Foster Siblings 3: Brokedown Hearts (17 page)

Shouting his joy on this inside, David welcomed the bruising force locking his jaw open and the cum coating his tongue. In front of David, Ben yanked on his shaft with fast, sure strokes, and with each pull he spilled another pool of seed onto David’s tongue. This time, with his stare homed in on the savage joy overtaking Ben, David eagerly accepted the bitter cum consuming his mouth. David swallowed Ben’s essence as fast as Ben could unload it, and when he couldn’t get enough, he leaned in and sucked on the shiny tip of Ben’s prick, hungry to pull out a little bit more.

With that small suck, Ben reacted as if lightning had fired straight through his penis. He jolted and reared away. “Fuck, don’t do that. I wouldn’t be able to live through how good it feels.” Ben fell back on the bed, parallel to David, with his head at the foot of the mattress and David still against the headboard. Chuckling, Ben stroked his shaft, adjusted the length against his thigh, and muttered, “Hell, I’m pretty sure I stopped breathing for more than is healthy when I came just now. Damn.” Groaning, he rubbed David’s inner thigh with delicious slowness. “We’ve hardly done more than child’s play both times we’ve been together, but you sure know how to ring a release out of me.”

David laughed too, and the warm sensation bubbled right up into his soul. “I’d say I aim to please, but the truth is I don’t really know what I’m doing.” Unbidden, thoughts of a different tawny-skinned man consumed him. With a pang of heaviness hitting his heart, David murmured, “I don’t know how Chris ever got any pleasure with me.”

Ben lifted his head and sent David a cockeyed look. “What?”

Oh hell
. Heat burned a line clear through David’s blood, and his naked state exposed every inch of red skin for Ben to see. “I am so sorry.” A crucial piece of David’s past filled his memory and forced an avalanche of words past his lips. “I know it’s not cool to mention a previous guy with a new guy, but that’s what I just did.”
Oh double hell
. David shot to sit upright and grabbed Ben’s leg. “Not that I’m saying you’re my new guy or anything. I’m not trying to give you a designation or a label. You can feel as much or as little as you want, and that’s okay with me, no matter what I said to you.” Mortified to his core, David wanted to crawl under the ugly comforter, but he couldn’t stop the verbal garbage spewing from his mouth. “You should probably disregard what I said, because I don’t want it to influence anything you might feel compelled to say back to me. Not that I’m expecting you to or ever think you wou—”

Ben sprang into a sitting position and slammed his hand over David’s mouth. “Stop and breathe, David.” Smiling, Ben took his hand away and cupped David’s cheek instead. “I’m okay with anything you say to me.” Grazing David’s lips with his thumb, a storm suddenly clouding Ben’s stare, he added, “As long as it’s honest.”

“It was.” A blush once again burned David’s skin, but this time he pressed the side of his face into Ben’s big hand and didn’t try to hide it from him.

Glints of amber came back into Ben’s eyes, and he leaned in and bussed the tip of David’s nose. “And just so you know, before you start worrying, I don’t ever let myself be guilted or manipulated into doing or saying anything I don’t want to.” He looked David over thoroughly, enough to make goose bumps pop up on David’s flesh, and then he stroked David’s cock and dipped two fingers farther, between his ass cheeks. Ben oh so softly fingered David’s tender hole, and as he captured David’s gaze, he promised, “And that includes what happened here tonight, and the other night too.” Ben let up the gentle assault on David’s pucker and instead dragged him closer and pressed another kiss to his lips. “Okay?”

Oozing into a puddle of molasses, David reached back and threaded his fingers through Ben’s. “Okay.” Good Lord, David loved how big and rough Ben’s hand was. Clutching the back of it harder, he leaned in and pecked a kiss to Ben’s lips. “I believe you.”

“Christ, you are a dangerous combination of sexy and cute.” With another moan, Ben kissed David hard again, slipped his tongue inside for a quick swipe, and then cursed and pushed himself off the bed, throwing the cover over David’s lower half as he went.

Gloriously naked, Ben stood at the foot of the bed, and he did not tear his stare from David as he reached for his clothes. “I think about you and want you way more than I should, which is why I have to go.” Before a spike of panic could fully jam into David’s heart, Ben pointed and said, “But I am not running off on you. I will come back. I have to make something right, and then we can have a talk, and then…then…” Rumbling, his underwear and pants now riding low on his hips, Ben rounded the bed, grabbed David, and kissed him again. Lips brushing against David’s, Ben lingered and murmured, “Jesus, you’re tempting.”

So damned languid, David curled his hand around Ben’s waist and held him close. “You should see yourself right now.” He worshipped with his eyes every inch of honed, dark flesh and square, blunt angles that made Ben so handsome. “Your body and face are pretty close to perfect.”

Ben nipped David’s jaw and cheek, and David could feel the man smile against his temple. “That’s not even kind of true, but it’s nice to hear.” With one more kiss against the side of David’s head, Ben pulled away and got back to dressing. “When I come back, we will see if I can talk you out from under that comforter and find another way to make you come again.” He shuffled backward, his focus trained on David the whole time. “Fuck, I don’t want to leave you like this, but I can’t put off what I need to do. I have to go. Bye.”

“I’m okay with anything you say to me…as long as it’s honest.”

Ben’s words rang in David’s head, taunting him with something Ben might think was a lie by omission, and so before Ben reached the door, David shouted, “Wait! I have to tell you something.” With his heart pounding up into his throat and his neck perspiring, David manned up for the first time in his life. “I did some bad things to someone before, something really bad, and I had to pay for it, and I just got out of prison for it.” David spewed his secret without giving himself a second to chicken out.

“I figured as much,” Ben replied in an even tone, no rearing or flinching. David’s jaw dropped, and Ben added, “You said a prison guard hurt you before. I drew a conclusion.”

“Oh.” David’s stomach fell into his feet, and he frowned. “I did say that, didn’t I? When we were doing…you know…”—heat furiously ran through his skin—“I was so focused on what was happening I wasn’t thinking about what I was confessing when I mentioned the guard. I let it out without realizing it. I was in prison.” David shrugged, although tension ran through his shoulders, and a nervous laugh escaped. “There. I said it again.”

Ben held still for a moment before finally nodding. “You definitely did. We’ll have to talk about that some more the next time we’re together.” He scooped the kitten up from a chair much too close to the door and scratched her behind the ears. “But not right now.” After rubbing her furry face against his forehead, Ben put her down on the dresser. “Bye, Elsa.” When Ben reached the door again, he pointed at David, and golden sparks returned to his eyes. “I will be back for you soon.” As the door swung closed, he yelled from outside, “Lock the door behind me!”

David bounced up from his reclined position, and a burst of laughter, happy this time, shot out of him. He covered his face, but good God, he grinned from ear to ear.
What just happened?

He’d shown a powerful man some of his weakest, oddest, most private, neurotic fears and quirks, had confessed to doing something so wrong that he’d gone to prison for it, and miraculously the guy had not freaked out on him.

In fact, no matter what the situation, Ben seemed to know how to instinctually handle David. He knew when to take control and push David, but not take advantage of the insecurities that made David want to please beyond what was good for him. Ben possessed a tender and generous side, paired with dominant assertiveness, and both meshed perfectly with David’s fragile confidence and need for a mate to take charge and guide him to explore his desires. They made an ideal couple.

But he got away without ever explaining Mikael.

The truth sank into David’s stomach like a lead balloon, and his smile slid away. Twice now he and Ben had come together—both times in David’s room, not Ben’s—and each time Ben had managed to free himself from the talk that would have come after the high of orgasm.

This time, though, Ben had assured David he would come back. He’d been almost adamant about it. Maybe this time Ben had rushed out in order to speak with this Mikael person. Maybe he’d gone to explain that he’d met someone new and their relationship had to come to an end.

Just as fast as that fanciful notion filled David’s head, insidious doubt crept in.
How can you assume something so far-fetched? You don’t even know him. You don’t know what Ben does for a living or where he’s from, let alone his commitment to this other guy.

Destructive talons dipped in jealousy pushed forth and clawed at David’s core, crippling him. Even as he murmured, “No, I won’t do it,” he got up, the comforter wrapped around his nakedness, and rushed to the window. He peeled back an inch of the heavy curtains and peeked out in time to see Ben climb into his sleek, fancy car, gun the engine, and tear out of the motel parking lot.

Those razor-sharp claws cut into David some more, pushing him to follow Ben to see where he went and to whom he talked. David put his hand on the doorknob, but as he did, the voices of his doctors and the hundreds of pages he’d read in assigned books cut into him too, schooling him on the correct next move to make. With extreme will, so much that he used his free hand to pry the other off the handle, David let go of the door and turned away without opening it. As he did, another fact slammed into him and got his heart hammering: even if he’d chosen to follow Ben, once he’d stepped outside, he would have remembered he didn’t have a car. David couldn’t stalk Ben if he wanted to. He couldn’t afford it.

Another jag of laughter escaped David, this time aimed at himself, with none of the giddy pleasure of a possible new love lacing the sound.
God stepped in to stop you since you can’t seem to control yourself.

Except—David stumbled into a chair—he had stopped himself. He’d overcome and let go of the door before the truth of his lack of a car had hit him, not afterward. Old, bad instincts had moved David to the door in the first place, but a lot of hard work had compelled him to turn away from the destructive path to obsessive stalking before stepping outside.
I did it
. David grinned once more, so big and real this time his cheeks hurt.
For once I talked myself down from the ledge.

David scooped up the kitten, planted a loud kiss on her cheek, and twirled her in a fast waltz around the room. She mewled, and David muttered, “Ugh,” when his bare foot came down on a damp, chewed-up piece of paper.

“Elsa.” The name slipped naturally from David’s lips. No matter that he hadn’t resolved anything with Ben, David couldn’t help the warmth that fill his heart, knowing Ben had thought about the kitten enough to assign her a name.

David held the tiny ball of golden-brown fur up in front of his face and asked, “Have you been chewing on my work again?”

The kitten squirmed out of David’s hold, bounded to the bed and then to the floor, trotted to her own bed, settled into a ball, and started licking a paw.

“Yeah, all right.” David swiped the paper off the floor. “You don’t feel guilty. I got it.” The soggy edges of the paper made David grimace, but he turned it right side up and straightened it out against the tabletop, just in case Elsa had damaged any important website codes.

David looked down, prepared to have to fill in some holes in his work for the sanctuary website, but instead big, bold words in all capital letters reached up at him from the wrinkly page: GET OUT OF COLEMAN NOW OR I’LL MAKE YOU WISH YOU’D NEVER BEEN BORN.

Oh my God
. Bile surged up David’s throat. He covered his mouth and raced to the bathroom, praying he could make it to the toilet in time. He pushed up the lid, dropped to his knees, and purged everything in his stomach in violent heaves. Pungent acid burned David’s mouth, but he gagged and gagged up more of his lunch until he had nothing left to give.

Oh God
. David slumped against the side of the tub, his gut sore and his chest aching.
I didn’t know he hated me this much.

This had to be Travis. The rest of his family couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge him, let alone threaten to hurt him. For a fleeting moment, Christian crossed David’s mind, but years of knowing Christian intimately settled within David and reminded him this wasn’t the man’s style. It had to be Travis. Brittany was probably still pissed at him, and in Travis’s mind that was David’s fault. And for all of Travis’s nastiness toward David, he did worship his wife. David had seen that with his own eyes more than once.
If he thinks he lost her
—David shivered and pulled the comforter tighter around his body—
he could fuck me up worse than any beating I ever took in prison.

David pushed off the floor and rushed to the window once more. He looked for Ben again. But this time, David only wanted the safety that would come in the man’s strong arms.

Unfortunately neither Ben nor his black BMW were anywhere in sight.

* * * *

As Ben drove across town, he cursed up a storm and barely pulled himself back from hitting his phone against his dashboard and smashing it into a million pieces.

What in the hell is up with people ignoring my texts?
First Mikael had thought he could get away with the behavior, and now Ben couldn’t get Jonah Roberts to respond to his request to talk. Jonah had ignored a text, and then a voice mail stating the urgency of Ben’s need to talk in person. Irritated beyond all hell, Ben had stormed out of his motel room and started driving toward the man’s home. He might be working for the guy for expenses only, but that didn’t mean Jonah got to treat Ben like his personal bitch.

After what had happened with David twice now, not to mention the way Ben had not been able to stop thinking about the man during his brief trip to Sweden, Ben could not in good conscience tail David for Jonah any longer. Hell, he didn’t want to anymore. Every instinct in Ben told him to defend and protect David from judgment and suspicion, not objectively analyze the man for someone else’s suspicions. Not to mention Ben had jerked off more times in the past week and a half while thinking about David than he’d probably done in six months while watching porn featuring stunning men fucking one another in gorgeous high definition on his seventy-inch TV. He could no longer pretend he did not have a very real interest in David Joyner.