Mickey couldn’t begin to make sense of it. And he couldn’t stop. Only the desperate need for more oxygen drove them apart.
Panting, Mickey sprawled onto his back. Benito stayed where he was, propped on his elbow, eyes still heavy. He looked like he needed a nap, and Mickey wasn’t averse to the idea, especially if it meant fucking again when they woke up. The fact that it was a school night and he had an early start seemed to have deserted him.
He didn’t fucking care.
Benito didn’t seem in a hurry to move either. He was quiet, though, gaze drifting from Mickey to the big bay window. “It’s nice here. Just a street with six houses. It’s like a fucking toy town or something.”
“I know, right? One shop and a Chinese takeaway. Keeps me out of trouble. I can’t handle the big estates.”
“Too posh?”
A sharp laugh bubbled from Mickey’s chest. “Do I sound fucking posh?”
“Dunno. You’re northern. Could be a billionaire for all I know.”
“In this house? Your perception of wealth is fucked up.”
Something flickered in Benito’s dark gaze, something familiar, though Mickey couldn’t say why.
Benito sat up, scanning the room for his clothes. Mickey itched to tug him back down but stayed where he was, watching as Benito got up and dressed.
The scar disappeared beneath Benito’s T-shirt. Without the distractions of bare skin and wild sex, curiosity bloomed in Mickey’s gut. He opened his mouth to speak, but Benito spun to face him first.
“I know you’re not rich. You don’t have that vibe.”
Mickey raised a brow. “What vibe? Content and successful?”
“You’re not a wanker,” Benito clarified. “Even though this house could be a front. You could have a wife in a three-bed semi somewhere.”
Mickey snorted, amusement cutting through a sudden wrench of guilt. “I don’t have a wife. Or a second house.”
Benito tilted his head, gaze shrewd. “What is it, then? Girlfriend?”
“What? No. What makes you think it’s anything?”
“Dunno. You suddenly look like you’re gonna throw up. It’s not a good look on you.”
Mickey shrugged. “Regrets are a funny thing. How you move past something, then it comes back years later and punches you in the face again.”
Benito came back to the bed. “How many years later?”
“A few.”
“What? Like, five? Ten?”
“More like two.”
“What did you do that was so bad?”
Mickey stopped himself shrugging again and forced himself to meet Benito’s gaze. “I never had a wife or a secret house, but I had a girlfriend... for a long time. She never knew this about me. No one did.”
Benito sat on the edge of the bed, close enough that Mickey could’ve dragged him on top of him, but the fire between them had simmered down. “Does anyone who matters know now?”
Mickey laughed softly. “Define who fucking matters? Turns out it’s not a lot.”
Benito’s dark eyes swam with something too deep for a conversation between casual hook-ups. He took a breath, then shook his head. “Never is. You have to dig hard to find out, though, or it fucking flays you alive, man.”
“Or it keeps you alive. Took me a while to see that.”