Chapter 13 #2
Newt's whole body shivers. He does it again.
Rocks down against him. He can feel himself already slick through his trousers, embarrassingly, obviously, he is so turned on he cannot think, and Malik's hands are on his ass pulling him closer and guiding the rhythm of it, and there are torches in the middle of his living room and blue flame is licking at the ceiling and Newt cannot bring himself to care.
Do something, his brain supplies, distantly. Do something for him. Make this good for him too. Last time you didn't—last time you just—
He pulls back. Just a fraction. His lips are buzzing.
His hair has come loose from its tie and it's falling around his face and Malik is looking at him with pupils blown so wide his eyes are almost black, the purple of his iris a thin ring around the dark, and Newt's heart simply breaks open in his chest.
"Let me," Newt starts. His voice is wrecked. He clears his throat. "Let me—tell me what to do, I want—I want to make it good for you, too."
Malik's hands tighten on his hips.
"What?" Malik says.
"For you," Newt says. He is flushed and he is embarrassed and he is saying it anyway. "Last time I didn't—I didn't do anything for you, I just—I just let you—I didn't even—you didn't even—"
"Newt."
"—I want to, though, I want to make you feel good too, I just don't—I don't know what to—I've never—"
Malik reaches up. Cups his jaw. Turns Newt's face fully to his.
"Tell me what you want," Malik says.
Newt stops talking.
Malik's thumb strokes his cheekbone. His expression has gone something Newt has never seen on him before—open, unguarded, almost raw, and Newt is so used to Malik's face being a carefully curated performance that seeing him like this feels like walking into a room he isn't allowed in.
"I don't understand," Newt whispers.
"Yes, you do. Tell me what you want."
"I want—I want you to feel good—"
"Newt."
"I want—" Newt's voice cracks. "I want you. I want you, Malik, I want—anything, whatever you want, I'll do anything—"
Malik inhales sharply, through his teeth. His hands on Newt's hips flex.
"Anything?" Malik says, low.
"Anything you want."
Malik stares at him.
He stares at him for long enough that Newt starts to panic, starts to wonder if he has said something wrong, something humiliating, and then Malik's eyes are doing that thing, where they go dark and heavy and look at Newt like he is something rare and also something edible—and Malik says, his voice gone rough and slow as dark honey:
"I want to taste you."
Newt makes a sound.
He doesn't mean to. It is a small choked humiliating noise and he feels his face go scarlet, down his throat, across his collarbones, and he stammers, "You—you want to what? That's—I mean, I—that's all you want?"
Malik smiles. It is small and dark and hungry and it does something unspeakable to Newt's insides.
"Yes," Malik purrs. His hands are sliding around. Fingers finding the waistband of Newt's trousers. "That is all I want."
"But—but I should—I can do something, I can—"
"Newt." Malik leans in. Presses his mouth to the corner of Newt's jaw. Bites him, very gently. "Lie down."
"But—"
"Lie down."
Newt lies down.
He has to climb off of Malik's lap to do it, which is its own small humiliation—he is clumsy, his knees are shaking, his hair is a mess, he nearly elbows Malik in the face trying to get himself turned around—and then he is flat on his back on the couch with his heart hammering out of his chest and Malik is looking at him, kneeling between his knees, and Malik's shirt is still open and hanging off one shoulder and his hair is loose and tumbling forward over his collarbones and Newt has never, in his life, seen anything as beautiful.
Malik reaches for the hem of Newt's shirt.
Newt flinches. Not away, exactly. Just—a small nervous twitch of his hands, a lift of his elbows, and Malik pauses immediately, and Newt has to swallow past the knot in his throat before he can nod.
"You're sure?" Malik says.
"Yes. I just—I have scars."
"I know."
"They—" Newt blinks. "You do?"
"I felt them. Earlier. I didn't—" Malik's mouth tilts. A small wry thing. "I didn't mention it. It didn't seem important."
"Oh."
Malik pulls the shirt up. Newt lifts his arms and lets him take it off, and he is bare from the waist up now and his chest is rising and falling too quickly and Malik is looking at him.
Just looking. Eyes moving over him. Over the small pink raised lines that run beneath his pectorals, the ones that have faded a lot in the last four years but have not, quite, disappeared, and Newt is holding his breath, and then Malik leans down and presses his mouth to the scar on the left side.
Newt's breath breaks.
It is a small kiss. A brief one. A hot dry press of Malik's lips to the pale raised line of scar tissue, and then Malik moves to the one on the right and does the same, and then he trails his mouth up between them, up the flat of Newt's sternum, and Newt's eyes are stinging and he doesn't know why, he doesn't know why—
"You are so beautiful," Malik says, against the skin over his heart.
"I'm not—"
"Newt."
His mouth snaps shut.
Malik works his way down. Slow, ruinously slow.
He kisses along Newt's ribs, pausing where the faint purple bruise of last week's bookshelf incident has almost faded, and then down the flat of Newt's stomach, and Newt's hands have found Malik's hair and are threading through it without permission, and when Malik reaches the waistband of Newt's trousers he pauses and looks up.
"Okay?" Malik says.
"Yes."
Malik undoes the button. Pulls the zipper down. Hooks his fingers into the waistband of trousers and boxers alike and, when Newt lifts his hips, peels them off, all the way down his legs, and then Newt is naked on the couch with his face burning and his hands coming up to cover himself on instinct.
Malik catches his wrists.
"No," Malik says, softly. "Let me look."
"Malik—"
"Let me look at you."
Newt lets his hands fall away.
He is shaking. He feels it all over, fine and fast. The torches are burning blue and low at the edge of his peripheral vision and Malik is kneeling between his spread knees, fully clothed except for the open shirt, hair falling forward, and his eyes are moving over Newt with something so close to reverence that Newt has to shut his own eyes against it because he cannot bear to see his own nakedness reflected in that kind of looking.
Malik settles.
He does not rush. Newt can hear him shifting on the couch, can feel the dip and redistribute of weight as Malik lowers himself down onto his stomach between Newt's thighs, can feel both of Malik's hands slide, warm and proprietary, up the insides of his legs from knee to hip.
Malik pushes Newt's thighs wider—wider, shameful-wide, the couch is not quite deep enough and one of Newt's knees ends up hooked over the back of it and the other pressed out against empty air—and Newt squeezes his eyes shut and thinks he might die.
"Newt."
"Mm—mmhm—"
"Look at me."
Newt opens his eyes.
Malik is looking up at him from between his thighs.
His silver hair has fallen forward over one shoulder, the ends of it brushing the soft skin of Newt's inner thigh, and his mouth is slightly parted, and his eyes are dark, and he has never looked more like an incubus and he has never looked more like a man, and the sight of him like that—down there, between Newt's legs, the beautiful impossible shape of his head framed by the pale trembling V of Newt's own thighs—does something to Newt's breathing.
"Malik, please, I—"
"I'm going to, love. I'm going to."
He lowers his head.
He does not start where Newt expects. He turns his face, first, and presses his cheek against the soft inside of Newt's right thigh, and breathes in.
Deep. Slow. A long audible inhale, Malik's chest expanding where it's pressed against the couch, the rush of him pulling air through his nose like a man filling his lungs with something rare.
And Newt, whose face was already scarlet, makes a small broken sound, because he can hear it—he can hear Malik smelling him, hear the shudder of satisfaction in his breath when he exhales, and the intimacy of it is so acute it feels almost unbearable.
"Fuck," Malik murmurs, against his thigh. "The scent of you, Newt. You don't even know."
"Malik—"
"You smell like—" Malik turns his head, presses his open mouth to the crease of Newt's thigh, mouths at the soft skin there. "—like something I've been hungry for and didn't know existed."
Malik noses, slowly, up the inside of his thigh.
He works inward. He takes his time getting there.
He presses open-mouthed kisses up the long soft stretch of Newt's inner thigh, wet and deliberate, sucking lightly at the thin skin until Newt can feel bruises forming—small pink ones he'll find tomorrow and flush at in the mirror—and he drags his teeth, once, at the top, just hard enough to make Newt's hips jump off the couch.
Malik's arm, still draped across Newt's belly, holds him firm. Not pinning. Just reminding. Stay.
He does the other thigh. The same way. The same slow patient worship, the same wet heat of his mouth on skin that has never been touched like this, and by the time Malik gets near the center of him Newt is shaking so hard his teeth are chattering.
He has both hands fisted in his own hair. He doesn't know when that happened.
Malik noses, gently, at the soft red-gold curls at the juncture of his thighs.
He breathes Newt in again, there, so close, and Newt feels the heat of that breath directly against the wet aching heart of him and makes a noise he cannot identify. A small ruined vowel. A sob that isn't quite a sob.
"Please, Malik—"
"Please what?"
"Please, please, please, just touch me."
"Oh, Newt," Malik's voice has dropped. Gone dark. "You never have to beg me."
And then Malik puts his mouth on him.