Angelo and Dylan

“Angel! Long time, no see.”

Angelo Giordano slid onto a bar stool and nodded at Carl, an old friend of sorts, though they’d never seen each other outside of the club. “It hasn’t been that long.”

“No? Seems like forever since I last saw your pretty face.”

“Piss off and get me some water.”

“You don’t want a Peroni?”

“Nah. Fuck that.” Angelo had drunk his fill of crappy Italian beer at his father’s wake, and his empty stomach was still protesting. “Water’s fine, mate. Honest.”

“Suit yourself.”

Carl slunk away to the fridges on the other side of the bar. Angelo watched him go, admiring his perfect porn-star backside. Carl was good fun and they’d played together many times in the past, but as Angelo ran his gaze over his broad shoulders and thickset thighs, he felt nothing. He wasn’t here for familiar; he’d come for the unknown.

A bottle of water appeared in front of him. Carl squeezed Angelo’s wrist and moved on, because that was the other good thing about him: he knew when to leave people alone.

And Christ, Angelo wanted to be alone, but he had one last thing to do before he locked himself away for the rest of the week; a last itch to scratch before he gave himself over to the black cloud that had followed him all the way home from New York. Was still following him, two months later.

He spun around on his stool and surveyed his surroundings. The bar was situated in the middle of the club, equidistant from most of the play areas. At this time of night, things were starting to heat up and spill over from the more popular rooms. Angelo’s first cursory glance picked up an acquainted couple screwing over a table, a snake pit of women on the floor, and a dude clearly getting the blowjob of his life from the bear of a man on his knees at his feet.

Heat pooled in Angelo’s groin. He thought about joining the couple on the table, of claiming his space behind the man and fucking him while he banged his wife, or shoving his dick in the bear’s mouth and hitching a ride on what looked like some damn fine head. But he didn’t move because both options were dances he’d danced before, and he wasn’t in the mood for another waltz.

Angelo drained his water bottle and slid from his stool. Instinct drew him to the stairs that led to the basement rooms⁠—his favoured place to play when his mood was this dark⁠—and he joined the short queue of others who fancied a mystery tour. At the front, he found Seamus, a beast of a man who watched over the basement rooms like every participant was his own child.

He tipped Angelo a wink. “Looking fly, brother. Do I need to go through the checklist with you?”

“Probably not, but I know you want to.”

Seamus chuckled and went through his safety list before stamping Angelo’s hand, branding him as the only player who’d walk into whatever followed with his eyes wide open. “Bunker five,” he said. “I gotta feeling you’re going to like what you find.”

Angelo rolled his eyes. Seamus was a terminal optimist, and his script never changed, regardless of what Angelo found on the other side of the thick steampunk door. “Whatever. Cheers, mate.”

He left his shoes with Seamus and padded barefoot down the industrial-styled corridor, the metal floor cold against the soles of his feet. The play bunkers were soundproofed, what went on behind the heavy doors audible only to Seamus and the pay-by-the-hour observation galleries, but Angelo sensed the heat emanating from each room he passed and let it seep into him and merge with the building anticipation roiling in his gut.

Bunker five was at the end of the corridor. Angelo paused with his hand on the door and psyched himself up for what he might find. In the past, he’d screwed all kinds of people, but dear God, he wanted to fuck a man tonight⁠—needed it. Craved it. Pansexual be damned, some days, only a man’s touch could take the pain away.

Angelo opened the door. Blinked a few times. And then a rush of relief hit him so hard he had to steady himself on the doorframe.

Whoa. Jackpot.

He sucked in a breath, and the smouldering desire in his gut did a happy dance. It had been a while, but the thrill of opening the door never got old, and this time he’d struck gold⁠—literally. The slender young man waiting for him on the bed had a halo of fair hair and pale skin that would look awesome with Angelo’s handprints welded into it. And beyond that, he was ready. Blindfolded and splayed out on his hands and knees, the man had left condoms and lube beside him⁠—his message clear. He wanted to be fucked, and Angelo was over the damn moon to oblige.

Dropping his clothes as he went, he stalked around the raised mattress, his dick already hard. His plan was basic, already spelled out by his mysterious companion, but he paused by the man’s head, intrigued by his lips. Pillowy and full, the temptation to slide his cock between them was strong, but the metal floor biting into his bare feet stopped him. People didn’t come to the basement rooms for that⁠—they came for the anonymous oblivion that Angelo craved.

Angelo returned to where the man clearly wanted him most. He reached for the condoms, and the man shivered as Angelo tore the foil wrapper open and then tossed it aside. Angelo rolled the condom on, jacking himself a couple of times before he turned his attention to his partner in crime and his willing hole. The lube was the stretchy kind that was fashioned on real come. It dripped out of the bottle in long wet strings and onto the man’s cleft, sliding down his thighs. The man shuddered again, but Angelo made no move to comfort him. Nah. The basement rooms weren’t about getting up close and personal; they were about getting down and dirty, and Angelo was more than ready.

He pushed lube into the man’s hole with his thumb, absorbing the delicious answering moan. Words were rarely exchanged in encounters like this, but there were a few that Angelo was obliged to utter. He eased his thumb further inside the man and leaned over him, his nipples brushing the man’s smooth back. “Safe word is fox. Don’t be shy about using it.”

The man gasped out a laugh. “I won’t.”

His voice was deeper than Angelo expected, and the gravelly words went straight to his dick. He withdrew his thumb, lined up with the man’s hole, and pressed inside with as much care as he could muster with his blood roaring a symphony in his ears. The man was tight and hot and slick with lube. And more than that, he wanted Angelo’s cock and widened his stance to take all of him in one slow slide.

“Fuck yeah.” Angelo stopped for a moment, reeling from being balls-deep inside a man. He took a breath, and then a strange sensation washed over him, and he lurched forward before he caught himself, hands flailing as he fought the urge to run his hands all over the man’s smooth back. What the hell?

That was a new one. When he’d played in the basement rooms before, he’d never thought about really touching whoever he’d been railing. Had never taken much notice because that was the point—a hook-up that took anonymity to the extreme, where sex narrowed to the lightning bolts of pleasure shooting through his dick. But he wanted to touch this man, wanted to squeeze those slim hips and let his palms roam that flawless back.

Wanted it. Craved it.

Fuck it.

Under the pretence of steadying himself, he laid a hand at the base of the man’s spine. A jolt of electricity surged up his arm, and a strangled groan escaped him. “Shit!”

“Yeah?” The man arched, his chest dropping to the mattress, his hole clenching, and then he drew himself off Angelo’s cock, before spearing back down on it, again and again, setting the rhythm that Angelo had played out in his head before he’d lost his bloody mind. Over the moody electronica, the slap of skin on skin grew louder as the man ground back on Angelo’s dick, meeting Angelo thrust for thrust as Angelo regained the ability to screw him coherently.

The club faded away⁠—the music, the hum of the crowd, and even the eyes that were bound to be watching them from the secluded observation points. The roll of the man’s hips grew more erratic, and Angelo was right there to take up the slack. For long minutes it seemed that their heady encounter would be a quick one, but then the reason Angelo had come to the club returned to him, and the desire to take control won out.

He gripped the man’s hips, slowing his movements, and then stilled him entirely as he took the man’s arms and pinned them behind his back. Angelo paused a moment to give the man a chance to squirm or protest or give any sign that he didn’t want Angelo to bang his brains out. There was none, and Angelo briefly pictured them with their positions reversed. With the man on top doing everything to Angelo that Angelo was planning on doing to him. Wow. That was new too. Angelo rarely bottomed. It had been years.

Angelo spat where they were joined, adding to the lube already there, and tightened his hold on the man’s slender hips. He started slow . . . but deliberate, dicking out the man with targeted stabs of his cock. The dizzying heat burned his veins, and he knew the moment he’d found the man’s sweet spot. The velvet warmth clamped tight around his dick, and the man cried out, balling his hands into fists and pushing back on Angelo in a blatant demand for more.

Like that, is it? And fuck if Angelo could deny him. As if he wanted to. He picked up the pace, shoving his dick home with as much rhythm as he could manage with their slick bodies sliding together. Over and over, he drove his cock deep, panting, growling, and flicking his head from time to time to keep the sweat from his eyes.

Edging had always been Angelo’s jam, and it seemed he’d found the perfect partner for his favourite game. He fucked the young blond to the other side of the mattress, and it was only when the man was perilously close to sliding off that he grasped his hips and yanked him back.

On their third go around, the man let out a ragged moan, and Angelo’s cock pulsed in warning. Heat rocketed through every vein, and his skin burned. Another odd urge to touch his companion swept over him, and then the desire to flip him over and pound him face-to-face. Except they wouldn’t be face-to-face, because the unwritten rules of the basement rooms prophesied that they should stay like this⁠—back to chest and invisible.

Angelo had never been one for rules.

He flipped the man over, revealing a lean, toned chest that was the stuff of Angelo’s fantasies. He’d played with plenty of big guys, but when he was alone in bed, it was bodies like this that kept him awake⁠—soft and lean . . . delicate, and yet crying out for a brutal railing.

Angelo yanked the man closer and pushed his legs apart. “Name.”

“What?”

Angelo leaned over the man, his lips a hairsbreadth from that slender neck. “Give me a name.”

“Dylan.”

Clubs like this were full of people playing under an alias, but a distant instinct told Angelo that this was real. Dylan. Yeah, he liked that. He dug his fingers into Dylan’s thighs and drove back inside him. Dylan let out a piercing moan, and Angelo took it as a cue to give it to him hard, all the while transfixed by his cock stretching Dylan out. It was a beautiful sight by itself, but combined with Dylan’s pliant body and guttural moans, Angelo was gone.

Dylan’s cock was poker straight and rigid on his sweat-sheened belly⁠—somehow he’d known that he didn’t have Angelo’s permission to touch it.

Angelo wanted to touch it.

Squeeze it.

Suck it.

On a good day, he could’ve fucked and sucked Dylan at the same time, but today wasn’t a good day, and he settled for leaning back on his heels, raising Dylan’s hips off the mattress, and screwing him so hard that his moans turned to shouts and then desperate yells as he started to come.

Angelo rode the wave as Dylan convulsed and plastered himself with jets of come, but then things got hazy. His vision darkened to the point where he might as well have been wearing the blindfold. He busted so hard he saw stars, and for a long moment, the reality of his so-called life faded away.

He was dimly aware of a smattering of applause as he chased the last shocks of release. Beneath him, Dylan was splayed out, panting and clearly exhausted. Completing a hat-trick of weird thoughts, Angelo pictured himself collapsing beside him and then spooning up against his back, melding their laboured breaths until they fell asleep.

Idiot. Angelo hadn’t shared a bed with anyone that way in years, and he wasn’t about to start now. Ignoring the urge to stroke Dylan’s golden hair back from his sweaty face, he pulled out and lightly punched his shaky thigh.

“Cheers, mate. Thanks for the ride.”