“I did,” Ben confirmed as he stood there, waiting.

“You didn’t ask, you told,” Dante added and Ben knew exactly what he was talking about.

He’d told Dante to come and get him. That wasn’t how they worked, but... “I don’t know if that part of it will be the same.” If they were going to do this, it would need to be with complete and total honesty. “It might be, but might not. I’m still trying to work through that part of it...if I like the domination and the bondage because it’s kinky or if it’s too intertwined with everything else. If it was just something I needed because I already felt so out of control. Will that be a problem?”

Anxiety spiked his pulse. The thought of losing Dante before he really got to have him felt like some of the stitching patching him up, started to pull apart, putting another hole inside him.

He’d lied too much for too long, though.

“Can I come in?” Dante asked and Ben let out a deep breath. It was the answer he needed to hear. “We’ll figure it out together.”

Ben stepped out of the way and ushered Dante inside. Nerves burned through him, but the kind of nerves he welcomed. Hungry energy. Passion. Comfort at seeing this man walk through his living room. Even just the fact that he’d been willing to come to California for Ben meant something. Dante had to know things would be different, but he’d still come. “Do you want a drink? I have water, tea—”

“I fucked up. Christ, I really fucked up with you.” The sleeve on Dante’s short-sleeved shirt rose when he ran a hand through his hair. “I wanted to do the right thing. I thought I was. Everything I did for Abel, I told myself it was for him but it wasn’t. It was for me. I wanted him there because I was so fucking tired of being alone, and I knew he would leave if he didn’t get what he wanted. I didn’t deny him anything because it would be denying myself having someone there, someone who needed me because no one else ever had.”

None of this had been Dante’s fault. Not in the least. It hadn’t been either of theirs. “Dante—”

The man shook his head. “Let me finish. I didn’t want it to be that way with you. You meant more to me than that. I knew I could lose you, that you could go find someone else to try and help you fuck it all away and that made me murderous, the thought of someone else touching you. Taking what was mine. But I knew you were too far gone, I was shooting the needle in your arm the same way I let Abel do, and I couldn’t be that for you. I wanted more for you, even if that wasn’t me. You meant more to me than that. More than a fuck. I thought it would help, knowing I was there for more than that but it didn’t. When I denied you, I made you feel more alone and I almost lost you because of it.”

Ben shook his head. A small laugh fell from his lips. Nothing here was funny but it was the only thing he could think to do. “You saved me. You said you couldn’t but you did. What would have happened if you didn’t turn me away that night? If you hadn’t just held me but fucked me and made me believe that was all I needed? It would have continued. The pattern never would have stopped. I would have continued to sink farther down the rabbit’s hole. Even when I was losing it, when I felt out of control I had you there, in the back of my head. It scared me, the way you made me feel. What you did for me...but it saved me as well.” Dante had been willing to lose a part of them, because he thought it would help Ben. He’d been willing to lose something he thought he needed, for Ben...and he would have still been there. That had been what he’d tried to do their last night together.

Ben didn’t wait for Dante to come to him, didn’t wait for Dante to tell him to come. Even if he found that that was what he wanted, this wasn’t the time for it. Right now, he just needed the man to know how he felt. Needed him close.

Ben stopped when he reached his lover. He touched Dante’s face the way Dante had so often done to him. Brushed his thumb under Dante’s eye, just feeling him. It was time he gave Dante some of those things back.

“Tristan told me once that I needed to find what made me want to be whole, find what helped to fix me. It was you.”

Ben leaned forward, capturing Dante’s mouth with his own. He slowly worked Dante’s mouth open with his tongue, dipped it inside. The taste was like going home again, familiar, he got drunk off of it. The kind of drunk that made him stronger rather than weaker.

Dante still smelled like coffee and spice. Ben wanted to drown in it.

Dante’s hand tightened in Ben’s hair but he let Ben lead. In this moment, Ben needed that. He held the sides of Dante’s face in his hands. Loved the rough feel of Dante’s stubble on his face.