20. Chapter 20
Sidney is pacing.
Back and forth across Erath's bedroom, his hands in his hair and then at his sides and then in his hair again, too wired from the day's revelations to sleep.
His body is tired but his mind won't stop, and Erath can see it in the set of his shoulders, the tension in his jaw, the way his feet keep moving because if he stops moving he's going to have to feel everything he's been holding at arm's length.
Erath is on the bed, sitting against the headboard with a book he isn't reading, watching him. He doesn't tell him to calm down. He doesn't tell him to come to bed. He just watches, the way he's learned to, giving Sidney the space to arrive at wherever he's going on his own terms.
Sidney stops pacing. He turns and looks at Erath and his eyes are dark and bright at the same time and his chest is rising and falling with breaths that are too fast for someone who's just been walking in circles.
He crosses to the bed without a word. He puts his hands on Erath's shoulders and pushes him down onto his back, and Erath goes, lets himself be pushed, settles against the mattress and looks up at Sidney standing over him.
Sidney climbs on top of him, one knee on either side of his hips, and sits there on his thighs, looking down at him.
His hair is falling around his face, loose and messy from running his hands through it.
Erath waits. He can feel the tension in Sidney's thighs, the way his weight is braced forward on his hands, the way his breathing hasn't slowed. Sidney's jaw works, and his eyes move over Erath's face like he's looking for something. Permission. Or the absence of a reason not to.
"I want you to fuck me," Sidney says.
His voice is rough. Direct. But there's a tremor underneath it, buried deep, that Erath hears because he's learned to listen for the things Sidney hides beneath the things he says.
Erath's hands come up to Sidney's thighs. They rest there, thumbs against the inner seams of his jeans, not gripping. Just present. "Yeah?"
Sidney swallows. His fingers curl into the fabric of Erath's shirt at the shoulders. "I want to feel it. After. I want to feel you later."
The words land somewhere in the center of Erath's chest and detonate quietly.
His hands tighten on Sidney's thighs, involuntary, and then ease.
He sits up. Sidney doesn't startle. He shifts his weight back as Erath rises, settling into his lap, their chests close, their faces level.
Erath's hand comes up to the side of Sidney's neck, thumb against the hinge of his jaw, and he pulls him in and kisses him.
Not gently. Not carefully. He kisses him the way the moment demands, desperate and deep, his mouth open against Sidney's, tasting the urgency and the want and the fear Sidney is trying to burn through.
Sidney makes a sound against his lips, something raw and unfinished, and his hands come up to Erath's face and hold him there, both of them breathing hard through the kiss, Sidney's hips rocking forward in his lap in a movement that might not be conscious.
Erath pulls back just enough to speak. His lips brush Sidney's when he asks, "Do you want to stay on top?"
Sidney hesitates. His fingers are still on Erath's jaw, and Erath can feel the fine tremor in them now, the one Sidney is working very hard to suppress.
His eyes search Erath's face, and the war behind them is visible.
The part of him that needs control, that needs to be the one setting the terms, that has learned through pain and repetition that vulnerability is a door you don't open because you can't control what walks through it.
And the part of him that wants to open it anyway.
That wants to trust someone enough to let go.
"I don't know," Sidney says. Quiet. Steady. The tremor only in his hands, not his voice. "I want to trust you with this." A beat. His throat moves. "But I don't want to lose my mind in the middle of having sex with you."
Erath kisses him again. Slower this time, but no less deep.
He kisses him like an answer, like a contract signed with his mouth, a promise pressed into Sidney's lips that he will be worthy of what he's being given.
Sidney exhales against him, shaky, and his hands slide from Erath's jaw to the back of his neck and hold on.
“We'll play it by ear,” Erath tells him. “You tell me before it's too much and I'll change course.”
Erath's hands move to the hem of Sidney's shirt.
He pulls it up slowly, giving Sidney time to change his mind at every inch, and Sidney lifts his arms and lets him draw it over his head.
It drops to the floor. Erath's eyes move over him, the lean muscle of his torso, the pale expanse of his skin interrupted by the faint scars that Erath's healing didn't reach because they were older than their meeting.
A thin one along his ribs. A raised line near his hip.
He doesn't ask about them. He presses his mouth to the one along Sidney's ribs instead, and feels Sidney's breath catch.
He undresses Sidney the rest of the way with the same deliberation.
Jeans unbuttoned, unzipped, worked down his thighs while Sidney lifts his hips to help.
Nothing underneath. The sight of him bare and flushed and hard in Erath's lap makes Erath's hands tighten on his waist, and he takes a breath and loosens his grip. Careful. He needs to be careful.
Sidney's hands go to Erath's shirt. He undoes the buttons with fingers that are steadier now, focused on the task, the physical action of undressing someone grounding him the way physical action always does.
He pushes the shirt off Erath's shoulders and Erath shrugs it free.
Then Sidney's hands are on his chest, palms flat, fingers spread, and the heat of them against Erath's skin is startling in its intensity.
His hands slide down to Erath's waistband and tug, and Erath lifts his hips and lets Sidney strip him.
They're both bare now. Sidney in his lap, skin to skin, the heat between them immediate and consuming.
Sidney's cock is hard against Erath's stomach and Erath can feel his own pressed against Sidney's thigh, thick and heavy and aching.
Sidney's eyes drop between them and his lips part and his breath comes out shallow.
Erath puts his hand on Sidney's hip. "Lie down for me."
Sidney's eyes come back to his. There's a flash of something, the instinct to resist, to maintain the higher ground, and then it passes.
He trusts him. He said he would and he's going to, and Erath watches him make the choice in real time, watches him climb off Erath's lap and lie back on the bed, his blond hair fanning out on the pillow and his body tense and beautiful and waiting.
Erath doesn't hover over him. He doesn't cage him with his body, doesn't put his weight on top of him, doesn't do any of the things that would make Sidney feel pinned.
He lies beside him instead, propped on one elbow, and puts his free hand on Sidney's stomach.
Just resting. Feeling the muscles jump under his palm.
"Tell me to stop," Erath says, "and I stop. No questions."
"I know." Sidney's voice is rough. His hand comes up and finds the back of Erath's neck and pulls him down. "I know. Come here."
Erath goes. He kisses Sidney's mouth, then his jaw, then the tendon of his neck where his pulse is hammering.
He works his way down with his lips and his teeth and his tongue, unhurried, mapping the terrain of Sidney's body with a thoroughness that has Sidney's breathing going ragged before Erath has made it past his collarbones.
He mouths at Sidney's chest, tongue tracing the line of muscle, and when his lips close over one nipple and suck, Sidney arches off the bed and swears.
Erath's hand slides down Sidney's stomach. Lower. He bypasses Sidney's cock, which is hard and leaking against his hip, and trails his fingers along the crease of his thigh. Sidney's legs part in invitation.
He lifts his hand. Sidney watches, his eyes heavy-lidded, as Erath rubs his fingers together and the faintest shimmer of magic moves between them, slick and warm and glistening.
It's barely visible, just a ripple in the air, and then his fingers are wet with it, and Sidney’s breath is already ragged.
Erath shifts down the bed. He presses a kiss to Sidney's hip, the sharp jut of bone, and then to the inside of his thigh, where the skin is thin and warm and Sidney exhales.
He settles between Sidney's legs, one hand on his thigh, keeping him open, and brings his slicked fingers to where Sidney is tight and hot and waiting.
He presses one finger against him. Not in.
Just against, circling, letting Sidney's body get used to the pressure.
Sidney's thigh tenses under his hand and his breathing goes shallow and quick and Erath waits.
He waits until Sidney's body softens, until the tension eases by a fraction, and then he presses in.
Sidney gasps. His hand fists in the sheet beside his hip and his head presses back into the pillow and Erath watches his face, reads every microexpression, cataloguing comfort and discomfort and the shifting line between them.
He works his finger in slowly, giving Sidney time to adjust, and when he's fully inside he curls it and Sidney's hips jerk and a sound punches out of him that's half moan, half surprise.
"There?" Erath asks, though he knows. He knows exactly where.
"Fuck," Sidney breathes. "Yes, there."