14. Chapter 14

He’s not sure where he is, or how he got here. He’s not sure he’s even inside his own brain, for once — he’s floating on a silken cloud of pleasure and exhaustion. His knees hurt, though, and this is what slowly crystallizes his self-awareness to the point of consciousness.

His hair is being petted, fingers sorting through the curls. He pauses, thinking on that, and stutters to full wakefulness.

“My hair!”

“Shush. It’s fully ruined, darling, no reason to be upset about it now,” Xaioman says, chidding him with good humor.

Sensations rush back in at that precise moment. Ben is behind him, still inside of him in a way no one has ever been before. He flushes, thinking back to his wanton cries and demands.

Luo Fei claims he is beyond shame, but in this...in this situation, perhaps he might succumb to it a little bit. He was so needy , like a child begging for candy. He rubs his face forward and shocks himself with the scent of Xiaoman’s sex. His arms are around her, his face mashed up against one of her soft breasts, and his softening cock has slipped out of her, spilling them both onto the settee. He thinks he should be horrified by that, but he’s held safe there, his cock nestled safely against her folds, her arms holding him tightly in place.

“I think he’s speechless,” Ben says with a breathless laugh, but before Luo Fei can protest he is sliding out of him, and it is a grief Luo Fei did not expect, to feel so empty. He whines. Whines!

“I’m here, Xiao Fei.” Large, strong hands grip his hips as Ben shifts behind him. “Ah, but we are all a mess.” He chuckles and it is a sound so rarely heard that Luo Fei simply sighs in pleasure, collapsing on Xiaoman’s chest again.

He is but a man and yes, he has fantasized about this very scenario, although with less silk brocade in the mix. Yet he finds that he loves that very thing, the feel of the cheongsam around him, holding him together while he was taken apart at such a physical level.

Sex has always been enjoyable but not like this, not transcendent with desire and lust. Not safe like this, where he could drop into the pleasure of his needs and feel so protected and cared for. As a man he has always considered it his job to take care of his lover, but he thinks maybe the cheongsam, and their whole charade over the course of the evening, circumvented that sense of duty. This was not about grasping at pleasure and ensuring everyone involved achieved climax. This was...this was…

He hides his face against Xiaoman’s skin.

Ben moves behind him again and he feels him press his forehead in between Luo Fei’s shoulder blades. Xiaoman sighs and continues threading his hair through her fingers.

They stay like that, melded as one, while Luo Fei tries to pull himself together. It is far more difficult than he thinks it should be — he has standards of performance, but this situation has circumvented all of them. Eventually, though, he pushes at Xiaoman and it is the signal for them to release him. They do not move away as he assumed they would; after all, he’s a sight and a half of ridiculousness. It’s on him to reset their boundaries, he supposes with a moue of disappointment. Xiaoman grumbles as she sits up and he leans away from her, but then she reaches out to start straightening his dress.

He grabs her hand to stop her. She looks up at him — even on his knees, he’s taller than she is sitting on the low-slung settee — and quirks an eyebrow. He brushes her hands away. “No need,” he says, trying to sound mature and, he hopes, sophisticated. As if he practices such perversity on every third weekend.

She frowns, though, and looks over his shoulder at Ben. Luo Fei twists his head a little and sees Ben behind him, sitting on his heels, his pants pulled up over his hips again but still open, his wet, soft cock glistening in the low light.

Sighing, Ben rises up again and presses himself against Luo Fei’s back, wrapping his long arms around his torso. “Do you want me to let go?”

Luo Fei’s mind scrambles for an answer that isn’t “no,” anything that might allow him to keep some shred of his dignity, kneeling there fucked out and dripping cum in a silk cheongsam. There is a word that floats through his mind and it is too shameful to even bring it to the surface, so he pushes it down. He takes a deep breath.

“This was enlightening! But I think—”

“I love you,” Ben says, his voice taking on a tinge of desperation that Luo Fei has rarely heard from his friend. His...lover? He shakes his head, trying to get things sorted in there. He thinks too much, sometimes. His mind goes too deep and he clings too hard to hope.

“Luo Fei, I love you. Are you going to push me away again? Now? After this?” Ben whispers.

Luo Fei closes his eyes. He feels small, gentle hands cup his face, followed by a kiss to his chin. “Luo Fei. Is it so hard to believe that we want you like this? That we admire you? That we adore your beauty? That—”

“Shut up,” Luo Fei says, feeling his composure crumbling. “It’s just an experiment, something we can—”

“Not to me,” Ben growls fiercely, tightening his hold until Luo Fei can barely breathe. Xiaoman’s hands stay on his face, keeping him in the place they put him.

“Not to me,” she echos, and pulls him down just enough to kiss his lips. “Not to us. ”

Luo Fei feels his face scrunch up to ward off the tears. He is appalled that it has come to this. “Don’t...don’t say such things, please.”

“I love you. Ben loves you. Are we not allowed?”

He grabs her upper arms to steady himself, feeling his world tipping to one side despite Ben at his back. “I don’t deserve this,” he says with a gasp, the truth of the words more painful than any injury he’s ever survived.

Ben sighs heavily, but Xiaoman shakes him by his shoulders. “You are brilliant and pretty and difficult and annoying. We love you. We love every part of you.”

“I—” Luo Fei stops. “This dress—” He stops again.

Xiaoman runs her hands down his neck, over the front of the dress to his thighs. Luo Fei shudders. He feels so vulnerable like this, not just from the post-sex haze but between these two special people and wearing silk that feels so gentle against his skin, against his own spent cock. He’s held in the hands of the people he loves most, now — perhaps the only people he will ever love again in his life. He’s lost so much. He cannot abide the thought of losing them, even a little bit.

“Will you keep me?” He whispers, hoping that maybe they won’t even hear him.

“Keep you? In silk and flowers? Only on Thursdays,” Ben says, laughing kindly in his warm, loving tone that Luo Fei has only heard on long drowsy nights where he’s kept Ben up late. Ben, who always takes care of him — Xiaoman, who always comes to find him.

Ben kisses the back of his neck, then blows a raspberry against his skin. Luo Fei barks out an unattractive laugh, unbalancing them just enough to tip forward. Xiaoman catches them with a loud grunt, followed by a curse, but does not push them off of her. Ben puts out an arm to hold himself up on, chuckling at them.

“I love you,” Luo Fei says, tears stinging at his eyes, resting his forehead on Xiaoman’s shoulder.

“I don’t know why that is so hard for you to say to us, Luo Fei,” she says, ever so gentle as she normally is not. “We love you so much. It only brings us joy to hear you say that.”

Ben hums in agreement, rubbing his hand up and down Luo Fei’s back, making the cheongsam bunch up a little here and there.

“Now will you let us clean you up so we can leave here with some dignity?” Ben asks. He doesn’t wait for an answer, pulling Luo Fei to his feet.

He stands there, still trembling (when did he start trembling, he wonders?) while they sort themselves out. They share a look when they are buttoned up again, then set on Luo Fei — they put his heels back on his feet, one at a time, Ben holding his balance while Xiaoman crouches down to roll off the ruined hose and slip his feet back into the shoes. They straighten his dress and he still grumbles about it, feeling unnecessarily spoiled, but they ignore him. It is Ben who uses his long fingers to reset his messy curls and fix the pins. Xiaoman takes a tissue and wipes his face, using her fingers to reshape his eyeshadow which is surely making him look like a panda at this point. He trusts that she will at least make him presentable.

He almost laughs at the thought. Presentable! A disheveled mess of a man in a dress and makeup. He wants to keep treating the whole lark as a costume he donned for a case and not as deeply erotic turning point in his life.

But he knows better, as Ben’s hands glide over his naked arms affectionately. As Xiaoman gets up on her tiptoes to kiss his chin. Somehow, despite her diminutive stature and his relative height, he feels dainty and delicate under her hands. His heart flops over, then settles.

They all move to leave, finally. Ben’s jacket is a loss, but he folds it cleverly to hang off his arm, hiding the wet spots they left on it. Together they all appear rumpled and sweaty, and no one will have any doubts about the debauchery they have committed on premises once they leave the private room.

Ben crooks his arm and Luo Fei almost steps aside for Xiaoman to take it, but she gently guides him toward Ben and takes the lead, her shoulders thrown back and her expression stern. She is unbearably attractive like this, he thinks as he is escorted out like a princess.

As they pass through the still-crowded room, he expects to be swamped by shame and embarrassment again, but when he looks askance at the people observing them, all he sees is jealousy and awe. People want to be him, he realizes. They want what he has, who he has.

He’s strutting by the time they reach the front of the club, and Ben is smirking. Xiaoman turns and smiles at them both.

He wonders how stunning he might look in a blue cheongsam.