Chapter 21 #2
Bran was half-undressed, standing barefoot in his pants, the leash dangling from the collar.
He looked up at Cillian’s arrival, pausing in the motions of undoing the buttons at his waistband.
A flush came to his cheeks, gaze skittering away.
Cillian drew in a steadying breath, approaching the bed to set the vial on the side table there.
When he turned around, Bran had managed to get out of the rest of his clothes, standing naked save for the collar, fiddling with the end of the leash.
He’d even removed his bracelet. The only mark on his skin was the tattoo on his right forearm, and Cillian wanted desperately to get his mouth on Bran’s skin, to mark him up.
“Come here,” Cillian said hoarsely as he yanked off his shirt.
Something hot curled in Cillian’s gut when Bran obeyed.
He grabbed the leash once Bran was within arm’s reach, holding it while he let his gaze rove over Bran’s body.
He reached out with his free hand to hook a finger around the collar, feeling the way Bran swallowed against it.
“Is it wrong that I like how you look wearing my collar?”
Bran licked his lips, staring at him. “I don’t mind that it’s yours.”
His was the only one he ever wanted to see locked around Bran’s throat. Something primal in him was pleased at the sight and had hated when it’d been Ainmire’s. Cillian knew owning people was wrong, but something in him said Bran was his and always had been.
Bran would never belong to anyone else.
Cillian let go of the collar and slid his hand down Bran’s chest, fingers ghosting over twitching muscles before they closed around Bran’s half-hard cock. Bran rocked into the touch with a whimper, and Cillian reflexively tugged on the leash at the sound. “Get on the bed.”
Cillian let him go and got out of the rest of his clothes.
Then he crawled onto the bed after Bran, the mattress sinking a little beneath his hands and knees.
Bran watched him crawl closer, fingers gripping the blanket underneath them, the leash draped over his chest and the end coiled near his hip.
Cillian slid his fingers around the metal before dragging it along to grip Bran’s hand.
He tangled their fingers together, the leash caught between them, before raising Bran’s hand to his lips, pressing a lingering kiss over his knuckles. “I won’t ever lead you astray.”
Bran let his hand go, leaving the leash with him, and palmed Cillian’s face with shaking fingers. “I should have stayed.”
“We were teenagers. We didn’t know any better.”
“It’s not like we know any better now.”
Cillian turned his face into Bran’s touch. “I know you, the same way you know me. Seven years doesn’t change that. What we are doesn’t change that.”
Other people might say it did, but Bran was still the same person in his heart that Cillian had befriended as a kid and fallen in love with as a teenager, magic or not, and that was all that mattered.
They were all that mattered.
Bran pushed himself up on his other elbow, kissing Cillian so tenderly it left him ravenous. “I think I always belonged to you.”
Cillian groaned, kissing Bran with a possessiveness he’d never felt with anyone else before. It was like winning a battle he hadn’t known he’d been fighting, a sense of vicious relief and wondrous victory coursing through him.
He pressed Bran back onto the bed, settling over him, his hard cock sliding against Bran’s.
A shudder racked its way through his body as they touched, Bran’s skin almost burning hot beneath his hands.
Bran gasped when Cillian rocked their hips together, spreading his legs so Cillian could settle more easily against him.
Cillian kissed his way over Bran’s jaw, down his throat, his lips catching on the edge of the collar.
He licked the skin under it, humming at the way Bran jerked beneath him, the taste of sweat and metal on his tongue, leash gripped tight in his hand.
Fingers touched his pointed ears before tangling in his hair, holding on.
Touching Bran didn’t burn like iron, didn’t leave Cillian hurting how he once had.
If anything, it settled something in him to have Bran like this—collared, leashed, and under him with no other option but to stay.
He kissed his way down Bran’s chest, licking over a nipple on the way to his cock.
Bran seemed to be one of those people who kept himself groomed, which was fine by Cillian.
When he took Bran’s cock into his mouth, the sound that left Bran’s lips was something Cillian knew he wanted to hear again.
It’d been a while since he’d had another man’s cock in his mouth, and he savored the weight and taste of it on his tongue, sucking on it lazily.
Bran jerked beneath him, an aborted twitch of his hips telling Cillian he was trying not to thrust into his mouth.
It was easy to pin Bran’s hips to the bed, and Cillian didn’t question the strength in his hands that kept Bran where he wanted him.
He sucked Bran’s cock until it sounded like Bran was about to come, finally pulling away without an ache in his jaw.
That was new and something he didn’t mind.
Bran was panting harshly beneath him, one hand over his eyes, his cock hard and red, curving toward his stomach.
Prying himself away from Bran took a herculean effort, but Cillian managed to do so, letting the leash go long enough to grab the vial from the side table.
Cillian poured oil over his fingers, some of it dripping down his palm. He trailed his fingers down Bran’s cock and over his balls, teasing the sensitive skin behind them until Bran bucked against him with a soft moan. “Cillian.”
Cillian shifted on his knees, pulling Bran’s legs over his thighs to spread him open while his other hand, slick with oil, slipped farther down, fingers stroking over his entrance.
Bran tossed his head back at the first press of Cillian’s finger inside, collar straining against his throat as he swallowed convulsively.
Cillian pulled his finger back out and pushed it back in slow, relishing the clench of Bran’s body around it, thinking about how it was going to feel when he sank his cock into Bran.
“I never thought I’d get to see you like this,” Cillian said, words coming out in a deep rasp.
Bran blinked his eyes open, a thin ring of hazel the only bit of color showing around a black pupil.
Cillian leaned over and kissed him, bracketing him in, swallowing the whine Bran let out when Cillian’s finger brushed over that sensitive spot inside him.
The way Bran shuddered in his arms had Cillian groaning, adding a second finger to the first, oil easing the way.
He kept kissing Bran as he worked him open, finally getting three fingers in him and loving the way it made Bran writhe. Cillian ignored the way Bran yanked at his hair and smacked a hand against his shoulder, gasping when he stroked Bran’s cock with his other hand.
“In me,” Bran choked out. “Get in me.”
Cillian groaned, his cock throbbing at the demand, and he pulled his fingers free.
He grabbed the vial again, pouring oil over his fingers and his cock, stroking himself lightly.
He tossed it aside after that and didn’t know where it landed, nor did he care.
All he cared about was doing what Bran asked.
He pressed the blunt head of his cock against Bran’s entrance, pushing inside with a groan.
His cock was thicker and longer than Bran’s, and he’d tried to ease the way with his fingers, but the hot clutch of Bran’s body was still tight, drawing him in.
Cillian stared hungrily at the way his cock slid into Bran inch by inch, fingers digging bruises into Bran’s hips as he held the other man in place at the perfect angle that would give them both pleasure.
Bran cried out at the intrusion, legs shaking as he dug his heels against the bed.
One of his hands gripped the blanket over his head, the other clawing at Cillian’s forearm.
It took all of Cillian’s fraying control not to thrust in hard like he wanted to—to claim, to own.
Some dark little thought crept through his mind, promising that next time he’d do what he liked.
Take what he liked.
Gritting his teeth, Cillian swore and sank in a little deeper, forcing himself to go slow and let Bran adjust to the thickness of his cock. By the time he sank all the way in, Cillian was breathing as if he’d run for miles, Bran hot all around him and beneath his hands.
Cillian leaned over him, kissing away the gasp from Bran’s mouth as the motion changed the angle of Cillian’s cock inside him.
Bran’s fingernails scraped down his back in a way Cillian didn’t mind.
He snagged the end of the leash with his hand and hooked an arm under one of Bran’s knees, hiking his leg up higher to open him up more.
He rolled his hips, grinding in with intent.
Bran moaned, burying his face against Cillian’s shoulder.
“You feel so good,” Bran gasped, body clenching tightly around Cillian’s cock.
It was Cillian’s turn to groan, lips dragging over warm skin as he planted a hand on the mattress, the metal chain of the leash tangled around his fingers.
He pulled out, cock dragging almost free, before thrusting back in, panting harshly.
Bran cried out, arching into his next thrust, and Cillian couldn’t stop himself from giving in to the desire to see Bran come undone beneath him.
It was almost like a dream, the way Bran opened up for him, held him close, and begged him for more.
The way he tossed his head back and tried to breathe through his cries of pleasure, the collar shining from the light burning in the sconce near the bed, sapphires and diamonds glittering softly.
Cillian dragged his hand over Bran’s chest up to his throat, fitting the curve of his fingers beneath the collar there, holding on as he stared into Bran’s eyes while fucking him so hard the bed creaked beneath them.
“You’re mine,” Cillian growled, something clawing through his skin from deep within him, a truth to his words that felt right, splintering through his chest. This was want, and this was love, a need that could only be soothed by the witch beneath him.
“You always have been. I won’t let you go again. ”
Bran yelled his name when he came, shuddering through an orgasm that slowed Cillian’s pace for a handful of heartbeats.
Cillian pulled out almost all the way against the clench of Bran’s body before snapping his hips forward, cock sinking in deep again, throbbing with his own need to come.
His breath rasped loud in his ears, the sound overlaid with the ones of their bodies coming together, of Bran urging him on with hands and mouth, eyes sparking gold from magic.
Cillian came with a shout, grinding in deep with a few short thrusts as he spilled his cum inside Bran.
He stared down at where Bran lay sprawled beneath him, collared and leashed, their breath puffing between them in soft white clouds.
Cillian blinked in surprise at the snow falling around them, over them, melting on their overheated skin.
“Come here,” Bran croaked, his magic still bright in his eyes, flecks of gold in a sea of hazel.
Cillian slid his hand up from Bran’s throat to his cheek, cradling his face close for a lingering kiss. The bedroom was full of winter, but Bran was warm beneath him, like a fire on the coldest night of the year.