Page 49 of Syncopation
He was dying. So strung out. Each stroke an agony of delight.
“Imagine your thumb is a tongue. Rock your hips like that.”
So close to the edge, so aware of Zavier, his heat, his length. But he couldn’t—
“Slow down. Roll your balls.”
Like beingburned and frozen at the same time. Too much.
“Yes, Ray. That’s perfect.”
He gasped and moaned at the pleasure in Zavier’s voice, and didn’t know how he was still standing. Everything had gone white. His body shook with the need for release. He wasn’t close—he was so far beyond that he barely hung on to sanity by the slimmest of margins. “Please. Please please please.”
“You’re so beautiful,”Zavier murmured. “Come for me, Ray.”
He didn’t know if he cried out, because the pleasure was so intense it robbed his sight and hearing and took him out of the world. He tumbled and tumbled, hot semen coating his hand and Zavier’s teeth scraping against the back of his neck. He fell until there wasn’t anything in his head but a haze and silence and blessed relief.
All that remained washim and the man who held him up. Zavier Demos.
Ohfuck.
He must have grunted or something because Zavier half carried, half dragged him to the bed and helped him sit on the edge. “Shhh,” he murmured. “You’re fine.”
Ray wanted to bury his face in his hands, but one was covered in jizz. He stared at the drying spunk, as his body shivered against the intensity of his orgasm. He wasnotfine. Not by a long shot. His gaze drifted to Zavier’s shoes, a beat-up pair of black Chucks—so incongruous with everything else about Zavier. They should be fine and leather and—
The rest of the night came crashing back in. Carl’s reprimand after the concert. They still weren’t playing good enough. The press was cooling to them. Then the guy showing up with the promise of one night free ofthought. Zavier’s fury, his snide remarks, and the utter shame of putting the band on the line.
“Ah hell, Ray.” Zavier spoke again, but so soft and gentle it didn’t seem like him at all. The shoes vanished from view and there was the sound of a door opening and closing. Soon, a soft, warm, white garment was being draped over his shoulders and back. “Here.”
Ray pulled the fabric tighteraround him with the hand he hadn’t come all over.
And what if that guy had slipped him something? Ray’s head swam.You’re such a fuckup, Ray.Carl’s words.No wonder Kevin drank his days away.An echo of the words Zavier had said, too.
He deserved the scorn. No wonder Zavier had pulled away from him.
Zavier was back, and this time kneeling at Ray’s feet, with a towel. “Give me yourhand.”
Instinctively, he knew which one. Zavier had wet one end of the hand towel, enough to clean the spunk off. He did so carefully and nearly reverently, as if Ray wasn’t some kind of monster. He dried Ray’s fingers the same way.
Zavier rose slowly, and vanished once more. When he returned, he had a glass of water. “Drink.”
Ray took the glass and sipped. Cool—not cold—and clean.He blinked a few times and focused on the carpet. Zavier finally stopped moving and took a seat on a chair across from him.
“I’m sorry,” Ray whispered. “You must think I’m the biggest fucking loser ever.”
Silence for a time, then the creak of Zavier shifting on leather, or vinyl, or whatever the hotel furniture was covered in. “Ray, please look at me.”
The request flowed through Rayand he obeyed. No thought, only action.
Zavier had crossed his legs and lounged in the chair, looked much the way he normally did, cool and collected. “I don’t think you’re a loser.”
Shame and elation wormed through Ray, clashing and conflicting. He shivered and pulled the robe tighter around his shoulders. Zavier was wrong—except that he wasZavier, so he couldn’t be wrong.
“I nearlyfucked a drug dealer.” His stomach churned. “I don’t know what might have happened.”
Zavier cocked his head. “Why’d you ask him up?”
Ray stared at Zavier. “I didn’t. He showed up at my door. I’d never seen him before.”
