“Nirvana?”
“Yeah. Like, the ultimate. You know those hook-ups that are kinda mechanical? Yeah, I don’t like those. I don’t want to go through the motions for an orgasm I could easily give myself. I want tofeelit.” Mickey flopped onto his back again.
Benito propped himself up on his elbow to look at him. “I felt it.”
“I know.”
“And you did too?”
“You’re taking the fucking piss, right?”
Benito had no idea. He plucked the cigarette from Mickey’s fingers, finished it off, and rose to flick it from the window. When he turned back to the bed, Mickey was sitting up too, scanning the floor for his clothes, and Benito felt the shift like a boot to his chest.
Or maybe it was his stuttering pulse returning to earth from the pounding orgasm he could still feel in his toes. Either way, it was time to go.
Benito snagged his jeans and underwear from the floor and yanked them up his legs. He straightened to find Mickey right in front of him, fully dressed, clutching his phone. “It’s dead.” He held it up. “Or I’d take your number.”
“You don’t want to give me yours?”
“Would you call it?”
Benito shrugged. “Probably not.”
“Thought so.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a judgemental arsehole and I’m not always wrong like I was earlier.”
“When you thought I’d be a shit fuck?”
Mickey snorted out a laugh that briefly changed his whole face. Then his gaze heated again, pinning Benito in place. “I never thought that. Just that maybe I couldn’t giveyouwhat you needed.”
Benito slipped his shirt over his shoulders, and Mickey watched as he did the buttons up, tracking Benito’s bare skin as it disappeared.
Fresh arousal flared in Benito’s groin, but he dampened it down. They were done. It was over.
“So...,” Mickey said.
Benito blinked. “What?”
Mickey stared a moment, then shook his head. “Fuck it. I’m gonna write your digits on my arm.”
He opened a drawer in the nearby dressing table, fished a pen from inside, and handed it to Benito. “You can fake number me if you want. I won’t haunt you.”
Shame. But Mickey’s word choice brought him back to earth with a shiver. He took the pen and scrawled on the underside of Mickey’s forearm, grounding himself in the warmth of the smooth skin he found there. For a moment, it worked. There was nothing but the lingering crackle of what they’d shared and the overwhelming desire to kiss Mickey one more time.
Onelasttime. Because hook-ups never called. At least, Benito never did.
He capped the pen and dropped it to the floor.
Then he gripped Mickey’s shirt and tugged him closer. “Bye, then.”
Mickey grinned. He opened his mouth to speak, but Benito cut him off, kissing him with enough force to make them both stumble. Rough. Hot. Hard. Just like they’d fucked.
Then Mickey pulled away, still grinning, and walked out the door.
His departure felt like tectonic plates shifting in Benito’s brain. His fading footsteps dragged Benito from his sex-hazed trance, one by one, until they were gone. Somewhere, a door closed.