by N. J. Lysk
Keenan was pretty sure he made as much noise as Carry himself, but he couldn’t seem to focus on anything but his lover’s little whimpers right next to his ear as they crested together, clutching tight at each other’s arms, legs locked, bodies moving in perfect unison.
His orgasm made him seize just as Carry pushed down. The fingernails embedding themselves into his skin didn’t even process as painful as the pleasure washed through him like a wave suddenly knocking him under—overpowering everything else: sight, and sound, and smell.
Except one: the caramel scent grown so intense he could taste it.
His arms were tight around Carry. Too tight, he thought for a moment, but he didn’t have time to loosen his hold before Carry’s cock slid like sweet overly-sensitive torture against his own again and he was crying out against Keenan’s collarbone, head bent and body curling tight as he reached his own climax.
“I’m okay,” Carry said and Keenan realised he’d been shushing him, rubbing his back slowly as if he needed to be soothed. He stopped but didn’t relinquish his hold. He was already questioning whether that was presumptuous when Carry lifted his head enough to look him in the face—his hair a tangled halo around his head. “Was it...?”
Keenan laughed, too full of joy to hold it back. “Are you serious?
Carry didn’t take the amusement well. He pulled back enough that Keenan had to let go and once he was upright—a pornographic vision of smooth skin any museum would have envied—and come stains Keenan wanted to... He rolled off the bed altogether.
“Carry? It was good!” he said too quickly. “It was— It was really good, and it was just...”
Carry finally turned to look at him again, shifting in place. Keenan firmly kept his eyes on his face, even though Carry’s own eyes kept wandering past his own. “Just what?”
“Rubbing off.” He smelled sweet still but there was a note of acidity in there as well. “Just tell me what’s worrying you, I can’t— I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
Carry shook his head, hands holding his own elbows, body bent forward. “Nothing. I told you; I have never done this.”
“Well, it’s easier if you’re closer...” Keenan offered.
His teammate glanced up and then, unexpectedly, he licked his lips and gave a tiny nod. Keenan pushed himself further up the bed until he was leaning against the headboard. He was on top of the covers and completely exposed, but Carry walked closer and sat in the space formed by the curve of his bent leg, tentatively placing a hand on his thigh. It burned like a brand and Keenan looked up from the pale fingers against his skin already breathing a little raggedly. The way Carry’s sweet scent peaked when their eyes met only made it harder not to move. “Is there... Other than no biting and no knotting...” He gulped, aroused by the image despite the fact that the act was out of bounds.
“No orders,” Carry whispered. He sounded like it hurt him to say. It hurt Keenan too and he was too close to hide his flinch. Carry’s grip on him tightened. “I don’t— I know you don’t want to. But... I don’t know if your instincts... I just— You asked me.”
Keenan gave a shaky exhale, trying to concentrate on how hard Carry was holding on instead of... of how afraid he was. Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? He was afraid. Because Keenan could hurt him, could make him... Except that wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t do this if Carry didn’t...
“It hurts,” he said softly. Carry pulled his hand away so fast he nearly overbalanced and Keenan reached for him and hauled him back by his hand. Carry stopped moving, looking down at their hands, smelling like salt and sugar, wrong and confused. “That you have to ask me,” Keenan clarified and had to turn his face away to be able to continue. “Even though I have tried so hard to be careful, to— I don’t want to do this if you are afraid of me.”
He heard Carry swallow and felt him slump forward, long hair brushing his shoulder and body slackening in... He smelled of smoke and rain. Sadness, he thought, or was the smoke closer to anger? “I can’t help it,” he confessed in a low, pained tone. “I know you are not like that, but... But I’m still scared. Not... Not of you, of... of what could happen. Between us, because...”
Keenan’s body turned towards him. He put his other hand on his shoulder and Carry took it as the invitation it was and leaned further in until his face was pressed against Keenan’s neck. He held him close, hoping it wasn’t too tight, but Carry just borrowed closer. “Because I’m an alpha and you’re an omega.”
“Yes.” The answer came wet and muffled against his own skin.
“I can’t help it either,” he said softly. He’d told the reporters it made things awkward, but it’d never made things this hard. That’s what Carry had meant.
Carry clutched at him. “I know. I—I’m sorry.”
“No.” He refused to accept an apology for something neither of them had done. “You can’t be sorry for what you need.”
“What I need...” Carry repeated through gritted teeth. “I—What about what I want?”
“No,” he repeated. “Someone very smart told me once we can’t help our thoughts, only what we do. This is the same.”
Carry was silent, then he swallowed hard and asked, soft but firm, “So I should just let you go?”
He couldn’t help it, he tightened his arms around him. “Don’t,” he asked, and his voice broke even in such a short word.
“But I’ll... I’ll make things hard, and it’ll hurt you.”
Keenan hesitated, then slid his arm down Carry’s back until it surrounded his waist instead. The urge to look him in the eyes, to make him see was overwhelming. It was also the wrong one: Carry didn’t need to see him, but to listen. “It will make things hard. Yeah, sure, it makes it hard for you, doesn’t it? That the things you need and the things you want aren’t the same. And if I... to be with you, I’d have to take that on. I understand that.”
“So I’m a burden.”
Keenan pretended not to notice the way he’d gone stiff. “And I’m not? You know I’m not going to stop speaking about omega rights and that’s bound to get me noticed. If we’re together—”
“That’s not the same, that’s other people. This... The way I am, that would affect how things are between us even when we’re alone.”
“Like Galicia Sanderson’s fame affected her relationship, you mean?” he asked, and Carry startled so violently he might have fallen off the bed if Keenan hadn’t been holding him.
He had to let go when Carry pushed against his chest. But it was just so he could look him in the face. “You—That was—”
Keenan shrugged, fingers curling over his own lap. “I don’t know, you made an impression. I looked it up afterwards.”
Carry dropped his gaze—he smelled sweet again, but Keenan could tell he was not completely convinced. He pressed his fingers against Carry’s elbow, then let them travel down his arm until he could take hold of his hand instead. “Listen, everyone hurts each other. You said... You said you’d let people close and they hurt’d you. That’s just how it goes.” It was true, in theory, but it still turned his stomach to speak of what Puccio had done like that—like it might be forgivable. He had to swallow before he could continue, “I’m going to hurt you too. Not— Not like that,” he said, even though Carry knew that much, at least rationally. “But I’ll say the wrong thing, and annoy you, and not listen properly on the ice. And you will too. And maybe part of it will be because we’re not bonded, but so what? Bonded couples fight all the time, it’s not like it fixes everything.”
Carry darted a glance at his face. “You really don’t...”
“What?”
“You really don’t want to bond? Or...”
Keenan’s heart contracted because he wished it were that simple. “It sounds nice, being close like that. And I like the bond as it is. But no, I don’t want to bond you, because you’d hate it.”
“So you’re giving it up for me?”
“Giving up wha
t? The imaginary bond I have with some other version of you who’d want it?”
Carry’s shoulders seemed about to collapse. “It doesn’t have to be me.”
He exhaled. “Okay, that is the worst declaration of love I have ever heard,” he told him.
Carry huffed in annoyance, but at least he looked a little more lively. “I’m serious. It—”
Keenan reached out and placed two fingers on his lips, shaking his head. Carry was glaring at him, but he didn’t speak when Keenan took them away. “That’s not an option for me, okay? You have to take my word for it. You can walk away. Any time. But... I won’t. This isn’t what I expected, or what I thought I wanted, or what other people think I should want, and I don’t give a fuck, Carry. You walked into my life and turned my world upside down, and... Maybe I’m crazy, but I like it like this. I like the person I have become because of you.”
“I like it too,” Carry admitted, reluctantly. Keenan wasn’t sure if he wanted to be right or it was just hard for him to talk about his feelings in this context. Maybe he could learn to tell.
“Okay, so you are afraid it’ll blow up in our faces,” he guessed. “I get that. But I know you. You don’t need to know things will end okay to try your best. I have seen you keep playing like you’ll die if you lose even when there was no way to make up the points. And you are here. In the team, I mean. And talent alone doesn’t get you that. No way there’s only five omegas talented enough to be in the league.”
Carry met Keenan’s eyes like he needed to see something there. Keenan let him—he had nothing left to hide. He was so lost in his own observation it took him a moment to notice the growing scent of caramel invading the room. He blinked and closed his eyes and opened himself up to it. He wondered if he’d know where Carry was even if they weren’t touching. He thought he could make out the slight tension of his muscles, but—
“Tell me again.”
He blinked his eyes open. Carry was watching him, they were still holding hands and the side of Keenan’s arm was pressed to Carry’s naked thigh, but their skin didn’t feel like much compared to being submerged in Carry’s scent. He felt too dazed to follow Carry’s convoluted train of thought, but there was something he had to say anyway, “I love you.”
Carry made a punched out whimpering sound, tensing up before turning his face away, clenching his eyes shut.
Only then did Keenan understand he’d said the wrong thing.
His heart was beating hard and he was— Carry’s heart was beating hard, Keenan could just feel it. His own joined the race with joy, desperate to be closer still and he found his hand tightening on Carry’s. “Fuck, Keenan,” his lover said quietly. “That— I—” He lifted his head like it weighed tons. “I love you too,” he said, softly but without hesitation. He didn’t meet Keenan’s eyes, but Keenan didn’t need him to.
He had an instant of understanding before it went through him like lightening, Carry’s emotions strong enough to leave him shaky. An impossible mix of desire, admiration, frustration and... there was a little fear there, too. But now Keenan could hear beyond the word; it wasn’t what Keenan might do that haunted Carry, but uncertainty itself.
He brought Carry close, sure for once of his welcome. Carry held him back tightly. “You are a dick,” he murmured against the soft blond hair.
“You did it first,” Carry accused, not sounding much put-out.
“You asked me to!”
“I meant... the other stuff,” Carry explained, he shifted so he was seated in Keenan’s lap.
Keenan hummed. It seemed ridiculous right now, after feeling what he’d felt from Carry... what were some doubts? Somehow Carry managed to... love him despite them. Maybe he’d never be able to forget, but Keenan didn’t need him to forget who he’d been and what he’d been through. He wanted only one promise: that he wasn’t falling on his own. The gods alone knew where they’d land, and only the gods needed to. Keenan was going in to give it his all, and so was Carry.
He didn’t know how to do anything else.
“Do you want me to say it?”
“No,” Carry said, sounding moody. He’d pulled back from the embrace slightly and inhaled deeply, holding Keenan’s face with a tenderness it was hard to believe of him. Keenan was almost sure that the tight, desperate feelings in his chest were his own, or perhaps they belonged to them both. Perhaps it had finally happened, with no need for a bite or even fucking... they understood each other enough to believe themselves loved.
He bit down the words, knowing it would be too much to have them spoken again when they were already so close. Maybe Carry knew it was best to keep his mouth occupied, because he chose that moment to claim another kiss.
It was just another kiss, which was to say that it was just another breath he’d desperately needed and couldn’t relinquish for the world—body and soul demanding he suck on Carry’s tongue and live.
THEY ENDED UP FLAT on the bed again, Carry’s weight anchoring him to reality—the only thing that mattered in the world. He was hard, and so was Carry, but the kissing seemed too important to interrupt and their hands had plenty to do with the skin they could reach.
He didn’t mean to detour to the back of Carry’s thighs, but Carry found a particularly enjoyable angle and let out a little whimper right against his lips that had his fingers clenching on his buttocks out of pure reflex.
Keenan grunted, the image of Carry’s arse flashing through his mind like an arrow. Carry paused, lifting his head, scent projecting his surprise. “What— What was that?”
Keenan opened his eyes and found Carry so close he had to squint. “I—I just—”
Carry shook his head, leaning back a little further and demanded, “Tell me.”
“I want to fuck you,” he confessed.
They breathed together, hearts racing like they were both afraid of being left behind... And then, like the sun cresting over the horizon after a night of darkness, Carry nodded.
Keenan’s cock throbbed between them and he had to thank his self-control as well as the previous orgasm for his continued immobility. He’d promised Carry he was under control. And he would be.
Nothing worth having was ever easy.
"Do you want lube?" he asked, voice crackling like his vocal cords had forgotten how to work.
Carry's smile on top of him was all teeth. "Not up to the task?"
"What? I just meant—"
"Sorry," Carry said at once, squeezing his arm where he was using it to hold himself up. "I'm just... I want to." He licked his lips, eyelashes hiding his eyes for a second. "I want you to get me wet."
Keenan gulped down hard, vision blurring a little, possibly because all his blood had taken a nosedive straight down. He gave himself a second for the worst of it to pass, then he signalled his intention to move right. Carry went with it like it was a pass, letting them roll onto their sides so they were facing each other.
“Should I use my mouth?” he checked, suddenly uncertain. He’d stretched Carry before, but that was heat so he’d been wet already...
Carry’s eyes went wide and he inhaled like Keenan had punched him in the chest before shaking his head as much as his position allowed. He opened his mouth, but he had to swallow before he could produce words, “Just— touch me?”
Keenan smiled. “Okay,” he agreed. This was nearly too much already—not the sex, because he was a bit too nervous about the details just now, but the idea that he’d get to learn how to do this. He wasn’t going to be asked to leave this behind, to pretend it meant nothing or something less than it did.
He rubbed his fingertips against the soft curve of Carry’s buttocks, listening to his lover’s ragged breathing as he followed the line between his cheeks.
“Keenan,” Carry said, half complaint, half plea.
Keenan gave him what he wanted, pushed his fingers in the warm space and Carry clenched at once, shuddering hard as Keenan’s fingertips discovered the space wet with more than sweat. He froze and g
lanced up at Carry, feeling the way his body was unwinding through the bond. It wasn’t visible; Carry was still propped on his elbow and had his jaw clenched tight. Keenan thought about lying him down and asking him to bend his legs. But he didn’t want to let go. He used his hand—fingers wet—to tug Carry forward instead. The other man flailed and reached for him to keep himself from falling, face pressing to Keenan’s shoulder. “Bend your knee,” he asked him softly.
Carry didn’t speak, but he did what he asked, letting his head fall forward onto Keenan’s chest and bending his leg between Keenan’s own. Keenan rewarded him by rubbing two fingers against the puckered skin of his hole and Carry spasmed like he’d been electrocuted.
“Yeah,” Keenan murmured. “Open for me.” He pushed the tip of his finger past the wet skin—it was hot inside, but slick enough he could keep pushing all the way. Carry’s weight half on top of him had gone slack. Keenan could feel his cock, still hard against his hipbone and in his mind... easy and pliant, a sensuous pleasure slowly mounting in intensity.
It was nothing like the demanding desperation of heat. He rubbed his finger inside, hoping for a reaction and got a soft, dazed moan that convinced him to add another finger. Carry grumbled in protest when he withdrew and then exhaled happily when two fingers breached him instead.
“Good?” Keenan couldn’t resist but ask.
Carry let out a breathy laugh that echoed through Keenan’s mind, then shoved his dick against him in response, clenching around the fingers penetrating him in a way that made Keenan bite his own lip hard to keep from...
“Gimme another,” Carry said, voice gravelly and sensual. “I won’t break.”
“I told you I have never done this,” Keenan reminded him.
Carry lifted his head just enough to meet his eyes. He was smiling, pupils blown as if he was high. “You have,” he assured him.
“That was heat—”
“No,” Carry said. “You have fucked someone before.”