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Marcus’s POV
“But I want to try with you. I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you, Marcus.”
Everything stills for just a second as what they say fully registers in my head and fills my heart so fucking full it’s the most potently perfect mixture of pain and pleasure. They are so fucking close, and saying words that I’d almost given up on ever hearing.
Then there’s the slightest dimming in their bright, mesmerizing eyes, and they shift just the tiniest bit to pull away, taking my silence for rejection, and there’s no way I can ever let them believe I’d reject them.
I lean in enough to brush our lips together, and they halt their movements, while the briefest touch of our lips has full-sized blooms blossoming in my chest.
Their eyes flicker to mine with such hope that it cracks me wide open, making me aware of just how fucking massive this moment is.
They want me, and it’s not just that they want me, because they have since the beginning. But this time, they’re ready to admit it. No more taking half a step towards me before taking ten steps back.
Their eyes are always so expressive, and right now, the hesitation and fear I’m so used to seeing in them are gone.
Even in the smallest glimpses of them almost giving in to this, those emotions have always been there, warring against their desire.
But now, for the first time ever, all of that is absent—just desire and hope.
They lean in, brushing their lips against mine again, testing the waters before I surge forward and drown them, crushing their lips with mine so they can feel how powerfully overwhelming what they’ve just said is for me.
A gasp escapes them before they yield to me. They taste like perfection. Like those brief moments when everything in the universe aligns just right. Every desire realized, every want fulfilled, they taste like absolutely everything I’ve ever needed.
My hands mold so perfectly around their curves, it’s like they were made for me. I press my fingers into their warm skin with the slightest pressure, and I can feel their responding, wavering breath travel through them and into me.
Their body falls against mine, their arms tightening around my neck as they fight to give as much as they’re getting. And now I’m no longer assuming I won’t be able to come back from this; I know it for a fact.
“Fuck,” I growl out while tearing my mouth from theirs so we can catch our breath.
Their cheek rests against mine while their heavy breath puffs out steadily against my ear, and I’ve never been so completely whole as I am with them in my arms like this. I’ve imagined a million concepts of what perfection feels like, but none of them were as euphoric as the reality of this.
“You're mine. No more running away,” I breathe out, knowing I might just die if they change their mind.
Qiang nods, tightening their arms around me. “No more running away. I’m yours,” they breathe back, an evident quiver in their voice.
I can’t contain the amount of relief that floods through me at hearing those words, and it has me swallowing down a sob that tries desperately to break loose from my throat.
To muffle what surely would have been a humiliating sound, I spring forward and pivot us until Qiang is on their back, and I’m hovering above them.
Before they can even catch their breath, my lips are on theirs again, savoring my new, and most likely forever, favorite taste. Really, I just can’t imagine anything topping this; the idea of it is so outrageous it’s borderline offensive.
The barest hint of a gasp escapes them as I brush my knuckles lightly down their neck, along their collarbone and the front of their shirt, until I reach the tie holding it together. I move up just a bit and stare down at them, and fuck me.
I’ve spent countless hours memorizing every part of their face, from the mole above their upper lip and another beside their eyelid to the thick set of their now kiss-swollen lips to the warmth of their expressive eyes that are currently glazed over and half-lidded with desire.
There’s an ache in my chest, one that breathes and expands around this internal divide of wanting every fucking thing at once, and wanting to explore them one cell at a time.
For right now, I twist the end of the sash around my finger and watch their pupils dilate as I slowly unravel it.
The sash comes undone, and the shirt opens to reveal… more cloth?
I wrinkle my brow when I realize the shirt must have another tie somewhere on the inside as well. I look up at Qiang, who now has the briefest glimmer of amusement stirring in their eyes at my obvious, confused disappointment.
“Goddammit, Qiang, why are your pajamas complicated?” I grumble as Qiang snorts out a laugh.
“They are not,” they argue while giggling, because heaven forbid they not argue about something.
They reach down and tug the side of the shirt open further, revealing three snaps that release the rest of the shirt. I have to stifle an eyeroll at how ridiculously made the shirt is, and if it didn’t look so damn pretty on them, I’d burn the damn thing on the spot.
Finally, after what felt like way too long to get to more of their skin, the shirt falls open, leaving their beautiful torso naked to my desperate gaze, with the slight exception of the fiery belly button ring they wore earlier with their costume, which contrasts perfectly with their golden skin.
It’s not like there’s much in front of me that I haven’t seen before, because while they aren’t much for running around without a shirt on, some of their styles showcase see-through shirts and peek-a-boo eyelet lace that leaves little to the imagination, not that I’m complaining about that at all.
However, what I’m allowed to do now, something I’ve never been allowed to do before, is touch. I reverently trail my fingers down their torso and watch with satisfaction as their skin pebbles at the caress.
I lightly twist the ring resting against their navel and watch as a breath hitches in their throat. They shuffle under me until I feel their leg glide along my very hard cock.
The motion makes me dizzy; it makes me desperate for more, and it makes me realize exactly how pent up I am, and how the star in every fantasy I’ve had for months is lying beneath me.
I lean down and kiss them briefly, bringing their attention back to me and not on what my hands are doing.
“I’m not always the most tactful person, but are there words or body part names that bother you? I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”
Qiang gives me a long look, as though they are unused to people caring enough to ask such a basic, necessary, yet sadly often-overlooked question.
It’s a shame how few take other people’s feelings into account, especially when it’s their lovers, temporary or otherwise.
They bite their lip for a moment before meeting my gaze and slightly shaking their head.
“My dysphoria was wrapped more in learning to understand how wrong society’s need to assign genders to non-gendered things is, and having to break down those nonsensical standards in my head, than anything towards myself physically.
I have male parts and female features. I have always been partially all genders, but never fully a specific one.
So you can call my body parts whatever you want unless it’s just overly cringy ick words like asscunt. ”
The word jars me, and I frown at it. “Asscunt?” I ask, realizing that Qiang most likely said it just to lighten the mood.
Qiang shrugs, amusement clear in their eyes. “It’s been said.”
“Please tell me you did not actually fuck that person,” I wrinkle my nose with distaste.
Qiang laughs. “I did not; the word was cringy enough to kill the mood.”
I roll my eyes and laugh with them. “So dicks, tits, ass, and holes are all good?”
Qiang smiles up at me. “Pretty much. And cocks, I love me some cocks. Really interested in yours right now, but maybe we should–” they start to say, and I sit back up a bit because I probably am letting my dick control way too much of the situation right now.
“We should slow down, right?” I finish what they’re saying before they can. “Too much too fast, sorry. I can behave, take it slow,” I rush out, a little panicked that I might be ruining this before we even get started, when Qiang starts laughing.
“If we moved any slower, we’d be going backward. I think at certain points we literally were going backward,” they argue, and it has my heartbeats slowing back down, the panic subsiding that no, I didn’t cross any lines, yet.
“My fault, of course–” they breathe under their breath, and I shake my head because they’ve had very real, very legitimate reasons for hesitating, and none of them are things they should feel guilty about at all.
“No, pretty, never your fault. This is something new, something huge; you’re allowed to take it at your pace,” I reassure them.
Qiang’s brow furrows at that, and their hands reach up to caress my face. I lean into their hand and bask in their warmth. “And yours too.”
A light laugh escapes me, taking some of the tension in my body away with it. “If we’d gone at my pace, you’d already be knocked up.”
Qiang’s face scrunches up with confusion. “That’s not–huh?”
I reach up and scratch my eyebrow awkwardly because after pining for months to have my fantasy beneath me, half-dressed, and oh-so-willing, this conversation is just getting ridiculous.
“Uh, yeah. It’s something I picked up from Qi’s human-wolf shifter novels.”
Qiang’s face stays confused for another beat before it relaxes, and they start laughing. “Oh my god, I can’t believe he got you to read those too.”
I shake my head. “He didn’t; just he and Tristan keep talking about how they’re role-playing shifter knotting while cockwarming and–you know what, never mind.
I never felt the need to know any of that, and as Qi’s sibling, I’m sure you didn’t need to know that,” I breathe out as my ridiculousness takes on a whole life on its own.