"You're shaking," Amani said against his mouth.
"I'm not shaking."
"Your hands are shaking."
A pause. Then, "Shut up, Amani."
Amani laughed. Actually laughed. Out loud. For the first time in five weeks, a real laugh came out of him, rough, surprised, and a little broken around the edges but entirely his. Nero's face lit up with something Amani had not seen on him before, not the half-smile or the rare full smile but something softer, startled, like a man hearing music he hadn't known he was allowed to hear.
Amani kissed the smile off his face.
He pulled the t-shirt over his head. Dropped it on the floor next to the hoodie. Nero's hands moved from his waist to his sides, sliding up against bare skin, the pads of his fingers tracing the line of Amani's ribs with a thoroughness that wasn't sexual yet, was still reading him, mapping the territory. The touch made the collar scar prickle. His breath caught. His body woke up in a way it hadn't since the ranch. It was not just adrenaline, not fear-response, but something warmer, lower, a heat that started in his stomach and moved outward.
Nero's eyes had gone darker. He was looking at Amani's chest, his throat, the ring of faded scar tissue where the collar had been. His expression was unreadable except for the way his jaw tightened when his gaze caught on the scar.
"Does it bother you?" Amani asked.
"The scar?"
"Yeah."
"No." Nero's hand came up, slowly, telegraphing the movement. "Can I?"
Amani nodded.
Nero's fingers traced the line of the scar. Light. Barely there. All the way around, front and back, the ring of darker skin where the silver had sat. It was the most careful touch Amani had ever felt. Nero wasn't trying to erase the scar or fix it. He wasacknowledging it. Reading it the way he read everything, with the full attention of someone for whom every detail mattered.
"It makes me angry," Nero’s voice was quiet. "That someone did this to you. I want to be honest about that."
"Okay."
"But it doesn't bother me on you. It's part of what happened. I don't need it to not exist."
Amani swallowed. His throat moved against the scar and he felt the faint catch of Nero's fingertip on the slight ridge of it and forced himself not to cry. Somehow, he didn't. The feeling moved through him and passed, and what was left was just this: a man sitting on a bed with his hand at Amani's throat, acknowledging the worst thing that had happened to him, and not looking away.
Amani pushed him back.
Gently. Not a shove. A redirection, his palm flat on Nero's chest, and Nero let himself be lowered onto the bed, dropping back onto his elbows, his eyes on Amani the whole time. Amani climbed onto the bed and straddled him, his knees on either side of Nero's hips. Nero's hands went to Amani's thighs, broad and warm on the denim. He lay there looking up at Amani with the kind of expression Amani had never been looked at with before.
It wasn't hunger. It wasn't the cataloguing predator-gaze he'd gotten from Doms his whole life. It was something steadier. The expression of a man looking at the thing he'd wanted for a long time and choosing to wait another minute because the waiting was part of the wanting.
"Take your shirt off," Amani said.
Nero sat up just enough to strip the t-shirt over his head. Underneath he was lean, wiry, the way ferrets were built, not the wall of muscle Amani had always told himself he needed but something more interesting, long muscle packed close to bone, a body built for speed and precision. Dark hair on his chest. Asmall scar over his left pec, old, pale. Another on his shoulder. A body that had been used.
Amani put his hand over the scar on his chest. "What's this one?"
"Broken mirror with a silver back. Domestic call my second year. Don't worry about it."
"The shoulder?"
"Wolf bite. Training exercise gone wrong. Also don't worry about it."
Amani leaned down and kissed the chest scar. Then the shoulder. Then Nero's mouth, and by the time he was back at the mouth Nero's hands had moved from his thighs to his back, palms flat, sliding up his spine, and Amani arched into the touch without meaning to, the way a cat arches into a scratch. Nero made a low sound against his mouth that Amani felt more than heard.
"Oh fuck," Amani said, against Nero's mouth, surprised at himself.
"What?"
