Page 46 of Operation Sunshine
Franco pressed all the way in, and they both froze, their chestsheaving, as though they’d stepped off a cliff and were hanging suspended in the air. He cradled Ben’s nape, their ragged breaths mingling, and Ben closed his eyes. He felt split open down to the marrow, every hidden fear, every secret softness laid bare, and yet, instead of drowning, he found he could finally breathe.
Franco started to move, slow and careful at first, and each thrust sent sparks skittering up Ben’s spine, his hips rising to meet Franco’s without conscious thought. Their bodies found a rhythm, languid building into something more urgent, more desperate. Ben’s hands were in constant motion, on Franco’s back, his hair, his face, unable to decide where to cling next. Franco’s name fell from his lips again, each syllable both a prayer and a plea.
Franco pressed their mouths together in a torrent of kisses that collapsed into sharp gasps. “So good,” he panted, his voice frayed. “God, Ben, you feel so fucking good.”
Ben arched up as Franco’s cock grazed over his prostate, wrapping his legs around Franco’s waist to pull him deeper, to keep him hitting that sensitive spot. He felt as though he was unravelling thread by thread, each thrust loosening something inside him, some part of him wound too tight—until it snapped.
Ben came with a shuddering cry, his whole body seizing around Franco. The sound dragged Franco over the edge seconds later, his hips jerking, his voice cracking as he buried his face into Ben’s neck. They collapsed together, their bodies slick and trembling, their breaths colliding in the dark. Franco stayed inside him for a long, quiet moment, one hand stroking Ben’s hair, the other splayed across his chest as if to keep him tethered.
Eventually Franco eased out of him and gathered Ben into his arms. They lay there wrapped around each other, Ben’s hammering heart slipping back into its normal rhythm. Franco pressed a kiss to Ben’s forehead, then his cheek, then the corner of his mouth. His eyes glistened. “Thank you,” he whispered against Ben’s skin.
“Don’t thank me,” Ben murmured. “You just rocked my world.”
Franco pulled back enough to look at him, and Ben’s breathingcaught. A thousand jagged memories rose up: the nights he’d lain awake wondering if he was built wrong, the years of pushing people away before they could see the real man he hid beneath all the sarcasm and sharp edges.
“You said you wanted me to be here, with you—just us two.” Ben’s voice cracked. “Well, I’m here, all of me. With you.”
Franco’s face crumpled into a small, luminous smile. He pressed their foreheads together, and for a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Outside, the city murmured on with its varied soundtrack: the traffic below Franco’s window, a distant siren wailing, some neighbour’s laughter echoing faintly. But inside Franco’s flat, to Ben’s mind there was only the slow, tentative synchrony of two people learning to breathe together.
Franco tightened his arms around Ben as if to keep him from dissolving into the night.
“Stay,” he whispered.
Ben didn’t even need to think. He turned into Franco’s chest, inhaling the warm, salty scent of his skin.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Franco kissed the top of his head, another long, lingering press of lips that felt like an unspoken promise.
And for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Ben was ready to believe it.
Chapter Thirteen
Ben woke to warmth.
Not the expected warmth of the too-heavy quilt pressed around him, or the faint winter light peeking through Franco’s curtains, but Franco himself, sprawled across him like a starfish.
Scrap that—like a human furnace.
Ben blinked, disoriented. All he could see was Franco’s bare shoulder, smooth and golden in the morning light, and Franco’s hair, sticking up at all angles as if he’d fought off a tornado in his sleep.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to stay.
His body ached in a way that told him last night had been… a lot. Yes, it had been good, yes, it had been hot—it had also been different because he’d let go. Franco had taken charge, because somehow, without meaning to, Ben had surrendered.
He didn’tdosurrender.
Ben’s history was a string of hookups that never lasted past dawn, names he barely remembered, faces he never asked for again. Heat, friction, sweat? Sure. Intimacy? Hell no. He’d trained himself not to want it, not to need it.
Wanting leads to weakness. Needing means you can be disappointed.
Alone was simpler.
But last night had blasted through every wall he’d built with such care. Franco had touched him as though there was something worth holding on to under the armour. He’d kissed Ben as if he’d wanted to know every corner of him. And he’d taken Ben to bed and flipped the script in a way he hadn’t expected, hadn’t planned, hadn’t even allowed himself to think about before.
I bottomed.
