"They're always down. That's the rule."
"You're making a point with it tonight."
"Maybe I'm following instructions." His mouth curves, a dark, knowing smile. "Isn't that what you like?"
I lean in and kiss him harder, and this time his hand lifts, fingers closing around my jaw, his thumb finding the cut from this morning and holding there for a beat before he digs into the hinge below my ear. The grip isn't gentle, and the bite of it sends a shock through my teeth and jerks my hips forward. He holds me there, adjusting the angle until he has the kiss the way he wants it, the pressure of his fingers against bone, the hot slide of his tongue deeper. Then he releases my jaw, his fist closing in the front of my shirt as he falls back onto the mattress and pulls me down with him in the same motion. The fabric tears a little at the collar, a ripping sound that seems loud in the quiet and sends a jolt straight to my cock.
Shirts come off, a frantic tangle of arms and cotton that ends up on the floor beside the bed. The cold air hits my bare chest, pebbling my skin, but then his hands are on me, moving across my chest, tracing the ink that spreads from my sternum across my shoulders. He follows lines he's memorized, calluses scraping lightly. The drag over my nipples, rough and deliberate, makes my hips jerk forward before I can stop them, my cock now fully hard and pressing against the fly of my jeans like it's trying to break free. I pin his shoulders to the mattress, holding his upper body down. His lower back arches off the sheets, hiships lifting to meet mine until a low, rough sound escapes him, caught tight between his teeth but leaking out anyway. The hard line of his erection presses against my stomach through his sweats, and the heat of it burns through the fabric.
"Let me hear it," I say, my mouth against his ear, my breath hot on his skin.
"Then make me."
I grip his jaw and tilt his head back, and the stretch of his throat under the dim blue light from the window shows the pulse beating hard beneath the skin. My mouth closes over the tendon there, teeth pressing hard enough to leave a mark that will fade before morning: the salt taste of him, the vibration of his groan under my lips. He rolls his hips against my thigh, a slow, deliberate grind that drags a groan from my own throat. The friction is maddening, the heat of him through fabric making my own cock throb.
"Dante."
"Quiet."
"You told me to be loud. Pick a lane."
"My lane. My rules."
"Six years of your rules," he says, but his voice is rough and his hips drive up against mine, his torso sliding higher until his cock is hard against my stomach through the thin sweats. Whatever argument his mouth is making, his hips disagree, rocking up in a needy rhythm that makes my control fray at the edges.
I let go of his jaw and reach between us. His sweats are thin, and when my hand closes around him through the fabric, the heat and weight of him in my palm makes my own cock twitch, pre-come dampening my boxers. His head drops back against the pillow, a hard exhale punching out of him.
"Still arguing?" I ask, squeezing gently, making him jump in my hand.
"Fuck. No."
I tug the waistband down and wrap my hand around him bare, slow from base to tip. He's hot and already leaking against my palm, and for a second my lungs forget how to work. His cock is thick, the skin soft, the head slick with pre-come. I twist slightly at the head, the way I learned sophomore year in the back seat of my car. It pulls the air out of him, just like it did the first time I figured out the exact rotation that makes his hips lift off whatever surface he's lying on. It still works: his chest jerks up and his hips thrust into my grip, helpless and hungry.
"Hold still."
"I'm trying."
"Try harder."
"You try harder. You're the one—" His voice fractures when I tighten my grip, a raw, choked sound. "Okay. Okay. Holding still."
My other hand presses against his hip, holding him flat against the mattress. I know the bone under my palm the way I know the boards along the far side of the rink, by touch, by years of contact, the scar below his hip from a skate blade junior year sitting under my thumb like a secret.
He could shove back, but the hand not twisted in the sheets comes up between us instead and finds my wrist, the one holding his hip down. His fingers close around it, his thumb pressing lightly against my pulse. The touch isn't restraining.
I look down at his hand. He doesn't move it. In six years, he's held my wrist before, but never like this, never with this quiet, relentless focus. My pulse kicks harder under his thumb, betraying me, and the heat in my gut coils tighter.
I bend over him, my mouth moving across his collarbone, down his chest, over the ridge of his stomach. The muscle contracts a half-second before my lips arrive because his body has learned to anticipate the path. He's warm, salt and soap on my tongue. I shift my weight back, knees moving downthe mattress, mouth tracking with them, dragging open kisses across his abs and the cut of his hip. His fingers slide into my hair, threading through, tugging lightly. When I take the head of his cock into my mouth, the briny taste of pre-come hits my tongue a moment before the raw, shattered sound he makes tears through the quiet room. It's the sound he only makes in dark rooms with the door closed, the one that took me two years to earn and that I'd know in a crowd of thousands. The hand from his wrist comes up and grips his thigh, holding it wide against the mattress while I move. His fingers tighten in my hair, not guiding, only holding on, his hips lifting into my mouth with a rhythm that's his, not mine. I let him. I let him set the pace until my own control starts to fray, my jaw aching, my cock throbbing with each suck.
"D. I'm close."
I pull back, breath warm against his wet skin. "Turn over."
He does, shifting beneath me until he's face down, his arms braced against the mattress, the long line of his back visible in the pale glow from the window. I slide my palm down his spine, slowly, and the shudder that runs through him lands in my own bones. He's hot under my hand, his muscles tense. I spread his cheeks, my thumb brushing over the tight entrance of him, and he shivers, rocking back slightly.
"You're mine," I say, my voice rough, the words scraping my throat.
A second passes, thick and waiting.
