Loved by Him (Rough Love Book 5) Read online

  Loved by Him

  Rough Love Part 5

  Leighton Greene

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  © 2019 L J Greene. All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the author.

  All characters in this book are eighteen or older.

  Contents

  Loved by Him

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  Loved by Him

  Rough Love Part 5

  On the third day after their scene, Ben wakes early. He feels like he’s been asleep for days. Xander is next to him, awake even before he is, and watching his face in the early light.

  “Hi,” Xander says.

  “Hi.” Ben stretches; winces. The shoulder still hurts. “My mouth tastes like ass.”

  Xander smiles at that. “An unfortunate-but-common side effect of sex with one’s fellow man,” he says.

  Ben smiles, but his lips feel dry and cracked. “Maybe, but we haven’t–”

  “You need to drink water, and take your antibiotics,” Xander interrupts.

  “I need to piss.”

  Xander laughs. “And then water and pills.”

  “Teeth too,” Ben says. “They’re furry.”

  “Jesus, okay. Do all that. Then water and pills. Go.”

  Ben still feels achy all over, but more like after Xander has dragged him to yoga than like he’s been beaten in a dark alley the night before. He strips off the pajamas and inspects his body in the mirror while he brushes his teeth. His back is flooded with unpleasant colors – violet, yellow, brown, blue, purple. Xander’s told him time and again that Ben bruises really easily, although Ben never believed him. Maybe Xander’s right, as usual. Oh well, his chest looks a lot better. But Ben enjoys looking at the marks, the scratching, the cuts. You sick bastard, he tells himself, chuckling.

  The whole time, he replays Xander’s words from yesterday. I love you. I love you.

  He runs back into the bedroom, jumps through the air and lands heavily on the bed, and Xander’s middle.

  “Fuuuck,” Xander groans. “What the –”

  “I love you,” Ben grins into Xander’s face.

  “And you show that by hurting me?” Xander asks, pained. “That’s not normal behavior.”

  “Shut up and kiss me, you fucking sadist.”

  “You don’t taste like ass anymore,” Xander compliments him afterwards.

  “Thank you.” Ben rolls to the side but leaves his hand caught up in both of Xander’s, over his heart. “I feel like I could go hiking or something. Wanna go for a run? Basketball? Or even yoga, if you like.” He scrunches his nose.

  “No, nothing strenuous. Not yet. Give yourself time, you’re getting too high again.”

  Ben is about to contrarily say, No I’m not, but he thinks of the past couple of days. “Okay, Grand Master Alexander. I’ll take your advice.”

  “Good. Now take your fucking pills.”

  Ben complies, grumbling.

  “We could take Noah for a walk,” Xander offers. “As long as there are no photographers around.” Since his casting on The Hunter, Xander has noticed paparazzi following him around sometimes. It makes things difficult occasionally. It’s not that they’re closeted or anything like that; it’s just that the last thing Xander needs are photos of his bruised boyfriend splashed all over TMZ with a bunch of innuendo.

  They end up taking the chance, and go out with sunglasses, hats pulled down low, scarves pulled up high. Ben feels ridiculous, but at least Xander looks the same as he does. They don’t see any paparazzi, but that’s no guarantee of anything. Ben wants to get a coffee — not at Karl’s shop, but the rival he’s been patronizing for one specific reason.

  “You want a cookie thing?” he asks Xander, who waits outside with Noah.

  Xander makes a moue of distaste. “Frankly, I don’t think I want to eat anything with chocolate in it ever again.”

  Ben laughs at that, his first real, free, full body laugh in days. “Okay, my Icy Bear,” he says, clapping Xander’s shoulder. “Soy latte only.”

  At home, they play Call of Duty, and Ben beats Xander one-on-one for the first time ever.

  “You let me,” he says, annoyed.

  “I figured you needed the lift,” Xander grins.

  Ben puts the controller down. “Enough of this,” he says. “Come and fuck me.” Xander frowns and opens his mouth to say something. “No,” Ben says. “I don’t want to hear all the reasons why not. Come to bed and fuck me and show me that you love me.” He gives Xander his best sexy smile, and is pleased to see the immediate effect on Xander’s crotch.

  Noah follows them to the bedroom door, but loses interest as soon as he sees Ben taking off his clothes, and wanders back to the lounge. Ben still has bandages wrapped around his chest, and almost takes them off, but he sees Xander staring at them and decides to leave them on. An experiment. He pulls off the rest of his clothes while Xander watches.

  “What would you like?” he asks Xander when he’s naked apart from the white gauze. Xander gives a faint shake of his head, as though he’s discarding possibilities. “Come on,” Ben says, walking up to him. He grabs Xander’s hand, holds it up to the bandages, smiles. “It still stings.” He presses Xander’s fingers, under his own, into the deepest cut, hissing a little at the pain. “You did that,” he whispers.

  Xander swallows, and Ben hears his breath start to come quicker. Feels his own heartbeat picks up in response. When he baits Xander like this, he wonders if he really knows what he’s doing. Proverbial red flag at a bull? Dropping blood in shark-infested waters? The thought of blood makes him shiver, but not in a bad way. Not today.

  “I should tell you,” Xander says, and then clears his throat. “The doctor told me that if I don’t want to scar you, and I can’t control myself, I shouldn’t bite you anymore.”

  Ben feels his mouth drop open. “What? No.”

  “Well, yeah. She did.”

  “I don’t care what she said.”

  “Benjamin–”

  “No,” Ben says emphatically. He kisses Xander hard and then says, “I know you can control yourself. You always have before. And I don’t give a fuck about scars.”

  Xander looks like he’s trying to suppress a smile. “I’m touched by your faith in me, Benjamin, but–”

  “No. It’s not negotiable. I mean it. It’s a hard limit.”

  Xander quirks his mouth. “Yeah. Well. Okay. I don’t want to stop either. I’ll just – try to keep it safe. I don’t want to scar you.”

  “Whatever.”

  Xander hasn’t moved his hand, and gently rubs his fingers over the bandages. “Tell me what it was like for you,” Ben asks. “The other night.”

  Xander pulls Ben closer with his other hand and starts pressing his fingers into the gauze, watching Ben’s face. “Does that hurt?”

  “Not really.” Xander pushes harder. “Yes,” Ben gasps.

  “You were so afraid,” Xander tells him. “So afraid I thought you were going to piss yourself at one point.” Ben flushes, feels Xander kneading into the cuts as though he knows exactly where they are, but not pressing too hard to open them again. He watches Xander’s eyes, wondering if he’ll see a change, see th
at other Xander.

  Xander leans into him and Ben raises his mouth for a kiss, but Xander bypasses to his ear with a smile. “But even though you were afraid, you were very brave,” he whispers. “It made it even better for me, when you insisted you weren’t scared. Your heart was racing like a hunted fox. And then when I cut you –”

  Ben hears himself make a noise, and it seems to galvanize Xander to action. He’s pushed backwards, onto the bed, Xander climbing over him. “You couldn’t believe it,” Xander says roughly, pushing up against Ben so hard that he whines in pain. “So beautiful, watching your shock. You should have seen your eyes, I’ve never seen them so blue. And when you started crying, I nearly lost it, Benjamin. I nearly lost it. Right. Then.” He lowers his head, starts biting gentle marks across Ben’s shoulder, the one without the dressing.

  Ben wraps his arms around Xander, his breath coming fast. “You like it when I cry.”

  “I love it.”

  “More than biting?”

  “That’s like choosing between watching you cum, or doing it myself. Inside you. All hot and tight and twitching around my cock.”

  “Oh, God,” Ben says, shoving his hips up into Xander. “Please fuck me.”

  “How very polite of you, Benjamin.” Xander manages to reach for the nightstand, and Ben knows he’s going for the lube. Ben opens his legs. Somehow Xander is still holding him in place even as he slicks up his fingers and slides them into Ben’s ass. “Tell me what you felt,” he whispers.

  “I was scared. I was scared of you. I’ve never seen you like that.” Xander twists his fingers, and Ben grabs at his shoulders. “Xander, come on. You’re going to make me –”

  “No I’m not,” Xander says into his mouth. “Not before I fuck you, anyway. Tell me again.” He twists those wicked fingers once more, and brushes his thumb gently over Ben’s balls, judging how tight they are.

  “I was scared. Of you. Please –”

  “Again.” He adds another finger, watching Ben’s face. Ben can see a red flush spreading across Xander’s cheekbones, see his eyes glazing over a little, but he's still Ben’s Xander, not other Xander.

  “I was terrified,” Ben pants, trying to fuck himself on Xander’s fingers.

  “Again.” Xander withdraws slightly, smiling as Ben tries to follow his fingers.

  “I’ve never been so afraid in my whole fucking life, now please would you fuck me, Jesus Christ, Xander! Please!”

  Xander relents, and rolls Ben over on the bed. Ben hears him unzipping his jeans, pushing them down but not all the way.

  Ben’s cock is hard and his nerve endings are screaming, crying out for something, and not just pain. Not this time. This time he needs Xander inside him, needs to feel that primal connection of the flesh that allows souls to touch as well. He remembers the John Donne Xander told him once that he quoted: Love's mysteries in souls do grow, but yet the body is his book.

  Body and soul, he needs Xander completely right now, to shake off the final dregs of the drop.

  Xander spreads out on top of him, hands clutching Ben’s hands, and Ben can feel his cock nudging, finding its way. It presses hard and slow into Ben’s ass, making him cry out; he still likes it rough and with minimal prep these days. There’s something overpowering about it, and it always starts that buzzing in his head, the precursor to flying.

  But today, Ben doesn’t want to shoot off into the stars. Today he wants to be here with Xander, feeling every inch of Xander, and feeling that connection between them. So Ben floats, but he doesn’t fly. It’s a dreamlike state of being where light seem softer, sounds are muffled, and sensations reverberate. And Xander is his tether, his way back.

  Xander slides his hand between the bed and Ben’s chest, undulating over the cuts. Ben feels teeth on the back of his neck and babbles thank you, thank you, over and over. The initial sting of penetration has given way to the strange pleasure of having someone deep inside him…of having Xander deep inside him. What he said, months and months ago now, is still true: Ben is a Xandersexual.

  All he wants is Xander.

  Xander like this, or Xander like he was when they were closed in the bedroom together playing out an intimate, staged fear. He wants everything Xander has to offer; he wants to try every flavor and every texture and eat him down to the last bite.

  Right now, Xander is perfect like this: moving in and out of Ben’s body, his cock massaging over that one place inside Ben that makes pleasure spark up like a lightbulb. All too soon Ben feels his orgasm approaching, rushing up like a wave to drench him, without a hand touching his cock at all, and it might be embarrassing if it didn’t feel so goddamn good.

  Xander doesn’t try to last much longer. He bites, firmly but not too hard, and shoots at the sound of Ben’s yelp.

  Afterwards, Xander insists on taking off the bandage to check, but it all looks the same, just a bit pinker where Xander prodded. No fresh bleeding.

  Xander pushes Ben’s hair back off his forehead and looks him in the eye as they lie in each other’s arms, nose to nose. “We don’t have to, though,” he says, like he’s been having a whole conversation with Ben in his head. “We don’t have to do this stuff. I’d rather have you. Than that.”

  “That’s…nice of you to say,” Ben replies. “But you don’t have to choose. Also, are you fucking delusional? You crave this stuff.” Xander looks like he wants to disagree, but can’t.

  Ben kisses him, kisses him hard until Xander relaxes. “It’s not one or the other,” he says between kisses. “You can have both. There’s more between us than just this –” He pulls Xander’s hand to his chest again. “But this is good too, and I want it.”

  “I think you must be totally insane,” Xander says. “I mean, really. Sometimes I watch you when you’re sleeping and wonder if you’re actually crazy.”

  “Okay. I’m crazy. You’re creepy. You watch me when I’m sleeping? What's up with that?” Ben is laughing.

  “Why would you want this?” Xander asks.

  “Because I love this. Because I love you.”

  “Why would you love me?” Xander turns his head away before Ben can see his expression.

  “Xander,” Ben says. “It’s okay. It’s just the drop.”

  “I don’t know,” Xander says. “I don’t know if it is. What kind of monster gets off on making his boyfriend terrified of him?” He puts a hand over his eyes. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

  Ben has never seen Xander so unsure of himself. He pulls Xander into his arms and tightly wraps the blanket around them. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he says. “I love you and there’s nothing wrong with you.” He holds Xander fast against him.

  After a while, Xander tries to move away, but Ben feels something wet against his skin. “Are you crying?” he asks, astonished. He tightens his arms, keeping Xander there.

  “No, Benjamin. I don’t cry.”

  “Oh.” Ben thinks about that, not sure if Xander is teasing him. “Okay. Well, we can not-cry together.”

  Xander is quiet for a long time, but then he says, “Okay,” and wraps his arms back around Ben.

  On the fourth day, Ben shaves, and instantly feels more like himself again.

  Xander has recovered his self-composure and his sense of humor, and they’ve spent the morning in bed, sucking or fucking every time one of them manages to get it up again. They dial a pizza for lunch, manage to make it through to the kitchen table to eat. Ben’s mouth is much better now and he eats more than his share of the pizza, but Xander doesn’t call him on it.

  They both look better, Ben thinks. Xander looks less pale, and his face is healing up okay. No scars, Xander has assured him, although Ben is dubious about how he can really know. Ben, unfairly, has a healthy glow; he looks like he’s lit up with all the radiance of sunshine, and he fucking knows it. He knows it every time Xander looks at him.

  “So I wanna see it again,” Ben says, dropping a crust back on his plate.

  “You’ve be
en seeing it all morning,” Xander smirks.

  “Not your cock. Jeez.” Ben gives a snort of laughter. “The knife.”

  Xander wipes non-existent sauce off his mouth with the back of his hand, like he’s pretending not to hear him.

  “Well?” Ben asks.

  Xander looks at him. “Well,” he says finally. “That’s probably a good idea.”

  “Then why are you being all weird?”

  “I just had to think about it for a second.” Xander takes a long drink of water. “Alright. Out here?”

  Ben shakes his head. “No. Back in there.”

  Xander pulls him by the hand back to the bedroom, wrinkling his nose a little. “Okay, we really do need to change the sheets,” he says.

  “Afterwards,” Ben says, poking him. “Show me.” He’s expecting it to be in a drawer somewhere, but Xander goes to the bed and starts pulling at the mattress, feeling around underneath it. He turns back to Ben, and opens his hand.

  Ben walks over slowly, his eyes fixed on the knife lying in Xander’s palm. He lets his breath out slowly as he reaches out to touch it. He glances up to Xander’s face, and sees Xander looking at him curiously, judging his reaction.

  “Why are you keeping it under the bed?” Ben blurts out.

  “I don’t know. It just seemed right.”

  “All your other stuff is in the guest bedroom.”

  “This is different to all the other stuff.”

  Ben nods, picks up the knife. It’s not scary, not now. When he flicks it open, the blade practically sparkles; Xander has painstakingly cleaned it.

  “Did I go too far?” Xander asks suddenly. “A couple of times I almost stopped, but I didn’t. Maybe I should have.”

  “No. You didn’t go too far, I promise. Although…I wish you’d told me about the doctor, before booking it.”