Page 64 of The Wolf and the Monarch

“Good. And I’ll see you soon.”

“You will,” he paused. “And, Andi, don’t say anything to Dad.”

She sighed. “I won’t.”

“We’ll talk to him together about it.”

“Can I mention I talked to you at least? Spence and Travis would like that…”

He shook his head. “No, don’t. Dad set this up for a reason. He set me up and I don’t want him to…come up with some bullshit excuse.”

“Yeah, okay. I get it.”

“Just a few more days,” he said.

“A few more days,” she repeated and sighed. “I love you, Benji.”

“Love you too.” He responded and forced himself to hang up the phone. They needed to save on the minutes. But he also knew that he could stay on the phone with Andi forever and that wasn’t going to be good for either of them. He was just happy to know that she was okay and she didn’t have to worry about him for the time being.

Rubbing his eyes, he stood up and moseyed his way upstairs so he could find Sawyer. It wasn’t hard to locate him, of course. He was just laying on his bed, perusing the handful of TV channels there were. However, when he spotted Benji, he immediately sat up in bed and turned off the TV. His head tilted a bit. “You okay?”

Benji shrugged and turned his gaze towards the ground. “I don’t know.”

Sawyer scooted himself over so he wasn’t in the middle of the bed anymore and patted the mattress. For a moment, he just stood there, pondering if he should take further comfort from Sawyer but he eventually decided that, yeah, he should. And he wanted to. Benji crawled onto the bed and laid down beside Sawyer. Neither said anything. They just laid there with their fingers softly entwined with one another’s.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Sawyer

Both men kept their gazes on the ceiling as their fingers rested together. Sawyer couldn’t help but notice how natural it felt to be doing that with Benji. Neither one of them questioned it or thought too hard about it. It just happened and he liked it. Sometimes, thinking about things would ruin the moment. Sawyer imagined that Benji was thinking about quite a bit after that talk with his sister. He wanted to ask how it was but he was slotting it into a ‘ask about that later’ category because he had one thing on his mind and he wasn’t going to let it go until he did something about it.

Turning his head, he just took the opportunity to look the other over. His face held many emotions. It was hard to pinpoint just one. Stress was evident on his face but there was also some form of relief there. The general situation they were in was stressful in nature, so that made sense. And after speaking to his sister, the latter made sense as well.

Benji looked at Sawyer after a few moments. His eyes looked bluer than normal. But perhaps that was just because Sawyer was really looking at him. They made his hair look redder than usual as well. His own hair never shifted color. It was always dark. But he noticed that Benji’s would shift depending on the lighting or where they were. Sometimes it was more of a red, sometimes it was more of a light brown. Sawyer liked that.

Sawyer liked a lot of things about Benji. And he felt like their conversation earlier was a breakthrough of sorts. That what he was feeling was mutual. And yes, sure, it had only been a short time. But it felt like far longer. They were both experiencing things most people couldn’t even dream of. Sawyer had felt that Benji was different from the moment he saw him waking up in that van. The two of them put their faith and trust into each other and it was just them against the world. Sawyer had never had that with someone before and he wanted to keep it.

Benji’s head tilted a bit against the pillow as his eyes settled upon Sawyer’s. “What?”

It was such a short but loaded question.

One that Sawyer didn’t even bother to answer.

He just leaned over and kissed Benji.

His eyes lidded as he did so, almost too afraid to look the man in the eye after it. But also because he wanted to enjoy it as much as he could, even when Benji didn’t return the kiss. That did hurt. More than he expected. But taking a chance was all he could do. He didn’t regret it. Not even when he pulled away and saw the look on Benji’s face. He was clearly trying to process what happened and perhaps he should have said something before just doing it but it didn’t feel right. Sawyer blinked a few times with red cheeks before he moved to lay back down like nothing happened.

Benji didn’t let that happen though. He reached his hand out and grabbed Sawyer by the back of his head to drag him back for another kiss. A real one. Their lips connected and it felt like there were legitimate sparks between them. That was something Sawyer had never experienced before, no matter who he kissed. His own damaged hand moved and softly cupped Benji’s neck. Their lips didn’t falter against one another’s. Not even as Sawyer’s tongue pressed forward, begging for entrance into his mouth, which Benji obliged to with a soft moan.

Sawyer was already feeling his blood pumping south and it took everything in him not to start dry humping the side of Benji’s leg. While he had a few guys he could go to while in the bunker for some release, it wasn’t something that he often brought up. He always felt weird doing it, even though everyone else did. To be fair, what else was there to do when you were cooped up there, waiting for missions? Perhaps it was the fact that his uncle was just around. The last thing he needed was for Milo to know Sawyer was getting his rocks off. No thank you.

So, needless to say, he was a bit pent up.

But even if he hadn’t been, he was certain he’d be having the same reaction. Benji was extremely handsome and he was making such sweet sounds that it would be impossible not to have a raging hard on.

He felt Benji’s hand slip from his head, down his neck and arm to his waist. His hand tightened and he pulled Sawyer towards him. He pulled himself between his legs, which Benji happily parted for him, and slotted so perfectly between them. Their equally hard cocks rubbed against each other while Benji rutted beneath him and Sawyer felt like he could have busted right then and there. Luckily, he didn’t. But fuck, it was nice to feel.

Sawyer ground his hips against Benji’s and for the first time, their lips parted simply so they could pant softly together. He had no idea what their plan was but he would just be happy to be able to do anything with Benji. There was a part of him that thought that maybe fucking right off the rip wasn’t a great idea. He didn’t want Benji’s emotional state to dictate anything between them… If they weren’t ready for that, they weren’t ready for it.