The Square Peg (21 page)

than it did.

Shane clung to him even after it was over, mouth pressed to the sensitive spot

under Ben’s ear. Ben didn’t want to let go of Shane’s softening cock, but he kept his

other arm wrapped around Shane’s lower back, holding him up. He wanted to say

something and had no earthly idea what. His hand was sticky, and he was starting to

wonder if his heart rate would ever return to normal.

He was starting to wonder if anything about this relationship—if that’s what it

was—was normal.

“Really am sorry,” Shane said.

Ben turned his head and caught a glint of humor in Shane’s eyes. “Yes, you look

it.”

They were talking in low voices, on Ben’s part, less from a desire to be discreet

than a need to prolong the sense of intimacy he felt. Shane wasn’t trying to move away,

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and if he had, Ben knew he would’ve tightened his arms instinctively before reluctantly

releasing his hold.

“We good?”

Ben gave Shane a helpless look. “I don’t know. I’m not mad at you now. How

could I be? But what we just did…” He uncurled his fingers from Shane’s cock, his

hand too messy to use to zip Shane’s jeans up. He wanted to, though. Taking care of

Shane afterward seemed like part of the deal. He wanted to clean Shane’s skin, ease his

clothing back into place, help him to his feet and brush him down.

Your own little doll to play with…

Fuck
. Ben scrambled to his feet, leaving Shane staring up at him, a puzzled, hurt

look on his face. “I’ll just… You said there was toilet paper in here?”

He went into the stall and pulled a few pieces from the roll hanging forlornly from

a bent piece of wire, absently noting that it was cheap stuff, too thin to be useful, the

kind that shredded easily. That would change too. Shane had gotten to his feet and

pulled up his jeans. He shook his head when Ben held out the pieces of tissue.

“I’m going to take a shower and get changed.”

“That’s probably a good idea.” Ben glanced at the doorway and grimaced,

dreading the prospect of walking through it and finding a crowd of grinning people just

outside it. “Do you think anyone heard us?”

“Don’t give a rat’s arse if they did.”

“We have to work with them! Hell, Vin lives with me,” Ben protested.

“Vincent says one word about us, and I’ll ban him from wearing black at work.

Not that he would. He minds his own business, that one.”

Ben got a look at his reflection and was relieved to see he didn’t look too messed

up. Of course, one look at Shane, and anyone would know what had happened in here.

Shane reeked of sex, and he looked wellfucked, a sleepy, sated glow in his eyes.

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Ben cleared his throat. “You could maybe, uh, wash your face? You’ve still got…”

His voice trailed off.

“So I have.” Shane seemed amused by the streaks of drying spunk on his chin, not

embarrassed. How much of his insouciance was an act and how much genuine? Ben

wished he knew.

Shane splashed water on his face and dried it with his shirt. “Good as new.” He

walked over to the door, a swagger in his step. “You coming?”

“Shane—” Ben bit his lip. “What I just did—”

“We,” Shane corrected him. “What we just did. And I don’t want to talk about it.

Christ, if you psychoanalyze every blowjob, it’s no wonder what’s-his-name said you

were a pain in the arse. Give it a rest, will you?”

Shaken, Ben nodded and pushed his way past Shane, almost shoving the other

man out of his way as he left the bathroom and headed toward the office. Shane didn’t

want to talk about it? Fine. They wouldn’t talk, but Ben sure as hell wasn’t going to

keep doing it. It was too much, too fucked up, and he couldn’t keep being part of it if

they were going to pretend it wasn’t happening.

He heard Vin, who was sanding one of the old walls flat, say something that

started with his name, but he was focused on getting out the back door before he lost it

completely. “Just getting something from my car,” he managed to call out.

It was cold outside when he stepped into the alley, though the sun was shining

brightly. There wasn’t much to see, just concrete and brick walls and the big Dumpster

that Shane called a
skip
. Ben finally glanced down at himself and was relieved to find

he’d at least fastened his pants; he couldn’t remember having done it. He wanted to sit,

but there wasn’t anywhere to sit except the pavement, which was littered with cigarette

butts.

Behind him, the door opened, and Shane stepped out through the doorway. They

looked at each other for a long moment; then Shane gestured for Ben to come closer,

and Ben went to him, let himself be enfolded into Shane’s arms.

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“I’m sorry,” Shane murmured into his hair. “Warned you I could be a bastard,

didn’t I?”

“I’m kind of freaking out.” Ben wasn’t sure why he said it, since it had to be clear

to Shane that’s what was happening.

“Yeah, me too.” Shane tightened his arm around Ben’s back.

Ben closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of Shane’s detergent from his collar. “I

can’t do this if we can’t talk about it. I don’t know how to do it even if we can. I don’t

know what we’re doing. I don’t—”

“Shh. Stop, now. You’re just winding yourself up.”

He was right, but Ben felt as if he’d explode if he couldn’t get this out. It was

eating at him. “It’s like a double-edged sword. I don’t want to be who I was, but I don’t

think I want to be this either.”

Shane gave him a little shake. “There’s nothing wrong with you—you hear me?

Nothing. Not before and not now.”

“There is,” Ben said slowly, “if I made you do something you didn’t want to do.”

The derisive snort Shane gave was more reassuring than words, but Ben got those

too. “You and whose army? You’re not a pushover, mate, but there’s no way you could

make me do anything.”

“Not physically, maybe, but you’re not—” Ben wet his lips and asked a question

he’d been fretting about for a while. “You’re not doing this to kind of…repay me for

investing my money in the bar? Giving me what you think I want?”

As soon as he said it, he knew he’d finally found that line he shouldn’t cross and

walked over it. Shane broke free of their embrace and stepped back, shock distorting his

features. “Say that again.”

Panic made Ben speak too quickly to be convincing, words spilling out. “No,

forget it. It was stupid of me. Really. Forget it.”

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Shane gave him an incredulous look as if he’d been asked to do something

profoundly stupid. “Forget you just asked me if I was playing kinky little games with

you, letting you push me around, because I don’t have a penny to my name to match

your investment, but I do have a mouth you like to use and an arse you enjoy fucking?

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“I didn’t mean it like that! I just need to know this is something you want too. I

couldn’t do it if I thought… God, I’m not sure we should be doing it anyway.” Ben

rubbed at his face, his hands shaking. He couldn’t meet Shane’s gaze, shame and guilt

filling him at what they’d done and what he’d said. It didn’t help that his body still felt

deliciously relaxed, the echoes of his orgasm thrumming along every nerve.

“Is that right?” Shane sounded dangerously quiet. “I was sure. I was fucking

enjoying it, you stupid git. I’ve got a mouth. I can use it for more than sucking your

dick. If I’d had a problem with it, with any of it, can you really see me keeping quiet?”

“No, I see that, I do, it’s just—”

“Easier to call me a whore? Weak?” Without warning, Shane took two steps

forward and slammed his fist against the brick wall, the action more shocking because

he wasn’t yelling or drunk, just wrapped in a cold anger. “Fuck you,” he said through

his teeth, sweat damp on his forehead, pain etching lines into his pale face. The skin on

his knuckles was shredded, and as Ben stared, horrified, blood welled up, fat scarlet

beads of it, gathering and rolling down Shane’s hand.

“Don’t. Please.” He reached for Shane’s hand and flinched when Shane jerked it

away from him, but determinedly went for it again. This time, Shane let him capture it.

“It wasn’t about you. What I said. It was about… It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry. You can

hate me later, but let’s get some ice on this before it starts to swell.”

Shane nodded. “All right.” His voice was hoarse. “But upstairs, yeah?” He didn’t

have to say that he wanted to keep this hidden, private; Ben might not know Shane

well, but he understood that much at least.

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Upstairs in Shane’s apartment, Ben pushed Shane down into one of the kitchen

chairs and moved to the freezer. It was an old-model refrigerator, nothing as fancy as

automatic defrost, so the inside of the freezer was coated with a thick layer of ice. There

were cubes in the trays, though. Ben dumped some of them onto the cleanest dishcloth

he could see and wrapped it into a clumsy ice pack.

“Here, put this on it. Do you have a first aid kit?”

Shane winced as he eased the ice onto his injured hand. “In the bathroom. Under

the sink.”

It was easy to find. It was one of those fully stocked kits that could be bought at

the drugstore for twenty bucks. There was a faded sticker on it that showed it had cost a

little more than half that price, and when Ben opened it he could see that Shane—or

someone else—had been pilfering items from it for years without replacing them. There

were some gauze pads, a rolled bandage, and one lone Band-Aid, and that was all. Ben

looked in the medicine cabinet and found a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

He went back to the kitchen and knelt down in front of Shane. “Here’s a change,

huh?” he asked. “How’s it feel?”

“How the bloody hell do you think it feels? It hurts like hell.” There was no heat

behind Shane’s words. He sounded tired.

“Let me see.” Ben wasn’t squeamish, so it didn’t bother him to look over Shane’s

scraped and bloodied hand. He cleaned the scrapes with hydrogen peroxide, pointedly

ignoring Shane’s hisses of pain. “Who knows what kind of infection you could get if we

don’t clean it.”

“Not sure how many germs hang around on brick walls.” Shane sighed as Ben put

the Band-Aid on over the worst scrape. The rest would have to scab over. They were all

minor to the eye, though Shane would probably end up with a lot of bruising.

“Does that feel better?”

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“No. It’s not going to feel better for a while. It’s going to swell and throb, and

every time I use it, I’m going to wish I hadn’t done it. But right then it was the wall or

you.”

That did nothing to ease Ben’s guilt. “Next time, hit me. I’m softer.”

“Walls don’t bleed. And you’re underestimating yourself.” Shane pointed at the

cluttered countertop. “Bottle of vodka over there. Pour me some?”

“I’d prefer to get you some painkillers. Something to help with the swelling.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll take vodka over pills any day of the week. Neat. Don’t bother with

ice.”

Ben found a glass in a cupboard and poured a reasonably generous measure of

vodka. Shane knocked it back, shuddered, and held out his glass again.

“No.” Ben folded his arms. “When I’m gone you can drink the bottle if you want,

but I hope you don’t.”

“So you’re back to giving me orders? Make your mind up. Or is it okay when it’s

just bossing me about and sex isn’t involved?”

It was a fair question, but Ben didn’t have an answer. “What I said earlier was

stupid. I didn’t mean to imply… Look, can we just wipe it out? Please? It wasn’t meant

to insult you; it was just my…my insecurities playing out, I guess. I was trying to find a

reasonable explanation.”

“And me paying off a debt with sex is more reasonable than the two of us both

getting off on the same thing?” Shane shook his head. “You’re nuts.”

“Yes, it is!” Ben insisted. “What we’re doing is so far past normal it’s difficult for

me to accept that you want it. Why would you? I’m humiliating you. Hurting you. And

it scares me how much more I want to do to you. If I told you half my fantasies, you’d

probably call the cops. I’m scaring myself.”

He sat in a chair close to Shane, needing to be on a level with him and aware of

how unsteady he felt, as if he’d been the one knocking back vodka shots.

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Shane scratched his chin and gave Ben a quizzical, impatient look. “Really doubt

you’d ever do anything to damage me. You’re not thick; you know the difference

between a fantasy and something that would leave me screaming.” He hitched his chair

closer to Ben and put his uninjured hand on Ben’s knee. “And it’s not my usual way of

getting off either, you know. Oh, sure, I’ve had times when I’ve wanted something