Beta Test (#gaymers) (11 page)

“Friends would be cool.” Ravi drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Fuck this traffic, man.”

Tristan slumped back against the seat, effectively dismissed. He didn’t speak again until he turned on the GPS to navigate them from the highway to the convention center hotel.

“Parking this thing is a bitch.” Ravi had been getting steadily more grumpy, and Tristan wasn’t sure whether it was a lack of food or being stuck together.

“Better you than me.” Tristan would
not
want to have to figure out convention center parking. “Rex called ahead and got the reservations switched from Katya’s name to mine so we shouldn’t have any problem checking in.”

* * *

Ha.
Famous last words.
It turned out that parking was the least of their worries after they met the desk clerk. The hotel adjacent to the convention center was an opulent tower with dark woods and mirrored surfaces amid the muted tones of the lobby.

“What’s that you said about no problems?” Ravi hissed as the clerk tapped away at the computer. The desk clerk was every bit as polished as the hotel itself, her jet-black hair swept up into a bun and her light pink manicured nails moving quickly across the keyboard.

“Shh. There must be a glitch,” Tristan hissed back.

“There’s no glitch.” The clerk put a printout on the marble counter. “See? One room for six nights under your corporate account.”

“But we need
two
rooms.” Tristan’s voice was just as desperate as the rest of him.

“Oh man. Katya and Mark are
married.
Of course they only needed one room for the conference.” Ravi rubbed his temples. “I bet Rex didn’t correct it.”

“Or couldn’t. We’ve been fully booked for this week for a while. The con has everything around here booked solid. You could call around though, see if perhaps you could get something farther away?” the clerk suggested.

“Hell.” Ravi’s exhale ruffled his hair. “I don’t have the energy for this.”

The clerk tapped a few buttons. “I’m able to get you a room with two beds. If you wanted to share...”

Want.
It was such a tricky, devious word. Of course, Tristan wanted. Who wouldn’t want to share with Ravi? But to be up close and personal with all that charm and fun for another stretch of
days
...Well, that was a temptation he couldn’t afford.

“Yeah, we could share,” Ravi said slowly.

What?
What?
Tristan nodded dumbly before he realized what he was doing.

“Excellent,” the clerk said, and then it was a done deal with room cards and them in an elevator with their stuff, heading to a room, knowing full well one of them should be hiking to another hotel, screw the distance.

* * *

Ravi’s pulse thrummed like the
jhala
flute music his father favored.

“Okay. Drop your stuff and let’s go find food,” Ravi said as Tristan unlocked the door to their room.
Their room.
What the hell had he been thinking?

You weren’t.
He’d known that the right thing to do would be to offer to be the one to find another hotel, but screw it. He’d been hungry and tired and he’d just wanted dinner.

And Tristan.

Oh fuck. No way were they making it to Sunday without someone getting fucked, either literally or figuratively or both, but if he didn’t linger, didn’t look at the big, cushy beds, maybe, just maybe he could stave off the inevitable. And above all else, they were
not
talking about how insane this was.

“Together?” Tristan put his stuff in the closet while Ravi tossed his on the bed. “I figured you’d want some time...” He made a vague gesture. “Go to a bar, maybe?”

“And what? Pick someone up?” Ravi snorted. Tristan’s pink-stained cheeks were all the answer he needed.

“I didn’t
say
that.” Tristan took out the folder labeled Food Options from his laptop bag. “But if you need some...
alone
time, I’d understand.”

“If that’s your very polite way of saying if I need to get laid this week that I should go out cruising the gay bars by myself, need I remind you that we’re sharing the room, and you are
so
not a threesome sort of guy?”

“I’m not?” Tristan looked mildly put out as he shuffled papers. “How would you know?”

“Tris. You’ve got a spreadsheet of Seattle dining options. You’ll have all your clothes put away before you fall asleep. No way are you are a wild-and-crazy casual sex sort of guy. Sorry.”

“I’m
not
awful in bed.” There was too much pain in Tristan’s voice for the joking that Ravi had intended.
Hell.
This is why we can’t talk.

“I didn’t say that. I’m sure you’re great.” Unconsciously, he had taken a few steps toward Tristan, close enough that he could put his hand on Tristan’s arm.
Alert!
Alert!
Back away!

“It’s okay. I’m sorry if I was a terrible kisser or something last night.” Tristan looked down at his shoes.

“You weren’t terrible.” Ravi’s voice had gone low and soothing, and he was fighting a losing battle with his self-control as memories of last night assaulted his brain. Food and eating and even the ill-advised conversation faded under the memory of what Tristan tasted like, of the little sounds he made. “Far from it.”

“Really?” The sparkly hope in Tristan’s eyes as he looked up almost did Ravi in.

“Really.” Self-control lost the battle as he pulled Tristan toward him. Actually, if he was honest, self-control had left the building the instant the clerk said they could share a room. Then they were kissing again, and he wasn’t even sure who had moved first, only that they were devouring each other. He pushed Tristan against the wall next to the closet, kissing him like he knew all Tristan’s secrets, that weird familiarity guiding him, telling him how Tristan liked it.

Not that he needed too much intuition. Tristan made encouraging noises the more Ravi seized control. He lost all sense of time—moments measured in gasps and moans. Their tongues tangled, and Ravi’s whole body shuddered in its effort to get closer to Tristan. His hips rocked and his hands grappled and if he could have crawled inside Tristan, Ravi would have been all over that option.

“We should...ah...” Tristan gasped as Ravi mouthed a path to his ear. “Dinner...”

“Later.” Now was all Ravi cared about. Later was for regrets and logic and awkward dining. Right now was for discovering the taste of Tristan’s skin, for shivering as the roughness of stubble abraded his tongue, for pulling Tristan’s hips flush against his own.

Their hard cocks ground together through their jeans, and it wasn’t enough, wasn’t ever going to be enough. Ravi snaked a hand between them, got his fly undone, shoved his pants down with shaking hands.

“Yeah.
Skin.
” Tristan followed his lead, pushing his own pants down to midthigh before welcoming Ravi back against him with a scorching kiss as their cocks collided for the first time. Tristan’s was thick and hot with a slippery head, and the contact still wasn’t enough. Ravi worked his hand between them, fisted Tristan’s cock. The weight of it in his hand felt absolutely right, like picking up his favorite drawing pencil, like he already knew its balance, its contours. Even so, his fingers traced the length as carefully as if he might have to sculpt it later, spending long moments learning each vein and each secret, sensitive spot.

“Fuck. I’m...close.” Tristan panted against Ravi’s mouth.

Ravi swallowed his moan eagerly, fucking him with his tongue the way he wanted to fuck Tristan, the way he
needed
to claim him. But later. Right now, he needed to get Tristan off more than he needed to breathe. He moved so that he could grasp both their cocks together.

“
Yes.
” Tristan got a hand involved too, joining Ravi’s own to form a tight channel for their cocks. Ravi fucked into their fists, his cockhead dragging against Tristan’s, making him moan with how incredible it felt to be sharing this. They kissed and thrust, thrust and kissed until they were moaning in concert. Tristan made a high-pitched whine and that was all it took to trigger Ravi’s orgasm. Tristan was right behind him, climaxing in almost the same breath. Wave after wave surged through him, and he swore he could feel the same sensations shuddering through Tristan, like for an instant they shared some funky virtual reality connection.

Ravi laughed because the pressure in his chest needed an outlet and because coming simultaneously was one of the coolest things ever and because they were half-dressed, covered in spooge and so royally screwed. And he’d do it all over again in an instant.

Soon they were going to have to talk and get food and talk and figure out what in the hell just happened and talk, and yeah, the talking was the part Ravi was dreading. He wanted to stay here a little longer, clutching Tristan, panting against his neck, memorizing the way Tristan felt and smelled and breathed.

He needed to figure a way out of this situation, but all he could think about was how badly he wanted to do it again, this time in a bed with all their clothes off...

No.
Reluctantly he pulled away. “So...showers and then food?” he said, not looking at Tristan, not wanting to reveal how much he wanted to hold him all night. He peeled off his sticky clothes instead.

“That works,” Tristan said slowly. Ravi swore he could hear the cogs in Tristan’s brain creaking, the drumbeat of “we need to talk” getting louder and louder. So he did the only sane thing he could think of and hauled Tristan to the bathroom and into the shower with him.

Chapter Eleven

Pizza was easy. Tristan liked pizza, Ravi liked pizza, and Seattle had a lot of options for good vegetarian pizza delivery. Compared to, oh say, showering together with the coworker you were supposed to dislike, pizza was ridiculously easy.

Showering together had been...weird. Weird was really the only word for it. Porn and pop culture said he was supposed to have all sorts of shower-sex fantasies and be all over trying them out with Ravi, but he knew from Patrick that the idea of showering together was far better than the reality. One person, usually him, ended up shivering and the water always went cold before they got to any good stuff. Ravi had been a bit more solicitous, turning so that Tristan had hot water too, but it still hadn’t been particularly erotic as all Tristan could focus on was the “holy crap, we just shared orgasms” terror-wonder mix coursing through him.

It was easier to focus on his folder of meal options and call for pizza the second they were out of the shower. Apparently Ravi had crossed some modesty threshold with him and lounged around in his towel while Tristan scrambled into boxers and his pajama bottoms. Ravi let him handle getting the pizza from the delivery person, which was fine because Tristan was the one with the receipts folder. But one wouldn’t catch him in a towel with a delivery person nearby, even staying out of sight like Ravi did. Of course, if he had Ravi’s body he might not care who saw what either. He liked how Ravi looked with his wet hair slicked back, showing off the sharp angles of his face, and he
really
liked Ravi shirtless. He had almost smooth pecs, but a fuzzy trail on his stomach leading to all points south. The contrast turned Tristan on.

But then everything about Ravi turned Tristan on. His long bare feet. His legs dusted with fine dark hair and defined runner’s calves and thighs. The way his shoulders weren’t particularly broad but were delineated with interesting hollows and curves of muscle leading to muscled arms. The low moans he made when he was close to climax...

And okay
,
stop right now because getting turned on while eating pizza with olives and green peppers was just embarrassing
. They were sitting together on the bed closest to the door, pizza between them, both trying and failing to act like everything was cool. Ravi had flipped on the TV to some reality show where heavily made-up girls competed for a prize Tristan still hadn’t figured out. Could be a boyfriend. Could be a fashion modeling contract. He didn’t have the spare brain power to figure it out.

What he had figured out was that silence made Ravi nervous—it was why Ravi always turned the music on while in the truck, why he had TV on he wasn’t even watching. That and he filled the tension between them with chatter about pizza and toppings—words too fast, charm too forced. Tristan wished he knew what to say to put things between them back to an easy place.

But he didn’t, so he cleaned up the pizza box, brushed the crumbs off the bed and tried to make sense of the show.

“Are they competing for a job or a man?” he asked, perching on the side of the bed, a safe distance from Ravi’s comfortable sprawl.

“Job.” Ravi said, leaning back against the pillows.

“Then why are they flirting so hard with that guy?” Tristan asked as one of the girls on screen planted herself in an older guy’s lap and batted her eyelashes.

“Because they probably think sleeping with him would guarantee a win.”

“But you should
never
sleep with your boss. That’s really bad...” Tristan trailed off as he realized what he was saying. “Not that...Oh crap. I’m shutting up now.”

Ravi laughed and stretched a leg out, kicking Tristan’s calf. “Dude. I get it. I
have
slept with coworkers before and it’s always awful. Clearly I don’t learn.”

Tristan tamped down the hurt and jealousy that threatened to bubble up in his throat. “How is it awful?”

“Take your pick. There’s the hard time juggling work and what happens after work. I know you think I don’t care about professionalism—”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.” Ravi shrugged, but his eyes showed a hooded hurt Tristan had never noticed before. “But I do care about my work, and I’ve lost projects I love because of the rumors that swirl through the office. That’s the worst.”

“
You
don’t like being the subject of gossip? But you always seem to love talking with people at work.”