Beta Test (#gaymers) (18 page)

And because the convention project was done, there were no more post-lunch visits from Tristan to Ravi’s cube. It was a strange thing to miss, but Ravi seriously missed working with the guy almost as much as he missed sleeping with him. Ravi was on a new project of conceptual drawings for a new sector for the game—new planets, new aliens, new spacecraft. And it should have been exactly his sort of project, but all his
Space Villager
heroes kept looking like Tristan and every scenario he sketched out made him want to go hike to Tristan’s cube and show it off. Which if he wanted to keep getting projects like this, he really couldn’t do. Couldn’t let the rumor mill start to percolate with whisperings about what happened in Seattle. He was
finally
doing the sort of art he’d waited years to do, and no way should he be risking it by prancing over to Tristan’s cube every chance he got.

But I want to.

You have it so bad.

No
,
I’m just bored.
Ravi picked up the remote, but nothing caught his interest. It was the rare Friday night without plans. He should call someone, arrange to go out. He thumbed through his phone, but the only person he could think of calling was Tristan. And what was he supposed to say?

How about:
stay away from Josiah because he doesn’t have my rules against dating coworkers?
Oh fuck. That was a serious possibility, wasn’t it? Josiah had had this low-grade crush on Ravi for months—the sort of one-sided attraction that Ravi could kindly sidestep without things being too awkward for them as friends. But now Josiah seemed to be transferring some of that to Tristan and...

No.
Ravi sat up, shoved his feet into his shoes. He didn’t have a plan both because that wasn’t how he rolled and because if he let himself slow down enough to come up with a plan beyond “I need to go out of the house” he’d realize what an idiot he was being. And it wasn’t the same sort of idiot he’d been with Emilio either. Emilio made him drunk on decent sex and angry over stupid shit, but Tristan made him far more crazed and irrational than Emilio ever had. But he wasn’t thinking about Emilio. Or much of anything, really.

No, it was far easier to let this weird restlessness push him toward his Mini Cooper, let himself drive on autopilot to the older side of town. He
knew
where he was going, but still felt powerless to do anything more than follow this impulse until he was parking his car and heading up to the same door he’d watched Tristan come out of what felt like a lifetime ago.

He knocked on the door, realizing only as it swung open that he had no clue what to say.

“Ravi?” Tristan’s brow crinkled and his head tilted, but he didn’t look unhappy to see Ravi. More perplexed than overjoyed though.

“I have no clue why I’m here.” Ravi went for bald honesty over suave charm.

“I do.” Tristan’s mouth turned up with the ghost of a smile as he grabbed Ravi’s arm and pulled him into the apartment. Tristan shut and locked the door, then tested the lock before leaping on him with a kiss that felt like a continuation of the one on the bed Sunday. Like their last kiss and first kiss all rolled together in sensations that were both achingly familiar and thrillingly new at the same time. Tristan’s mouth was as eager as his hands, which clutched at Ravi’s shirt, but as always, he relaxed into the embrace almost immediately, let Ravi take over.

Damn
,
I
could really fall for this man.
Danger.
Danger.
An alert beacon sounded in the back of Ravi’s head, like some of the warning sound effects on
Space Villager
, but he paid it no attention, instead putting his entire focus on this man, this kiss, this moment.

Eventually, lips weren’t enough. Ravi wanted to memorize all Tristan’s many flavors—the sweat along his hairline, the sweet, soft zone behind his ear, the smooth dip where his shoulder met his neck, the secret spot right below the first button on his shirt. Ravi made short work of Tristan’s other buttons, kissing his way down Tristan’s chest. There was a couch of some kind four steps to the left, and Ravi shoved Tristan in that direction, sinking to his knees the second Tristan’s ass hit the couch.

Hell, the only reason Ravi wasn’t blowing Tristan up against his front door was that he knew by now how Tristan’s legs buckled with an ordinary orgasm, and Ravi wasn’t going for ordinary here. No, he was going for interstellar, out-of-this-world bone-melting crazy, because Tristan’s pleasure really needed to match the frantic beat of Ravi’s pulse and the raw noise roaring through his brain. He got Tristan’s fly undone with shaking hands.

How? How had he managed to let Tristan go without knowing this very specific taste?

It wasn’t that Ravi didn’t like giving oral—very much the opposite, in fact—but their hours alone together had been so short and frot so damn good that they hadn’t ventured much further.

“I...you don’t have to...” Tristan gasped as Ravi swiped his tongue across the shiny crown of Tristan’s dick.

“Want to.” Ravi licked all around Tristan’s cockhead, teasing.

“I...uh...take forever...” Tristan’s head fell back as Ravi ignored his mutterings and took him deep.

He took several long slides up and back with his mouth before releasing Tristan with a lewd plop. “So you’ve said. But I’m not doing this for you.”

“You’re not?” Tristan sounded mildly shocked.

“I’m doing it for me because I love the way your cock feels in my mouth.”

“But—”

“Ah!” Ravi made a censoring noise. “No more protesting or telling me how bad you are at this.”

For emphasis, he took Tristan as deep into his mouth as he could. One of these days, Ravi was going to hunt down that ex of Tristan’s and give him a piece of his mind. Ravi had a strong feeling that the issue was more that the dude was terrible at giving oral than Tristan being hard to please, because so far, the guy was beautifully responsive to everything Ravi tried.

He already knew that Tristan loved intense friction, so he jacked the base of Tristan’s cock while setting a fast rhythm with his mouth. He used his tongue to milk it, sucking hard.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck,” Tristan chanted softly, his hips lifting off the couch in little stutters. Each time he moved, he slammed himself back into place, until Ravi figured out what the deal was.

“It’s okay. Do it.” He grabbed Tristan’s hips for emphasis. In this position, Ravi still had the lion’s share of control, and it wasn’t like Tristan could cut off his air at will. Besides, Ravi always enjoyed watching a guy thoroughly lose control. And watching Mr. Tie-and-Spreadsheet come apart was the best thing ever, especially once Tristan finally gave in to his urge to move and started rocking his hips up to meet Ravi’s mouth.

“That’s it.” Ravi hummed with approval before resuming his fast rhythm. He didn’t know what Tristan’s definition of
forever
was, but by his measure, he wasn’t anywhere close to done with learning Tristan’s taste and his reactions. However, from the whines and pleas pouring forth from Tristan’s mouth, things weren’t going to last nearly long enough for Ravi’s taste.

So he slowed them down. Way down, with long, slow licks and delicate little teases.

“Oh fuck. You bastard.” Tristan groaned but didn’t grab Ravi or try to force him faster. “
Please.
”

Because he’d shown so much restraint and because he asked so nicely, Ravi complied, speeding back up, right up until he backed off a second time.

“Still think you can’t come?”

“Fuck you.” Tristan looked thoroughly fucked already—shirt and pants hanging open, sprawled on the couch, head back, hips twitching restlessly.

“Maybe later.” Ravi resumed his efforts.

“Oh
fuck
I can’t...Gonna...” Tristan drifted off into a series of unintelligible syllables.

Ravi finally took pity on him and went deep, sucking hard. Tristan came with a series of gasps that had Ravi throbbing in his jeans. Tristan tasted salty and bitter and vaguely sweet—an odd mix that Ravi couldn’t wait to get again.

Except.

Except he wasn’t supposed to be here, and he really wasn’t supposed to be contemplating a repeat seconds after making Tristan come hard enough to scare the neighbors.

Heart pounding, Ravi squished his eyes shut against the wave of regret. But then Tristan tugged him up next to him on the couch, and Ravi remembered he was supposed to be the smooth one, not afflicted with all these pesky feelings.

“So I’m not saying you broke any land speed records, but I think you can cross ‘bad at getting oral’ off the list, right?” Ravi managed a smile and a wink.

“Right.” Tristan gave a happy sigh as he collapsed on Ravi’s shoulder. And now that Ravi’s brain was a bit less one-track, he got a good look around the apartment. It had the sort of midcentury details Ravi had expected from the well-kept exterior of the building: gleaming hardwoods, built-in cabinetry and polished tile work. Tristan’s furniture taste, however, needed a lot of work. His couch was a lumpy leather number Ravi bet came from his parents’ rec room and the rest of the furniture was high-end older mismatched stuff.

“So um...” Tristan raised his head up slightly, and Ravi braced himself for the awkward conversation he knew was coming next. “What can I do for you?”

Oh never had Ravi been so grateful for manners and reciprocation. Anything to put off talking a bit longer. Anything to let himself stay here and bask in togetherness a few moments longer.

Chapter Eighteen

Tristan had a whole laundry list of ways he’d like to get Ravi off, but the nervous, flippy part of himself made him phrase it as a question. Actually, no, that wasn’t quite honest. Tristan wanted Ravi to ask for fucking, because then he could simply go along with the suggestion and not have to get tripped up by his own brain that both wanted it and feared it at the same time.

“Am I greedy if I ask for your mouth?” Ravi ghosted a kiss across Tristan’s lips.

“Not at all.” Heck. Now disappointment and relief washed over him in equal measures.
Make up your mind
,
body.
“But...bedroom?”

He
could
sink to his knees in front of the couch, same as Ravi had done, but suggesting his bedroom was a total calculated effort to get Ravi to spend the night, or at least stay a bit longer than a quick how-you-doing come-and-run. They—okay
Tristan
—needed to talk, but first he needed Ravi in that blissed-out, agreeable state he always got to after orgasm.

“Sure.” Ravi let him tug him to the bedroom, where he promptly laughed.

“What?” As far as Tristan was concerned, it was a nice room. Big and sunny in the early morning. He had a rug his mother picked out last time she visited, and the bed was the old queen from their guest room in Newport Beach before his folks downsized to their luxury condo in Pasadena.

“Dude. You live alone, right? And you still make your bed every morning?”

“How else can I have it neat for when I go to sleep?” Tristan shoved Ravi backward onto his bed, not caring what it did to his carefully tucked gray comforter. His pants and shirt still hung open, so he went ahead and took them the rest of the way off, trying not to blush. Wasn’t like Ravi hadn’t seen him naked a bunch already.

Ravi, for his part, had no such issues stripping off his clothes, sending his AIDS run T-shirt and jeans raining to the floor. “Come here,” he ordered, patting the bed next to him. Tristan totally complied even though
he
was supposed to be running the show this time.

He captured Ravi’s mouth in a long kiss, trying to regain control but quickly losing himself in the sensations. He broke away after several long minutes, scooting farther down the bed.

“Want a condom?” Ravi asked. “You’ve got me so turned on from blowing you, I’m not going to last long, and I don’t wanna surprise you.”

Tristan didn’t have to stop and think. “No. I...uh...I’m okay with swallowing tonight.” More like he was downright eager. He needed a certain amount of trust before swallowing, but he both believed Ravi when he said he was tested religiously and trusted that he wasn’t the type to hold Tristan in place, making him choke on spunk.

Ravi’s eyes softened. He reached out and traced Tristan’s lips with his finger. “You’re sweet. And you’re allowed to change your mind.”

“Thanks.” Tristan took Ravi’s cock in hand before this could become some sort of ooey-gooey emotional moment. His hands automatically strayed to Ravi’s nipples, tweaking the rings until Ravi’s dick leaked precome and twitched in his hand.

“Please.” Ravi’s tone was more command than request.

Tristan started licking the tip, teasing the underside, using everything he’d learned about what Ravi liked to make his partner moan.

“More.” Another command, one that made Tristan’s dick twitch, forgetting that he had come a few minutes earlier. He swallowed Ravi down, continuing to tease with his tongue. Satisfaction flooded his senses as Ravi moaned.

Tristan wasn’t bad at this at all. In fact, he felt like a rock star as Ravi’s hips bucked and his dick leaked more salty fluid.

Experimentally, he stroked Ravi’s balls while he sucked, and was rewarded with a deep moan. “Oh yeah. Do that.”

With one hand controlling the depth of Ravi’s dick, Tristan used his free hand to fondle and tease the sensitive orbs. Taking a chance, he stroked behind them, the thin, tight skin that always felt so good to him but that had made Patrick cut off his explorations.

Ravi though seemed to have no such boundaries, and his legs fell open as he rocked up into the contact. “Love that. Got lube? You can finger me while you blow me. Drives me crazy.”

Oh.
My.
This was new and Tristan went from hard to I-could-come-right-now. He scrambled to his bedside drawer. He blushed a bit at the size of his lube bottle—no way was Ravi missing that this was a heavy-use item in Tristan’s private time.

He warmed a big glob up in the palm of his hand before coating two fingers. Carefully, he went back to licking and sucking Ravi’s dick while his fingers gradually meandered lower and lower. When his fingers finally brushed the tight pucker, he moaned in concert with Ravi.