Page 65 of Hard Bargain

“Stand up.”

Knox got to his feet on unsteady legs, cock rigid and leaking. Dominic rose too, took Knox’s hand and wrapped it around the boy’s length, keeping his own hand layered over it.

“Your turn,” he said, voice rough, as he dragged their joined hands down in one firm stroke. Knox’s head fell back with a gasp. It took only three more strokes before he shuddered, shoulders curving in, cum striping both their knuckles.

A broken sound escaped him that Dominic was not going to think about.

They stood there, close enough that every breath he took brushed against Knox’s skin, harsh and ragged, neither of them pulling back yet.

“Bathroom’s through there,” Dominic said after a moment, nodding toward a door. “Clean up.”

Knox swiped his forearm across his eyes, nodded once, and turned to grab his clothes. The bathroom door shut behind him with a quiet click.

Dominic looked down at his own hand, Knox’s cum still drying across his knuckles. He would have expected some kind of disgust at having another man’s sperm on his hand like this. There was none.

If anything, there was something almost satisfying about it—proof of what he’d done to Knox, undeniable and messy and his. He crossed to the kitchen sink anyway, trousers haphazardly fastened, and washed the evidence away.

Every detail of what had just happened replayed in brutal clarity—the heat of Knox’s mouth, the way the boy’s eyes had gone glassy when he’d swallowed, the soft, desperate noise he’d made when Dominic allowed him to finish.

Goddamn it. That shouldn’t have happened.

The loft felt too quiet. The kind of quiet that pressed against his ears. He rolled his shoulders, as if shaking something off.

The water shut off. Knox came out with his clothes back on, hair damp at the temples from splashing water on his face. The bruise on his cheek stood out harsher now, the swelling more defined, spreading into something ugly. He hated how much that single mark bothered him.

They looked at each other across the loft.

Knox cleared his throat. “I’ll head out.”

Yes, Dominic thought. Do that. That was the sensible thing.

“Head out?” he said instead.

“Yeah.” Knox crouched to lace his boots, deliberately not looking at him.

He pictured Knox walking back into that apartment alone. The irritation was instant and Dominic’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “It’s late,” he said. “You’ll sleep here.”

Knox froze. “What? Dom—”

“Not a discussion. Couch is yours.”

He stood there with his arms folded, suit jacket still on, tie still straight, as though the last twenty minutes hadn’t happened. As though the room didn’t still smell like them.

Knox’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Dominic could have conjured up a dozen reasonable answers. He gave none of them, because every one tasted thin even in his own head. He just held Knox’s stare and waited.

“You give a lot of orders,” Knox said.

“You didn’t object earlier.”

The words were out before he could stop them.

Christ.

Why the fuck had he said that? Knox didn’t need the reminder—and Dominic certainly didn’t need it either, not when he was already doing such a poor job of not thinking about it.

Knox’s eyes went wide. “That was different,” he muttered, turning half away.