Page 42 of Hilarina and the Ogre

“Sex?”

Hilary nodded, the motion sharp. He realized he was short of breath, like he’d been sprinting forward—toward this and him and always Trenton his whole life.

Trenton smiled again, so soft it made his vision blur a little.

“Goose. In that way, you’re like me. You won’t enjoy that kind of thing.”

“I might. If it were you. Nothing could be bad with you.”

“Ah.” Trenton’s face dropped to his shoulder, the weight of it entirely welcome. “I’ll become addicted to this. I won’t let you get away with being stingy anymore.”

Hilary’s face was burning again. “I’m not stingy.”

“You are. Holding out on me when you’ve had these kinds of words inside you all this time. Give me your poetry, your sweet courtship. Look at you, how powerful you are. I’m hopeless against you.”

Hilary was beginning to tremble, all the air that wasn’t Trenton unbearably cold against his skin. “Make love to me.”

He’d never said that phrase before. Never so much as thought it. Voicing it aloud should have had him decomposing in embarrassment.

"I do,” Trenton said, voice hoarse with meaning it. “I never stop. What’s any of this but making love?”

Hilary got his hands up beneath that shirt, the trembling like a palsy now. “Take it off. Please, I need—”

Trenton had it off in a moment. The boy wouldn’t refuse him. Trenton never refused him anything. And then he was in those arms, their burning warmth.

“You’re shaking,” Trenton said.

“I’m cold.” It came out like a whine, an overtired toddler. “Hold me.”

“I have you.”

But he wanted more. It was like Trenton had said; the distance between them was unbearable.

Trenton clicked his tongue. "Look at you. Would something hot to drink help?”

Hilary didn’t know how someone so smart could be so frighteningly stupid.

“It’s you. I don’t want anything else. Please—”

"You have me. You've always had me, Hil. Even before you wanted me, you had me.”

Trenton stood, but Hilary’s panic was unnecessary. The boy was holding him up, just as close and just as tight. Still, he wrapped his legs around that waist to make sure he remained properly secured. Thankfully, Trenton didn’t seem to find anything strange about that, making his way to the bathroom easily, holding Hilary up with a single arm as he tested the shower water.

“Told you the muscle was triple,” Hilary muttered.

“Not another word, darling, or I’ll kiss you again.”

“What kind of threat—”

The kiss was wet. They’d just stepped under the water. In a minute, his underwear was sagging with it. “Trent.”

“Here. You can step out of them.”

“Yours too.”

It was overwhelming, both expected and unexpected. When he gasped, Trenton told him to be quiet. No—begged it of him. “Don’t. I can’t love you anymore than this. I won’t function.”

So he made the sound again, hoping it was true, that he really did have the power to make Trenton as helpless as he felt already.