Chapter Ten #2
Say something.
“Why do… Did I say something to suggest it’s not mutual?”
“You’re you.” And, voids and starshine, Antonio’s voice was as choked with emotion as Declan’s wasn’t. “Even if you hadn’t said it at the start, I’m no one’s first choice. Shit, even as a bond, I was, what, your eighth pick?”
“Was it the mating quip?” Declan stared at him, eyebrows knit together. He grappled for words, so often his most ready tool, and came up wanting. All he managed was a desperate, “I think there may have been a misunderstanding.”
It wasn’t the right thing to say. Antonio shook his head, jaw set and fingers still.
“I’m not actually delusional. Just,” another quick head shake and a short, sharp exhale, “maybe try to forget I said anything. This isn’t your problem.”
This wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t. Declan could doubt his own appeal all day long, sexual or otherwise, but he’d not let Antonio think any of that.
“I am sluagh,” Declan said, watching the top of Antonio’s head.
Said it, as if that explained everything.
And it would, to a fae. But for Antonio, who didn’t mind sluagh, who found them incredibly, unimaginably hot, it wouldn’t be enough.
“I thought any bond would have the barest of contact with me a day. For their own safety, regardless of anything else. And, as I don’t obligate people to my bed, I didn’t want to make you think intimacy was required. ”
Declan watched, helpless, as Antonio did not watch him.
The desktop. His hands. But no further. If he thought a new bond oath would dispel the tight clutch in Antonio’s voice when he said “Please don’t fucking reassure me,” Declan would swear it.
Anything to rid the scent of noon-scorched blood from the following, tight, “I’m fine. ”
Declan’s hand found Antonio’s hair. Soft, thick curls, looking darker than they were against the white of Declan’s skin. Declan carded his nails through them, catching a lock here and there, but gentle. His own racing heartbeat ignored in favor of the way Antonio’s breath caught. And caught again.
“You’re grand,” he agreed, allowing his touch to drag over Antonio’s scalp, drawing out those hitching breaths. “Brave. Considerate. Bloody hilarious. And if I’d known there would be you, I’d have approached no other. Not even Kevin and his bright yellow shirt.”
Thank the voids and stars alike, Antonio laughed. Short, surprised, rough at the edges, but he did, twisted warmth around Declan’s throat with it.
“Not a fan of muscular arms?” And, yes, a smile lurked in that question, for all Declan couldn’t see it. The cut of his emotions dulled, the iron sting softening
“I’m quite keen on muscular arms,” Declan countered, smiling himself.
Relaxing, just a touch. Hope, that silly, stupid thing, dared make itself home in his chest. “But I would much rather those that come with a man I imagine tastes of leather and sunlight. One who looks at me with Hollow sight only to conjure descriptions such as ‘incredibly, unimaginably hot’ even after witnessing me at, arguably, my least appealing.”
Sick at the beach, but no different after. Offered him a jumper, a joke, the best smile either could manage. Welcomed the drag of Declan’s nails, the lack of a glamour’s bite.
If Declan had known there would be this, his silly, childish wishes would have found form in Antonio’s name.
Antonio, who drew in another shaking breath. Whose exhale carried something broken free, loosed from wherever unwanted emotions hid. Want. Raw and urgent, sharp clawed and unfettered, bleeding through their bond, wildfire quick.
He looked up at last, leaning into Declan’s touch. Declan curled his fingers. For comfort, was all. Comfort and tension that darkened Antonio’s eyes. Lust that burned like the drag of nails over skin, leaving line after line of praise.
“I’m being stalked by a wisp. Since the day they let me out, it’s been nothing but soft-voiced guys who get off on how ‘bad’ I am.” Frustration again, but only just, and none of it for Declan. “You wouldn’t believe how often I got asked if I ‘shivved’ anyone.”
“Bad boys aren’t my cuppa,” Declan admitted amidst the relief and hope and white heat that thrummed through him. His want. Theirs. “They always assumed I enjoyed getting pushed around. They saw that,” a dip of his chin toward the photos, “and made their own assumptions. No shiv questions, though.”
Antonio grinned. The expression went from amused to sharp-eyed interest quickly enough. Declan licking his lips may have had something to do with it.
“Yeah, well, I like cars with sharp lines and chrome. I like grit. You’re not pretty, Declan.” Not pretty, but Antonio’s eyes trailed over Declan’s leaning form, words low. “You’re not soft. You’re a murder punk. And it’s fucking hot.”
Murderpunk, razor edges and shine. Grit and claws and hard angles.
Declan knew Antonio’s desire to touch wouldn’t last past seeing him truly stripped to the skin.
Once those forever moving hands ran over the ridges of ribs and jut of hips, feeling the truth of Declan being just as hollowed out as he looked.
When their kiss carried pins and needles or involved the drag of a predator’s teeth.
Then again, Antonio’d never had a problem with nails. And Declan was never above taking what he could get before things went to the voids.
“I think I prefer ‘hot’ to ‘pretty.’ Somehow, the men who start by saying ‘pretty’ always end up saying ‘slut.’ ”
Declan spread his fingers, touched as much as he could, and dragged his nails down to the back of Antonio’s neck. He needed to see the shift of expression over those strong features, witness what the play of claws through hair did to him.
Antonio groaned, quiet, eyes shut briefly to press his head closer. “I’m not that crazy.”
“You’re not, are you?”
“Nah. Think you can settle for ‘hot piece of ass?’ ” Antonio slid the chair back, so he was facing Declan rather than the desk. Eager. Reaching. No murmured talk of being high or a subject change.
“I’ll cope.”
Declan took it upon himself to make himself comfortable on Antonio’s lap, one leg to either side. The bond’s purr turned to a song, thrumming at each point of contact. Loud, and louder still, with Declan’s heart in his throat and a hand curled around Antonio’s neck for balance.
“I’ve thought of this.” Declan shifted closer, wanting more of those muscles under him. His eyes dropped, began a study of where their legs touched. “I tried to decide how much my knees would need to spread to sit astride you like this. How you would feel under me.”
“Been trying so hard not to think about us, Murderpunk. Doing a shit job of it, too.” Antonio’s hand ran up Declan’s knee, his thigh, thumb pressed firm.
Declan wanted to nip that half-smile off his lips, then kiss it back.
“No specifics?” Declan kept his head tipped down if only to be able to look at Antonio from under his lashes and fall of short bangs. “I rather liked the clarity of ‘I want to ride you against a tree.’ ”
Antonio’s hand tightened. The other, he felt, blunt nails light over the line of his throat. The man had lovely hands; Declan lit under them, shivering. He wanted. All of him did, far and beyond the point where their bond knit them together.
“Been thinking about your nails on my back. Mapping every line of your skin,” his fingertip traced down Declan’s throat, presumably over one such line, “with my tongue.” His touch fell, found the first button on Declan’s shirt, and tugged. “Seeing more of you. All of you.”
Declan hesitated. He loathed himself for that. For the way he nearly bit his lower lip. He pushed it away, that ugliness, in favor of baring his throat for more of those touches, the ghost whisper of his thumb at the cut of Antonio’s jaw.
“If that desire changes, you’ll tell me? I won’t be cross.”
Sad, hurt, and resigned? Yes. But not angry. Not at Antonio.
“Not following, Murderpunk.” A button, open, and what Antonio did follow was the hint of collarbone, his touch electric.
“There’s either pins and needles or me proper.” Declan raised his free hand to trail over Antonio’s chest in turn, walking up the solid expanse, finger by finger, and tried to find the proper way to explain himself. “Both have their drawbacks, is all. Discomfort or … what you saw on the beach.”
He expected a joke. Something, perhaps, about finding the skeletons in biology class attractive. To take them out of the uncomfortable and back to solid ground.
But no. Of course not.
A firefly blink of anger from Antonio before he caught Declan’s hand, covering it with his own. He pressed Declan’s bone-white palm to his cheek, his calloused hand swallowing Declan’s slender one.
Caught and held, Declan watched as Antonio traced one long, sharp nail with his thumb, the gesture slow. Deliberate.
“I ever tell you your aura feels like a tattoo gun, sometimes? Fucking addictive, tattoos.” He tugged to bring Declan’s hand down to the bracelet of nettles on his other arm. “I’m not afraid of sharp, Murderpunk. Not afraid of you.”
It was Declan’s turn to touch. He stroked a nail lightly over the nettle, took that moment to look at it. To keep his eyes down and voice light when he said, “I don’t think you’ll fear me.”
Antonio leaned in then, so his lips nearly brushed the silver of Declan’s earrings.
He was so very warm.
“I want to feel your teeth when I kiss you,” Antonio said, near a whisper. Declan’s breath quickened, lips parted. “Been wanting to run my hands up your wings and see if you like them touched. See what makes you shake.”
The world didn’t need to be set ablaze to burn after all. Not with Antonio’s words searing through him, a brush of heat when too long chilled. Too much, too good, a dizzying high of touch and lust and truth.