4
I always win.
Benito couldn’t say what excited him so much about those words, but as Mickey stepped away, his hand shot out of its own accord to stop him. “Wait.”
Mickey turned to face him again, sandy eyebrows raised. He didn’t speak, though. Apparently, he thought he’d said enough, but even if they did nothing but talk, despite proclaiming he hadn’t come here for that, Benito hadn’t had anywhere near his fill of conversation.
“Um.” Benito pulled his hand back, regretting the loss of physical contact the moment it was gone. “I don’t think you’d beat me in a fight.”
Amusement danced in Mickey’s slate grey eyes. “You’d be surprised, but I’m not talking about a street fight. I’m talking about dominance. About resisting the inevitable.”
“And the inevitable is that you fuck me?”
“If that’s what we both wanted, yes. You could change your mind at any moment and I’d stop.”
Somewhere behind the heated thump of his pulse, Benito struggled to map a trail to how his day had wound up here, in a sex club, negotiating the dub-con encounter of his filthiest dreams with the hottest bloke he’d seen since he’d last set eyes on Luis Pope. If that’s what they were doing. Mickey still seemed set to walk away. “What if I changed my mind about dominance and tried to push it back on you?”
Mickey shrugged. “Don’t know, mate. It’s never happened like that for me. Can you go both ways?”
“I go most ways in most things,” Benito said. “Top, bottom, dudes, women. I like everything, but...”
“What?” Mickey stepped back into Benito’s personal space, crowding him with his strong build and masculine scent. “Are you saying that you want to try this for real? Because I haven’t got time for games. I’d rather go home and spend the night with my hand.”
“What would you think about?”
“When?”
“When you were home alone.” Benito let his legs fall slack, silently inviting Mickey to step between them. “If you left here without taking a chance on me?”
Mickey took another step forward and licked his lips. “Oh, I’d definitely think of you, if that’s what you’re asking. I already told you you’re a fucking fantasy. I’m just wondering if you’re too alpha to give it up.”
“And you already know you’re too alpha to take that risk, right?”
“Maybe.” Mickey gripped Benito’s chin again, ramping up the pressure with every thud of Benito’s pulse, as though testing his resistance. “Some days I think I could like it, but I’m definitely not in that place today. I came here to fucking own someone, and I’d rather go home than be disappointed.”
“Harsh.”
“I know. But I know myself and what I want and what I need. It’s been a long day, you feel me?”
“I do,” Benito blurted with little conscious thought, especially in the literal sense of the question. His game of chicken with the police seemed a lifetime ago, and he’d stepped into a different skin the moment he’d entered the dimly lit club, but he needed something too. Perhaps the very thing Mickey was offering. “Listen, I can’t promise I’ll go down easy, but if you want a ruck to get there, I’m here for it.”
Mickey’s gaze intensified, unreadable, and for the first time since he’d dropped onto the stool beside Benito, he seemed unsure. He brought his face so close to Benito’s that his breath warmed his cheek. “I’m probably making myself sound like an arsehole.”
“Doesn’t bother me.”
“That I’m an arsehole?”
Benito leered. “I didn’t come here for marriage.”
“Did you come here to get thrown down and fucked?”
“That’s what’s gonna happen?” Benito’s pulse kicked up another notch. His blood rushed south, leaving fire in its wake. He’d told the truth when he’d said he could go either way, but everything about this conversation was hitting the deep chasms inside him that craved exactly what Mickey was offering. Fighting, fucking, thieving. For years it had been all he’d ever known. Ever since his mum left him on the steps of the long-ago burned-down MMA gym on the estate, and grappling with boys—and the effect it had on him—had been his first clue that it wasn’t just girls who made his body burn. By the time he’d turned sixteen, it had been clear pretty much anyone could if they caught his attention.
Fighting, fucking, thieving.
He wasn’t good for much else.
Mickey drew his wallet from his back pocket. He was still holding Benito’s face.