Chapter Seventeen
Antonio
One hard shove and Antonio’s back hit the mattress. Declan smiling above him, revealing two rows of perfect, pointed teeth. Antonio’s bond, watching him with a predator’s gaze, narrow shoulders framed by wings of bone.
Antonio pushed himself up on his elbows, took Declan in with undisguised hunger.
The bitten curve of his neck, red on white, interrupted by cracks of pale gray.
His bare chest, rising with each breath, and the dark peaks of his nipples, hard from Antonio’s attention.
Harsh lines, ribs and hips, all sharp angles.
Black jeans, unbuttoned and half unzipped, revealing the shape of his cock, straining against the fabric.
“Fuck, I love the look of you,” he said, voice rough with sincerity. He shifted back, settling more squarely on the bed. “C’mere, Murderpunk. Let’s see if you like how I sound.”
Declan could’ve teased, was a bastard like that. But he didn’t. Climbed into Antonio’s lap like he needed it just as much. Worn denim against bare thighs and strong hands on his shoulders. Antonio let himself be pushed back, eager for the sweet sting of Declan’s kiss.
Nothing was as right as this, Declan’s hungry mouth on his and those nails skating over his skin. All of it making him groan with want, the sound drawn from his throat like breath, and Declan the only oxygen he needed.
“Bloody love the taste of you,” Declan rasped, his hands as cool as his mouth was hot. “Do you think, after you’ve come, when you’re shaking and covered in my marks, you might be open to my freeing your hands?”
“Making a lot of assumptions there, Murderpunk. Haven’t even got my hands yet.”
Declan’s fingers closed around his wrist at that.
There it was, that solid, irresistible strength, Antonio pulling back just for how good it felt to be completely fucking overpowered.
Because Declan was death at the heart of it.
And death was little more than the brute strength of a body giving way.
“Haven’t I?” Declan asked, forcing Antonio’s arm up, and keeping it there. “Yes or no? I’d like your hands on my wings while I finish. I’m utterly lost when you hold them the way you do.”
“Fucking fae. Christ, Murderpunk. Yes. Never let go if I could get away with it.”
Declan’s hand at his other wrist, now. Again, Antonio struggled. Again, Declan won. Took control. Because Antonio had asked him to. Because for once in his life, he needed this. To be held, to be taken, without anything being taken away.
“They aren’t generally considered appealing.” Declan’s expression was hard to read. “I never expected anyone to wish to touch them.”
It’d be easier to answer if Declan didn’t have him pinned to the bed. If he could think beyond how much he wanted this.
“Bone.” Real eloquent. “It’s–Jesus, Declan–We’re all fucking bone, yeah? Skin and blood and bone, and that’s the one no one sees, no one touches. But you let me. Let me wrap my hands around them and hold you to the bone.”
Declan leaned over him, eyes bright, catching both wrists in one hand.
“It’s only you to touch them, Antonio,” His voice was so beautifully shredded. “You to hold them. No one else.”
Only him. No one else. Antonio didn’t echo the words, sweet as they were, because from Declan they were a gift of trust, but from him they’d be possession. He didn’t want that. He wanted to lift Declan up, give him the world he always should have had.
(He couldn’t, knew he couldn’t, but he wanted to.)
Instead, he said the only thing he could think to say. The only further surrender he knew how to give, with Declan already above him, holding him, sure as death.
“Can use your magic, Declan. On me, for tonight. S’alright if it’s you. If it’s us.”
Declan didn’t make a thing of it. Paused, those pale, pale eyes locked on Antonio’s face, but only that. Maybe that was what made it possible in the first place.
“You’re too kind,” Declan said, lips brushing Antonio’s as he spoke. “Here I was, trying to decide how to keep you down and get them on you properly.”
Said as the cuffs found Antonio’s wrists all on their own, coiled around them and pulled tight. Antonio’s breath came sharp. Not passion, this time. The present brushing against the past, current pleasure and old pain.
Declan’s lips on his. The tightening of padded leather on skin. Cool fingers on the exposed skin of his wrists, between the bracelets and the cuffs. He wore what Declan had given him, cuffs and metal and marked skin, and nothing else.
“Give a tug on them for me, tell me your color?”
Tugging felt good. Able to put his strength behind it, and still be held secure. This time, the shiver down his spine was purely hunger.
“Hit yellow. Headed back to green.” Defeated the whole fucking purpose if he lied about it. “’m more than alright. Don’t want ‘em off. Just… need back into the moment. Kiss me again?”
Had to ask, because he couldn’t act. Because he’d put himself here, willingly, and that’s what it meant. Trusting and having that trust kept.
Declan kissed him the way only he kissed, tasting of burnt flowers and risky decisions, that tattoo high of him. Antonio pulled against the cuffs again, more than a cursory attempt this time, arching up under Declan with the fruitless effort of it.
“Green.” Offered as he fell back against the mattress. “Green and I want you to fuck me.”
“I think we can manage that, beefcake.” The bastard grinned at him, all teeth and wandering eyes, his hands tracing over the length of Antonio’s bound arms.
“Fucking punk.”
Declan’s mouth found his collarbone, teeth grazing skin inked with bells. Down to his pecs, where the blackberries along his sides stretched thorny branches.
Every mark the same message. I don’t want you. Stay away.
But he’d asked for this. Asked for Declan’s protection. For his soul. Not the sale he’d first imagined, but a trade, like for like. Each heart beating in the other’s chest. Antonio’s every shuddering exhale carrying the smoke of Declan’s kiss.
“The marks you left on my neck. Can you see them?”
“Yeah.” Had to strain a bit, tip his head without the support of his arms. But could.
Did. Wouldn’t miss watching Declan’s mouth on him for anything.
“Look like you’ve been necking behind the bleachers.
” Then, realizing this was Declan, who’d never been to high school, “Like your boyfriend’s too dumb and horny to keep it below the collar. ”
Declan laughed softly, then pressed his teeth into the curve of Antonio’s hip, hard enough to mark. To bruise.
“You aren’t dumb. Though I’ll agree with horny.” He bit again, mouth heated and lips cool. “Thank the stars for that.”
Want and affection spilling like ink, leaving marks like Declan’s teeth. A tattoo high. A groan tore itself from Antonio’s throat as Declan’s hand found his cock, fit around him like it was made to be there.
Everything given. Taken. And Antonio bound, unable to do more than shudder and pant.
“You can thank the stars I’m not quite as young and dumb as I used to be.
” Shuddering, overwhelmed, but grinning, too.
“Wouldn’t’a lasted five minutes back then, a guy like you wanted to duck into the shadows with me.
Woulda been on my knees during the halftime show, offering to suck you off to Sweet Caroline. ”
“Sweet Caroline? Consider the stars thanked and the voids besides. Though I can't say I'd have turned you down. Not when I’d have been making eyes at you all night.”
Declan laughed, eyes dancing and predatory at once, and his neck bitten red. Perfect. Fucking perfect. Antonio laughed with him, at the idea of Declan making eyes at him as he had been, the lost, fucked-up teenager who’d just stolen his first car.
“You want Anarchy in the UK, take it up with the band director.”
Declan’s lips a splash of ink against the head of Antonio’s cock, his tongue a lick of flame. And the bastard was humming the damned song. Antonio could hear it. Could fucking feel it, shivering down through Declan’s tongue. He writhed, trying to reach, to touch, and the cuffs tight on his wrists.
“Jesus Christ, Declan. Shit. You fucking troll. Christ.”
He’d never laughed during a blowjob before.
Bad form. But he was laughing now, with Declan whispering “Da da da” against his cock, the flare of his wings spreading Antonio’s knees.
Laughing between groans and shaking gasps, until the slick, smooth head of the toy Declan had magicked into being teased against his ass.
Fuck. Fuck. All of it perfect, warm and right, and Antonio should maybe be nervous, hesitant at the newness of it.
But all he felt was the bond, Declan. Lilacs dissolving into smoke, and maybe that’d be his next tattoo.
Declan’s soul, worn on his skin. Or maybe it’d be the chorus of Sweet Caroline. Bastard.
“Hear that damned song–fuck–at every family barbeque.” Growled or gasped, and still, a smirk on his lips. “Not gonna be able to–Declan–keep a straight face.”
“Every couple needs a song,” Declan protested with a snicker.
Antonio reached for a response, got as far as, “You’re such a—”
Fuck.
Asked for. Wanted. But unfamiliar, that slick pressure.
Tension yielding to slow insistence, not quite pain or pleasure.
A need, more than anything. Yeah. A need.
To move. To shift. To fuck up into Declan’s hand while giving way.
The world was only this, was the heat of Declan’s tongue and the hum of his lips, the pleasure gone sharp and shining.
Bone wings pressed into knees, cuffs pressed into his wrists, slickness pressed into him.
Antonio spread and spread and spread, and all for Declan. Wanting to be.
Gasping, he twisted his head to the side and dug teeth into his own shoulder, muffling a groan.
“Are you able to see me like that?” Declan asked.
Asked with a thrust in, then another, each met with a hitch in Antonio’s breath and a jerk that rattled the headboard.