Chapter 12 #5
The first inch steals the breath from his lungs.
He goes still, thighs trembling, his hands clenched on Bastian's shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
Bastian is patient beneath him, his hands steady on Emery's hips, his dark eyes fixed on Emery's face with an expression that is attentive and restraining and barely controlled.
"Take your time," Bastian says, and the strain in his voice, the roughness, the way the words come out darker and less steady than anything else he has said tonight, tells Emery exactly how much it is costing him to be still, and the knowledge that Bastian is holding himself back for him, that this man who could shatter bone with a word is trembling with the effort of not moving, does something to Emery that nothing else ever has.
He sinks lower. Takes more of him. The stretch is overwhelming and perfect and he feels every inch of it, the slow, impossible fullness of Bastian inside him, and when he finally settles into Bastian's lap with all of him buried deep Emery makes a sound that is not quite human, a broken, desperate noise that he has never heard come out of his own body before, and Bastian catches it with his mouth, kissing him hard, his hands tightening on Emery's hips.
Emery moves first. He lifts himself on his knees and sinks back down and the drag of it sends lightning up his spine.
He sets a pace that is slow and deep and deliberate, and each downward roll pulls a sound from one or both of them that feeds into the firelit air and dissipates into the stone.
Bastian lets him lead, his hands guiding but not controlling, his hips shifting beneath Emery in subtle adjustments that change the angle just enough to find the spot that makes Emery's vision blur.
The pleasure builds in slow, compounding waves.
Emery is coming apart from the inside. He can feel it happening, the careful, meticulous dismantling of every wall he has built, every defense he has constructed, every lie he has told himself about not needing anyone.
Bastian's hands on his hips are warm and solid and they do not take more than Emery offers, and Emery is offering everything, and the offering is destroying him, and the destruction feels the way relief feels.
He does not want to feel this way about anyone. He does not want anyone to have this hold on him. The wanting and the not-wanting coexist in his body, two hands pulling in opposite directions, and the tension between them is the thing that is tearing him apart and rebuilding him at the same time.
Bastian sits up. The movement is fluid, powerful, and suddenly they are chest to chest, face to face, and Bastian's arms wrap around Emery's waist and his hips begin to move, not replacing Emery's rhythm but joining it, deepening it, each upward thrust meeting Emery's downward roll with a precision that tells him Bastian has been paying attention to every sound he makes and every shift of his body and has been building a map in real time.
The angle changes. Bastian fucks up into him in strong, mesmerizing movements, and Emery is clinging to his shoulders and gasping against his mouth and making sounds he would be mortified by if he had any capacity left for mortification.
Bastian's mouth finds his throat. He presses his lips to the place where Emery's pulse is hammering and Emery feels the vibration of a sound, not a word, not a song, but something low and resonant that travels through the point of contact and radiates through his body, a struck bell, and the sensation of it is indescribable, a pleasure so deep and so total that it feels as though it belongs to a different species of experience than anything he has known.
Bastian wraps a hand around him between them, his grip slick and sure, and begins to stroke him in time with each thrust. The dual sensation, full and surrounded and stroked and held, collapses Emery's remaining defenses in a single devastating breach.
He buries his face in the crook of Bastian's neck and breathes him in and the smell of him is woodsmoke and something clean and warm underneath, something that is just Bastian, and the familiarity of it reaches into the part of Emery that he keeps locked and guarded and holds it.
"Look at me," Bastian says.
Emery lifts his head. Bastian's dark eyes are close, inches away, and they are depthless and lit by the fire and carrying an expression that Emery can finally name, finally, after all these weeks of looking and not knowing, he can name it, and the name is devotion, and the recognition of it strikes him with physical force.
He comes.
The orgasm tears through him with a force that whites out his vision and empties his lungs and pulls a sound from his throat that he will remember for the rest of his life.
It spills hot between them, across Bastian's hand and his own stomach, and Bastian does not stop moving, his hips driving up in short, deep thrusts that drag the orgasm out of Emery in waves, each one cresting higher than the last, and then Bastian's arms tighten around him and his head drops against Emery's shoulder and he groans, low and broken and beautiful, and Emery feels the heat of him spending deep inside and the sensation pulls an aftershock from Emery's body that makes him shudder and clench and gasp Bastian's name against the top of his head.