One Night (Nights Series Book 1)

by A. M. Salinger

  “That’s better,” Cam growled.

  He reached up and flicked his tongue against Gabe’s chin before tugging his head down and taking his mouth.

  Gabe’s eyes darkened above him, his hips flexing in response to the passionate kiss while his tongue clashed with Cam’s. Cam swallowed a curse when Gabe’s towel-covered cock rocked against his stomach. He thrust up, his dick twitching against the inside of Gabe’s left thigh.

  “Oh!”

  Gabe wrenched his mouth free and gasped when Cam’s erection pushed up between his legs and grazed his thigh. Cam ran his hands down Gabe’s arms, his fingers stroking and squeezing the taut muscles before moving to Gabe’s chest.

  Gabe sucked air between his teeth when Cam brushed the pads of his thumbs across his nipples, stunned at the jolt of electricity that arrowed down from them to his groin. Seeing his reaction, Cam repeated the movement.

  “Fuck!” Gabe’s eyes widened when the shocking sensation recurred.

  Cam moved his mouth along Gabe’s jawline to his left ear while he continued playing with his chest. He worked the lobe, nibbling and licking it with his clever teeth and lips, his heated breath sending shivers racing down Gabe’s spine while he pinched and pulled at his nipples.

  A low cry of need escaped Gabe as pleasure rippled through his body. He arched, his head dropping back, his hands rising to grip the leather headboard behind Cam, his hips thrusting helplessly against the man cradling him, his pre-cum staining the towel.

  “Jesus, Gabe,” Cam rasped, his own hips rolling beneath Gabe.

  Cam’s towel had fallen open and his hot, naked cock brushed and nudged the inside of Gabe’s left thigh. His mouth moved south, kissing and nipping Gabe’s throat before laving the sting with his tongue.

  Gabe’s heart stuttered when Cam shifted his lips to his left nipple, his fingers still pinching and pulling at his right one. He trembled as Cam licked the hard nub before flicking it with his tongue and running tight circles around it for several mind-blowing seconds.

  Gabe looked down and met Cam’s heated stare a second before he opened his mouth and took his aroused flesh inside.

  “Oh God, Cam!”

  Gabe’s fingers bit into the headboard as Cam sucked one nipple and then the other, each powerful contraction of his lips and mouth sending a numbing bolt of pleasure to Gabe’s cock. Shocked flared through Gabe as he felt an orgasm gather at the base of his balls.

  “No fucking way,” Gabe moaned brokenly, his startled gaze clashing with the blazing gunmetal stare beneath him.

  Cam sucked harder, hands reaching under the towel to palm Gabe’s clenched butt cheeks. He squeezed and massaged the tense muscles before moving down his thighs and around to the front.

  Gabe stiffened when Cam’s fingers touched his hard shaft. He ran them lightly up the sides, his nails grazing the twitching, engorged flesh. He paused just before he reached the sensitive head, his touch a hairbreadth away, his eyes darting up to meet Gabe’s.

  Gabe swallowed when he registered the silent command in the gray depths.

  “Cam.” Heat flooded Gabe’s cheeks at the sound of his need-filled voice. “Please.”

  Cam acknowledged his tortured plea with a groan. He tugged on Gabe’s left nipple with his teeth at the same time as he stroked the pad of one thumb across the tip of his shaft.

  Gabe’s breath locked in his throat as his climax hit him hard. He convulsed against Cam, his cock twitching and pulsing, his cum soaking the towel.

  Chapter 7

  Cam gritted his teeth, the tortured sounds coming from Gabe’s lips inflaming his senses as he came apart in his arms. Cam yanked away the towels covering their bodies, lifted Gabe, and twisted him around before pushing him down on the bed. A shudder ran through him when he covered the body of the beautiful man still climaxing from his touch with his own. He took Gabe’s mouth roughly and swallowed his grunts while the latter’s hips jerked beneath him in the final throes of his orgasm.

  Cam reached out blindly, grabbed the bottle of lube from the nightstand, and wrenched his lips from Gabe’s. He sat back on his heels and poured a generous amount of the liquid in his right hand before dropping the bottle on the bed. He hooked his left hand behind Gabe’s right knee, bent his leg, and pushed his thigh to the side, opening him up for his touch. Gabe blinked dazedly as Cam reached down, lubed fingers skimming past his trembling balls and the stretch of taut skin behind it.

  Gabe froze when he felt Cam’s wet finger slide against the tight pucker of his ass. A half-choked whimper escaped his throat despite his best effort to stifle it. The sweet post-orgasmic afterglow bathing his body evaporated in a chill of pure terror.

  All of a sudden, Gabe was there again. In that filthy, run-down hotel room the night when his life changed forever. That terrible, awful night when five men had held him down on a dirty bed sticky with their own cum. Five men who had watched him with crazy eyes while they tore the clothes off his body, their faces filled with lust. Five men who had raked his skin and flesh with their hands, teeth, and tongues and jerked off over him while he fought them desperately, his body weak and his mind fuzzy from the drug they’d slipped him.

  No, that that bastard had slipped him.

  The man Gabe had mistakenly fallen in love with. The first person he’d ever wanted to give himself to. The one who had sat in a chair opposite the bed, watching him with an excited gleam in his eyes, one hand frantically working his erection while he held a camera in the other. He’d continued filming while Gabe shouted as his legs were violently pulled apart, his entire body stiffening in horror when a stranger pressed his bare cock against his hole, the first of the five men who had paid to rape him on tape.

  Cam stilled above him, bringing him back to the present. His face sobered and his hands paused on Gabe’s body.

  “Hey,” he said softly, concern flashing in his eyes, “are you okay?”

  Gabe bit his lip and shook his head. He sat up and scooted away until his back met the headboard, one hand rising to clutch at his hair, remorse and self-hatred filling him.

  “I’m—I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do this,” he whispered.

  Cam frowned. Gabe’s stomach twisted as he watched his puzzled expression turn to disbelief.

  “Is this your first time?” Cam said, shocked.

  Gabe tried to push down the pain that rose inside him when Cam physically pulled back from him. Even though he had wanted Cam to stop, he could not help the acute sense of loss that tore through him at his shocked expression and strained posture.

  “Technically, yes,” Gabe said with a low, derisive chuckle.

  Cam knelt on the bed, his gloriously swollen dick visibly shrinking as he watched Gabe.

  “What do you mean, technically?”

  Gabe inhaled shakily, his hands fisting while he fought the sudden wave of nausea roiling through his belly. This was it. The moment he had been dreading all along. Ever since he accepted Cam’s invitation at the bar. No, ever since he decided to move to Tokyo and start over again.

  Gabe knew that if he wanted to overcome the emotional and physical wounds of his past, to have a chance at any kind of meaningful relationship in the future, to finally heal the scars embedded in his soul, then he had to brave this man’s reaction to learning why he couldn’t handle having sex, right here and now. He took a shuddering breath.

  “If you discount the five guys who tried to rape me while my supposed boyfriend watched on with a camera in hand, then, yes, this is technically my first time.”

  Gabe heard Cam’s sharp intake of breath and dared himself to look at the face of the first man he had wanted to sleep with in nearly a decade.

  The expression in Cam’s eyes nearly undid him. Instead of disgust, all Gabe read in the stormy gaze was anger and compassion.

  “Tell me,” Cam said between gritted teeth. He turned to sit on the edge of the bed.

  Gabe wrapped his arms around his raised knees. “Not much to tell really. It was eig
ht years ago. I was in my final year of design school and my first ever relationship with a man.” He swallowed. “I always suspected I was gay. Although I’d dated girls in high school and college, I wasn’t sure until the day I met him.”

  “What was that asshole’s name?” Cam growled.

  “Andrew,” Gabe breathed. The old hurt twisted through his heart once more at the sound of his former lover’s name. It had been years since he last said it out loud. More than four years. In fact, the last time was during his final session with his therapist in Chicago. “His name is Andrew.”

  “What did he do?”

  Gabe blinked at the rage in Cam’s voice. The fact that this sexy, gorgeous man, this king, had not rejected him and appeared instead to be utterly livid at what had happened to him was enough to give Gabe the courage he’d desperately been seeking. The words came tumbling out of his mouth, confessions he had only ever revealed to the therapist he had been referred to by the detectives in charge of his case. He shared how he had fallen wildly and madly in love with the first man who had ever properly given him any attention and made him feel wanted. It was a relationship he had fully trusted in.

  It was only afterward that Gabe realized Andrew had always backed out whenever he wanted to have penetrative sex. They had kissed and fooled around plenty of times and given each other hundreds of hand jobs. They had even sucked each other’s dicks, although Gabe had gone down on Andrew ten times more than he ever did him. Andrew’s excuse had always been the same: the timing wasn’t right. That he wasn’t ready yet, even though Gabe had made it clear that he would be the receiving partner in their relationship.

  In his filthiest dreams, Gabe had only ever had one wish. To be taken. To be made love to by a man. To be fucked and driven wild with pleasure while someone rammed his dick into his body, branding his insides, possessing him, controlling him.

  It wasn’t until the night of their first anniversary together, the night he’d thought Andrew would finally fulfill his dirtiest wishes, the night he had waited so long for — to finally welcome another man inside the place no one had touched before — that the truth had finally come out.

  Chapter 8

  “It seemed he was part of this—” Gabe nearly spat out the words, his bitterness threatening to boil over, “—this group of sick men who enjoyed raping gay guys on camera. They were mostly straight. Or pretending to be anyway. There’d been a few cases reported in the local news that year. Of gay men being found in dark alleys, some nearly dead, all violently beaten and gang-raped. All drugged. All tricked and trapped by someone they’d thought cared for them.” Gabe stared at the white sheets where he’d been lying with Cam moments ago, rage and shame burning through him. “I’d never paid attention to those stories.” A tortured chuckle escaped his throat. “I mean, why would I, right? After all, I was in a relationship. I had someone who I thought loved me. Someone I was willing to give myself to—”

  “Stop it,” Cam said in a hard voice.

  Gabe looked up and found Cam’s steady gaze on him. A myriad of emotions welled up inside Gabe at the tenderness in Cam’s eyes.

  “Stop blaming yourself for something that was not your fault,” Cam said quietly. “That bastard is an asshole and what he did to you was unforgivable.” He scowled. “I hope they got what they deserved, he and those fuckers who raped you.”

  “They did.” Gabe smiled tremulously. “And they didn’t.”

  Cam stared at him, puzzled.

  “Someone in the next room heard the commotion,” Gabe said. “I put up quite a fight despite the drug Andrew slipped me. The hotel manager came knocking at the door after I kicked over the nightstand.”

  Cam’s pupils flared. “You mean—”

  Gabe dipped his chin.

  “They didn’t rape me.” A shiver ran down Gabe’s spine at his own murmured confession. That had been his only salvation from that entire despicable night. The fact that those men hadn’t managed to do what they’d so clearly intended to. “They couldn’t. They hadn’t prepped me. I was too tight.” Heat flooded his cheeks. “Andrew had never even fingered me.”

  Cam raised an eyebrow, his gaze roaming Gabe from his head all the way to his toes, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Fire danced along Gabe’s skin where the gray eyes landed.

  “And you never — you know, did it yourself before?” Cam said.

  Gabe burrowed his face in his hands, suddenly embarrassed.

  “I had,” he mumbled. “But I was terrified to do it after what happened. My therapist recommended I keep trying. He said it was the only way I would get over the fear of being penetrated. He even recommended I use sex toys.”

  Cam stirred on the bed. “And did you?”

  Gabe blinked at Cam’s tone. He looked up and saw avid curiosity mixed with concern on Cam’s face.

  Gabe smiled drily. “The first time I tried a butt plug, I nearly passed out.”

  Cam looked down at his dick. Gabe flushed when he realized Cam was getting aroused again. Surprisingly, he felt a stirring in his own groin.

  “This is bigger than a butt plug,” Cam said, deadpan.

  Laughter bubbled inside Gabe, catching him off guard.

  “It sure is.”

  Cam’s expression grew serious. He watched Gabe for silent seconds.

  “What happened at the club between us…was it good? As good as any of the stuff…” A muscle jumped in Cam’s cheek. “…he ever did to you?”

  Gabe’s breath caught in his throat at the question.

  “No.”

  Cam’s expression fell so comically Gabe almost laughed again.

  “It was a hundred times better,” Gabe admitted huskily, cheeks warming as his confession rang in his ears.

  Relief and desire flashed in Cam’s eyes. He hesitated for a moment while he considered Gabe.

  “One night. Give me one night to show you how good it can be.”

  Gabe stared. A chuckle left his lips. “God, I can’t believe you said something that corny with a straight face.”

  The corner of Cam’s mouth lifted in a stunningly sexy smile. He raised an eyebrow. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” Cam sobered. “I mean it, Gabe. One night.”

  The air thickened between them, filling with sexual tension and that electrifying aura that seemed to surround them whenever they were close to one another, making it hard to breathe.

  Cam sat quietly two feet from him. Watching. Waiting. As if he had all the time in the world.

  Gabe hesitated. He could feel himself standing on the edge of a precipice, one he had willingly come to. If he said no, he would walk out of this room a scarred man, unable to let himself be touched by another man. If he said yes, he would be entering unknown territory with someone who was still a perfect stranger to him. One who had the potential to hurt him as much as pleasure him.

  Cam’s next words sealed his fate.

  “You can trust me, Gabe. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

  Gabe closed his eyes briefly, unable to meet the devastatingly beautiful gray stare opposite him. He took a shallow breath and stepped off the cliff.

  “Okay.”

  Cam moved, the mattress shifting under him, his pulse racing wildly. Never in a million years could he have guessed the dark secrets Gabe had been keeping inside his heart. Cam could see how much it had cost him to confess the terrible things that had happened to him at the hands of his former lover.

  Deep beneath the desire Cam harbored for Gabe, the anger he felt toward the monsters who had hurt him still simmered in his veins. That they had dared to try and destroy this beautiful man was something Cam could never forgive.

  That was when he realized something else besides passion and outrage was twisting his gut. Cam blinked as he finally recognized a jealous, possessive streak he never even knew he possessed.

  He pushed this startling discovery aside and considered the achingly gorgeous man before him.

  “Do you want me?”
>
  Gabe swallowed before dipping his chin. His eyes flared when he glanced down and saw Cam’s growing arousal.

  “Good. Because I’m going to give you the best night of your life. By the time I’m finished with you, your ass is going to be aching for my dick.”

  Gabe shivered at his words, a flush of color darkening his cheekbones.

  Cam leaned forward and placed his hands on Gabe’s knees, gently parting them. Gabe watched him cautiously as he settled between his thighs.

  “First,” Cam raised his left hand to caress Gabe’s face before rubbing his thumb across his lips, “I’m going to kiss that delicious body of yours. All. Over.”

  Gabe twitched. He opened his mouth, his breath accelerating. His tongue darted out. Cam shuddered when Gabe licked his thumb, the pink flesh wet and hot against his skin. He trailed the fingers of his right hand down Gabe’s chest, his own breathing speeding up as excitement filled him.

  “Then, I’m going to give you the best blow job you’ve ever had.”

  Gabe moaned when Cam pushed his thumb inside his mouth and past his teeth. He closed his lips and tongue around it and started to suck, his ice-blue eyes darkening with anticipation.

  Cam swallowed a curse at the sensual sight, his shaft twitching at the arousing sensation of Gabe’s strong jaw and mouth working his finger. He brushed his hand across the taut muscles below Gabe’s navel and smiled when they trembled and jerked beneath his touch.

  Cam leaned forward and brought his mouth to Gabe’s right ear.

  “After that, I’m going to get your hole so ready for me, you’ll be melting with pleasure,” he murmured.

  Gabe groaned, his head falling back, causing Cam’s thumb to pop out of his mouth with a wet sound as his hips flexed off the mattress, his hands fisting in the bedsheets on either side of him.

  Cam dipped his head and kissed Gabe’s throat, his lips finding the strong pulse hammering away wildly a couple of inches above his left collarbone. He licked and sucked that spot for several seconds before coming up and bringing his mouth a hair’s breadth from Gabe’s.