Declination

by Gregory Ashe

  “Please,” North said, a playful pout drawing down his lips. “For my birthday?”

  For a moment, Shaw considered it: the cuffs were the next step, a way for Shaw to be in control. He’d never be vulnerable. He’d never get hurt. And North was willing to give him all of that, to do whatever it took so that Shaw, as messed up as he was, could be part of his life. Shaw blinked, trying to clear his eyes, not quite able to look at North. It was too much. No one could give that much, give so much, and not, eventually resent it. And one day North would resent Shaw. He’d get tired of the games. Get tired of the accommodations. It would work tonight, and next week, and next month. But next year? Five years? Ten years?

  I want you to know that I’ll do scary things to be with you.

  North had come here. He had put on the Ryo costume. He had told the truth, his heart pounding in his chest like he’d run a marathon.

  And what had Shaw done? Shaw had done what he’d done so often lately. He’d played it safe. He’d tried to step back to friends. He’d seen something scary, and he’d backpedaled. Hard.

  He kissed North. And then he kissed him again. And again, his mouth crushing North’s, aware that he was bruising North’s lips, but spurred by panic. He could feel that familiar lightness inside him, that flare followed by darkness. And this time, Shaw refused to give in to it.

  “Baby,” North said, pulling back from the next kiss, his pupils blown wide. “Baby, put those fucking cuffs on me right now.”

  “Get the costume. The Akira costume.”

  “Oh fuck,” North groaned. “That is so fucking hot.” He rolled off the bed and trotted toward the hall closet.

  Shaw was shaking too hard to stand, so he kicked his way free of his clothes. Then he lay back on the bed, feeling behind him for the headboard. He slid his hands between the rails. The cuffs snicked shut around his wrists.

  “Please let me help you put this on,” North was saying as he came back with a bundle of clothing. “I might even want to jerk you off while you—Shaw, no way. Not a chance.”

  “Too late,” Shaw said, his heart thumping so loudly in his chest that he couldn’t hear himself.

  “Take them off. No fucking way. If you want to do this, we’ll build up to it, we’ll—”

  “You don’t know where the key is, North. And I’m not going to tell you.”

  “I’ll kick out every fucking rail on the headboard. That’ll solve the problem.”

  “North, please. I want to do this. I want to try, ok? I want to do scary things to be with you too. Let’s just try.”

  “Will you tell me where the key is? If it’s too much and you have a panic attack—”

  “I won’t.”

  “Shaw, it’s not magic. You can’t just decide you’re not going to have a panic attack. I don’t want you to—”

  “North, I won’t.”

  “How are you so fucking sure?”

  “Because you’ll take care of me.”

  North shook his head, wiping at his eyes. “Shaw—”

  “Please. Dr. Farr gave me some . . . some CBT exercises.

  North’s eyebrows went up.

  “Cognitive behavioral therapy,” Shaw said hastily. “Not the other thing. And I’ve been trying them.” That was a lie. “I’m going to try them. I’ll keep trying them.”

  Dropping the costume, North crossed to the bed. He shrugged out of the coat and shoes and climbed onto the mattress, kneeling next to Shaw in the white shirt and trousers. Shaw was shaking; the cuffs rattled. North touched the side of Shaw’s face and met his eyes.

  “I’m ok,” Shaw whispered.

  The streetlight painted North, reflecting off the white clothing so that North shone. He was still cupping Shaw’s cheek, just that touch, and Shaw was shaking so hard he thought he might come just like that, just from that touch.

  “Right now, I’m supposed to tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that you might not want anything bad to happen to me, but you might hit your head or get hit by a car, and then I’d be stuck here.”

  “How about I don’t leave the bed?”

  Shaw licked his lips. “And I’m . . . I’m catastrophizing. I’m thinking we’re going to have sex, and I’m going to have a full-on panic attack, and you’ll hate me and you’ll never talk to me again and you might leave me cuffed here for Pari.”

  North nodded.

  “You’re going to see the scar on my balls and realize how ugly I am and hate me and never talk to me again.”

  North’s brow furrowed. He lowered himself, slowly, until his breath steamed against Shaw’s cock. Then his lips grazed Shaw’s balls, and he whispered, “This scar?”

  Shaw shuddered; chills ran through him, prickling his skin, raising goosebumps.

  “I’m . . .” Shaw’s voice sounded thick and wooly, even to him. “I’m supposed to do cognitive restructuring in situations like this.”

  “Like when your boyfriend has you handcuffed to the bed and is about to screw you senseless?” North ran a hand down Shaw’s belly, and Shaw whimpered. “Tell me about cognitive restructuring.”

  “I’m supposed to breathe.”

  “Breathe, baby.”

  “And I’m supposed to remind myself that my emotional reactions are not the same as my intellectual reactions.”

  North rubbed his chest slowly. “Keep breathing.”

  “I’m supposed to remind myself of the facts, the evidence, the reality of the situation.”

  “That’s right. Nice, slow breaths.”

  Shaw bit his lip, shivering through another breath. “You kicked down my door when I had my first panic attack.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You rescued me when I couldn’t leave my bedroom. When I couldn’t go out and do anything, you dragged me out.”

  North’s hand massaged Shaw’s chest and belly.

  “You visited me in the hospital. You hit Tucker when he made up a mean name for me. You visited me almost every day sophomore year when I was recovering.”

  “You always had pizza.”

  Shaw laughed; tears, hot and stinging, clung to the corners of his eyes. But he could feel something shifting, changing. Heat rolled through his body in waves. He arched up into North’s touch. His skin was on fire.

  “You came for me,” he tried to say, but the words were jumbled. “When Matty tried to kill me.”

  North didn’t speak, but his answer was a low growl.

  Letting out a shaky breath, Shaw whispered, “Oh fuck.”

  North’s hand traced a half-circle on Shaw’s belly, low. “Yeah?”

  Every inch of Shaw was blazing. He thrust up, seeking contact, shaking so hard he thought he might hurt himself. “Oh fuck, North. Oh fuck. Oh fuck, I can’t . . . I can’t believe how much I need you right now. Please. North, please. I need you right now.”

  “Do you remember,” North asked with low, familiar heat, “our first time? I stood there, and you touched me.”

  Shaw nodded jerkily.

  “You touched me until I was almost out of my mind. Do you remember?”

  “Yes,” Shaw said, the word a broken noise.

  “And only when I was out of my mind from you touching, touching, touching, did you take me to bed?”

  “Don’t—” Shaw was trying to get enough air, and he wasn’t sure if it was panic or desire or a cocktail of both. “Don’t be mean.”

  “Oh baby,” North said with a small smile. “Payback is a bitch.”

  Shaw drew in a shuddering breath, and North let his fingers brush Shaw’s chest, his collarbone, buttonhooking back to the hollow of his throat. He brushed his fingers down Shaw’s chest, and Shaw had to close his eyes. He could see the touch in his mind, like brushstrokes in glow-in-the-dark paint. A part of his brain was rambling about synesthesia, translating touch into color, but Shaw didn’t care about synesthesia. He cared about the way every inch of skin that North touched felt like
it was glowing.

  “Uh uh,” North whispered. “Eyes open, baby.”

  Shaw whined.

  The fingers stopped just below his breastbone.

  Eyelids fluttering, Shaw forced himself to look up into North’s face, the way the gray light from the street filled the hollow of North’s cheeks, the sockets of his eyes, limned the familiar beauty that Shaw had spent so much of his life wanting to reach out and touch. Shaw had forgotten the cuffs, and when he reached for North, metal clanked, and Shaw moaned.

  North shushed him; his eyes didn’t leave Shaw’s, but his fingers began moving again, trailing down Shaw’s stomach. “I know you’re sensitive here,” North said with familiar low heat, and he pressed gently on the spot low on Shaw’s belly, just above the tangle of reddish-brown hair.

  Shaw bucked up into the touch, whimpering.

  As quickly as the pressure had come, North eased away, and Shaw flopped back onto the bed, trembling. Then North pressed again, palpating now, his fingers working up and down. Shaw arched his back, thrusting into the touch, and again North pulled away.

  “North,” Shaw said, throwing his head to the side. “Don’t.”

  Fingers stilled just above that spot, feather light. “Don’t?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know, I just want—”

  North shushed him again, his hand making small circles on that spot, the friction a disc of heat and light in Shaw’s mind, but not enough to give Shaw what he wanted. He could feel himself, hard and leaking just a few inches below North’s touch. He could feel the tightness in his throat. A sob building.

  “I know you’re sensitive here,” North said again, another light touch, another shudder passing through Shaw. “But what about here?” His fingers tumbled over the tangle of hair between Shaw’s legs, veered around his dick, and then North curled his fingers, raking his nails high along the inside of Shaw’s thigh.

  Shaw yelped. He didn’t expect it. He didn’t even feel it build. The sensation was so intense, so overwhelming, that the sound ripped from his throat before he could even process what he was feeling. North pulled back, and Shaw rocked his head into his arm, trying not to cry. Every nerve felt like it was on fire. Every inch of him was so sensitive that when North shifted, when air hot from his body wicked over Shaw, Shaw wanted to sob.

  “You still with me, baby?”

  Biting his arm, Shaw made some sort of noise.

  “Good or bad?”

  Another wet, helpless sound.

  “Words, Shaw.”

  “Good.”

  “You’re not going away?”

  Shaw shook his head. North ran his hand over Shaw’s forehead, gathering sweat, rubbing the bristles of buzzed hair.

  “Good,” North whispered. “Because I want you to feel this.”

  He gripped each of Shaw’s knees, forcing his legs apart, and then his tongue laved the tender flesh his nails had raked. The velvet roughness of his tongue was complemented by the grit of stubble burning across the tender skin high on the inside of Shaw’s thighs. Then North would withdraw his tongue, and he would bite, and then he would suckle, and then he would draw his tongue over the savaged flesh—hot and wet, and somehow a kind of cool relief after the intensity of his teeth, his stubble.

  Shaw sobbed openly now, his head whipping back and forth, making noises he hadn’t known he could make. Fragments of speech came to him, and he shouted. Please. Fuck. God. Yes. No. But mostly please. And then even those fragments disappeared, and all he could do was thrust and buck and whimper.

  Then North was leaning over him again, his eyes pale and lunar in the streetlight. “Good or bad, baby?”

  “Good,” Shaw said, but he couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop sobbing.

  North ran his fingers over Shaw’s face again, and then his mouth was at Shaw’s ear. “Next time, I’m going to eat you out.”

  All Shaw could do was moan.

  “I’m going to undo the cuffs now,” North said, still speaking softly into Shaw’s ear. “Is that ok?”

  “Yeah. Yes. Please.” Shaw had to swallow to say, “In my nightstand.”

  The drawer rattled. “I’m going to take care of you, ok?”

  Shaw nodded, but he was shaking so hard he wasn’t sure North could tell. He felt the added weight of North’s hand on the cuff, heard the clink of the key sliding into the lock.

  “You’re with me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re not going away?”

  Shaw shook his head frantically. Then one cuff fell away, then the other, and North pulled his hands from between the rails of the headboard, kissing his palms, his fingers, the red skin where the metal had held him. Shaw struggled free and reached for North, his hands shaking as he undid the buttons on the white shirt, barely able to feel the plastic as he worked it through the polyester.

  With a grin, North shrugged out of the shirt, and it slid to the floor. Shaw ran his hands over North’s chest, through the dense blond fur, over the hard planes of muscle, teasing North’s nipples with his nails, scratching hard along North’s shoulders and back where he knew it would drive North wild.

  It worked. North growled, twisting under Shaw’s touch without pulling away. “Fuck,” exploded out of him. “Fuck yeah.”

  Shaw reached down to touch himself, but North caught his wrist.

  “Not yet, baby.”

  Standing, North shucked the white trousers. He took his time entering Shaw, and Shaw mewled and thrashed and begged, wanting more, until North was inside him.

  Panting, Shaw whipped his head again. “North, I can’t—I can’t—”

  “I got you, baby.” He slid his arms under Shaw, lifting him so that they met at an angle, and then his hips rocked and he thrust into Shaw.

  Shaw wailed.

  “I got you,” North whispered.

  After that, they didn’t last long. Shaw’s climax came for him like a train, screeching through his consciousness, obliterating everything in its path. Then North’s hips stuttered, and he growled in Shaw’s ear as he bucked into Shaw without grace or coordination, just an animal need taking over in the final moments.

  They lay tangled, the sheets soaked with sweat, their chests rising and falling in a syncopated rhythm. North was the first to pull free, and he padded to the bathroom and came back with a warm washcloth and cleaned first Shaw and then himself. Stretching out next to Shaw, he kissed Shaw lightly on the jaw and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Shaw threw an arm over his eyes and laughed. Then he rolled onto his side and kissed North. “Thank you.”

  “You didn’t have to—”

  Shaw kissed him again.

  North’s ice-rim eyes studied him. “You never have to—”

  Shaw kissed him a third time.

  “Well,” North said drily, “just so we’re clear.”

  “Crystal,” Shaw said.

  Then he slid a leg over North, straddling his chest, and kissed him again. And again, but slower. And again, slower, his hand reaching behind him, finding North hardening already. He liked the soft, plosive breath that North released when Shaw’s fingers wrapped around him.

  It wasn’t a hundred percent better for Shaw; a part of him was still terrified. A part of him still wanted to run away into the darkness. But it was so much easier to choose something else. To look down into blue like the sun touching a field of ice. To smile. To say, “I just thought we should see what happened without cuffs.”

  “Right,” North breathed, his pupils dilating.

  “It’s an experiment,” Shaw said.

  “Right.” North was blinking, trying to clear his eyes.

  “Just testing a hypothesis.”

  “Right.” North’s hands were shaking as he slid them up Shaw’s thighs. And then he smiled, and it was the most vulnerable smile Shaw had ever seen on North McKinney in his entire life.

  “I love you,” Shaw whispered.

  The
smile transformed into a familiar smirk.

  “Damn right.”

  Chapter 34

  IF I HAVE TO LISTEN to the two of you going at it like a pair of howler monkeys,” Pari said when North came downstairs, “then you’re legally required to provide me with a pair of noise-canceling headphones.”

  North opened the fridge. He found a couple of the 4 Hands rye IPA, yogurt, grapes, and hummus.

  “And not the cheap ones,” Pari said. “Bose. Or Beats. Or—I’m going to find the most expensive ones.”

  In the cabinet, North found crackers. He juggled his haul and went back to the stairs.

  “It’s sexual harassment, making me listen to the two of you.”

  “If you want an outside opinion,” Truck called from the next room, “it’s really hot. Make him make that really high-pitched noise again.”

  North remembered that noise; he remembered it so vividly, in fact, that he missed a step, stubbed his toe, and swore.

  “It’s also an OSHA requirement,” Pari screamed after him. “I could sue you for endangering a vulnerable, beautiful, intelligent, and valuable employee.”

  “Talk to Shaw,” North shouted back.

  “Talk to me about what?” Shaw asked when North stepped into the bedroom and shut the door behind him.

  “Christ, who knows.” North dropped onto the bed, spread out his haul, and opened one of the beers. Then he had a cracker. “Did you know Truck is down there?”

  Shaw plucked a grape and frowned. “Oh yeah. And he had two million dollars. I put the bags over there.”

  North eyed the pair of duffel bags. “What the hell is he doing with two million dollars?”

  “He stole it from Jadon. And Jadon stole it from Taylor. Or Waggener. Or Dzeko. Somebody, I guess. It’s got to be some of the money that went missing in the Nickel Heights bust, the money IA was looking for.”

  “How did Jadon find it?”

  “Good question.”

  “How did Truck find it?”

  “Dzeko sent him after Jadon.”

  North frowned, trying to put together the sequence of events. “So, eight years ago, Parrish, Waggener, and Taylor are all working Vice. They’re already dirty, but then the Nickel Heights bust goes down. More cash and drugs in one place than anybody has ever seen in this city. And a lot of it goes missing. IA is breathing down their necks.”