Chapter Thirteen #2
The heat of it, the stretch of his lips around Trevor's cock, the weight on his tongue.
Sero had done this before, with other men, but this was different in every way that mattered.
This was deliberate. This was a choice made with full knowledge of who Trevor was and what he'd done and what he was trying to become.
Every inch Sero took was a sentence in a conversation they'd been having for weeks: I am here because I want to be.
You are not taking this from me. I am giving it.
Trevor's hands left the wall and found Sero's hair. Not gripping, not directing. Just resting there. His fingers trembled against Sero's scalp, as if he needed to touch but didn't trust himself to do more.
Sero set a rhythm. Slow at first, his mouth working the shaft while his tongue pressed along the underside, then deeper, taking Trevor to the back of his throat and swallowing around him.
Trevor groaned, a raw sound that Sero felt in his own chest. He pulled back, tongued the slit, tasted a fresh bead of precum, and took him deep again.
"Sero." Trevor's voice was shattered. "I'm going to, if you don't stop—"
Sero didn't stop. He took Trevor deeper, his hand working the base, his mouth tight and wet around the head, and he looked up.
Eye contact. The thing that had broken Trevor open during the sessions, the thing that made the Dom lose control.
Sero looked up at him with Trevor's cock in his mouth and watched Trevor come apart.
Trevor came with a choked sound, his hands tightening in Sero's hair, his hips stuttering forward in short, helpless thrusts.
Sero took it. He swallowed, his throat working around Trevor's cock, and he didn't look away.
He held eye contact through all of it, through the gasping and the shaking and the moment where Trevor's knees buckled and he slid halfway down the wall.
Sero pulled off and sat back on his heels. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Trevor was slumped against the wall, breathing hard, his pants around his thighs and his eyes wet.
"That was—" Trevor started.
"Mine," Sero said. "That was mine. I gave it. You didn't take it."
Trevor slid the rest of the way down the wall until they were face to face on the floor of Sero's apartment, Trevor's back against the door and Sero kneeling between his legs. Trevor cupped Sero's face in both hands and kissed him, slow and deep.
"Yours," Trevor said against his mouth. "All of it."
Sero was hard. Achingly hard, his cock pressing against his jeans, and Trevor's hand was already reaching for him, but Sero caught his wrist.
"Not tonight. This was for you."
"That's not how it—"
"That's exactly how it works. I wanted to give you something.
I did. We're not keeping score." Sero stood and pulled Trevor to his feet.
Trevor's pants were still around his thighs, which was undignified in a way that would have been funny if the look on his face hadn't been so open and stunned.
"Pull your pants up. You look ridiculous. "
Trevor laughed. It was watery, surprised, and real. He pulled up his pants and buckled his belt with shaking hands.
At the door, Trevor rested his forehead against Sero's again. His breathing had slowed but his pulse was still fast where Sero's fingers touched his wrist.
"I want to do terrible things to you," Trevor said again. Softer this time. Less joke, more confession.
"Soon," Sero said. "I promise."
***
That night, alone in his apartment, Sero sat on his bed and thought about readiness.
Three weeks of actual dating. Three weeks of Trevor being exactly what he'd promised in the letter: present, transparent, patient.
No secrets. No locked doors. When Sero asked what Trevor had done that day, Trevor told him.
The hardware store, the alchemy lessons, the long runs he'd started taking through the neighborhood because the apartment felt too small for the amount of restless energy his body was producing without the outlet of scenes.
Trevor had run past Sero's apartment once.
Sero had seen him from the window, lean and fast, cat-graceful even in a dead sprint, his shadow stretching long on the pavement in the late afternoon light.
He hadn't stopped. He hadn't looked up. But he'd run that route, past that building, and Sero knew it wasn't an accident.
Readiness wasn't a destination. Sero understood that. It wasn't a threshold you crossed and then you were on the other side, healed and whole and sure. It was a direction. A lean. A willingness to step forward even though the ground might not hold.
He picked up his phone and texted Trevor: Book a room at KK. Wednesday. Noon.
Three dots. Then: Are you sure?
I'm sure. No machine. No toys. Just you, a flogger, and me.
A pause. Longer than the others. Sero could feel Trevor choosing his words with the care of a man who understood that the next sentence mattered more than most.
I'll bring the flogger. You bring the grapes. And Sero—
Yeah?
Thank you for trusting me again. I know what it costs.
Sero set his phone on the nightstand. The Strip painted the ceiling in its endless cycle, red, gold, blue. The letter from Trevor was in the drawer beneath the lamp, folded in thirds, the handwriting precise and angular.
He lay in the dark and felt the space stir, deep, warm, patient. Waiting for Wednesday.