Prep was fast. Seth was already open, already desperate, and when Zain pressed two slicked fingers inside him he bore down immediately, greedy, impatient, chasing the fullness.
"More."
"Patience."
"I have never in my life been patient and you know that."
Zain laughed. Actually laughed. The sound was startled and real and it transformed his face, and Seth almost forgot what they were doing because Zain laughing was rarer than a lunar eclipse and twice as disorienting.
"Don't stop," Seth said. "Don't stop whatever you were -yes, there, right there -"
Three fingers now. Seth's back arched off the bed. His hand found Zain's wrist, not to stop him but to feel him, the tendons working, the strength in the forearm, the physical reality of the man who was opening him up with surgical patience despite the desperate, filthy sounds Seth was making. He reached for the drawer to pull out a condom but Seth grabbed his wrist, a plea in his eyes.
"I'm clean, I swear. The agency tested us and luckily no one got any ideas in the workhouse." He left the description unsaid. Zain knew plenty of people were used for more than just their manual labor on those places.
"I am too. Haven't…" Zain's voice caught. "I haven't been with anyone in over a year." Seth gave him an almost angelic grin and swayed his peachy ass, asking for what he wanted and Zain was happy to oblige.
"Ready?" Zain asked.
"I was ready five minutes ago. I was ready on thestreet. Will you please just -"
Zain pushed inside him.
The world stopped.
Not the clichéd romantic stopped. Actually stopped. The rain paused. The room held its breath. Seth's lungs locked and his hands clamped on Zain's shoulders and for three eternal secondsthere was only the stretch and the fullness and the look on Zain's face, the composure cracked open like an egg, the raw undonewantingthat Zain kept buried under six years of walls and discipline and the lie that he didn't need anyone.
"Move," Seth whispered. "Zain.Move."
Zain moved.
He set a pace that was not kind. Seth didn't want kind. He wanted to be driven into this mattress until the memory of the gunshot was replaced by the memory of this, Zain's hips snapping against his, the headboard hitting the wall in a rhythm that anyone in the safehouse could hear and neither of them cared, Seth's legs locked around Zain's waist pulling him deeper on every thrust.
"Harder."
Zain gave him harder. Hooked Seth's knee over his shoulder, changing the angle, and Seth nearly came off the bed.
"Fuck!Right there, don't stop, don't you dare stop -"
"I'm not stopping." Zain's voice was gone. Destroyed. The composed, measured, controlled man was gone and what was left was animal and desperate and so focused on Seth that the rest of the world had ceased to exist. "I'm never stopping. You're mine. Say it."
"Yours." The word came from somewhere below conscious thought. "I'm yours."
"Again."
"Yours, you possessive -oh God- yours, always, Zain,please…"
Zain's hand wrapped around Seth's cock. Stroked in time with his thrusts, tight and fast and merciless, and Seth was gone. He was beyond bratting, beyond words, beyond everything except the point where their bodies connected and the pressure building at the base of his spine like a detonation countdown.
"Come for me." Not a request. An absolution.
Seth came apart.
It hit like the aftermath he'd been bracing for since the trigger pull, except instead of horror it was release. His whole body seized, clenching around Zain, and the sound he made was Zain's name torn into syllables that didn't fit together anymore. His vision went white. His hands clawed Zain's back hard enough to draw blood. He felt it under his fingernails, felt Zain hiss against his neck, and the tiny violence of it, the reciprocal marking, undid the last thread.
Zain buried himself deep and followed. His whole body went rigid, shaking, and the sound he made against Seth's throat was the most honest thing Seth had ever heard from him. Not controlled. Not compressed. Just a man breaking open.
They lay wrecked. Breathing hard. Tangled together in sweat-soaked sheets, sticky with cum, the rain hammering the windows like applause.
