Chapter Five #3
Kel’s hands tightened on his hips as he pulled Shepherd down, slow and easy.
It wasn’t necessary, but Shepherd appreciated the thought.
He ran his hand up Kel’s stomach. His skin was slick with sweat, and the muscles under that tanned, glistening skin were clenched into tight knots.
Shepherd’s fingers grazed over Kel’s nipple, the dark pink bud puckered and hard under his touch.
The caress made Kel twitch. His jaw tightened, and the muscles along the hinge bulged under the skin as he clenched his teeth. He sucked in a ragged breath through his nose, his nostrils flaring.
Shepherd could feel the edges of the cool breeze from the door.
It licked at his ankles and the back of his neck.
Nice, but no match for the swampy, torrid humidity that seeped up from the floor of the conservatory.
Around them the plants rustled and stank of moist earth and green, vegetative approval.
It reminded Shepherd of home, of the damp, black earth in the cornfield and the things the corn had promised. The memory pinched between his shoulder blades like unfriendly knuckles, but he ignored it.
That was just trauma. In the absence of therapy, Shepherd found it was best to just not deal. It wasn’t like he could stop what he was doing every time it bubbled up. He’d never get anything done.
Kel’s fingers brushed Shepherd’s cheek.
“Where’d you go?” he asked as Shepherd glanced down at him.
“Nowhere.”
“And you call me a liar.”
“You—” Shepherd’s breath caught in his throat as Kel thrust up into him.
His cock was buried balls deep in Shepherd, the pulse of it in his ass discernibly different from his own heartbeat.
For a second, Shepherd had to bite the inside of his cheek as he rode that out.
When he dragged his thoughts back together, he looked down at Kel and smirked. “...are.”
“So are you.”
Shepherd shrugged his answer to that. It wasn’t like Kel was wrong. Or right. Kel lied easily; Shepherd lied well.
“I’m right here,” he said. “You?”
Kel lifted his hips off the ground. It didn’t seem possible, but he slid just a little deeper in, the thickness of his cock spreading Shepherd wide.
The sensation dragged a noise, half gulp and half groan, out of Shepherd as he dug his fingers into Kel’s chest, his clipped short nails grooving lines into the golden-toned skin.
It was answer enough.
Shepherd’s thighs ached with a heavy, dull heat as he rode Kel, pleasure folding him in waves as he pushed himself down onto the thick, ready cock.
It was Kel who set the pace, though. His hands on Shepherd’s hips controlled the pace, slowed it or drove it faster.
And every time it felt like Shepherd had fallen into an easy rhythm, the thrust of lean hips up off the ground would break it into stuttering flutters of breath-squeezing pleasure.
The heat of the conservatory wrapped around them. It slicked their skin with sweat, the smell of salt sharp and primal, and banked the already fevered heat. Shepherd could feel it slide between them, hear the slap of his ass against Kel’s thighs.
He threw his head back as he felt the knot of pleasure in his gut twist tighter. It felt like it was anchored in his balls and his bones, like he’d break first if it didn’t release. He needed…more? Faster? Harder? Fuck it, something. Anything. He just needed it now.
Instead he got Kel’s hands on his hips, steady in a way the man was definitely not, and the thick, insistent throb of the cock that split him wider with each thrust. Words clawed at the inside of his throat—please, anything, oh, God—but he bit them back until he tasted blood.
Pleasure was like pain; it loosened the tongue and made you willing to promise all sorts of things. Usually that just led to disappointment or heartbreak, but in Shepherd’s line of work it was never safe to assume that there wasn’t something with its ear to the wall.
He braced both hands on Kel’s chest, fingers dug down into the muscle for purchase, as he thrust back against him. The threads of sharp, prickling sensation that were strung from his ass through his organs twisted tighter, and he felt the weight of it all settle in his groin.
Just before he thought he was going to come apart, the tangle of pleasure and need and frustration snapped. Come splattered milky and clear over Kel’s stomach, and pleasure seeped slow and sticky through Shepherd’s stomach and thighs.
He sagged forward, his arms struggling to support his own weight, and swore raggedly under his breath as Kel finally let go of that unexpected self-control and thrust roughly up into Shepherd. He came with a ‘fuck’ and a ragged intake of breath.
Shepherd let his arms give way, and he sprawled out on top of Kel as he felt Kel’s cock soften and slip out of him.
He pressed a kiss to Kel’s throat, the taste of sweat salty and sour, and then rolled off to the side.
His feet brushed against Kel’s legs as he stretched out, his head on Kel’s shoulder.
It felt a little too comfortable, too easy, but he felt too bonelessly sated to do anything about it right now.
“You know what the first thing I’m going to do when the town signs this place over to me is?” Kel said after a moment.
“Sell it?”
“No. I mean, probably, but before that,” Kel said. “I’m going to drag a fucking couch in here.”