A/N: Thank you all for such lovely comments and reviews. It's a bit of a change reading Brendan from an older time.

[2/2] Part Two

Ste was quiet in the car. Guilt, Brendan suspected. He got a text, read it and hastily shoved it back in his pocket again. Brendan wondered what he told her, when he went home clothes damp with sweat and cum, when he still had Brendan's taste vivid in his mouth. Did he shower or eat before kissing her goodnight? Did she notice faint bruising on his thighs, lip marks on his neck? Would she even realise it was stubble rash reddening his skin – would he blame it on the detergent?

I'm with Rae now.

It rang in his mind. Last week she couldn't have been further from his concerns but since his rebuff, there'd not even been a text. When they'd been at work, he'd kept company with Rhys and not made much eye contact. He hadn't even played his usual routine of bringing in blondey and fooling around like teens to rub it in his face. He was treating her like she mattered, keeping her private. Running home early, turning down overtime, calling her in his breaks.

On his arm she was convenient, she wasn't that bright so that helped, and when it came to domesticity and nurture – she was the perfect little housewife. She cleaned up, she fed him, she took the kids out of the picture. It worked.

But sex? That was his, not hers. He could play happy families all he wanted at home as long as he came back, begging to be fucked. Because she couldn't give him that and sooner or later, he'd need sex more than he needed the dishes cleaned and she'd be tossed aside for his biggest weakness.

And tonight, he was looking very weak.

At the hotel, Brendan checked in leaving Ste waiting by the car for his text. No one would know them here but the thought of people seeing them, two men, enter a bedroom together churned his stomach. Their mouths might not say it but their eyes did. He wanted to keep the aggression at bay; Steven would never let him get close if he didn't.

He removed two bottles from the minibar, whiskey for him and a beer for Steven. He'd already had a couple and he was looser with drink inside him, ignored the press of the should and submitted. He text Steven the room number, opened the drinks and waited.

His face was knotted in lines when he appeared at the door and he pressed a finger to his lips. He was on the phone. Brendan turned on his heel, jaw jutting out in a scoff and reached for his drink, unbuttoning his shirt as he went.

"There's Calpol in the bathroom. He'll be fine. He always gets a bit whingey if he knows I'm not home," Ste said. He stood in the doorway, not making a commitment to the call or the room. His fingers went to his mouth, pulling at his bottom lip like he did in times of stress. He looked at Brendan, his shirt open and wafting as he moved around drinking, not knowing what his eyes were saying – I'm sorry my girlfriend's on the phone; I can't do this; everything's saying we shouldn't be doing this; I'm hurrying her on; I'm ignoring the needs of my children for you.

"Rae, he'll be fine. Put on one of those story tapes and tell him I'll be home soon, yeah?" Ste said. He looked at Brendan again, the trail of hair at his belt. Brendan saw him look; his lips quirked. He strode forward and rocked closer on his soles, nodding with permission. Ste touched the hair that spiralled to pubic like it was gold dust. "No, no I can't. I'm still working." Brendan suppressed the glow of contentment. A pause. "Nah and then we'll be drinkin', won't we? Bars in town somewhere. Just a lads' thing." He could feel his heart pounding, phone slippery with his nervy sweat. Brendan had taken his shirt off, the muscles flexing when he circled his neck. "I will," he said. She didn't know the graphic images he was conjuring when she'd said: have fun, "Love you, too."

When the call ended he pressed the phone to his mouth, letting his lies settle in the room. Brendan watched on as he switched it off, moved away and sat on the bed, making himself smaller by hugging his elbows.

"Women trouble?" Brendan said, leaning his back on the desk behind him.

"I thought you brought me here for sex, not to talk," Ste said gloomily.

Brendan didn't like his tone. He didn't want a vessel, it was the fire in him he lusted after the most, and his mind that raced into overdrive. He'd gone cold again, resignation and bitterness hardening him. When Ste needed him - body and more - vulnerable and fragile, it was like someone had created him out of fantasy. And with that, came Steven's gutter-like pleasure seeking between the sheets. His idolisation spread to a fixation on the fulfilment of Brendan's physical needs – he wanted the attention, the praise for being good in bed. He wanted to be asked back for more. He wanted to make Brendan cum.

Brendan handed him a beer. Their hands met, hot, across the condensation.

Ste's lips were on his. He murmured inside him, letting the wet slither of tongue be sucked by Brendan, until he broke away.

"You could always go home to her," Brendan said. A test. Ste panted into his mouth – put the drink down – fingers resolute in his hair. His eyes roamed Brendan's body and Brendan let him. The pink flush to Steven's mouth thrilled him like a livewire of electricity through his flesh, if he'd been a little closer, Brendan would have felt him pressing hard against his trousers. The passion was there – but the need?

Words weren't his strong point and he deliberated, chewing down on chapped lips. He took Brendan's hand – and Brendan's wave of panic at a moment of tenderness didn't last – thrust it against the swell of his groin.

"She doesn't make me feel like you do," Ste said and with all his physicality, launched himself on Brendan, tumbling against his chest. Brendan pulled him closer, rolling him onto his back and letting his lips snap free from his mouth at the force of his extraction, when he knelt up over him.

He ran his palms over Ste's chest and down, concentrated, over his crotch. Ste's hips arched at the touch, like a flame writhing with heat, and kept wilting gaze on Brendan's thumbs, rubbing at his clothed erection. His cheeks puffed out with breath when Brendan's fingertips skipped up his body to unbutton his shirt, trashing it to the side and sliding Ste's arms up above his head, elongating him like a Grecian statue. His nose and lips drew lines over his chest, breathing in that ripe sweat – the kind that said he was sure this was wrong, but everything primal in him craved it.

Brendan climbed between his legs and pushed for contact at the pelvis. Ste's head had fallen to the side, cheek pushed into the pillow, Brendan wrenched it back so their gaze met.

"Tell me what you want," Brendan said.

"Everything," Ste said, eyes wide like a pauper given keys to the city. His lips trembled.

Brendan kissed his jaw, giving a little laugh. His mouth made snatching kisses down his throat, whiskey perfumed breath gusting over his nipples, as he pinched them between his lips. He teased down Ste's trousers, the slow strip-reveal of more flesh and brushed fingertips over the hair that darkened from golden at his groin. The skin there was hot and pulsing. He'd been trimming there, like he was expecting the attention, offering himself like an invitation.

Brendan left Steven's underwear clinging loosely at his hips, skin so delicate it looked as if his bones might cut straight through. His boxers were tight, not his usual sort and once more Brendan embraced the internal smugness that these were purchased just for him, to impress. Owing to that, he was going to make sure he got to keep them. He snapped the band of them with a tight smack of elastic on flesh – definitely new.

Now his fingers clasped over the shape of his dick and with head to the side, he studied him. He'd attempted to prop himself up onto his elbows, spine arched with anticipation. He tried shifting, to wriggle out of the last remaining clothes but Brendan held him still with his palm flat against his stomach. He moved his mouth over Ste's underwear, enjoying the torture it was giving him. Finally he inched the boxers down, bringing a rush of relief to Ste, who threw himself back onto the pillows expecting the playing to be over soon.

Brendan had other ideas. He weighted Ste's balls under his tongue, ignoring the very obvious straining of his slickening cock.

"She do this for you?" Brendan asked, thrusting his tongue over molten skin. He took a mouthful of the head of Ste's cock, rolling his cum-coated tongue over his teeth. "She swallow?"

Ste groaned under the sudden pressure of Brendan's tongue thick around his shaft. His hand struck the back of Brendan's neck and squeezed his hair in his palm. Brendan pumped him with his mouth and broke away.

"Does she?"

Before Ste could answer, he pulled him up by the hips, slipping him out of the underwear and licked a fluid line behind his balls and right into his hole, throwing Ste's leg over his shoulder and spreading him wide. He sucked two fingers, nail to knuckle.

"Do you ask her for this, when you wanna cum harder? Do you?" Brendan asked, holding up his glistening fingers like a badge of honour.

Ste squirmed: desperation and embarrassment. "Only once," he muttered, "I said I wanted to try and she said it was too weird. We didn't…she wouldn't…"

Brendan hummed and without much care or deliberation, pushed at him until he opened, two fingers giving him discomfort only to fall into bliss. Steven cries were fractured, his breath hitched like a scratched disc, his toes curling in their position around Brendan's body. Brendan had his mouth open, tongue loose. "There it is," he said, welcoming Ste's coiled moans when he hit his prostate over and over.

Even when Brendan's one man mission to make Steven feverish with arousal had been abandoned, and he had given in to finally fucking him, he was breathtakingly tight. He wanted to savour that feeling, that experience of feeling like he could rip him apart if he didn't bury deep all his lust. He had to go slow and controlled, two temperatures he struggled with when the boy had sweat-wet hair and a hunger for his cock he'd never seen the extent of before. There wasn't once where he'd undressed and Steven hadn't looked staggered, like he was fearful of his own desire. Steven couldn't make it sound poetic, but he made the bones scorch when he said, "I don't care if it hurts. Just fuck me."

He was bent double – a little painfully, but he was young, he could take it - mercilessly pounded and even Brendan could sense Ste was imagining how he could keep the peppered bite marks a secret from Rae. When he'd cum and Brendan had made a point of oiling him with it, enjoying every part of him, every taste, Brendan still wasn't done and with a firm little smack to his arse, had him on all fours, fucking him from behind, hips as leverage, until he himself was spent and sprawled out on the bed next to him.

After a moment's shut eye, Brendan binned the loaded condom and stroked himself until he was nursing a semi again. He opened his eyes and reached out across the kingsize.

"Steven…" he crooned. "C'mere."

He gave a short, sleepy giggle and crawled over. "What?" he asked.

Brendan sat up in bed, leaning to grab his body with both his hands and pulled Steven over his lap. Without a word, Ste took it upon himself to lavish Brendan's cock with attention, giving him a tight gripped wank.

"Easy," Brendan said through teeth. He took Ste's hips again, fingers stroking between his damp thighs and touching his deceptively angelic tattoo. He brought him forward, parting his cheeks and without little dignity began blindly rubbing the reddened head of his cock over his hole.

"Brendan…" Ste said. "We shouldn't…not without…"

He wasn't in the mood for protecting poor dumb Rae. He felt selfish, possessive. He was clean; he'd got checked. And right then he wanted Steven all to himself, wanted to be close to him.

He grunted, frustrated. Ste let him rut against him for a while, putting on quite the show as he wound his pelvis, hips like an entranced snake. And then Ste finally took the initiative and elbowed his way to the end of the bed to suck him off, giving Brendan the extra treat of having his arse pointed to the ceiling like the fulfilment of a greedy cat gorging on milk.

They had a lazy, semen-tasting kiss, after. Sleep didn't come for a little while.

"We don't do any of that stuff," Ste said quietly, with no conversation preceding it. "Me and Rae."

Brendan's arm around Ste's shoulders softened, uneasy and slack.

What he didn't say was that he only shagged her when he felt guilty enough to make himself. That he fancied her more on the days he'd banned himself from masturbating over thoughts of Brendan. That he felt more of a thrill at the promise of Brendan's work shirt unbuttoned half way than the sight of Rae in her skimpys. That he was pretty - almost definitely – sure that he was gay. That he absolutely, no question about it was addicted to Brendan Brady. And sex with Brendan Brady.

And really, truly, he wanted to go out with him. Be a couple.

What he didn't say was, he was in love with Brendan Brady.