pumps faltered as his cock erupted all over me, mixing with what was already there—physical proof that the dirtiest, sexiest interaction I’d ever imagined had actually happened .

“Fuck,” I breathed, trailing my fingers through the combined fluid. “Oh my god.”

Bash hovered above me, and his eyes met mine for a long beat while the air around us seemed to pulse with… something. Attraction. Pleasure. Connection .

It was enough to make me wish I could erase the past couple of days and be honest with him from the start. Enough to make me wish I could actually be Sterling Chase, just so I could have the possibility of a future with a man like Bash.

“Already scheming again?” Bash accused fondly. He flopped down on the bed beside me, still breathless, eyes closed.

Could you scheme about telling the truth? I didn’t think so.

“No scheming. I… I like you,” I blurted.

He chuckled. “Believe it or not, I figured that out, sweetheart. Somewhere between ‘want to come’ and ‘oh my god.’” He smirked. “I like you, too.”

I shook my head. I didn’t mean that I liked sex with him—although, Jesus Christ, that, too .

I wanted him to know that I liked who he was as a person—intelligent and protective and irreverent and kind. I wanted him to know that talking with him had felt so comfortable I’d ended up telling him truths I couldn’t tell anyone else, even when I should have lied. I wanted him to look at me and see someone who wasn’t out to use him—not for donations, or to green-light my project, or even to give me contacts, no matter how badly I needed them.

“Bash. Sebastian. I… I meant…”

“Mmm?” He turned his head toward me, eyes still closed, breathing still a bit ragged. “I came so hard I can’t feel my toes, and my brain short-circuited. Go ahead and confess whatever you like, sweetheart. I promise, right now, nothing can shock me.”

My courage deserted me entirely.

“I’m the Burrito Bandito!” I blurted.

Bash’s eyes popped open, and we stared at each other as my confession landed with an awkward clunk between us.

“Well,” he said slowly. “Apparently, I was wrong.”