Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BENEDICT
I ’m at the end of my rope with Nico. Quite literally. He’s had me tied to the A-Frame in his room for the last hour and the bastard’s been edging me the entire time. I’m seriously questioning my sanity in suggesting playing with restraints when I knew he was in the mood for orgasm denial. This is a problem entirely of my own making.
“Please, just let me come, sir. Please, I can’t take it anymore,” I whine, stretching out every please, praying that this time he’ll let me. I’m exhausted. He’s pushed me close to orgasm so many times that I’m little more than a puddle of need. My cock is painfully hard and with every twitch and strain of my abs in response to his touch spills fat drops of pre-cum to the floor between my spread legs.
“You’ll come when I say you can come, Bambi,” Nico replies. His voice is missing the lightheartedness it usually has when we play together. He clutches my hair roughly and pulls my head up while he grips the base of my dick firmly in the other. I want everything he’s giving me. I just need more. So much more. This is torture. He doesn’t move, doesn’t stroke my shaft. Just holds me and squeezes.
I watch his face as he toys with me. I know how it feels to be the centre of this man’s universe, to have my pleasure be his ultimate goal and right now that’s not what this feels like. It’s like he’s lost in a place where I can’t reach him, a place he’s been slipping into more frequently since he learned the truth about his father.
Despite my unease, he’s managed to wind me so tightly that the grip of his hand begins to tip me over the edge. “Fuck yes, oh God, yes, sir,” I shout, my voice cracking under the agony of finally achieving my release.
My pleasure is short-lived. Nico releases me, taking my orgasm with him, and I can’t stop myself from bursting into tears. It’s too much.
“ No, stop. I can’t. Midnight, ” I roar at the top of my lungs. “ Fucking midnight. I can’t take it anymore.”
I can see the horror take over Nico’s face as my words hit him full force. The moment it registers that he’s pushed me too far. But instead of the confident Dom I know him to be, the Nico before me is one I don’t recognise. He’s frozen to the spot and a part of me wants to reach for him and comfort him, knowing he hasn’t meant to push me to this point but I can’t regulate myself, let alone help him.
Dread rises in my chest and I start to babble out a stream of chaotic grunts and groans laced with fear. I struggle against my restraints, so hard the cuffs dig into my wrists.
“Let me down, let me down, let me down,” I plead, my words stuck on repeat. He brought my emotions so close to the surface with the perpetual denial that I can't control anything right now. I’m raw, like an exposed nerve. No matter how hard I struggle or how loudly I shout, Nico doesn’t move and I panic, feeling more and more trapped and unsafe.
There’s a stampede of heavy footsteps in the hallway that snaps my focus to the doorway just before Sinclair and Enzo burst through the door, Aurora just behind them. Sinclair runs towards me, and whatever expression he sees on my face has him frantically reaching for the restraints and untying me as quickly as he can.
“You’re okay, I’ve got you. Give me a second, I’ve got you, Benny.” He keeps murmuring the words over and over. He’s so quiet that I’m not sure anyone else can hear what he’s saying, but they’re exactly what I need at this moment.
I’m safe.
As I fall forward into Sinclair’s arms, a wave of dizziness catches me off guard. My head tips forward and my vision blurs before coming into focus on the scene over Sin’s shoulder. Nico snaps out of his stupor and starts to move towards me, his face a grim mask of shame and regret. The last thing I hear before I black out is Sinclair ordering Enzo and Aurora to hold Nico back.
I come to under what feels like a brutal assault but is, in fact, firm jets of warm water. Sinclair is pressed up against me, fully clothed, holding me against the wall of the shower. It’s probably exactly what I need, but with the scratch of his clothes and the constant streams of water pelting my over-sensitive skin, it’s too much for my strung out body to handle. I’m coming before my brain can catch up enough to try and stop it from happening.
As the mental haze of my orgasm lifts, the sound of my ragged breathing fills the space. I try to force myself to take a long slow breath, but it’s like my head can’t control my body. Sin’s soft words reverberate around me in the shower. “I’ve got you. Just focus on catching your breath and let me worry about everything else.”
So I do as I’m told and listen to my staccato breaths. I don’t know how long it takes for me to start to come back to myself, but by the time I’ve achieved a long, even tempo, the shower has been switched off and I'm bundled in a large white fluffy towel.
The raw, exposed feeling from before has faded. As the plush fibres of the towel drag across my skin it feels comforting, like being cocooned. Strong hands come to rest on my shoulders and steer me out of the bathroom and I recognise now that this is Sinclair’s room. I wasn’t paying much attention to who’s bathroom I was in before.
“You’re going to drink this,” he says, handing me a water bottle, “and then get under the covers and sleep a while. I’ll wake you up in a few hours.”
I still feel a little spacey and I’m unable to do anything other than what I’m told. Before I know it, I’m tucked into bed and drifting off to sleep.
As I open my eyes, a wave of anxiety rolls over me. “Nico?” I shout, sitting bolt upright. I need to know if he’s okay. He must feel awful. He didn’t mean to zone out. It was an accident. We both needed to safeword out. He just couldn’t find the words. As out of it as I was, I know. Not only do I know that man better than I know myself sometimes, I could see it written all over his face.
A hand comes to rest on my forearm and I jump when I see Sinclair leaning back against the headboard, holding his e- reader in the other. My mind is foggy, partly from having just woken up, but also from the familiar weight of a sub-drop. I don’t experience it often these days, but it’s not unusual, especially when a scene doesn’t go well. I’m thankful that Sin was able to help me, but there’s an ache deep in my chest at Nico’s absence. I need him.
I rub my hands over my face and I’m not sure if I’m trying to wake myself up or erase some of the past few hours. Cocking my head to one side, I ask, “Did you stay here while I was sleeping?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to leave you alone in that state and Aurora has been… dealing with Nico.”
“Is he okay? He didn’t mean to. It was an accident. I waited way too long to safeword out.”
“I’m going to stop you right there. You two are experienced and you’ve been living your dynamic for fucking years, but Nico is going through some shit right now that neither one of you considered his mental state when you started that scene. He needs to realise that he wasn’t in the right headspace to be responsible for you. He should have safeworded long before you did.”
Well, shit. When he puts it like that, it all sounds so fucking obvious. “Honestly, it didn’t even occur to me that he might react that way. He’s always so in control, I just assumed whatever he was going through he could compartmentalise it like he always does.”
“We can’t always predict how we’ll react in a scene,” he replies.
Suddenly I’m overcome with shame. Nico’s spent the last five weeks showing me in hundreds of subtle ways how affected he is by learning who his father is. He may have been deep in denial, but I know him better than that. Sin’s hand moves up my arm and gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze .
That’s when I remember the shower. Oh, holy fuck. It’s one thing to fuck our girl together. It’s entirely different needing aftercare from him. And to top it off by coming all over him—I’m beyond fucking mortified. You don’t truly know awkwardness until you come on one of your closest friend's legs while they’re trying to stop you collapsing on them.
I can’t look at him.
I try to shrug out of his reach and he gives me a swift reminder of why watching him with Aurora turns me on so much. His hand moves like lightning, gripping my jaw roughly and forcing me to look at him. His fingers pinch against my jawbone and it’s a struggle not to groan.
“I may not know you as well as Nico does, but I can tell when you’re overthinking things. Cut it out. We sleep in the same damn bed most nights, Benny. Hell, I’ve been accidentally covered in your cum more times than I can count at this point. I’m sure today won’t be the last time. As long as you’re okay now, that’s all that matters,” he says with a smile and a shrug.
“Thank you, that helps, Sin,” I reply, feeling a weight lift and a small smile forming on my lips.
Maybe it’s because of the age difference, but I’ve always considered both Sinclair and Enzo to be the grown-ups of our team, while Nico and I were often the wayward kids they had an obligation to wrangle. But right now, I don’t feel like that at all.
He feels like a shelter in a storm, a haven, like family. Admittedly, it’s a found family that spends a significant amount of time naked together, but still family. I can’t explain the connection that exists between Sinclair and me, but I know I care for him and things wouldn’t feel right without him. It doesn’t hurt that I think it’s hot as fuck when his dominant side comes out, but that doesn’t mean I see him the same way I do Aurora and Nico.
We all belong together, but he’s not mine.
“Come on, let’s go find Nico,” Sinclair says, getting up and heading towards the dresser, tossing a pair of sweats onto the bed. Throwing back the sheets, I make short work of pulling on the joggers. I’ve probably spent enough time naked in front of Sin for the day.
We find them in the living room. Enzo is sitting in one of the armchairs while Nico is on the sofa, with his head resting in Aurora’s lap. I’m relieved to see him sleeping peacefully. Aside from looking devastatingly handsome, it’s the first time I’ve seen him look this relaxed in weeks. Aurora is alternating between brushing his hair off his face and delicately stroking his eyebrows. I taught her that trick. It always settles Nico in his sleep.
“He’s been out for about an hour,” she whispers, lifting Nico’s head and moves out from under him, leaving room for me to shuffle in instead. Nico stirs, and his eyelids flutter for a moment, but instead of waking, he rolls to his side and nuzzles his head into my belly. His breath tickles my side, and I flinch, having forgotten to throw on a shirt.
“Is he okay?” I ask, flicking my gaze between Enzo and Aurora.
“He was upset that he pushed you so far. He needs to see you when he wakes up. We had to drag him down here to get him to calm down,” Aurora says, her eyebrows drawn with worry.
“Aurora had a job talking him down. He was beside himself,” Enzo adds.
“This wasn’t his fault, Zo. I don’t think even he realised how much he’s been affected by Manny’s big reveal. I’ll talk to him when he wakes up,” I say, looking down at my sleeping giant, continuing where Aurora left off, and brushing my fingertips over his brows as he starts to fidget.
As they make a move to leave, I ask Aurora to stay for a moment.
“It can’t just be me who talks to him about this, mia reginetta . You know it’s not just about who his father is,” I say, locking eyes with her and keeping my voice quiet so as not to wake Nico.
“I know,” she replies, her shoulders slumping.
“I think it affects him just as much knowing he’s Max’s brother,” I add.
I can see the sadness in her eyes. I know it’s not because she views Nico to be in any way like Max, it’s because, like me, she worries that’s what he thinks about himself. He’s always referred to himself as a monster, and over the last few weeks, it’s like he’s starting to believe that’s what he truly is. I’ve caught him staring at Aurora in her sleep, and sometimes even at Enzo when he thinks no one is watching. The expression that settles on Nico’s face is like a grim shadow, heavy and oppressive.
I hope we can convince him that there’s no way we could ever think that.
Aurora leaves, and I sit in the glow from the fireplace, absorbing the residual heat from its dying embers. The longer I sit trapped under the blanket of Nico, the more I feel at ease. I barely notice my eyelids drooping before I drift off to sleep again.