Chapter 13 #5
Sidney rolls his hips, experimental, and the drag of Erath's cock inside him pulls a startled sound out of his throat.
He does it again. Erath's hands settle at his hips — firm, broad, holding — but they don't move him.
They are there, present and grounding, a steady span of warmth on either side of his waist, but the motion is still Sidney's.
Sidney rises and falls, finding the angle, finding the pace, his thighs working, his palms braced on Erath's chest, and Erath lets him.
His head tipped back against the cushions, his throat working, his hands flexed at Sidney's hips like he is anchoring himself there.
Sidney finds the angle that makes him gasp. He leans forward, changes the tilt of himself, and the next slide down lights up something white-hot at the base of his spine and he whimpers, and Erath's grip tightens on his hips but still doesn't pull him down and Sidney needs him to cross that line.
"I'm not going to break," Sidney breathes, desperate. "Will you — fuck — will you just—"
"Tell me." Erath's voice is shredded. His thumbs sweep over Sidney's hipbones. "Tell me what you want."
"Hold me. Hold me and fuck me."
Erath's hands close on him properly for the first time.
Not crushing but solid, deliberate, the broad span of his palms wrapping around Sidney's hips with a strong grip.
And then he plants his feet and rolls his hips up, hard, and his cock drives into Sidney exactly where Sidney needs it, and Sidney's whole body lights up.
"Yes — like that, like that, don't stop—"
He doesn't stop. Erath fucks up into him in a steady deep rhythm, his hands holding Sidney's hips in place to take it, every thrust striking that bright spot inside him, and Sidney braces against his chest and lets it happen — lets himself be fucked, lets Erath give him exactly what he asked for, no more and no less.
Erath's eyes never leave his face. Every time Sidney's breath catches Erath reads it instantly — eases up when Sidney's eyes flutter shut too long, drives harder when Sidney gasps yes, slows the angle when Sidney's thighs start to tremble too much from the position and tips Sidney forward so he can hold him better, fuck up into him deeper.
He is reading Sidney with every thrust, adjusting with every breath, and the care of it does not slow the pace down at all.
And Sidney keeps expecting it to change.
He keeps expecting Erath to forget himself.
To grip too hard, to chase too fast, to lose the thread of attention and become only a body taking pleasure in his body.
The moment doesn't come. Every thrust is still an answer.
Every shift of Erath's hands is still a question.
He is paying attention. He has not stopped paying attention for one single second.
At some point Sidney stops waiting.
The vigilance that has been running beneath every intimate encounter he's ever had goes quiet.
It goes quiet because there is nothing to scan for.
Erath is beneath him, holding him, fucking him exactly as he asked to be fucked, his eyes on Sidney's face, the expression in them reverent and undone.
And Sidney's body is present. His body is here.
His body is taking pleasure in being given pleasure, and the absence of the fear is not a vacuum this time.
It's a clearing. An open space where something good can exist without the threat of something bad arriving to crush it.
He moves with Erath, meets every thrust, rides him harder.
Erath's hand leaves his hip and finds his drooling cock and wraps around it, slick again with whatever he's working with, and strokes him in time with the snap of his hips.
The dual sensation builds something enormous and bright at the base of Sidney's spine.
Full and stroked at once, fucked deep and fisted slow, each downstroke meeting Erath's drive up meeting Erath's careful hand, and Sidney can feel himself climbing toward something he isn't sure he'll survive.
Erath is watching him the whole way. Lips parted, eyes black and wide, drinking him in like a man memorizing something he's afraid he'll lose.
He doesn't say it but it's written all over him, in the shaking hand and the worshipful eyes and the way his thumb sweeps over Sidney's hipbone every few thrusts like he can't quite believe he's allowed to touch.
Sidney doesn't say it either. He just leans down and kisses him, hard, and rides him through it, and lets his actions carry the weight of every word neither of them will speak.
Erath kisses back like he is being saved.
Like Sidney's mouth is the only fixed point in a world that has come loose at the seams.
When Sidney comes apart it is with Erath's name in his mouth and Erath's hand around his cock and Erath's other hand spread wide and warm at his hip and the pull in his chest blazing white.
He shudders through it, every muscle in his thighs trembling, spilling hot over Erath's knuckles and his own stomach in pulses that seem to go on and on.
Erath strokes him through every aftershock, gentle, gentle, until Sidney's hips stutter and still.
Erath follows him a breath later — Sidney clenching down around him helpless and overstimulated, and Erath's whole body going taut beneath him, a low broken sound breaking against Sidney's lips.
His hands tighten at last. But only to hold him close.
Only to gather him in. Never to pin. Sidney feels him pulse deep inside, feels the warm spill of him, feels Erath's forehead drop against his shoulder and his arms come up around his back in a full embrace, careful even now, even in the wreck of his own release.
He stays there, just breathing, for a long time.
And then Erath sits up, slow, still inside him, and puts an arm around his waist and kisses him without hesitating, and Sidney kisses him back, more desperate than he wants.
Erath's free hand comes up to cup his jaw, his thumb brushing under Sidney's eye where something wet has gathered without Sidney noticing, and he doesn't comment on it, doesn't ask, just kisses him again, softer this time.
Nothing hurts.
Nothing hurts at all.
When they pull apart, foreheads touching, Erath says, “Come to my room.”
Sidney hesitates. The old script surfaces, the one that says this is the part where it’s over, where the transaction is complete, where the man on the other side of the equation takes what he wanted and moves on.
He opens his mouth and what comes out is the fear, dressed up as practicality: “If this is just because we’re linked, or whatever—”
Erath’s hand tangles in his hair and pulls him forward, gently, forehead against forehead, and his voice is low and steady and leaves no room for doubt. “I swear to you it’s not.”
Sidney lets out a shaky breath. It comes from somewhere deep, somewhere structural, and it carries with it something he’s been holding for a long time.
Not all of it. Not everything. Just enough that the weight eases and the breath that follows is lighter and the man in front of him is close and warm and not going anywhere.
“Okay,” Sidney says.
Erath takes his hand and leads him down the hallway, past Penny’s cracked door and the sliver of light and the sound of a child sleeping, to the bedroom at the end.
The room is dark and the bed is large and Erath lies down and pulls Sidney against him and Sidney’s head finds the hollow of Erath’s throat and his arm finds Erath’s waist and his body, his whole body, settles.
He settles the way he settled on the couch the first night, fully and completely, without a foot on the floor, without an exit strategy, without a single part of himself held back.