Level Hands: Bend or Break, Book 4 (29 page)

“Does that hurt?”

“No.” But the word was tight.

Rafi thrust shallowly again, not wanting to push deep. Denny moaned through clenched teeth but didn’t sink into the motion.

“Tell me what you need.”

“Nothing. S’good.”

“Liar,” he chided softly. “It’s okay. Tell me what you want me to do. Wait? Stop? Go harder?”

The tension in Denny’s shoulders didn’t ease and he didn’t say a word. Just pushed back like before until Rafi moved again, slow and gentle, his hand stroking Denny’s side and urging him to relax.

“You know sex isn’t like it is in porn, right?” Denny spoke at last.

“What?” Rafi grabbed Denny by the chin and turned his head to the side so he could look him in the eyes. Denny bit his lip and locked his gaze on Rafi’s mouth. Rafi let go as they kissed, a hot, slick dance of tongues and teeth. He moved his hand back down to Denny’s ass, thumb dipping into his crack, rubbing against the tight ring of muscle that gripped the base of Rafi’s dick until they both moaned at the intimate touch.

Shit. Right, focus.
Denny was saying something. He stopped kissing Denny, lifting his mouth long enough for Denny to get a few words out.

“There are…differences. Between porn and real sex.”

“Why are we talking about porn while I’m fucking you?” he asked, and leaned in for another kiss before grunting in surprise. Jesus. He felt that in Denny’s ass. The clench of muscle on his dick.

“Say that again,” Denny ordered him. Someone else had felt it too.

Rafi leaned down, mouth next to Denny’s ear and rumbled out, “Why are we talking about porn while I’m fucking you?” Because he knew, didn’t he…knew how the words made Denny’s stomach tighten, a move he could now feel in his asshole too as he clamped down on Rafi’s dick. Rafi had worked an elbow under himself to hold himself up, and now he used that height to watch their bodies moving together. His brown skin so much darker than Denny’s pale creaminess. Watched the spread of his fingers against Denny’s hip, watched them grip and hold, and he shivered again.

All Denny could manage was a whisper as Rafi rocked his dick back and forth in his ass, hardly moving at all, but doing his best to light up every nerve in Denny’s body.

“I don’t want you to be…oh.” Gasping made him hard to follow. “Unh, surprised. If things get messy. I didn’t, um, prepare. I was focused on making you breakfast.”

Rafi huffed out a surprised laugh. Then dropped his mouth to Denny’s shoulder and pressed a kiss there. “We have this magical thing called a shower. So maybe it’s okay if we shut up now, all right?”

He slid a hand around Denny’s waist to his dick, and Denny was supposed to shut up, but words were pouring out of him as Rafi started stroking harder with hand and dick together.

Okay, maybe not words. But sounds and cries and moans and things that could maybe be words if you strung them all together but were most cut-off cries of
fuck
and
yes
and nobody needed a translation for that.

Rafi didn’t say a word. Just fucked him and fucked him and kept moving like he wouldn’t stop, ever. His hand wrapped around Denny’s dick in a grip that almost hurt. Everything hurt, every muscle in Rafi’s body straining, pushing for release. He slid his thumb over the slippery head of Denny’s dick and pressed. And Denny was coming, crying out as he spilled in Rafi’s hand, his body clamping down hard on Rafi’s dick over and over again.

Denny collapsed on top of his own come as if he didn’t give a damn about that or his shoulder, while Rafi kept fucking him. The idea of it, that he was fucking Denny past the point of his own orgasm, while Denny muttered encouragement under his breath—
yes
and
fuck me
and
don’t stop
—drove Rafi to piston his hips while his brain melted and his balls throbbed. The tension in Rafi’s skin built until it burned, because he was fucking Denny too long and too hard, and any moment now Denny was going to tell him to stop and Rafi would die. But with a gasp and a last surge of heat and pleasure in his balls, Rafi pushed deep and came. Long, pulsing jets that weren’t caught by a condom, but leaked out around his dick as he shuddered and thrust weakly again and again, until his dick softened and his muscles quit, dropping him heaving against Denny’s back.

Minutes later, Denny shifted out of the wet spot, pushing Rafi over until his ass was hanging off the edge of the mattress. Rafi complained into the mattress. “Leave me more than six inches, dude.”

“Don’t make me come in the middle of the bed next time.”

“Next time I’ll bend you over the side and fuck you that way,” Rafi growled at him, already reviving. Energy was building in his bones again, leaving him ready to lick every inch of Denny’s body he’d missed the first time around and seriously considering marking him with his teeth in a more visible spot. “Then I can fucking lie down after.”

Rafi’s dick tried to get hard at the idea.

Yeah, that wasn’t happening. Not in the next half hour, at least.

Denny dug his face into the pillow as if he planned on staying there for at least a month or two. “’Kay,” he muttered.

But Rafi didn’t let him stay there for long. Reminding him they needed to be out the door in short order, Rafi dragged Denny out of bed and hauled him into the shower, where Denny gave him a hard time about hogging all the hot water while acting weirdly self-conscious about being naked in the shower with Rafi.

“You know, you were just extra naked with me in broad daylight,” Rafi told him, rubbing soap lather across Denny’s chest while he laughed and tugged out of Rafi’s hands.

“I know,” Denny said, elbowing him to the side. “Are you done here? I can finish without you.”

Rafi offered him the shower gel. Denny took it from him and looked pointedly past the shower curtain.

Rafi got himself a clue, finally.

“What, you don’t want to wash your ass in front of me?” Rafi teased, scraping the bubbles off Denny’s chest and rubbing them across his own pecs.

Steam plastered Denny’s hair to his forehead. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Giving no warning, Rafi leaned over, grabbed Denny around the waist with one hand and stuck his lather-covered hand up Denny’s butt and washed him.

He guessed no one had done that to Denny since he was last in diapers, going by his outraged squawks.

Denny was still sputtering when Rafi stood up again and grinned at him. He bent down and pressed a quick kiss to that open mouth.

“I’m not afraid of things getting messy. Don’t worry about me.”

Denny finally gave up. He put down the bath gel and bent over slightly, pulling his butt cheeks apart and letting the shower rinse away the last of the bubbles, glaring at Rafi the entire time.

“I can take care of my own mess, thank you,” he said primly and swiped the shower gel off the edge of the tub again. “If you’re done, you can get your giant carcass out of here please. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Rafi kissed him again before sliding back the curtain and stepping onto the fluffy pink bath mat. “Okay. But we have to leave in five, so you’re gonna have to make yourself pretty in a hurry.”

“Shut. Up.” But he could hear it in Denny’s voice, that he was pleased.

It was stupid to blush because he’d called Denny pretty. Rafi was glad enough to be out of the shower when he realized what his face was doing, though. Denny was pretty, but that was a kind of girlie thing to say about another man. Rafi didn’t want to be pretty, and he didn’t think Denny did either. He wanted to be hot. Handsome. He’d aspired in the past to bang-me-baby heights.

It was stupid to get a little ball of glowing warmth in his chest, like one of those alien hearts from sci-fi movies, when he thought about Denny cleaning himself up.
Making himself pretty. For me.

Rafi had felt the opposite of invisible for most of his time on campus. He had more attention most days than he’d ever wanted, sticking out in his classroom, on the team, in the dorms. Too tall. Too big. Too dark. Too out of place. He felt the eyes on him constantly, without ever feeling seen. But the warmth of Denny’s attention, the awareness Denny let shine in his eyes when he’d spotted Rafi in the kitchen, watching Denny dance in his underwear. That. The knowing eyes of someone who saw him as more than a stereotype or a surprising exception to said rule. That was something Rafi wasn’t ready to give up.

It hadn’t occurred to him that maybe Denny needed the same in return. His friend, now lover, always seemed so perfectly in his element everywhere they went at Carlisle, Rafi had stopped thinking of someone who could ever feel shy or awkward or in need of the reassurance that flirting and preening for someone gave the object of the flirtation.

So if he paid a little extra attention to his hair and picked the tightest of the three T-shirts he’d thrown in his bag, who could blame him? He could show Denny he wanted him so much he thought about keeping Denny’s eyes on him all the time. And if he hadn’t figured out what to do about anything else in his life, figuring out this was a start.

Chapter Thirteen

Lola was crying, hot tears soaking through his T-shirt as she turned her head into his shoulder. Rafi was stretched out alongside her, careful not to jostle her on the hospital bed.

“I know it’s stupid, but all I keep thinking is José’s never gonna want to see me in short skirts again. I’m gonna look like Frankenstein.”

“You are gonna look like a total badass, guapa. Those are your battle scars, and José is gonna fall on his knees and thank God you’re such a tough bitch every time he sees them.”

She laughed with a wet snort and wiped her eyes with the bandages wrapped around her hands, covering the palms, where most of the skin was scraped off. Lola’s legs weren’t going to be the only place she would scar.

“And while he’s down there on those knees…” Denny drawled as he walked in the room, hands full of more crap from the vending machines, which Rafi kept telling him didn’t help, even as he ate it until his stomach ached. They’d eaten decent food on Thanksgiving, ordering in an entire multicourse meal with side dishes to Lola’s hospital room, sharing the leftovers with the nurses on duty. But Rafi and Denny had spent most of the week eating crap, and Black Friday was no exception. All of Rafi’s sisters worked in retail or the restaurant business, so the girls were on lockdown at their jobs while he and Denny spent the day with Lola.

Junk food galore.

Getting back on the nutritional straight and narrow at school when they returned was going to be a bitch and a half. He could feel the salt cravings from Chicago.

“Dude. That’s my sister you’re talking about,” Rafi scolded. Lola was cracking up next to him, laughing so hard she was moaning again.

“Aiii, fuck me, that hurts,” she huffed out when she stopped giggling, hand pressed against her taped ribs.

“I’m just saying. I’ve met the man, and he always struck me as an excellent multitasker.” Denny winked at Lola as he unscrewed the cap on a Gatorade bottle. He had figured out on his first day she liked the blue and purple Frost ones best.

Rafi knew, because he’d looked, that the only flavors the hospital vending machines stocked were orange and fruit punch. Which meant Denny went considerably farther afield than the lounge to find the bottles he lined up on Lola’s bedside table on a daily basis.

Daily. Because Rafi had told Denny he was staying through the holiday after they’d spent the day at the hospital last Sunday, Rafi grilling every doctor and nurse who set foot in Lola’s room, running a nonstop string of Google searches on his laptop in between their visits. At his announcement, made at the corner in front of the hospital while they waited for the light to change on their walk to the bus stop, Denny had nodded okay, not hesitating for a second.

“I bought an open-ended ticket. I’ll go back when you do.”

Rafi had had to turn his back, because he didn’t want any of the passing drivers to see him struggling not to cry. Denny had rubbed his back without saying a word.

“I know we need to talk,” he finally said, leaning into the heat of Denny’s strong body behind him.

“It can wait. This is Lola time,” Denny had said, and that was it. They’d headed home for sex and sleep, leaving Sofi at the hospital that night, and Mari following behind them after Lola fell asleep again. They’d spent the week pushing the girls to let them cover most of the hospital time because neither of them were working, except on papers they both had due. Nurse Nikki was Rafi’s savior, willing to put up with all kinds of questions during her overnight shifts, and Rafi took advantage of every chance he had to pick her brain. By the middle of the week, she’d joked that he could probably do her job for her. He’d thanked her with another sandwich from the Au Bon Pain on the ground floor of the hospital and gone back to watch a movie with Denny and Lola in her room. Lola was on enough painkillers that she couldn’t track plotlines very well, but a car chase was a car chase. They’d watched a lot of action movies that week. At some point, it occurred to Rafi to ask Denny what he’d told his professors and Coach Lawson.

Denny lifted an eyebrow and said, like it was no big deal, “I said my boyfriend’s sister was in the hospital and could have died, and he and his family needed me.”

So that was that. Everybody knew. If Denny had said it like that, like there was nothing at all surprising about his taking off to fly cross-country to be with his boyfriend, Coach Lawson wouldn’t have kept it quiet from the team. Rafi took a deep breath.

Everyone who’d already believed shit about him, and those who’d only wondered, would know it was true. Or, at least, some of it was true. The part where he was fucking the guy who’d helped to pull the strings to get him into Carlisle.

Like he’d heard the words inside Rafi’s head, Denny had dropped his chin and stared Rafi down. Rafi might be off the hook for talking about things like when they’d agreed that the word
boyfriend
could be used, but he apparently wasn’t off the hook for trash-talking himself inside his own damn head.

Jesus, this letting someone see you all the way inside thing had some serious downsides. Like the scary mind reading.

Okay, they were more than fucking, and Rafi knew it. They’d crossed all the lines at once, and whatever he’d thought about pulling back and being his own man and changing people’s opinion of him…all of that was nothing but crap.

Whatever people thought of him, that’s what he was fucking stuck with. If he wanted to change it, fine. But that was going to be his baseline.

Time to man up and fucking deal.

He pictured Lola in her hospital bed, high as a kite on painkillers and looking at three months of scooting around on the giant wheelie tricycle thing they’d already rented for her to use at home. Because she wasn’t going to be able to put any weight on her leg until almost March. And then months of physical therapy before she’d have a chance at walking again without a cane. Rafi knew the drugs helped, but not with the fear and the depression, and occasional bouts of tears aside, Lola was digging deep, ready to bust her ass to get the life she wanted back.

Time to woman up, more like it. Lola ain’t the only tough bitch in this family.

When the flowers arrived at the hospital for Lola from the entire team, minus a few signatures on the card Rafi hadn’t expected to see anyway, he hadn’t let himself hesitate before shooting an email back to Coach Lawson.

Please thank the guys (and thank you too!) for the flowers. Lola loves them. She told the nurses twenty future Olympians sent her daisies. She didn’t tell her boyfriend that. Thank you also for understanding why I needed to stay, and for giving Denny workout routines for me. The Chicago streets aren’t nearly as much fun to run after getting used to country roads. We’ll be back soon, Rafi.

Those same flowers were still blooming on Lola’s hospital windowsill, although they were finally looking a little droopy. Rafi made a mental note to bring some fresh ones the next morning when he and Denny came back.

Lola accepted the drink with the straw Denny slid into it, giving him a grateful smile. “Thanks, kid. Do me a favor?”

“Of course.”

“Get his ass out of here. Time to go.” Lola jerked her chin at Rafi.

“We went home early last night!” Rafi protested immediately, although of course that was only so they could be back at the crack of dawn this morning. But he was the only one in the room who didn’t understand what they were talking about, apparently, because Lola and Denny both rolled their eyes at him while shooting each other significant looks.

See how he is? Deliberately missing the point, again.

“I’ve got open-ended tickets ready for us,” Denny said. It took a moment for the words to sink in.

Not for Lola. “Good. You pack his shit tonight, okay? I’ll explain what’s what to my stupid, wonderful brother.”

“I’ll give you some time alone.” The kiss Denny pressed to her forehead made Lola’s eyes shine. He whispered in her ear, loud enough for Rafi to hear every word. “Don’t worry about him. I’ve got him.”

And Rafi could hear it in his voice, how deeply Denny meant it.
I’ve got him.
For once, he didn’t feel the need to fight that. Maybe it was being so scared for Lola, or overwhelmed with trying to figure out what happened next, but for the first time ever, he understood how important this was for Denny. It wasn’t showing off or taking over or whatever crap Rafi’s brain had been afraid of. Denny needed to take care of him because that was how Denny loved. Rafi remembered all the times he’d shut Denny down when Denny had tried to help him, and regret flooded him.

“I see it. Gracias. You’re a good one, Denny.”

After his boyfriend left the room—the boyfriend who loved him and needed to help him both—Lola wiped her eyes and turned to Rafi. “Time to go, hermanito.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. I gotta concentrate on figuring out how fast I can get into rehab and get my ass walking around again. Dios mio, that’s gonna suck.” For a moment, Lola looked tired, the purple shadows under her eyes like bruises. Then she lifted her chin, and her smile might have wobbled, but it held. “But I can’t focus on that stuff if I’m all worried about you and what classes you’re missing and losing your scholarship. You guys have been rock stars for a week, but you have to go.”

“Fuck my scholarship.”

But his sisters were a united front, and Lola definitely knew her part. “Come closer and say that again so I can smack your face.”

He moved to the edge of her bed. She reached out with an open hand and laid it against the side of his face.

“Go back to school, ’Lito. Imma be just fine back here. They’re gonna send me home in a couple of days, and Sofi can make her spreadsheet work without you. We both got shit to do.”

“Yeah, but your shit’s a lot harder than mine,” he said, knowing it was true. He’d seen enough fellow student athletes with injuries over the past few years to know that recovery from an injury of any kind was a long and grueling process. And Lola’s injuries were multiple. He couldn’t imagine how much pain she was in, and how hard she was going to have to work.

“Guess it’s lucky I’m such a tough bitch, huh?” The wobble was back in the smile, and she blinked rapidly for a minute until she could speak again.

“Nah,” he said, and touched the tip of her nose with one finger. It was one place he was sure wouldn’t cause her pain. “That’s not luck. You worked hard for that.”

Lola sniffled and snorted, and by the time Denny came back in the room, they were both giggling, cracking up every time they caught each other’s gazes even though there wasn’t anything to laugh about. But sometimes you had to laugh because you were done with the crying. Just done. Lola complained that he was seriously causing her pain now, clutching her side and demanding Denny get him out of her room. Rafi promised to call later that night to let her know what flight they would be taking, secretly hoping there wouldn’t be seats available on the holiday weekend.

Denny managed to score them two seats on a late flight Saturday night, with two layovers. It would take them almost as long to fly as it would have to drive to Boston, but they’d get back to campus on Sunday with enough time to crash and catch up on sleep before Monday morning practice demanded their presence.

Saying goodbye to everyone took most of Saturday, because Rafi broke away for a long talk with Nurse Nikki, who had found him as her shift ended on Saturday morning to say goodbye and give him one last chance to pester her with questions. Talk about a tough job. Sofi and Nita were there, stopping between shifts at work and figuring out who was going home that night to sleep in a bed. But eventually he and Denny were on the road to O’Hare, Mari coming with them so she could drive her car back to the hospital after they left.

“I didn’t ask,” Rafi said out of the blue as he merged into the highway traffic. “When you showed up at the hospital in the middle of the night, I was so surprised. Glad to see you.” He glanced at Denny between changing lanes on the highway. Mari was out cold in the backseat, where she’d slumped in the corner almost as soon as he’d turned the key in the ignition. “I was never so glad to see anyone in my life. But why?”

Why, when I’d told you to stay away from me… Why, when I’d said such terrible things about your family…
He couldn’t finish any of the questions, not even in his head.

Denny cocked his head to one side. “Why did I come?”

“Yeah. I mean…” Okay, now he felt kind of stupid, because obviously Denny had come because he thought Rafi needed help. Needed someone. And he knew there was no one else at Carlisle who really knew him. But that wasn’t enough to get a guy on a plane with no notice, was it? “Did you even make it to the indoor race?”

“Yeah. We killed ’em. The guys especially.” Rafi knew Denny meant his suitemates, although Austin wouldn’t have been coxing at an indoor race. He didn’t doubt his littlest friend had been there, screaming his head off to cheer them on, though. “Austin and Vinnie and Bob said to give your sister their best and all that. I forgot to mention.”

“They’re good guys.” He’d been lucky as hell in the roommate lottery, and he knew it. The reminder that there were people who knew and liked him waiting back at Carlisle, not just those who scorned him, helped to ease the tension that had started rising last night while they’d packed. “I know it sucks that I let them down. And Lawson probably isn’t too pleased with me either. Puts a cramp in our plan to break me into the senior boat. I’m sorry.” He knew that had been important to Denny.

“Don’t be. Listen, I know I said some shitty things when I found you packing. I’m sorry. My brain was still in crew space, and I was pissed you were going to miss your chance. But there’s plenty of time to show her what you can do,” Denny reassured him.

The thing was, Rafi wasn’t sure he needed that reassurance anymore.

“You know, I don’t think I really care about crew that much.” Confessing it felt like taking his first steps into a minefield, holding his breath.

“Ya think?” Denny’s voice said,
This is not a state secret.