A night to rest
The water came down in sheets.
Hot. So hot it bordered on scalding, the kind of heat that turned muscle to butter and thought to steam. Steven stood in the center of the rainfall shower, head bowed, watching the water sluice down his chest in rivulets that caught the candlelight from the bathroom beyond. The steam curled around his ankles, rose in lazy spirals, filled the glass enclosure until the world outside became nothing but amber smudges and shadow.
His body ached.
Not the sharp pain of injury—something deeper, more diffuse. A thrumming soreness that radiated from the base of his spine, climbed the ladder of his vertebrae, settled into the meat of his thighs. The space between his legs felt hollowed out, tender, stretched in ways that were still foreign. And inside him—buried deep where the shower's spray couldn't reach—Mehdi's release still pulsed with residual warmth. A liquid secret. A brand written in heat that his body hadn't yet absorbed.
The contrast made his head swim. Minutes ago—or was it hours?—he'd been face-down on the mattress, Mehdi's hand around his throat, Mehdi's cock splitting him open, Mehdi's voice in his ear calling him a slut and a whore and mine, mine, mine. The memory flickered behind his eyelids like heat lightning. The sound he'd made when Mehdi had hit that spot. The way his reflection had looked in the mirror—ruined, weeping, unrecognizable.
And now this.
The glass door opened behind him with a soft click. Steam billowed outward, then swallowed Mehdi whole as he stepped inside. Steven didn't turn. Couldn't. His body had entered some strange suspended state, floating between the brutal fuck that had reshaped him and the quiet that was settling over him now like a second skin.
Mehdi's hands found his shoulders first.
Palms spanning the blades, thumbs pressing into the knots at the base of his neck. The touch was firm but unhurried—no urgency, no demand. Just pressure and release, pressure and release, working the tension from muscles that had been clenched for what felt like years. Steven's head dropped forward, chin nearly touching his chest, and a sound escaped him. Something between a sigh and a whimper.
"There," Mehdi murmured. The word was barely audible over the water, felt more than heard. "Let it go. All of this tension inside you."
His hands slid down Steven's spine—slow, deliberate, tracing each vertebra like beads on a string. When his thumbs found the dimples just above Steven's ass, he paused. Pressed. Steven gasped, the soreness flaring briefly before dissolving into something warmer.
"Sore?" Mehdi's voice was low, almost tender.
"Yes." The word came out cracked. "But not—not in a bad way."
A soft laugh against his ear. "Good sore. The kind that reminds you what happened."
Steven nodded. His throat was still raw from the deep-throating, from the screams Mehdi had pulled from him, and swallowing hurt in a way that was almost pleasant. Evidence. Proof that the last hours hadn't been a fever dream.
Mehdi reached past him for something on the shelf—a glass bottle of body wash, sandalwood and bergamot, the scent that had clung to Steven's skin since he'd first walked through Mehdi's door. The sound of liquid being poured into a palm. Then those hands were on him again, slick now, spreading lather across his chest.
The silver peony caught between Mehdi's fingers. He paused.
Looked down at it.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The pendant rested against Steven's sternum where it had bounced and swung through every thrust, every scream, every moment of his undoing. The tiny pearl at its center gleamed in the steam-softened light. Julio's gift. Julio's love, clasped around his husband's neck while another man washed his body.
Mehdi's thumb traced the chain. Followed it around to the clasp at Steven's nape.
Then he let it go.
"Arms up," he said, his voice unreadable.
Steven obeyed. Mehdi's soap-slick hands slid down his arms, washing the fine hairs of his forearms, the tender skin of his inner elbows, the palms that had clawed at sheets and gripped Mehdi's thighs for purchase. Each finger was cleaned individually—Mehdi's thumb circling each knuckle, each nail bed, as if polishing something precious.
"Your hands," Mehdi murmured, bringing one to his lips and pressing a kiss to the center of Steven's palm. "These beautiful hands. The way they held onto me. The way they scratched down my back when you were coming."
Steven's breath hitched. He hadn't even realized he'd done that.
"I'll have marks tomorrow," Mehdi continued, his voice holding a note of satisfaction. "Proof that you were here. That you couldn't help yourself."
The washing continued. Down Steven's sides, over the ridges of his ribs, across the flat plane of his stomach. Mehdi's touch was thorough, almost methodical, but there was nothing clinical about it. Each sweep of his palms was a claiming. Each pass of his fingers was a reminder: I was inside you. I am still inside you.
When Mehdi's hands reached Steven's hips, they slowed further. His thumbs traced the jut of bone, then dipped lower—into the crease of his groin, the sensitive skin where thigh met pelvis. Steven's legs parted without permission, an offering that had become instinct.
But Mehdi didn't go where Steven expected.
Instead, he knelt.
The motion was fluid, graceful for a man of his size. One moment he was standing behind Steven, a wall of heat and muscle; the next, he was on his knees on the shower tile, water sluicing down his shoulders, his face level with Steven's lower back. His hands framed Steven's ass—those powerful palms spreading the cheeks with a gentleness that made Steven's chest ache.
"Let me see," Mehdi breathed.
Steven braced his hands against the tile. The steam swirled around them, thick and warm, as Mehdi's fingers traced the tender skin he'd so recently claimed. The touch was feather-light, almost reverent—nothing like the brutal pounding that had come before. He traced the rim, now slightly swollen, still slick with more than just water.
"You're still full of me," Mehdi murmured. His thumb pressed gently, not breaching, just feeling. "I can see it. Feel it. The evidence of what we did."
Steven's forehead pressed against the cool tile. His cock stirred weakly, too spent to fully harden, but the arousal was there—a low thrum beneath the exhaustion.
"I want you to carry it inside you all night," Mehdi continued, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the steam. "While you sleep. While you dream. When you wake up tomorrow and feel me still there—that ache, that fullness—I want you to remember who put it there."
A kiss pressed to the small of Steven's back. Then another, lower. Then Mehdi's tongue traced the same path his thumb had taken—tasting, soothing, cleaning the evidence of their coupling with a tenderness that made Steven's eyes sting.
"I said I would clean you," Mehdi murmured against his skin. "Everywhere. I meant it."
He rose to his feet, his body sliding against Steven's back, and reached for the shower head. The detachable wand came free with a click, and Mehdi adjusted the pressure—softer now, a gentle rainfall rather than the punishing heat from before. He turned Steven around to face him, green eyes tracing his face with an intensity that had nothing to do with hunger.
Now it was something else. Something quieter. Something Steven didn't have a name for.
"Close your eyes," Mehdi said.
Steven obeyed. The water cascaded over his face, washing away the salt of tears and sweat, the last traces of Mehdi's cum that had dried on his chin. Mehdi's fingers worked through his hair—massaging shampoo into his scalp, working out the tangles, rinsing with care. When the suds ran clear, Mehdi tilted Steven's chin up and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
Then his eyelids. The bridge of his nose. The corner of his mouth.
The water had softened Steven, turned his bones to something pliable and warm. He stood there, eyes closed, waiting for the tenderness to continue—for the kisses that felt like an answer to questions he hadn't known he was asking.
But the kisses stopped.
Mehdi's hands remained on his shoulders, steady and sure, but the softness in his touch had sharpened into something else. Something more deliberate.
"Let's be clear," Mehdi said, his voice low and even, cutting through the steam like a blade. "This isn't about feelings."
Steven's eyes snapped open. The green of Mehdi's gaze held him, unblinking, unapologetic.
"The sex," Mehdi continued, his thumbs pressing into the meat of Steven's shoulders with just enough force to remind him who was in control. "That's all this is. That's all it's ever going to be."
Steven opened his mouth, but no sound came out. The words lodged somewhere between his chest and his throat, too heavy to rise.
"I told you from the beginning," Mehdi said, releasing one shoulder to cup Steven's chin, tilting his face up. "There's no room for love here. No room for... this." He gestured vaguely with his free hand, encompassing the steam, the candles, the lingering tenderness of the washing. "That's not what I want from you."
"What do you want from me?" The question escaped before Steven could stop it—raw, honest, desperate.
Mehdi's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. His hand slid from Steven's chin down his chest, across his stomach, until his fingers wrapped around Steven's softening cock. Not arousing. Claiming.
"I want to feast on this tight little hole," he murmured, his breath hot against Steven's ear. "I want to fuck you until you forget your own name. I want to watch you fall apart on my cock—to see you broken and dripping and mine in every way that matters between two men who aren't playing those games."
He squeezed gently, feeling Steven's involuntary shiver.
"The way you look at me with those big eyes," Mehdi continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that somehow cut through the water's rush. "The way your body opens for me. The sounds you make when I'm buried so deep inside you that you can't tell where I end and you begin." He released Steven's cock, sliding his hand around to grip his ass. "That's enough. That's more than enough."
Steven's breath came in shallow gasps. His body was screaming at him—part shame, part arousal, part a strange relief that at least the expectation was clear.
"No love," Mehdi repeated, punctuating the words with a slap to Steven's ass that echoed off the tile. "No romance. No waking up beside me and thinking this is something it isn't. You have a husband who gives you that. A good man who loves you."
The words hit harder than the slap.
"I'm not here to compete with Julio," Mehdi said, turning Steven to face the wall again, pressing him against the cool tile. "I'm here to take what I want. And what I want is that tight little hole—to use it, to fill it, to send you home feeling like you've been properly fucked in ways your sweet husband never could."
His cock pressed against Steven's ass—half-hard, a promise of things to come.
"Can you handle that, habibi?"
The endearment should have sounded cruel. Instead, it sounded like honesty.
Steven's forehead pressed against the tile. His body trembled—not from cold, but from the weight of understanding. No games. No pretense. Just the raw, animal truth of what Mehdi wanted.
Just the raw, animal truth of what Steven had come here for.
"Yes," he whispered.
Mehdi's hand tangled in his hair, pulling his head back. "Yes, what?"
"Yes... yes, I can handle that."
"Good boy." The praise was clinical, approving in the same way a trainer might praise a well-performed trick. "Now let me finish cleaning you up. You want to go home to your husband smelling like me, don't you?"
Steven nodded, his throat tight.
"Say it."
"I want to go home smelling like you."
Mehdi's laugh was low, rough, satisfied. He released Steven's hair and picked up the shower wand again, adjusting the spray to a harder stream.
"Then let's make sure you're thoroughly rinsed," he said, the words dripping with double meaning. "Every. Last. Trace."
The water hit Steven's skin—colder now, a shock after the heat. But he didn't flinch. He stood there, hands against the tile, letting Mehdi wash him clean of everything except the truth.
There was no love here.
There was only the deep, hungry feast of a man who knew exactly what he wanted.
And a man who was learning to want it too.
He shut off the water.
The silence that followed was absolute—just the drip of water from the shower head, the distant crackle of the fireplace in the other room, the sound of their breathing falling into sync. Mehdi reached past Steven for a towel—thick, charcoal, warm from a heated rack Steven hadn't noticed before—and wrapped it around Steven's shoulders before taking one for himself.
They dried off in silence. Steven's limbs were heavy, his eyelids heavier. The exhaustion that had been held at bay by adrenaline and arousal was crashing over him now in waves, making his movements slow and uncoordinated. He fumbled with the towel, nearly dropped it, and Mehdi caught it—caught him—with steady hands.
"No, we go in bed," Mehdi said. Not a question.
Steven nodded. Let himself be guided back into the bedroom, where the candles had burned low and the sheets were still rumpled from their earlier destruction. The room smelled of sex and sandalwood and the faint, lingering trace of Steven's own surrender.
Mehdi pulled back the covers. Steven climbed in—gingerly, his body still singing with soreness—and sank into the mattress with a sigh that came from somewhere deeper than his lungs. The linen was cool against his heated skin. The pillow cradled his head like an apology.
Mehdi slid in beside him.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The space between their bodies hummed with potential—the memory of what they'd done, the question of what came next. Then Mehdi's arm wrapped around Steven's waist and pulled him close, chest to back, thighs aligned, the warmth of his body a wall against the darkness.
Mehdi's arm tightened around Steven's waist, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them. His breath was warm against the nape of Steven's neck, slow and steady, a rhythm that Steven's own lungs began to match without permission.
"Monday," Mehdi murmured, the word a low rumble against Steven's skin. "Monday, you go back to your life. To Julio. To the house and the garden and everything that waits for you there."
Steven's breath caught. The silver peony pendant pressed against his sternum, cool and solid, a witness that couldn't look away.
"But until then," Mehdi continued, his hand sliding up Steven's chest to rest over his heart, feeling its rapid beat through skin and bone, "you're mine. All weekend. Every hour. Every minute."
The words hung in the darkness, heavy with promise.
"Tonight is just the beginning," Mehdi said, and there was something in his voice—not hunger, not tenderness, but a deep, resonant certainty. "Tomorrow morning, I'm going to make you a proper breakfast. Feed you. Let you rest. And then, when you've had time to recover, I'm going to fuck you until you forget which way is up. Then I'll let you rest again. And then I'm going to do it all over again."
Steven's eyes fluttered closed. His body, still sore and trembling, should have recoiled at the thought. Instead, it melted deeper into Mehdi's embrace.
"You're going to leave here ruined," Mehdi whispered against his ear, the words a caress and a threat. "Sore in ways you've never been sore. Empty in ways you've never felt empty. And every time you sit down at your dinner table with your husband, every time you feel that ache in your hips, you're going to remember exactly what I did to you."
A pause. Mehdi's lips brushed the shell of Steven's ear.
"Is that what you want?"
Steven's voice came out raw, broken, honest. "Yes."
Mehdi's hand slid lower, palm flattening against Steven's stomach, pressing gently. Feeling the evidence of his own claim still buried deep inside.
"Good," he breathed. "Because I'm not done with you yet. Not even close."
The candles flickered. The fireplace crackled. And Steven lay there, wrapped in the arms of a man who had no intention of letting him go until the weekend was over, feeling more claimed—more owned—than he had ever felt in his life.
And for reasons he couldn't name, that thought filled him with a strange, quiet peace.
Mehdi's arm tightened around him.
"Sleep, azizam." His lips brushed the curve of Steven's ear. "I have you."
The fire crackled in the other room. The candles guttered. And Steven, floating on the strange calm that follows a storm, let his eyes fall closed—the ache inside him still warm, still full, still proof that for one night, he had been utterly and completely claimed.
The night dissolved into a single, seamless breath.
Steven woke slowly, drifting upward through layers of sleep like a swimmer surfacing from deep water. The bed was warm. The sheets smelled of sandalwood and sex and something earthier—Mehdi's skin, pressed into the fibers. He was alone.
The space beside him was cool. Empty for long enough that the indentation in the pillow had lost its shape.
Steven lay still, letting the morning light—pale gray through gauze curtains—wash over him. His body was a catalog of sensations: the throb in his hips, the tender ache deep inside, the raw spot on his throat where Mehdi's teeth had lingered. Evidence. Every shift against the sheets sent fresh reminders rippling through him.
He let his mind wander. The silence was loud, but not uncomfortable. It was a space to breathe. To feel. To be before the next wave arrived.
Then the bedroom door clicked open.
Mehdi stood in the doorway, backlit by the soft glow of the hallway. He was half-naked. Nothing but a pair of low-slung cotton joggers riding his hips, the waistband hanging just below the sharp cut of his obliques. His chest was bare. Golden-brown skin stretched over a sculptor's dream of muscle: broad shoulders that tapered to a narrow waist, pectorals defined but not exaggerated, a trail of dark hair that ran from his navel down into the waistband like an arrow pointing south.
His arms were crossed, biceps flexing casually, forearms veined and powerful. The morning light caught the stubble on his jaw, the slight dishevelment of his black hair. He looked like he'd just woken up too—except for his eyes. Those green eyes were sharp, focused, hungry as they traced the length of Steven's exposed body on the bed.
He didn't speak. He just looked.
And Steven, pinned beneath that gaze, felt the heat stir low in his belly all over again.
The seconds dissolved slowly, stretching into what felt like hours of silence. The only sounds were the distant hum of a coffee maker, the soft rustle of Mehdi shifting his weight, the thud of Steven's own heart against his ribs.
Then Mehdi moved.
He pushed off from the doorframe with lazy grace, crossing the room in three strides. The mattress dipped under his weight as he sat on the edge, one hand coming to rest on Steven's ankle through the sheet. His thumb traced a slow circle over the bone.
" Sabah el-kheer ," he murmured, the Arabic rolling off his tongue like honey. "Good morning, ya amar —my moon."
Steven's throat tightened. He pulled the sheet higher against his chest, suddenly aware of how bare he was—not just physically, but in every way that mattered. "Good morning," he managed, his voice rough from sleep and the previous night's abuse.
Mehdi's eyes traced his face, lingering on the shadows beneath his lashes, the tenderness around his throat. "Did you sleep well?"
A strange question, coming from the man who had wrecked him. Steven nodded, then winced as the movement pulled at the ache in his lower back. "I think so. I don't remember much after—after I closed my eyes."
"Good." Mehdi's thumb continued its pattern on his ankle. "You needed it."
Another pause. The coffee maker beeped in the kitchen.
"Are you hungry?"
Steven's stomach answered for him—a low rumble that seemed impossibly loud in the quiet room. He flushed. "Apparently."
Mehdi's lips curved. Not quite a smile, but close. "I made breakfast." He paused, letting the words settle. " Shakshuka. Eggs baked in tomatoes and pepper. Fresh bread. Coffee."
It sounded like heaven. Steven's mouth watered.
"But," Mehdi continued, his voice dropping, "you'll have to earn it."
Steven blinked slowly, the warmth of the bed and the promise of breakfast warring with the sudden shift in Mehdi's tone. A slow grin spread across Mehdi's face—not cruel, but knowing. Hungry.
"You have to take care of my cock," Mehdi said, the words deliberate, rolling off his tongue like a verdict. "If I listened myself yesterday, I would have fucked you at least one more time. But I didn't want to scare you."
His hand slid from Steven's ankle up his calf, fingers grazing the sensitive skin behind his knee.
"But now," Mehdi continued, his voice dropping to a low, intimate register, the green of his eyes pinning Steven in place, "I have to release myself. So, would you be a good boy for me, habib albi—love of my heart—and go on your back? Let your head hang at the end of the mattress."
He said it softly, like a question wrapped in silk, but his hand on Steven's calf tightened—just a fraction, just enough to remind. His thumb pressed into the tendon behind Steven's knee, a possessive anchor beneath the gentle words.
"I want to watch your throat work for me," Mehdi murmured, leaning closer, his breath warm against Steven's forehead. "I want to feel that pretty mouth take everything I give you. And I want you to remember, while you're swallowing me down, that this mouth belongs to me this weekend."
The request was soft. Almost polite. And devastating in its implication.
Steven's breath caught. His body, still sore from the night before, already knew what was being asked. His throat. His mouth. The vulnerability of being upside down, completely exposed, unable to do anything but take what was given.
He met Mehdi's green eyes. Saw the patience there. The certainty that Steven would say yes.
And he would.
Because that was what he had come here for.
Steven's nod is barely complete before he's sliding down, his body moving with a hunger that overrides the ache in his muscles. The mattress edge catches the back of his neck, and he tips his head back, letting the world invert—ceiling below, floor above, Mehdi's torso a pillar of gold and shadow rising into nothing. His mouth is already watering. Not for the breakfast. For the cock he can picture filling it, weight heavy on his tongue, the taste of salt and skin and possession.
But Mehdi doesn't move.
Steven's lips part. His tongue presses against the roof of his mouth, waiting. The silence stretches again. Mehdi stands beside the bed, one hand resting on the waistband of his joggers—not pushing them down, just resting. His green eyes are fixed on Steven, steady and patient, a predator in no rush.
"You have to ask nicely for what you want."
The words land like stones in still water. Steven's throat works, his neck straining from the angle, blood rushing to his head. The vulnerability of this position—throat exposed, mouth open, upside down and helpless—should shame him. Instead, it sharpens everything.
He swallows. Finds his voice, cracked and raw.
The words lodged in his throat, tangled with the ache of last night and the rawness of this morning. Steven's lips parted, but nothing came out at first—just a shaky exhale that fogged the air between them. He could feel Mehdi's patience like a physical weight, pressing down on him, waiting. The joggers hung loose on those sharp hips, a tease of what lay beneath, and Steven's mouth watered despite the dryness of his tongue.
"Please," he finally managed, the word scraping past his lips like gravel. His voice cracked on the second syllable, raw and desperate in a way he hadn't intended. "Please, Mehdi."
His throat bobbed as he swallowed, the motion visible from the inverted angle. The blood rushing to his head made everything feel hazy, dreamlike, but the truth of what he wanted burned through the fog with crystalline clarity.
"I want your cock in my mouth." The confession spilled out faster now, words tumbling over each other like water over stones. "I need it. I need to taste you—to feel you against my tongue, heavy and thick and—" He broke off, a shudder running through his body from scalp to toes. His hands gripped the sheets on either side of his head, knuckles white, anchoring himself against the vulnerability of being so utterly exposed.
His eyes found Mehdi's—those impossible green eyes that had seen him break apart last night, that had watched him come undone piece by piece. There was no shame left in Steven's gaze now. Only hunger. Only need.
"I dreamed about it," he admitted, the words coming softer now, almost reverent. "While I was sleeping, wrapped up in your sheets, still full of you—I dreamed about your cock sliding past my lips. About the weight of it on my tongue. About the sound you'd make when I took you deep enough to feel your pulse against the back of my throat."
He paused, breath hitching, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"I woke up aching for it."
The confession hung in the air between them, raw and unfiltered. Steven's body trembled on the edge of the mattress, head tilted back, throat offered—a vessel waiting to be filled. His eyes never left Mehdi's.
"That's what I want," he finished, the words settling like a final prayer. "That's what I need. Please."
The admission hangs in the air between them, filthy and honest. And Mehdi's hand finally moves—pushing down the waistband, freeing himself, already hard and heavy and glistening at the tip.
"That's my good boy," Mehdi murmurs, stepping closer. "Now open wide, azizam. Show me what that pretty throat can do."
