Ashes and Flame

by Aiden Bates

  I bent my neck, and met him halfway, and for a dazzling, silent moment, all I could feel was the touch of his lips on mine. My lips opened first, but his followed, and his tongue came timidly out of hiding to meet mine. He tasted almost sweet, like before, but now more present, more intense. Less restrained. He gave a soft moan into my mouth, and I swallowed it and raised my hand to the back of his head to hold him closer, kiss him deeper.

  His fingers wrapped around my cock, which stood out of my jeans still, and I sucked in a sharp, small breath as he breathed into me. With a gentle grip, he tugged up, stroking me slow as we continued the exploration of one another’s mouths.

  “This isn’t why you voted to stop, is it?” I asked, my head swimming as he worked me with a kind of casual, unhurried ease.

  He gave a soft snort and shook his head. “No. Not that I wasn’t thinking about it but… you really did almost crash us. And this could be the only… well, or first chance? So I figured… may as well use it. If you’re not too tired.”

  “I’m never too tired for this,” I groaned as I let my eyes close again. His hand on my cock was bliss. I let my head fall back, sighing with a deep, bone-weary contentedness. “That feels incredible.”

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  I nodded weakly. “Yeah. Nice and slow. Like I could float here forever. It’s relaxing.”

  “You’re talkative when you feel good,” he murmured.

  “Sorry,” I muttered back. “I don’t have to be.”

  “No,” he said, and kissed my jaw. “No, I like it.”

  I grinned lazily. “Me, too.”

  “Um… Rez?”

  “Hm?”

  “Do you think for a little bit we could… pretend I’m not cursed and on the run?” he asked. “Just kind of act like we’re… I don’t know, together? And that this is just us on our way to some vacation somewhere.”

  I opened my eyes and gave him a worried, sad look. I didn’t mean to. But it made my heart ache, the way he asked, the way his voice trembled when he did. “Daniel, you’re not—”

  “I know,” he interrupted, and he sounded more tired than I was when he spoke. “Just… can we do that?”

  “Yeah,” I breathed, and kissed him. Just briefly, but with all the same heat as before—just packed into a smaller space. “We can do that.”

  He smiled, and laid his head against my chest. I leaned my head on his, breathing in the smell of him, changed only a little by the dampness of his hair.

  “It’s big,” he remarked softly.

  I grinned. “Thanks. You like it?”

  “I do,” he said, his hand still tugging slowly, as if there were no rush at all, and his only real goal was to keep me hard. “It’s pretty, too. Good shape. Nice head. I almost forgot what it felt like.”

  “Well,” I murmured, “you’re welcome to it any time. I think it likes you.”

  “I think it does,” he agreed.

  “This is nice,” I told him.

  He snuggled closer, his leg coming higher on my thigh. “Will you… is this gonna be enough?”

  “For what?” I asked, even though I knew.

  He cleared his throat quietly. “Uh… will it… you know…”

  “You’ve got your hand on my cock,” I said. “Think I’m gonna be freaked out if you talk dirty?”

  “Feels weird,” he admitted.

  I reached down and rested my hand on his. Not guiding or pushing, just touching him, trying to help him feel that I was here with him. “Your hand on my cock drives me a little wild,” I murmured against his head, and then nudged him up a little so I could find his ear. “Ever since I felt your fire against my scales, and since you let me kiss you, I’ve been thinking of you. Of this. Of what you’d feel like. How you’d touch me. Of the smell of you that makes me want to tear your clothes off and cover every inch of you with my lips. That’s just right, Daniel. Just keep tugging like that. You can make me come like this if you want. It’ll take a while, but I’ll love every second of it. And when I come, I promise, I’ll call your name, and kiss you, and I’ll be yours. Don’t be shy with me, sweet boy.”

  He shivered. Like a little vibrating fae creature against my body. His breath came ragged, and his head moved, brushing his earlobe against my lips. I nipped him, slipped my tongue along the edge of his ear, and pulled it into my mouth to suckle there. He rewarded me with a quiet moan, his grip on my cock tightening. He swallowed, and I guessed that his mouth was dry. But he managed to summon his words. “Can you take your clothes off?”

  I gave a soft, rumbling laugh and kissed his ear again. “Yeah. Of course I can.”

  He let me go just long enough that I could swing my legs off the bed and stand. His eyes remained fixed on my cock, as I stood and peeled my shirt off. I reached down, took his hand, and replaced it with a groan of approval, then kicked my shoes off and pushed my jeans down.

  When I was naked, I jerked my chin at his towel. “You want to stay in that?”

  He glanced down, gave a shy smile, and then shifted around a little to remove it. “Guess we’ve both seen it all at this point.”

  “And having my cock in your hand kind of adds a new layer to that,” I pointed out. I watched him scoot forward, and desperately wanted him to put those beautiful lips on my dick, but didn’t want to push him any further than he was happy to go.

  Some part of me was aware that, depending on the many different ways this could go, this really could be our only chance. Just this little bit of respite in a shitty situation that, while I would do everything I could to get him out of it, could very possibly take a sharp turn in the wrong direction. Normally, with any lover, I worried a little more about myself than the other person. Not that I wasn’t generous, but it takes time to get to know someone’s body, someone’s mind and heart. I tended to be up front about what I liked, what I wanted. I didn’t mind pillow talk.

  Daniel seemed reluctant to talk, though. That, I knew, meant that there was no way I could really give him what he wanted deep down. What he’d imagined this might be like.

  I reached out and tipped his chin up. “If I ask you something,” I said, “will you give me a real answer? Even if it’s embarrassing? Even if you think I’ll judge you for what you say?”

  His eyes grew uncertain. His hand relaxed on my cock, but didn’t let go. “I… don’t know.”

  I urged him back, and crawled onto the bed, then retook my place at the headboard. He snuggled back against me like before, but now I could feel his skin on mine. I could feel his cock pressed to my thigh. I put his hand on my cock, started him stroking again. It seemed like he was comfortable this way. Relaxed. And his body eased and melted against mine after a moment.

  “I want you to tell me your fantasies,” I murmured into his hair while my fingers trailed along his side. “Whatever they are. Anything that you think about. Pretend we’ve known each other forever, like you said, and we’re on our way to a nice, long vacation. There’s no trouble, nothing to worry about. And you already know that you can tell me anything.”

  He made a nervous sound against my chest. “Fantasies,” he breathed. “Uh… I don’t know. I haven’t… I haven’t had time to think about anything like that in a long time. Years.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Close your eyes. Feel my cock in your hand, how hard you get me. What do you want? Deep down. You can tell me anything. I promise, I’ll listen. And I’ll give it to you. Anything you want.”

  Maybe he thought the same thing that I had. That time could be short. That we might only have this, and that it was better to make the most of it. I expected him to tell me something… I don’t know—dirty? Erotic? If he could build up the courage that I knew it would take to admit something like that.

  I didn’t expect what he told me when he pressed tighter against me. “Can you just… can you… make me feel like you…”

  “Anything,” I breathed, and tightened my arm around him. “Anything, Daniel.”

  His body
shook once, and I realized that it was a quiet, contained sob. “Can you make me feel like you love me?”

  Fuck. The gods were cruel pricks, and in that moment I hated that they had let anything happen to him. My heart cracked. I pulled him closer, tugged at his knee, urged him onto my lap, and lifted his chin when he wouldn’t raise his eyes to me. There were tears there, pooled in his eyelids and trailing down his cheek. My own burned in response.

  How lonely, how rejected, how long without love did a person have to be, that their fantasy was to feel it one more time?

  “Daniel,” I croaked. “Fuck. Come here. Come here, baby.”

  He leaned in when I pulled him. His thighs tightened around my hips. I encircled him with my arms and crushed his lips to mine. Exhaustion grew distant as I poured my whole world into this moment, this place, and opened my heart wide to this sweet, broken boy who could have asked me to spank him, choke him, tie him up and milk him for hours, or to do the same to me, but instead just wanted to pretend that he was loved.

  So he was.

  “I do,” I breathed against his lips. “I do love you, Daniel. Baby. Sweet boy.”

  When he pulled back, the look on his face was more pained than relieved. “Just… make love to me. Don’t… don’t say it.”

  My lips pressed tight. I nodded once, and then settled my hands on his hips as I kissed his chest. He rested his hands on my shoulders in turn, and then let his arms slip around the back of my neck as I found his nipple and gnawed gently at the taut little nub of it, sucking and licking as he groaned and shuddered against me. My cock pressed against his between us, and I rocked, grinding against him.

  When his response to my nibbling just started to wane, I moved to the other, and then explored him as if he was all that existed in the universe—his collarbone, his neck. I lifted his arm and snuffled at his pits, kissing and licking anything I could find that made his breath catch or his voice give up proof that I’d found where he was most sensitive. I reached between us, found my cock leaking with excitement and anticipation, my balls having already boiled over since he first put his lips against me. Even before that, when I first started thinking of him.

  I milked a small gush of precum from myself, and spread it around between our two cocks—mine thick and long, his delicate and narrow, and gripped us both in my big hand to stroke us together.

  He gave a whimper that became a long, trembling moan as he held my face and chewed at my upper lip, then dug for my tongue with his and invited it in. His lips closed around it, and he suckled as I worked us with a tight, slick fist that grew more slippery as I leaked between us.

  “Talk to me,” he breathed. “Like before. Gods, you feel good. So warm, so… fuck, Rez, that feels… more… please, more…”

  “Beautiful,” I breathed against his neck. “Beautiful boy, you like the way my cock feels against yours?”

  “Mm,” he moaned.

  “I wanna make you come like this,” I purred, “feel you shoot your load between us. Coat me, get me slick with it so I can slide inside your perfect little ass. You want that, baby? You want to feel me inside you?”

  “Rez,” he groaned, pressing his cheek to mine, “I’m so close… I want… want you to…”

  “It’s okay, sweet boy,” I whispered, “tell me what you want.”

  “Want you to…” he swallowed, whined, bucked against me, thrusting into my hand against my cock. “Make me… please make me… so close…”

  “Are you?” I asked, and pulled his head closer to get my mouth at his ear. “Are you so close, beautiful?”

  “Rez,” he whined again. His voice came out almost a squeal. “Make me come, Rez. Make me come, please I want—I want—”

  I bit his earlobe and growled as I twisted my fist around us. “Gonna come with you,” I murmured around the bite, “shoot for me, sweet. Give it to me, let me feel it. Let me feel you shoot.”

  His body stiffened. His fingers carved into my shoulders. He gasped, strangling on a moan that finally escaped his throat at the same time that his cock jerked against mine. Slick warmth burst from him and into my fist, covering both of us as I kept moving, stroking, spreading it around each time he shot against me.

  “Fuck,” I growled into his ear. “Fuck, it feels so good. That’s my good boy. My good boy, Daniel, I fucking love how that feels, baby. I’m so close.”

  “Come,” he begged. “I want it. Want you to f… to… make love to me with it…”

  “Kiss me,” I ordered.

  He pulled back from my shoulder immediately and wrapped his arms around my neck, drawing me into a fierce, starving kiss even as his body twitched from the ongoing stimulation I gave him while I fucked against my fist and his little dick. The taste of him, and the hunger in that kiss drove me over. I huffed, shook, twisted my fist tighter, and then roared against his parted lips as I came. A flood of hot liquid spilled over my fingers. Daniel panted into my mouth as he bucked, and nipped at my lower lip.

  “So warm,” he murmured. “Gods, Rez…”

  “More,” I growled, and gripped his ass with my free hand to lift him up as I released our cocks and moved my cum-covered hand between his thighs. I watched his beautiful face contort with pleasure as I slipped my fingers up and found his hole already pliant and excited. I spread our mixed seed there, pressed my middle finger against the opening, and met his eyes as they went wide. “Oh, beautiful,” I rumbled. “So tight. Open up for me, baby.”

  His eyes rolled. I found his prostate, stroked it once, twice, grinned up at him as he tensed and writhed. He braced himself on my shoulders as I held him, posting him on one hand and my finger as it moved inside him.

  The sound that came out of him was primal, some reminder of a distant, primitive past. I worked my fingertip against the gland until I felt the two rings of muscles against my finger ease and open, his body eager for something more, something deeper and bigger.

  I lowered him, withdrawing the finger to replace it with the head of my cock. I gave it a stroke, spreading our mixed cum around more, and spit on my hand for good measure before I pressed in.

  Daniel sucked in a breath and held it, his thighs flexing as he let only the tip of me in and waited. His entrance pulsed around me, opening a little more each time, and he finally exhaled as he opened. Careful not to hurt him, I held his ass firmly with both hands, and helped him lower himself down onto my cock. My knot was already swollen from before, and he took me all the way down an inch at a time until he reached it. If I took a break, if I waited, my knot would relax, and I could get it inside him—but then we could be tied for hours.

  He reached down, and his fingers grazed the twin lumps, setting off a small electrical storm of sensitive nerves that ached to be inside him. “Your knot?”

  I nodded, breathless at the tight heat that engulfed me. “When I came,” I husked. “It’s okay. Won’t… won’t tie you.”

  He bit his lip, looked away. “You sure?”

  I swallowed. My dragon seemed to surge forward, as if to answer for me that no, no, we are not sure, yes, we very much want to feel that clench around our knot. But I let Daniel settle the rest of the way down and kissed his chest. “If I tie you, we could be here a long time.”

  “The wards can hold,” he said. “For a while.”

  “Hours,” I said. “When I knot you, sweet boy, it’s up to my dragon when we’re done.”

  “Can you?” he begged. Sweetness and need in his voice. “Please, Rez… I just want to know. Please, give it to me.”

  He pushed down, as if he could get it in by force, which wasn’t going to happen. It still felt incredible, though, and my vision blurred as his ass clenched tight in response to the threat of still more stretching.

  “I…” his eyes were desperate. Pleading. He kissed my forehead, my eyebrows. My eyelids. My cheeks.

  “Please, Rez,” he murmured, his voice thin and reedy, “please give me your knot. Tie me. I want this to last. Make it last, Rez… please. Just this onc
e. I need this. You feel so good inside me.”

  My everything melted. Now that he’d opened up, relaxed, now that he talked to me, told me what he wanted… my dragon seemed to be just under my skin, slithering around, wild with the need to feel our knot trapped inside a warm body that moved and sang for us.

  “You… have to relax,” I said. “Just rest here. Wait. It has to go down before I can… before it can fit inside.”

  Daniel nodded, and wriggled his hips to adjust himself on me before he snuggled down against my shoulder. I worked my way down the bed a little, so that he could lay forward at an easier incline, and took long, slow breaths as I trailed my fingers down his back. Once in a while, he clenched a little, almost as a reflex, tightening his body’s grip on me.

  “Don’t do that,” I warned him. “It gets my knot excited.”

  He nuzzled at my neck. “You like it? How I feel?”

  “Baby,” I muttered back, rubbing my cheek against his head, “I could die happy like this. Rest, sweet boy. Just feel me inside you.”

  He groaned, and gathered his arms between us, and for a long time we lay like that, waiting.

  By and by, the heat of his body engulfing me became more normal, more a passive part of the sensations between us. My knot flagged, began to shrink.

  Daniel noticed, given that it was pressed against his hole. He nosed against my neck. “Now?”

  I nodded. “Ready?”

  His fingers dug into my chest as he pushed back. I thrust, rocking my hips up and against him. Almost immediately, my knot began to swell again, but not before I managed to push past his entrance.

  The change in him was instant. His knees tightened their hold on my hips. He let out a high-pitched cry of ecstasy that turned into sharp, shallow panting as my knot swelled against his prostate. I thrust, grinding harder against it. “Ride me,” I moaned. “Ride the knot, baby. Let it work you.”

  He pushed up and raised his hands over his head, curling his arms behind him to tangle in his hair as he rocked his hips, tugging my knot each time he moved. His mouth opened wide in a breathless cry as his brows pinched. His body was liquid above me, every line of it beautiful and fluid. Some sacred dance played itself out in his boneless form as he rode hard.