Perry put both arms around him, and thought about emotion and amazement and his own wanting to help, because Patrick was right about him: he did want to, so much, for this man in his arms. His collarbone shivered with response when Patrick blinked. He hadn’t known a sensation could reverberate through his body.
He offered, in case it’d help more, “Want me to tie you up and interrogate you more? Heroic might, you said. Extremely hard. Making you beg.”
Patrick emerged to beam at him, still encircled by Perry’s arms. “Yes please. Overpower me. Torment me. Your captive, at your mercy.” His eyes, his face, were shining.
“You and the fantasy scenarios,” Perry sighed, but his chest felt like shining right back, like Patrick’d lit a lamp there. Not to mention a leaping rise of heat, other places. “Good thing I’m good with knots.”
He was. He did have cuffs, but Patrick had slender wrists and Perry wasn’t sure about the harshness of rough metal; he considered them, and the fact that he’d never done precisely this before, and opted not to. His belt worked fine, though: leather around sunkissed wrists at the small of Patrick’s back, Patrick bent facedown over the bed and moaning as Perry kicked hislegs apart and pushed him down. Hard, those teasing eyes’d said; and Perry was utterly willing, especially when Patrick made those glorious noises and squirmed and reacted likethat, delicious and hot around him, spread open, his to play with and torment and overpower, as requested.
Patrick did beg. Prettily, happily, desperately—and with a quick flash of smile and nod when Perry paused to make sure—and shamelessly, writhing against the bed, pleading to be allowed release, promising to be good. Perry, playing the role, murmured, “Now why would I believe you, when we both know you’re the wicked mastermind genius here; no, I’m going tomakeyou give it up, going to force it out of you, everything you’ve got,” and Patrick gasped and shuddered and arched up with the yes, so Perry thrust into him rougher and deeper, until Patrick sobbed and clutched at the bed and simply came, pinned between the mattress and Perry’s weight, cock rubbing and jerking against the sheets, wrists bound with Perry’s hand on the leather.
Perry fucked him through it, the shaking spasms and then the aftermath, not letting up, because he was pretty sure Patrick wanted that and also because he himself was close, so close, breathless and shocked by lightning. Patrick shivered in random wild twitches and clenches of ecstasy; his body tightened, shook, last drops of mindless bliss wrung out as Perry’s cock pounded into him—and Perry groaned, lost in the sight, the feel of him, the perfection, and spilled himself into Patrick’s hungry quivering body with a sense of pure completion.
After, Patrick was quieter, trembling, eyes luminous as if awash with contraband champagne. Perry undid belt-leather, clumsily; kissed him, cleaned him up, hoped that was right. This hadfeltright, but he hadn’t gone around tying up and fucking famous crime novelists, ever, either.
He tucked Patrick back into his arms, in bed, avoiding thewet spot. He rubbed a pink mark over one wrist, gently.
“Mmm,” Patrick said, half-awake. “Never exactly done that before.”
“Youwhat—”
“Oh, I’m not a virgin. Like I said, young and wealthy and I’ve been around Hollywood.” His grin flashed, drowsy and sweet. “But you know. That was just sex. This is you.”
“Hollywood—you haven’t been fucked bymotion-picture stars—”
“Only the one, only when I came out to visit the set. Half of Hollywood has boyfriends, you know, it’s just no one talks about it. But that wasn’t exactly…I mean, it was fun, but…” Patrick hesitated; his eyes went to Perry’s hand soothing his wrist, and back to Perry’s face. “I didn’t know him, really. He didn’t know me, other than as the writer. I didn’t ask him to tie me up and live out my favorite personal fantasy. Or come up with jokes about mastermind secret identities in bed. Or—or talk about being lonely.” He swallowed, hard; his throat moved, delicate, vulnerable. “You—I don’t know.”
“I’ve never done that either.” Words. They had to be true. They were Patrick’s field of expertise, not his. Perry pressed a finger into a fading pinkness, over a wrist-bone: not enough to hurt. Gestures. “Liked it, though. Would do it again, if you want to tell me what to do. All those fantasies.”
“Again,” Patrick echoed, hair a tumult of gold, body lax and spent and well-loved. “Like…more? You and me?”
“I like my job,” Perry said, slowly. “And I’ll be moving on, after this. After the next couple days.”
“Of course.” Patrick kissed him, a butterfly-wing kiss, a flutter of dandelion sadness. And then rolled away, out of bed: getting up, escaping comfort, with abrupt telling motion. Not protesting what he’d plainly heard as a rejection. “You’re good at your job. You’re a hero. They’ll need you elsewhere.”
“No. I mean…” He was doing this wrong. He touched his lips, while Patrick was hiding emotions by hunting for a shirt. He got out of bed, too. Watched Patrick swing that way, to watch him being naked.
He found a switch, turned on a lamp: honeyed color washing through the room. “I’m working while I’m here, and I’ll be busy once the Senator turns up. And I do like my job. But.”
Patrick stopped moving, at that. Eyes, face, open and listening. Forgotten shirt clutched in one hand.
Perry swallowed. The ache had moved from the kiss to his gut, his chest; it was the gulp of offering, of unsure footing, of trying. “I cover the whole Southwest region. I’d have to come and go. Where I’m sent, when they ask.”
“You’d have to…come and go.”
“If I had somewhere to come and go from.”
“If you—” Patrick stopped, licked his lips, tried again. “Yes. I mean—yes. Oh God yes.”
“I’m not getting younger, and I’ve been, as you pointed out, shot a couple times. Not retiring yet, got a couple more years in me, but maybe sooner than later. Thinking about it, anyway.”
“What would you…”
“Like I said, it’ll be a couple years.”
“I can write almost anywhere.” Patrick’s breathing had quickened. In the lamplight, the twilight, the ebbing of borders and boundaries, he was vivid sapphire and gold. “I can write in hotels. In train cars. On staircases. Ah…fancy train cars and hotels, I’ll admit.”
Perry came over to stand right in front of him. Patrick dropped the shirt like a discarded story-draft; the fabric landed noiselessly between their feet. Perry told him, “Might be interesting, traveling with you.”
