King of the Kitchen (14 page)

With anyone else, he’d give himself over to the pleasure and let himself come. But this wasn’t just anyone. This was Duncan, and Beck knew Duncan would be smug and annoying if he managed to make Beck come like a freight train with a bit of kissing and rubbing.

Beck tilted his body away from Duncan’s a bit, which didn’t help since Duncan followed the motion with his hand and wrapped his long fingers around Beck’s cock.

Beck broke their kiss, leaning his head back against the tile. “Duncan—”

Duncan smirked at him. “Have something different in mind?” He stroked up Beck’s shaft, and Beck’s hips jerked of their own volition, betraying his eagerness. Duncan swirled his thumb over the head, his expression thoughtful. “Hmm. I did say I’d been dying to get my mouth on you, didn’t I? Because I have been, all day.”

Beck bit back a sobbing moan when Duncan stroked him again. It seriously wouldn’t take much more before he’d be coming.

“Though maybe we should save that for when you have a bit more stamina,” Duncan said knowingly, the amused curve of his lips getting more pronounced when Beck shuddered through a particularly rough stroke.

“You’re sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Beck bit out the words, his teeth clenched to hold back his groans.

Duncan laughed, looking absolutely delighted. “We’ll see. I don’t suppose you’d want to wager on it? A friendly bet,” he said, ending on a down stroke and wrapping his thumb and forefinger around the base of Beck’s cock, holding him tightly. Beck didn’t want to admit how much that helped.

“Is there anything you don’t make into a joke?”

Duncan shook his head. “Nope.”

He held Beck’s gaze for a few more beats, before Beck broke. He really wanted Duncan’s mouth on him. “Fine. What are your terms?”

Duncan’s grin was electric. “You and Christian want me in a suit tomorrow. I want to wear my usual T-shirt and jeans. You come before, say, six minutes have passed, and I get to wear whatever I want. You make it that long, and I’ll let you dress me up like a Ken doll.”

Beck choked on a laugh. Duncan certainly did keep things interesting. Normally six minutes wouldn’t be a problem, but Beck had been amped up all day, and the teasing in the shower had him more than a little aroused. It would be a challenge, but everything with Duncan was, right?

“Fine.”

Duncan didn’t need any further encouragement. He released Beck’s dick and stepped back out of the shower spray while he unfastened the battered waterproof watch and set a timer. Apparently he was dead serious about this.

His confident swagger was firmly in place, which had Beck worried. A few seconds later, Duncan was on his knees in front of him, and Beck was splayed out against the tile again, holding on for dear life while Duncan did his best to suck Beck’s brains out through his dick.

There was no finesse to Duncan’s technique. No teasing touches or kitten licks. He jumped in full force, swallowing most of Beck’s length down without warning.

Shit.

This was going to be an agonizing and wonderful six minutes.

He had to make it. If Duncan chose his own clothes for tomorrow’s episode, he would no doubt appear in a T-shirt with some pithy—if not downright obscene—slogan and jeans that would have Christian frothing at the mouth.

How hard could it be to stave off coming for six minutes? Normally, Beck had no problem with stamina. Then again, normally he didn’t have Duncan Walters on his knees in front of him, either.

Beck held back a whine when Duncan’s tongue laved over the head of his cock. Water beaded on his eyelashes, and he blinked it away so he could get a better view of Duncan on his knees on the shower floor.

Christ on a crutch, what had he been
thinking
? No, scratch that. He hadn’t been thinking. He’d been preoccupied by the thought of what Duncan’s gorgeous lips would look like, swollen and cherry-red as they stretched around his dick.

The sight was every bit as enticing as he’d imagined, if not more so. Beck’s cock throbbed. That line of thinking was not helping his current situation.

Duncan seemed to know exactly how seeing him on his knees staring up at him was affecting Beck.

Beck groaned, the sound loud even against the backdrop of the water beating down on the tiles. He rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes, more out of self-defense than anything. Duncan looked obscene.

Duncan’s tongue twirled across his head and dipped teasingly into his slit, and Beck choked on his own saliva.

Fuck, Duncan really was trying to kill him. Beck looked down again and watched as Duncan picked up the pace, his head bobbing furiously now. He held Beck’s gaze, and the challenge was clear in the sparkling glint of Duncan’s eyes. How much longer before he could come? Duncan’s watch was on the floor next to him, and Beck squinted at it, trying to make out the numbers upside down. It didn’t work. He’d guess a good three minutes had passed, but he also wouldn’t be particularly surprised to find it had only been one.

Beck gritted his teeth, his toes curling against the tile floor after a hard suck sent shivers of need up his spine. He felt his orgasm building again, hot and heavy in his belly. This was going to end quickly if he didn’t do something, but fuck if he knew what he could do to take his mind off what Duncan was doing.

Duncan hummed, and the added sensation of the vibration made Beck squirm. Duncan glanced down at his watch and flashed four fingers at Beck. Did that mean four minutes had passed or four minutes were left? It had to be the latter. Beck could do this. Four minutes was nothing. Four minutes was—

He slipped deeper into Duncan’s mouth, and Beck swore he could feel the soft skin of Duncan’s throat rubbing against the head of his cock. Sweet fucking
Jesus
. No one had ever taken him that deep before, and Beck’s balls tightened convulsively. His thighs trembled with the effort of staying upright. Beck was one good suck away from losing control, and he knew Duncan could tell.

Beck scoured his mind for a distraction.
Any
distraction. He thought about the old joke about guys going through baseball statistics in their heads for stamina. He’d never been so regretful he wasn’t a sports fan.

Sauces. He could do that. What are the five French mother sauces in alphabetical order? He latched onto the train of thought like a lifeline, straining to remember any facts or figures that could distract him from the ridiculous things Duncan was doing with his tongue right now.

Béchamel. His hands clenched so tight he could feel his nails digging grooves into his palms. Roux whisked with milk or cream, or any dairy, really. He’d been experimenting with using goat’s milk and olive oil instead of the traditional cow’s milk and butter, and—

Duncan hummed again, bringing Beck’s mental vacation to an abrupt halt.
Jesus.
Duncan raised an eyebrow in challenge and held up three fingers.

What was next alphabetically? It was a challenge to think because usually the sauces weren’t arranged that way. Concentrating on that helped back down some of Beck’s urgency. Espagnole. That was next. Dark roux as a thickener, added to dark stock like veal or beef, browned mirepoix, and tomato puree.

Oh God. Duncan cupped Beck’s balls, tugging on them a little too roughly, sending sparks of sharp pleasure up Beck’s spine. Two fingers this time. Two minutes. Beck could do this.

Next was… fuck, he couldn’t remember. Beck’s concentration slipped as Duncan pursed his lips into a tight ring, gripping the shaft of Beck’s cock even harder as he slid his mouth up and down its length.
Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Hollandaise! That was next. The only mother sauce that didn’t involve roux, since it was thickened by an egg yolk and butter emulsion, with citrus juice to brighten it, and heavy cream. It was the sauce on the eggs Benedict Duncan had sent out to him at that ratty diner years ago. A lot of restaurants used powdered hollandaise sauce because the real thing was so delicate, but now that he knew Duncan, he doubted that’s what it had been.

Duncan’s fingers moved from caressing Beck’s balls to pressing against the skin behind them. Beck writhed against the wall, simultaneously trying to move away from Duncan’s talented fingers, and get closer. He couldn’t take much more of this. His skin tingled unbearably, the pleasure so great it almost hurt. He was close to the point of no return, but he was determined not to let Duncan win. Especially not with barely a minute left.

Okay. Sauces. Velouté. Right? No. There was one before that. Sauce Tomat was next. Was he forgetting one? The flat of Duncan’s tongue swept over the head of Beck’s dick again and Beck’s knees actually buckled this time. If not for Duncan grabbing his hips and steadying him, Beck would have sprawled on the shower floor. Fuck it, did the order really matter?

Sauce Tomat was one of the simplest French mother sauces. Tomatoes cooked down with pork and aromatics, thickened with a roux.

Beck struggled to keep his eyes open and glued to Duncan’s watch even though he couldn’t see it well enough to read the time. For all he knew, Duncan’s countdown was just a way to psych him out. He could be giving him false cues for a competitive edge. It seemed like the kind of thing Duncan would do.

It had to be down to seconds now.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Which sauce hadn’t he done yet? Velouté. Light roux for that one. Whisked with a clear stock, like fish or chicken, for a sauce that was velvety smooth and tasted like the protein used.

Ugh, this wasn’t helping anymore. Thinking of velvety sauces made Beck focus on how slick and soft Duncan’s mouth was.

He was scrambling for more things to list when Duncan’s watch alarm chimed, marking the end of the six minutes. He was coming before the last of the chime faded, his entire body shuddering as the rigid tension he’d been holding back flooded out of him with his orgasm.

Seconds after Beck’s dick stopped twitching, Duncan pulled him down to his knees on the shower floor. Beck went willingly, though he wasn’t so far gone he didn’t have a brief moment of panic at the thought of sitting on the communal shower floor. Still, he sank down obligingly. His bones felt like jelly, and the cleaning crew was in here every night anyway.

Duncan was so hard the head of his cock was stretched and shiny, veins standing out along his length. His chest was flushed a mottled red, either from the heat of the shower or arousal, Beck didn’t know which. It hardly mattered. There would be time later to learn the details of Duncan’s body. For right now, Beck was desperate to get his hands on him and return some of the pleasure Duncan had wrung out of him over the last agonizing minutes.

Duncan seemed on board with that plan, his body bowing up off the floor when Beck wrapped his hand around Duncan’s straining cock. His own fingers still felt tingly from his orgasm, but he flexed them to bring back feeling—making Duncan groan out loud at the tight squeeze—and started stroking him off.

It was exhilarating, since Beck had no idea how Duncan liked to be touched. That exploration was always fun when his partner was as responsive as Duncan. His moans and gasps left no doubt Beck was on the right track.

Duncan started moving impatiently, trying to speed up Beck’s strokes. Beck leaned forward and kissed him, shuddering as he tasted himself on Duncan’s tongue. Letting Duncan suck him off without a condom went against everything he’d ever been taught about safe sex, but in the moment, Beck hadn’t cared. He felt a little guilty about it now, even though he knew he was clean. He hadn’t even checked that Duncan was. God, he hadn’t lost his head like that since he’d been a teenager.

Duncan pressed into the kiss, letting Beck’s tongue sweep into his mouth as he kept thrusting his hips up into Beck’s fist.

Beck kept his grip firm as Duncan moved, his free hand bracing against the floor so they didn’t slide on the wet tile as Duncan pushed into the tight ring of his fingers, his hips jerking. Floating high on his own orgasm—and victory—Beck deepened the kiss and rolled his wrist to graze his thumbnail lightly over the head of Duncan’s dick on the next upstroke, pulling a strangled moan from Duncan’s throat.

Duncan didn’t last long after that, an irony Beck decided he would manfully not point out. A few strokes later, Duncan leaned heavily against him, pressing Beck into the tiles as he came. Beck let the movement carry them both over onto the floor, germs be damned. Even after the brief amount of time he’d spent kneeling on the ground, his knees were aching, and he wondered how Duncan had stood it for all that time. Between the unforgiving floor and the six-minute blow job, Duncan had to be aching like mad.

“My suit is from the thrift store,” Duncan said inanely, his voice raspy. How positively like him to avoid admitting he’d lost. At least he was still honoring the terms of the bet. “And I don’t wear ties.”

Beck smirked, satisfaction flowing through him at the thought of seeing Duncan in a suit again. It wouldn’t be as dashing as the tuxedo he’d worn to the Brix opening, but if it even came close then Beck very much approved.

“Fine, but don’t think I’ll forget. You’re not getting out of this. If you show up for filming tomorrow without the suit, I’ll have a production assistant go to your apartment and get it. Don’t think I won’t.”

Duncan laughed hoarsely. “I can’t believe you made it,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “I’m impressed.”

Beck hadn’t technically showered, but he struggled to his feet and turned the steaming spray off anyway. His fingers were pruned and his skin felt sensitive and overheated. Washing could wait until tomorrow morning. He’d rinsed off the worst of the sweat, at least.

Duncan accepted the hand Beck offered him, and Beck hauled him up off the floor. He tossed a towel to Duncan and then wrapped another around his waist.

“So where are these illustrious chef’s whites? I told Corbin I’d meet up with him after he closes at Brix tonight. There’s a poker game somewhere.”

Beck’s stomach fell. So this was a one-off.

“I left them on the bench for you.”

“Thanks. I’m going to catch hell for showing up looking like this, but the guys will get a good laugh out of it.” He ran the towel roughly over his hair and then started drying himself quickly. “So do—”