4. Earned #2
The kiss was different from last night's.
Slower. More deliberate. Canyon's hand cupped Jace's jaw, tilting his head, and his mouth descended with a patience that was almost worse than aggression, the patience of a man who had all the time in the world and intended to use it.
His lips were firm, cool at first, then warming rapidly against Jace's, and his tongue entered Jace's mouth like a claim being filed: thorough, methodical, tasting every surface with the attention of someone committing a flavor to memory.
Jace's hands went to Canyon's waist, then up under his thermal, and the skin beneath was taut and smooth, the abdominal muscles carved in ridges that flexed under his fingers.
Canyon was built like a weapon, no excess, no softness, every plane of his body designed for power and speed.
Jace pulled the thermal up, and Canyon broke the kiss long enough to strip it off, revealing a torso scored with those pale scars, dozens of them, fine white lines crossing the skin in geometric patterns, some short and precise, others long and curving, all of them old enough to have faded into the topography of his skin like rivers into a landscape.
"You can touch them," Canyon said, reading Jace's hesitation. "They don't hurt. They haven't hurt for a very long time."
Jace traced one with his fingertip—a long, curving line that started below Canyon's left collarbone and swept diagonally across his chest, ending at his right hip. The skin was slightly raised, smoother than the tissue around it, and beneath it Canyon's heartbeat pulsed: slow, deep, metronomic.
"How long?" Jace whispered.
Canyon's answer was his mouth on Jace's neck, on the bruises, pressing into them with lips that knew exactly where they'd been the night before, tongue laving the tender skin with hot, wet circles that made Jace's hips cant forward involuntarily.
Canyon's hands went to Jace's belt, worked it open, shoved his jeans and underwear down in one motion, and Jace's cock sprang free, already hard, already leaking, the head flushed dark and slick, straining toward Canyon's body with mindless urgency.
Canyon dropped to his knees.
The sight alone, this powerful, dangerous, controlled man kneeling before him, silver eyes looking up through dark lashes, mouth level with Jace's throbbing cock, nearly finished Jace on the spot.
His shaft twitched, a thick bead of precum rolling down the underside, and Canyon caught it with his tongue, lapping upward from the base in a long, slow stroke that covered every vein and ridge before circling the head with a precision that made Jace's knees buckle.
"Your cock is perfect," Canyon murmured against the head, lips brushing the slit, breath hot and damp.
"Responsive. Honest. It tells me everything your mouth won't." He opened wide and took Jace in, deep, immediately deep, the head hitting the back of his throat with a wet impact that made Jace cry out, hands flying to Canyon's hair, gripping the dark strands as his hips flexed involuntarily.
Canyon's mouth was impossibly skilled. The suction was rhythmic, tidal, building and releasing with a cadence that kept Jace at the trembling edge without letting him fall.
His tongue worked the underside of the shaft in spiraling patterns, finding the cluster of nerves beneath the head and pressing with a focused intensity that sent bolts of pleasure racing down Jace's legs.
He deepthroated without gagging, swallowing around the full length, the muscular contractions of his throat milking the shaft in waves that pulled at Jace's balls.
The smell of arousal filled the room, heavy, musky, the combined scent of Jace's leaking cock and Canyon's own need, which was evident in the massive bulge distorting his jeans.
Jace could see it from above: Canyon on his knees, mouth full, and between his thighs the outline of a cock so hard it had to be painful, straining against the denim with a desperation that contradicted every ounce of the man's self-control.
Canyon pulled off with a wet sound that echoed in the stone room, a string of saliva and precum connecting his lip to Jace's cockhead.
He stood in one fluid motion, and his jeans were open and down before Jace could register the movement, his cock springing free, massive, veined, the head engorged and dark, a bead of precum catching the lamplight as it rolled from the slit.
The scent of it hit Jace like a drug: salt and musk and that coppery undertone, ancient and male and overwhelming.
They fell onto the bed together. Canyon on his back, Jace above him, and the dynamic was deliberate—Canyon yielding the dominant position, allowing Jace to set the pace, to take what had been earned.
Jace understood this instinctively, the way an animal understands a gift of prey: this was reward, and the reward was Canyon's body, offered up.
Jace kissed down Canyon's chest, tasting sweat and skin and the faint mineral trace of something not quite human.
He licked along the scars, salt and smooth, and felt Canyon's breath catch, the first crack in the man's composure.
Lower, following the trail of dark hair from navel to groin, Jace's mouth found Canyon's cock and took it in.