Chapter 15
Five days after the kitchen. Five days. The pressure had migrated from his chest to his jaw to his teeth. He'd been clenching in his sleep.
He broke on a Thursday.
Five days of avoidance. Five days of pretending the air didn't change when Seth walked into a room.
Five days of professionalism and distance and sleeping like shit because every time he closed his eyes he saw green and felt heat and heard don't be careful with me in a voice that took his control apart like a fieldstripped weapon.
Seth was in the hallway outside the bathroom.
Wet hair. Towel around his hips. Water droplets tracking down his chest, his stomach, disappearing into the terry cloth.
He'd been eating regularly for weeks now and his body was responding, still lean, still angular, but alive with it now.
Color in his skin. Strength in the line of his shoulders.
He looked up. Saw Zain. Went still.
Neither of them spoke.
Zain was across the hallway in three steps. His hands found Seth's hips, bare skin, still warm from the shower, and pushed him back against the wall. Seth's breath punched out of him. The towel slipped. Neither of them noticed.
"This is a mistake," Zain said, already leaning in.
"Worst mistake of your life," Seth agreed, already pulling him closer.
"I'm serious."
"So am I. Shut up and kiss me."
He kissed him. Pressed him into the wall with his full weight, one hand in Seth's wet hair, the other sliding up the bare skin of his back. Seth's hands were everywhere, Zain's shoulders, his chest, the waistband of his pants, urgent and graceless and desperate.
"Bedroom," Seth gasped. "Now."
"Mine's closer."
"Don't care."
They made it to Zain's room. Barely. The door shut and Zain had Seth against it, lifting him. Seth's legs wrapped around his waist, the towel gone, nothing between them but Zain's sweatpants and the five days of wanting that had been building behind a dam that was now in pieces.
Zain carried him to the bed. Set him down. Stood over him and looked.
Seth was laid out on his sheets, naked and flushed and hard and watching Zain with those green eyes that dared him to look away.
Zain didn't look away.
"Hands above your head," he said.
Seth's breath caught. He raised his arms. Crossed his wrists against the pillow.
"Don't move them."
Seth's palms flattened against the pillow.
"Good." Zain knelt on the bed. Leaned over him. Kissed the side of his neck, soft, almost tender, and then bit down, just hard enough to leave a mark. Seth's hips bucked. "Stay still."
He took his time.
Ran his hands down Seth's body, over his chest, his ribs, the hollows of his hips.
Every touch slow and deliberate, mapping skin, learning the places that made Seth shiver and the places that made him gasp.
He kissed his way down Seth's sternum, his stomach, the sharp line of his hip bone.
Seth was trembling, his hands gripping the pillow above his head, knuckles white with the effort of not reaching down.
"Zain. Please…"
"Please what?"
"Please anything, just, don't stop."
Zain wrapped his hand around Seth's cock and stroked. Slow. Torturously slow. Seth keened, his hips trying to buck, but Zain's free hand pressed flat against his stomach, holding him against the mattress.
"What did I say about moving?"
"I can't. I can't. "
"You can." His thumb swept over the head, spreading slick. "You will."
He brought Seth to the edge three times.
Each time, he backed off just before Seth could fall, reading his body with the same precision he used on an op, the quickening breath, the tightening muscles, the way his voice broke on Zain's name.
Each time he pulled back, Seth cursed and begged and trembled, and the sounds he made went straight through Zain like electricity.
"Fuck, Zain, please, I need…"
"Tell me what you need."
"I need to come. I need you to let me. Please! "
"Not yet."
"Why? "
"Because I'm not done with you."
Zain turned him over. Seth went willingly, boneless with need, past fighting, past defiance, stripped down to pure want. Zain pressed his chest to Seth's back, skin to skin, and reached around to stroke him again while grinding against him from behind.
"You feel this?" Zain murmured in his ear. "This is what you do to me. Every day. Every time I look at you."
"Then stop looking and start. " Seth choked on the words as Zain's grip tightened. "Please. Zain. I'll do anything."
"You don't have to do anything. Just let go."
He stroked him hard and fast and relentless, and Seth came with a sob, his whole body seizing, Zain's name torn from him in a voice that was wrecked and grateful and something else entirely, what sounded, in the quiet aftermath, a lot like trust.
Zain held him through it. Stroked him down. Pressed his face into Seth's hair and breathed him in, soap and sweat and the clean, sharp scent of surrender.
After, Seth turned in his arms. His eyes were blown wide, glossy, unfocused. He blinked at Zain like he was trying to remember how to form words.
"Your turn," Seth said, reaching for him.
"You don't have to. "
"I want to." Seth's hand slid into Zain's sweatpants. Found him hard and leaking and aching. Zain's eyes closed. "Let me."
He did.
Seth's hand was clumsy and eager and perfect.
He watched Zain's face the entire time, studied the way his jaw clenched, the way his breath stuttered, the way his control finally, finally cracked.
Zain came with Seth's name on his lips and Seth's eyes on his face and the feeling of falling from a height he hadn't known he'd climbed.
After, they lay tangled together. Sticky. Breathing hard. Seth's head on Zain's chest, listening to his heartbeat slow.
"Still a mistake?" Seth asked.
Zain's arm tightened around him. "The worst one I've ever made."
"Good."
"Why good?"
"Because your worst mistakes are the only honest thing about you."
Zain huffed what might have been a laugh. Pressed a kiss to Seth's forehead. Felt Seth relax against him in increments, the tension draining out of his body like water from a cracked vessel.
"Still think this is a mistake?" Seth asked.
"The worst one I've ever made."
"Good."
"Why good?"
"Because your worst mistakes are the only honest thing about you."
Zain huffed what might have been a laugh. Pressed a kiss to Seth's forehead. Felt Seth relax against him in increments, the tension leaving his body in layers.
"Brat."
"Your brat."
Something warm bloomed in Zain's chest. The start of something. Something that felt like trouble you don't come back from.
He tightened his arms and didn't let go.