They stumbled into Chris’s room, wrapped around each other like some multi-limbed, clumsy creature. Kissing, groping, and tearing at clothes, Ant was lost in sensory overload. He and Chris both worked at the buttons of Chris’s shirt, getting in each other’s way, until Ant got impatient and yanked it up and over Chris’s head. Ant paused to drag off his own shirt, wrinkled and sweat-soaked from the club, and then dropped to his knees before Chris.

“I want to taste you,” he said.

“I’m sweaty as hell,” Chris warned.

Ant grinned wolfishly. “Even better.”

He unbuckled Chris’s belt, popped the button of his jeans, and dragged them down his legs. Chris was wearing another jockstrap, which punched Ant’s buttons like he never would have imagined. He spun Chris around so he could see his shapely ass perfectly framed by the teal blue straps.

Leaning in, he bit one cheek, growling. Chris jumped, yelping, and Ant soothed the spot with his tongue before turning Chris to face him again. He traced a finger along the waistband, then tugged the jockstrap down slowly to Chris’s thighs. Between that and the jeans around Chris’s ankles, his movements were restrained, and he was at Ant’s mercy.

Ant glanced up at Chris’s eyes, checking that he was comfortable with that. He gazed back, pupils blown with lust, body trembling with need. His expression was open and trusting.

Perfect. He trusted Ant with his body, and soon, he’d trust Ant with all the hidden corners of his heart.

Chris’s cock stood straight out, a divining rod for Ant’s mouth. He parted his lips and slipped his tongue over the head, pulling a moan from Chris. He swallowed Chris down, drinking in his cock and his cries in one dip of his head. Chris’s hands skimmed over his hair, never settling. Ant reached up, pressing Chris’s hand down on his head to tell him it was okay to hold him in place.

Then Chris, the refined man that Ant had wanted for months, went wild. He gripped Ant’s head in two hands, pulling him down on his cock as he thrust up. Ant hollowed his cheeks, doing his best to suck as Chris fucked his face.

“Ant, fuck, you make me crazy,” Chris panted.

Ant moaned encouragingly around Chris’s cock while his own throbbed in his jeans.

He pulled back, breaking Chris’s grip on him easily and took a fresh breath. Then he swiped his hand over Chris’s dick, collecting some of the saliva with his fingers. “I’m gonna borrow some of this,” he said with a grin.

He reached behind Chris, pushing a finger inside him. Chris groaned and bucked, pushing his cock against Ant’s lips. He opened up, letting Chris in once more, and worked his body to a frenzy. When he sensed Chris was on the edge of coming, he pulled off.

Chris made a tortured sound, but he didn’t suffer long. Ant spun him around, bending him over the table in the corner of the room since they’d never made it to the bed. So much for returning to the hotel for respectable lovemaking. Still, he couldn’t have made Chris nearly so crazy for him in the club. He wanted to be the most memorable man Chris had ever been with. He wanted Chris to remember this night and get hard. Most of all, he wanted to make himself irreplaceable, to make Chris feel too good to ever want to give up on Ant without a fight.

There was more to them than sex, but in this moment right here, sex was all that he had. Later, he’d tackle loyalty and friendship.

“Stay right there,” he told Chris as he kicked off his jeans and underwear, then hunted down supplies. Chris obeyed, laying with his chest pressed to the tabletop and his ass pushed out. When Ant returned, he dragged off Chris’s jeans and jockstrap so he could widen his stance. “Someday I’m going to fuck you while you wear that thing,” he told Chris. “Your cock will be trapped in that fabric, crying out to get free, and I’ll fuck you until you cum without a single touch to your dick.”

“So, you really like the jockstraps then?” Chris said with amusement.

Ant slapped his ass once to shut him up, then pressed two lubed fingers inside him. After that, Chris was moaning too much to laugh at him. He worked him open more easily this time, drawing his fingers out and replacing them with the blunt tip of his cock.

“You can take me,” Ant reminded Chris as he tensed.

Chris relaxed under him. “Yeah, I can. Give it to me.”

Ant pushed in, and they both groaned. Then he set a punishing rhythm, fucking Chris fast, but not too hard. He didn’t want Chris to be hurting too much for another round before morning. He planned to get his fill, as much as he could, before they left Vegas just in case Chris changed his mind once they got home.

But he sure as hell hoped that didn’t happen.

Chris shuddered under him, and Ant reached down, grabbing his dick under the table. He squeezed it, and that’s all it took for Chris to erupt. Ant slowed his thrusts, easing Chris through his climax. Then he pulled out, stripped off the condom, and came over Chris’s ass.

Seeing his cum there, marking Chris, was fucking hot. He reached out, massaging it into Chris’s skin.

“You’re a little bit kinky, huh?” Chris teased as they caught their breath.

Ant pulled him up, turned him around, and kissed him. “Nothing too wild,” he assured him. “Just marking my territory.”

Chris’s eyebrow went up. “That’s kind of possessive.”

“Yeah,” Ant murmured, nuzzling Chris’s neck so he didn’t have to look at his eyes as he said, “I want you to be mine. That okay?”

Chris ran his hands through Ant’s hair, scratching his scalp and sending thrills of pleasure through him. “As long as your mine too.”

Ant looked up, his smile so wide he probably looked like a goof. “Of course.”

They cleaned up and got into bed, but it was clear by the roaming hands and frequent kisses that they weren’t done exploring each other’s bodies.

Everything felt so right with Ant. The few times they’d been together like this had felt like the answer to a question hanging over Chris’s head for three months. What if ..

What if he and Ant had stayed together?

What if Raul had never shown up on that date?

What if he and Ant finally made it into bed?

Being with Ant was everything Chris had hoped it would be. More, even. He felt more secure with Ant than he could have imagined, even before the Raul fiasco. He wasn’t afraid anymore. He trusted him to have his back, as he had with their crazy wedding confusion.

Chris glided his hands over the contours of Ant’s muscular body. He squeezed his hard thighs, feeling the resistance of the muscle under his hands, and he trailed fingertips over the ridges of his abs. At some point, his exploration morphed into a massage, Chris unable to keep from testing the give of each muscle.

While he worked Ant into a pliant puddle, he asked him playful questions, wanting to know everything about him. “Is Indian still your favorite food?” he asked.

“I could live on curry,” Ant rumbled. “You love meatloaf, right? That’s so weird.”

“It’s comfort food,” Chris said. “But no, not meatloaf. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The potatoes are essential.”

Ant chuckled under him, sounding sleepy. “Favorite color?”

“Orange.”

“Orange?” Ant said, sounding skeptical. “I’ve seen you wear a lot of blue. Figured that was your favorite.”

“Blue’s my most flattering color. But I love orange because it’s the color of the sunset. Cheesy, I know.”

“That’s sweet. I like green. Never really thought about why, but I guess it’s because it seems fresh.”

“You’re as cheesy as me then,” Chris said, pushing into Ant’s lats with strong fingers before saying, “So, what’s waiting when you go home? Back to the grueling work of educating second-graders?”

“Yeah.” Ant laughed. “I’ll go check up on my mom, say hi to my little brother and berate him for skimping on his studies, and then I’ll work all week. What about you?”

Chris smiled. “I’ll go check up on my mom, send a bratty text to my older sister about how much fun I had without her, and then I’ll work all week too. I take it you have a good relationship with your family?”

“Yeah, they’re cool. My dad lives in Texas, though. He remarried and relocated, and now he thinks he’s a cowboy.” Ant snorted. “He’s ridiculous, but I guess he’s happy. We call each other every now and then, just to touch base, but we don’t see each other often.”

“They all know you’re gay?”

“Yup.” Ant craned his neck to look back at Chris. “Are you out to your family?”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “My mom was great about it. She divorced my dad when I was really little, so I don’t know him well, but he knows. Not sure what he thinks, and I don’t really care. My older sister always had my back all through school. I’ve been out since middle school.”

“That’s early,” Ant said. “I waited until senior year of high school. Didn’t want to deal with four years of homophobes.”

“It wasn’t so bad for me,” Chris said. “Once people got used to the idea, I was just another kid. There was the football jock, the drama kid, the band kid, and the gay kid. No tragic tales of bullying.”

They carried on exchanging life stories, their history with family and friends and lovers, as Chris’s hands grew tired and Ant’s cock grew hard.

Ant groaned beneath him when Chris squeezed his glutes. “You can be a masseuse if the retail thing doesn’t work out.”

“Not so into touching strangers this way,” Chris said.

“Good point,” Ant murmured. “I much prefer to be your VIP customer.”

Chris lowered his head to whisper in Ant’s ear. “Do you want the happy ending special?”

Ant rolled over, pulling Chris into a long, sensuous kiss. “Get to work,” he teased, folding his arms behind his head. Yeah, he still had an ego. That hadn’t changed. But it was a lot sexier from the perspective of a lover.

Chris fetched a condom and lube, prepped them both, then climbed astride Ant’s hips and sank down on his thick dick. The sex this time was slower, more languid. Chris locked eyes with Ant, unable to break his gaze as he undulated his hips, tilting to press Ant’s cock against his prostate. Sparks of pleasure danced over his skin, but it was the emotion in Ant’s eyes that mesmerized him.

They hadn’t spoken words of love, but Chris felt them. The promise of a future beyond one weekend in Vegas.

Chris bit down on his lip, shaking as he rode Ant to climax. Ant gripped his hips, thrusting up into him fast and hard, then came with a garbled shout. Chris stayed there, head resting on Ant’s shoulder, catching his breath.

“Can’t get enough of you,” he murmured against Ant’s skin.

“The feeling is mutual,” Ant said.

He wrapped his arms around Chris, squeezing him tight to his body, before releasing him. Chris reluctantly rolled himself off Ant’s body and let him take care of the condom. Then, too exhausted for even a shower, he curled into Ant’s side.

Chris drifted in a half-awake state for a while, soaking in the comfort of Ant’s body. He blinked heavy lids as he traced light patterns on Ant’s stomach.

“I don’t want to get up and fly home in the morning,” he complained.

“Yeah, it’ll be here too fast.”

It was 3 am already and they had to leave the hotel by 9 in the morning, but Chris had no intention of wasting the remaining hours with sleep. He pressed a kiss to Ant’s shoulder. “It’s not here yet. Think you have one more round in you? We might as well make the most of our time together.”

Ant went still beneath him. Chris lifted his head to look at Ant’s face. “What?”

Ant exhaled. “Is this all the time we have? I thought we’d carry on back home.”

Chris’s heart quickened. “I hope we will. I didn’t really mean this was all the time we had. Just … we might as well enjoy this before real life smacks us in the face.”

Ant smiled. “You and me, we were on our way to being something real before everything fell apart. I think we could get there again.”

“I’d like to try, but I can’t believe you’re not angry about how I stonewalled you for months, refusing to listen. I was so stubborn.”

Ant chuckled. “Yeah, you were. Honestly? I’m a little afraid you might run again or look for a reason to fail at this. Harry told me a little about your track record.”

Chris felt a sudden flash of fear. Would Ant decide he was too big a risk to stick with him? He swallowed hard. “I’m not running anymore. I promise.”

Ant pulled him down for a gentle kiss. “Good, because if you do, I won’t let you go so easily this time. I came on this trip for you, Chris. It was a gamble, but one I hope pays off.”

“So now I’m a high-stakes game of poker, huh?”

“Strip poker,” Ant said, his voice serious but his eyes giving away his humor.

“I hope you bet a lot on me,” Chris said.

“My whole heart.”

Chris’s heart hammered, even as a flush worked its way up his neck and into his cheeks. He felt almost shy, but he mumbled, “Then I guess you won.”

They kissed, lips brushing softly. This kiss wasn’t about sex, but affection and a promise to try again.

They might not be married, but they were making a vow of sorts, and for now, it was the best ending to a crazy weekend he could imagine.