21. Benji

BENJI

As Doc and I sat there sucking on our lollipops, the door to the office flew open and Sterling ran across the room with his jacket sleeves covering his teary face, exiting hastily out the door to the clinic and into the night.

Instantly I jumped up from my chair and bolted into the office. “Bastian? Are you okay? What happened?”

Bastian himself sniffed back a tear. “I just broke up with Sterling.”

“Oh!” was all I could utter, feeling relief and happiness… and even more confusion… and a weight of expectation about to crush me. “Are you okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I am.” He forced an uncertain, chin-crumpled smile. “I am.”

Just then the machine that the intravenous drip was hooked up to beeped and Doc Morgan entered the room. He inspected the now empty plasma bag, switched it for another bag full of clear liquid, and said, “Well, you’re almost done here. A quick saline flush and you’ll be out of here in the next ten minutes. Pretty soon you’ll be feeling a hundred percent, at least for a little while. Where will you be staying tonight, back at the Larsons?”

“No,” I answered with so much clarity and assuredness it surprised even me. “Bastian will be staying with me tonight.”

Cautiously he set foot inside the front door of the BnB for the first time in over three years.

Pensively he said, “Are you sure about this?”

Calmly I nodded. “Yes.”

I took him by the hand, and he took a breath to say something else, but I made him forget his words with a kiss to his lips, soft, tender, an attempt to capture everything we’d lost, everything we’d let go, everything that had been taken from us by nobody else but ourselves.

We had been the thieves of our own hearts.

We only had ourselves to blame.

And we only had ourselves to forgive.

With his fingers so lightly entwined in mine that they felt like feathers, I led him up the stairs to the bedroom we once shared. I stepped backward into the room, my heart pounding, my feet moving warily so as not to bump into anything. I was confident I knew exactly how many steps before I hit the bed or the dresser or the old shipping trunk we’d bought together at a dusty German antique shop in Milwaukee. I knew this room like the back of my hand. I wondered how well he remembered it until he said—

“You didn’t change a thing. God, I remember how much you loved that old trunk the moment you saw it. I told you a hundred dollars was too much for that battered old thing.”

“So, you talked the owner down to seventy-five. And I got my trunk.”

His lips turned up at the corners. “I always let you get your way eventually.”

“Is that what you call this? Is getting you back after three years what you call ‘eventually?’”

His face turned to sorrow. “Benji, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything I did. I’m sorry for everything I never told you. I—”

“Shhh.” I laid my finger on his lips and moved him toward the bed. “Don’t say anything for a moment. All I need you to do is be a good Elf and give me a Y.”

He chuckled and raised his arms in a Y formation.

I pulled his YMCA Elves sweater up over his head and tossed it on the floor.

He spotted my Maca-reindeer sweater hanging up on the closet doorknob and said, “Excuse me? Why does your sweater get pride of place and mine gets tossed aside?”

“Because I’m trying to be romantic for the first time in years, and we all know romance begins with a pile of clothes on the floor.”

“That’s not a pile. It’s only one sweater.”

“So far,” I informed him with a grin.

Soon my hands were fumbling with the buckle of the belt on his jeans.

I got the belt undone just before his hands threw my arms back so he could slide the jacket off my shoulders.

Our hands trembling with pent-up passion, we juggled shirt buttons and yanked free the undershirts tucked into our jeans, adding to the pile of clothes on the floor until we stood together naked from the waist up.

He took my cheek in his hand and my head melted into his palm while he kissed my neck.

I’d almost forgotten how good he was at making love.

The neck kissing.

A nibble on the earlobe.

A gentle bite on my shoulder that indicated he was ready to get hot and heavy.

But my eyes fell upon the bandage taped to his forearm where the cannula had gone in and I hesitated. “Wait… Are you…?”

“Am I what?”

“The infusion, all the things that Doc Morgan pumped into you tonight… are you even okay to…”

He grinned mischievously. “To do what?”

“I think you know.”

He kissed me again, then said, “I’m fine. If anything, the infusion gives me a burst of energy. It’s the chemo drugs that wreak havoc on your body. The poison is trying to kill the cancer, the steroids are trying to numb the pain, the anti-nausea pills are trying to get you through the day without throwing up every five minutes, and all the while you’re trying to fight the fatigue and ignore the mouth ulcers and pretend that every nerve ending in your fingers and toes isn’t on fire. Until eventually you give in to it all and pray for the day it’s all over. Except… it’s never really over. Even though the cancer’s gone, the journey never truly ends. As Doc Morgan said, the fight goes on. And on. And on. You just need to get better at managing it.” He gave a regretful sigh. “I should have seen tonight’s episode coming. I can always feel when my platelet count is low. My body gives me warning signs I should never ignore. I’ve just been so caught up in seeing you, in trying to explain things to you, that I let things fall apart on the inside. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I told him. “Please, never be sorry. I feel so stupid now. So na?ve. I just wish…”

He kissed me. “I know. You wish I’d never left. You wish I’d given you the chance to look after me.” He blinked back his remorse. “I just… I couldn’t do that to you.”

I ran my fingers through his hair, wanting him now more than I’d ever wanted him before. “Sebastian Cole, I want you to know… you can do anything to me… so long as you never break my heart again.”

I kissed him, longingly, achingly, passionately, pulling him down on the bed with me.

I was determined to bridge the chasm between us.

Determined to make amends, make up for lost time, make up for all the lost emotions.

I was done being angry with him.

I was through regretting all the mistakes we’d made.

All I wanted to do was love him. That’s all there was left between us. We’d exhausted everything else.

I lay flat on the bed and he prowled his way up my bare torso, his lips leaving mine to take in my chin, my throat, my chest, my navel. There he stopped and stood back, admiring me. “God I’ve missed this beautiful body of yours.”

I chuckled. “This body ain’t beautiful. There’s nothing special about it.”

“It’s special to me.”

He stroked my left leg all the way down to my ankle, then untied my laces and pulled off my boot and sock. He did the same to my right leg, then finished unfastening my belt and slowly pulled my zip down over the large bulge in my crotch.

I let out a small moan of relief as the jeans opened up.

When the zip was all the way down, Bastian gave a sly smile, then took my jeans by the hem of the legs and yanked them hard. I had to lift my ass off the bed to help him get my jeans all the way off, before he added them messily to the pile on the floor.

Raising myself up on my elbows, I lay there on the bed, naked but for my underwear, the tentpole beneath the cotton leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. “Well? Are you getting those jeans of yours off or what?”

“Patience, Benjamin,” he teased.

“Oh, I think I’ve been patient enough. This moment has been way too long in the making. Now get your damn jeans off and get on this bed.”

Bastian did as he was told, quickly unbuckling and unzipping his jeans, kicking off his boots and pulling off his socks. He tugged his jeans down over his knees and stepped out of them, then stood there in his jockey shorts, his own bulge prominent and proud.

I noticed how much leaner his entire frame was.

Gone was the muscular form and natural definition he once had, as though the disease—and the poison it took to destroy it—had left him ravaged, shaken the muscle away.

It made me want to hold him and love him even more.

He kneeled onto the bed and I grabbed his forearm, pulling him down on top of me.

Our cocks were hard, wrestling with each other through the fabric of our underwear.

I kissed him ravenously as one of my hands reached down between us, squeezing our dicks, rubbing them together, forcing him to groan loudly into my mouth.

I wanted him more in that moment than I had ever wanted him before.

With my other hand I tugged at the back of his jockey shorts, slipped my fingers under the elastic of the waistband and pulled them down over his ass.

My hand cupped his ass cheek, fingers sliding inside his crack.

He reached down then, yanking awkwardly but determinedly at my underwear. He jerked it down enough to free my cock, then did the same to his jockey shorts, pulling them halfway down his thighs, releasing his stiff thick dick too.

I felt beads of sweat begin to form on my brow as the heat radiated between us, our cocks on fire with a yearning, an aching I didn’t even want to try to control.

I pushed against him, tipping him onto his back.

I stepped off the bed, sliding my underwear off and letting my cock smack hard and throbbing against my stomach.

I grabbed his jockey shorts and yanked them down his legs, tossing them onto the floor.

He clasped his hands behind his head and spread his legs wider. It was an invitation I was not about to decline.

Lowering myself over him, I took that cock of his firmly in my hand, and the memories of taking him in my mouth—the sheer joy of tasting him, swallowing him, feeling connected so intimately that nothing could tear us apart—came flooding back.

I took his bulbous head between my lips and licked the slit of his cock.

I took more of him in, my mouth stretching wide to accommodate the girth of his dick.

I sucked, my hand working on the base of his shaft, squeezing and rubbing, while my mouth lapped up the top half.

Bastian groaned loudly, his mouth open wide to let the sound out before he stifled it by biting down hard on his bottom lip. He had propped himself up on one elbow to watch me pleasure him. With his other arm he reached down and took the locks of my hair in his fist, lightly guiding my head up and down his shaft.

The sweet saltiness of his precum began to spill into my mouth.

I quickened my pace, increased the sucking, and he tightened his grip on my hair, pushing me further and further down his cock until I was taking his entire length in my mouth.

He gave a stifled groan again, still biting on his lip, his nostrils flaring.

Desperately I wanted him to come in my mouth.

I sucked faster.

He groaned louder and began grunting, then released his bottom lip and uttered, “I’m gonna come… oh fuck, I’m gonna…”

Before he could mutter another word of warning, a gush of semen exploded in my mouth.

Instantly I began swallowing, opening my throat wide and allowing a river of cum to surge from his slit and wash all the way down to my belly.

I gulped fast.

He cried out loud, “Fuck! Oh fuck! Oh… fuuuuuck! ”

I gripped the base of his cock hard, stroking it and squeezing every last drop out of him.

His chest heaved, his panting slowed, and with a smile on his face he sighed. “Fuck that felt great.”

Grinning, I let his swollen, puffy cock slide from my mouth, licking the glistening strings of cum that momentarily connected the head of his dick to my gleaming lips, snapping them like the strands of a spider web shiny with morning dew. And all I said was, “My turn.”

He hesitated a moment. “Do you have… protection?” His voice was coy. “It’s just that, it’s been three years and I’m, well, susceptible to everything.”

I nodded. “Oh, I have protection all right.”

I leaned over to the bedside table and pulled open the top drawer.

Bastian glanced across and chuckled, wide-eyed with surprise. “How busy have you been since I’ve been gone?”

He was referring to the drawer bulging with condoms and bottles of lube. “Not busy at all. On the contrary, my love life has been non-existent. But Connie keeps sneaking stuff into my bedside table just in case the drought ever broke.”

“I guess you’re ready for when the rains come.”

I grinned. “Oh, it’s about to rain all right. A hard rain is a-coming.”

Bastian grinned too.

He knew what to do.

Rolling over onto his stomach, Bastian lifted his ass slightly, offering it up for me to prise apart his cheeks and lick his ass crack.

I wet his passage with my tongue, then lubed up my fingers and nudged one, then two, into his ass, sliding them slowly in and out, loosening him up as he moaned with the rhythm of my fingers penetrating him.

As I did so, my cock bobbed up and down, slapping against his ass as though begging for more. Drops of precum splashed onto Bastian’s left ass cheek and I knew I couldn’t wait another second to enter him.

Gently I slid my fingers out of him, slipped a condom over my hardened dick, lubed my shaft then nuzzled the head of my cock between his cheeks.

With a slow push, my dick slid into him and a moan slid from his throat.

He raised his ass higher, and I glided deeper inside.

He caught his breath, then whispered, “All the way. I want all of you.”

I did as he asked, my hips connecting with his ass cheeks as all the air escaped his lungs.

He drew breath again as I pulled slowly out of him, almost all the way before pushing inside him again.

Our bodies began to move in time, me sliding in and out while he raised his ass to receive every thrust of my cock.

Our lovemaking became faster, more intense, as were the noises we made—moans, groans, and grunting as the pace grew more frenzied, as my balls began to ascend, and my loins teetered on the brink of orgasm.

“Oh God, here it comes,” I gasped, the words barely leaving my lips before I unleashed a load of cum into the condom.

His fists gripped the blankets and mine squeezed his hips tight and I felt two, three, four jets of cum surge from my dick.

With one final rush, I pressed my hips against his ass and held them there, my cock pumping out every last seed before I panted with delight, slowing my breathing down and gently easing my cock out of him.

With a sigh of happiness I collapsed onto the bed beside him.

Kissing him tenderly.

Stroking his cheek lovingly before I whispered—

“Welcome home.”