“Fucking hilarious. You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“I think so. You seem as spaced out as I feel.”
The poppers. Fuck. Benito sat up, searching for the open bottle. That shit wasn’t safe left to its own devices.
“Easy.” Mickey caught his shoulder and eased him back down. “I got them. Put ’em away already.”
Benito wondered how he’d missed that. Then decided he didn’t care. He’d come here to catch a break from his noisy brain and fucked-up thoughts, not germinate new ones. He focused on his sore body and tingling lips. Revelled in it. He was as battered as the wrecked room around them, but damn, it felt good.
I wanna smoke.
As if he’d spoken the words aloud, Mickey reached somewhere and came back with a cigarette and a lighter. He lit up, inhaled deeply, then passed the smoke to Benito. “We ain’t supposed to smoke in here, but I reckon it’s the least of our worries considering the knuckle print you’ve left in that door.”
Benito took a long drag on the cigarette. “Fuck me.”
“Already done, mate.”
“Where are you from?”
Mickey reclaimed the smoke. “Up north. You?”
“Down south.”
“London?”
“Sometimes.”
Mickey nodded, as if Benito’s vague answer made sense. Or maybe it was more that he didn’t care. This wasn’t a fucking date. “I was serious about you blowing my mind,” he said. “This shit is like hook-up nirvana for me.”
“Nirvana?”
“Yeah. Like, the ultimate. You know those hook-ups that are kinda mechanical? Yeah, I don’t like those. I don’t want to go through the motions for an orgasm I could easily give myself. I want to feel it.” Mickey flopped onto his back again.
Benito propped himself up on his elbow to look at him. “I felt it.”
“I know.”
“And you did too?”
“You’re taking the fucking piss, right?”
Benito had no idea. He plucked the cigarette from Mickey’s fingers, finished it off, and rose to flick it from the window. When he turned back to the bed, Mickey was sitting up too, scanning the floor for his clothes, and Benito felt the shift like a boot to his chest.
Or maybe it was his stuttering pulse returning to earth from the pounding orgasm he could still feel in his toes. Either way, it was time to go.
Benito snagged his jeans and underwear from the floor and yanked them up his legs. He straightened to find Mickey right in front of him, fully dressed, clutching his phone. “It’s dead.” He held it up. “Or I’d take your number.”
“You don’t want to give me yours?”
“Would you call it?”
Benito shrugged. “Probably not.”
“Thought so.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a judgemental arsehole and I’m not always wrong like I was earlier.”
“When you thought I’d be a shit fuck?”
Mickey snorted out a laugh that briefly changed his whole face. Then his gaze heated again, pinning Benito in place. “I never thought that. Just that maybe I couldn’t give you what you needed.”
Benito slipped his shirt over his shoulders, and Mickey watched as he did the buttons up, tracking Benito’s bare skin as it disappeared.
Fresh arousal flared in Benito’s groin, but he dampened it down. They were done. It was over.
“So . . . ,” Mickey said.
Benito blinked. “What?”
Mickey stared a moment, then shook his head. “Fuck it. I’m gonna write your digits on my arm.”
He opened a drawer in the nearby dressing table, fished a pen from inside, and handed it to Benito. “You can fake number me if you want. I won’t haunt you.”
Shame. But Mickey’s word choice brought him back to earth with a shiver. He took the pen and scrawled on the underside of Mickey’s forearm, grounding himself in the warmth of the smooth skin he found there. For a moment, it worked. There was nothing but the lingering crackle of what they’d shared and the overwhelming desire to kiss Mickey one more time.
One last time. Because hook-ups never called. At least, Benito never did.
He capped the pen and dropped it to the floor.
Then he gripped Mickey’s shirt and tugged him closer. “Bye, then.”
Mickey grinned. He opened his mouth to speak, but Benito cut him off, kissing him with enough force to make them both stumble. Rough. Hot. Hard. Just like they’d fucked.
Then Mickey pulled away, still grinning, and walked out the door.
His departure felt like tectonic plates shifting in Benito’s brain. His fading footsteps dragged Benito from his sex-hazed trance, one by one, until they were gone. Somewhere, a door closed.
Benito found his shoes and stepped into them. In his back pocket, his phone rang.
Unknown number. His heart skipped a beat, and an image of Mickey connecting his phone to a charging point bulldozed his brain. But reality caught up before he could blink, and the thrill died a fiery death. Wrong phone, dickhead.
Shadows descended as if they’d never been gone, obliterating Benito’s blissed out state of mind. He swept the room for anything he’d dropped, then answered the call as he left. “Yeah?”
A low, humourless chuckle greeted him. “You don’t sound pleased to hear from me.”
Benito reached the stairs and glanced around, but he was alone. “I’m not, unless you have something useful to tell me. It’s been a week since you went dark.”
“With good fucking reason. It ain’t easy to spy on a king. You should know that.”
Benito scowled and jogged down the stairs but came to a stop by the door that would take him back into the club. He found a place where he could see every possible approach and propped his shoulder against the wall. “Don’t talk about fucking kings. You know what I need. If you don’t have it, this conversation is over.”
“I have it.”
Benito waited, darkness swallowing every ounce of relief Mickey had gifted him. “Go on,” he snapped when silence reigned.
“Watford. The drop is next week. It’s not a big one, but I’m driving.”
“Where to?”
“Coventry. Same crew as last time, different meet point.”
Benito closed his eyes. Fucking Coventry. I hate that place. Of course he did. It was where his life had seemed to come together all those months ago, only to fall apart a few days later. “Will you be alone?”
“No. One other dude. But he’s not a fighter. You can put him down with your hands behind your back.”
Benito pictured himself naked, his hands secure in Mickey’s firm grip, his thick cock drilling him. Heat flooded his veins, but with one foot in each camp, it wasn’t the good kind. He felt sick. “Text me the details. Then dump your phone. And don’t fuck me over or I’ll burn your fucking house down.”
A sharp inhale was the only reply.
5
Mickey rapped his knuckles on the shiny front door. It was brand new, like the door to every other flat he’d knocked at that morning. Only difference was, he knew this door was never going to open for him. After his sixth visit in ten days, he’d accepted it.