Chapter 27 Daylight #2
It was not careful. It was not polished.
It was five days of silence finding its exit through mouths and hands and the hard, living fact of Theo under his palms. Theo went backward with him, laughing once against his mouth, startled and wrecked and already reaching.
Kas walked him by memory until Theo’s calves hit the bed.
“Still proceeding?” Theo asked, breathless.
“Do not make me count,” Kas said, and pushed him down.
The laugh went out of Theo on a rough exhale. Kas followed it, one knee on the mattress, then the other, the bed giving under him in a way no court ever did. Theo looked up at him in the city-dark, hair damp from the shower, eyes open, face unarranged.
There you are, Kas thought, and did not say it, because his mouth had better work.
He kissed Theo again, slower this time, making the pace clear. Not punishment. Not proof. A return to the point, replayed correctly. Theo’s hands slid under his shirt and stopped there, palms flat against his skin, as if asking and answering at once.
“Yes,” Kas said.
Theo’s eyes changed.
The shirt came off. Then Theo’s. Their bodies met with the hot, awkward precision of men who knew each other’s movement better than their own restraint.
Theo made a sound when Kas’s mouth found the side of his neck, small and helpless and nothing like a broadcast laugh, and Kas followed it down, learning the difference between exposed and offered.
He put his mouth to Theo’s chest, then lower, over the tight shift of muscle under skin, over the place where Theo’s breath stopped being organized. Theo’s hands went into his hair and stayed there, not guiding yet, just holding on.
“Bed,” Theo said, which was ridiculous, because they were already on one.
Kas lifted his head. “This is a bed.”
“More bed.”
“Your terminology is deteriorating.”
“My terminology is busy.”
Kas smiled against his skin. “Good.”
Theo pulled him down by the back of the neck, the same place Kas had touched him at the net, and the echo went through both of them. For one second they stopped there, foreheads close, breath caught between them.
They undressed badly. Efficiently would have been suspicious. Theo got caught in his own shirt and cursed into cotton; Kas laughed once, low and disbelieving, and Theo emerged flushed and offended and beautiful enough to make the room tilt.
Kas pushed him back again.
Theo went willingly, knees opening as Kas settled between them. He was already hard, cock flushed and slick at the head, lifting toward Kas like the rest of him had lost patience with metaphor. Kas put one hand on Theo’s stomach and held him there.
“Look at me,” he said.
Theo did.
Kas took him in hand.
The first stroke stole Theo’s breath. The second made his head fall back against the mattress. Kas watched him fight for language and lose, watched all that quickness, all that noise, all that beautiful defensive motion concentrate down to one body being touched by one man.
“Number?” Theo managed.
It was the question from the practice court, the one that meant are you still here, is the wall down. Kas looked at his hand around Theo’s cock, at the wet shine gathering under his thumb, at Theo’s thighs spreading wider because restraint had become less interesting than honesty.
“One,” he said. Here. Almost nothing in the way.
Theo’s eyes closed. “Good?”
“Yes.”
“Still?”
Kas stroked him again, firmer this time, and Theo’s answer came out as a broken sound instead of a word.
“Yes,” Kas said, because Theo had earned the mercy of not having to ask twice.
He bent and took Theo into his mouth.
Theo’s whole body snapped tight beneath him.
“Fuck. Kas.”
Kas hummed once around him. Theo’s hand flew to his shoulder, then his hair, then the sheet, as if he could not decide what part of the world was still stable enough to hold.
Kas took him deeper, one hand at the base of his cock, the other low on his stomach, keeping him still when his hips tried to chase.
Theo did not perform pleasure. Not now. Not with his mouth open and his body helpless under Kas’s hands.
He took the pleasure badly and beautifully, with curses that broke in the middle, with one hand fisting in the sheet, with his hips lifting despite Kas’s palm, with his throat working around sounds he had no chance of making charming.
Kas brought him close and stopped.
Theo made a sound of actual betrayal.
Kas lifted his head. “You are impatient.”
“You’re evil.”
“I am thorough.”
“You’re about to be single.”
Kas put his mouth back on him.
Theo’s threat dissolved into a curse.
This time Kas let him get closer. Close enough that Theo’s thighs shook against his shoulders, close enough that his hand tightened in Kas’s hair, close enough that his voice lost everything but Kas’s name and a string of wrecked, useless syllables.
Then Kas stopped again.
Theo stared down at him, panting. “I’m filing a complaint.”
“Denied.”
Kas moved up his body and kissed him, letting Theo taste himself. The kiss went filthy immediately, Theo’s mouth opening under his, tongue slick and eager, one hand dragging down Kas’s back until it found his ass and pulled.
Kas ground against him once, cock sliding hot against Theo’s hip, and this time the sound came out of Kas.
Theo heard it.
His face changed.
“Oh,” Theo said, very softly. “There you are.”
Kas covered his mouth with another kiss before the words could undo him entirely.
Theo’s hand slid between them and wrapped around his cock, skin to skin, no hesitation now.
His palm was warm, his grip better than it had any right to be, and Kas lost a breath so cleanly it almost embarrassed him.
Theo stroked him once, twice, thumb catching the slick head, learning pressure by response the way he learned everything: too fast, too well, with lethal attention.
Kas caught his wrist.
Theo froze. “Too much?”
“Too effective.”
That grin flashed, private and ruined.
Then Theo shifted under him, voice low. “Let me.”
Kas knew what he meant before Theo moved. He knew, and still the sight of Theo sliding down his body almost stopped his heart.
Theo took him in his mouth with hunger and almost no patience.
The wet heat of it punched the air out of Kas’s lungs.
He looked down and found Theo looking up, eyes dark, mouth stretched around his cock, three bands still wrapped around his left wrist as his hand worked what his mouth could not take.
No show. No room to win back. Just Theo wanting him and letting it be obvious.
Kas put one hand in Theo’s hair.
Not pushing. Holding on.
Theo made a pleased sound around him, and Kas nearly came from that alone.
“Stop,” Kas said.
Theo pulled off, mouth wet, breathing hard. “Already?”
Kas took Theo by the shoulder, brought him up, and kissed him until the smugness left his face and only want remained.
Then Kas turned him under him again.
This time Theo’s body knew the question before Kas asked it. His legs opened. One hand slid down Kas’s back, over his hip, pulling him closer. His cock was hard between them, slick where Kas had left him, and when Kas rocked against him, both of them went silent.
Kas rested his forehead against Theo’s. “Do you want me inside you?”
Theo’s answer came immediately. “Yes.”
“You are sure.”
“Kas.”
“Say it.”
Theo’s throat moved. His hands tightened on Kas’s hips. “I want you to fuck me.”
The room went very small.
Kas closed his eyes for one second.
When he opened them, Theo was still there. No grin. No bit. No performance. Just want, open and scared enough to be honest.
“Lube?” Kas asked.
“Side pocket of my bag.”
Kas stared at him.
Theo flushed, which on Theo Callahan was a rare and spectacular event. “I was optimistic.”
“You packed for optimism.”
“I packed for disaster and optimism. I contain multitudes.”
Kas kissed him once, hard. “You contain luggage.”
Theo laughed, then lost the laugh when Kas got off the bed.
The bag was by the chair. The side pocket held exactly what Theo had promised. Kas returned with it and found Theo watching him with the kind of focus that made the air in the room thicken.
“No condom?” Theo asked, quieter now.
Kas went still.
Not hesitation. Attention.
Theo held his eyes. “I want to feel you.”
The sentence moved through Kas slowly, devastatingly, leaving nothing organized behind it.
“You are sure.”
“Yes.”
“Say it again.”
Theo’s hands tightened in the sheets. “I want you bare. I want you inside me. I want to know it’s you.”
Kas closed his eyes for one second.
When he opened them, Theo was still there. No grin. No bit. No performance. Just want, open and scared enough to be honest.
“Then you will,” Kas said.
“No jokes now?” Kas asked.
Theo shook his head.
Good.
Kas kissed him again before opening him, because the kiss mattered. Because the asking mattered. Because Theo had said the true thing and Kas intended to make the room worthy of it.
He prepared him slowly, one slick finger first, then two, his mouth at Theo’s throat, his free hand spread over Theo’s stomach to keep him with him.
Theo was tight, hotter than anything Kas had allowed himself to imagine, and he tried to breathe through it like a man returning serve under pressure, which made Kas stop.
“Do not compete with it,” Kas said against his skin.
Theo gave a breathless laugh. “That’s unfortunately insightful.”
“Breathe.”
Theo did.
Kas moved his fingers carefully, feeling the moment resistance became acceptance, feeling Theo’s body learn him the way Theo learned everything: with hunger, with impatience, with a kind of furious trust. When Kas found the angle, Theo’s back came off the bed.
“Oh, fuck.”
Kas did it again.
Theo’s hand clamped around his shoulder. “There. There, Jesus, do that again.”
Kas did.