Pansies

by Alexis Hall

The other man was shaking—shaking, really shaking—in his arms, his fingers curled urgently against Alfie. A rock climber trying not to fall. “Take me somewhere.”

  “I’ve got a room at the—”

  “I don’t care, take me somewhere.”

  This was another terrible idea. He was supposed to be at a wedding.

  But the next thing Alfie knew they were in his car, zooming back to the hotel. It was a five-minute drive, but it seemed to go on forever. And Alfie’s cock couldn’t decide if it was nervous or excited.

  Which pretty much went for the rest of him as well.

  He stole occasional glances at his passenger. Each time they passed beneath a streetlamp, the sudden glare would light up his face, and Alfie would get a fresh shock at the sheer loveliness of him. It was like recognising somebody from a dream you once had.

  “Look mate, what’s your name?”

  The man turned his head slightly. It was too dark to see his expression properly, but Alfie thought he caught the twisty glint of something that might have been a smile. Not a very happy one. “Fen.”

  “Fen?”

  “Fen.”

  He wanted to ask more, like what kind of a name was Fen, except in a polite way, but they’d arrived.

  He locked his car and led the way to his room, too busy worrying about running into someone from the wedding party to worry about the lack of conversation. Besides, what was he supposed to say? Fen very obviously wasn’t interested in talking.

  It all made him feel a bit weird. But not weird enough to stop.

  The Little Haven was probably the poshest hotel in South Shields. For a Londoner, however, it was embarrassing. Barely a step up from a Travelodge, with its teal-checked carpet and its 1970s’ furniture. Alfie had cringed when he first saw it. Then cringed at his cringe.

  Down south, everyone saw him as this bluff, solid northern bloke. It set him apart from the rest of the equity capital markets team, but it was also the foundation of his success. Clients trusted him. His opponents feared him. And he was very, very good at what he did.

  But now he was back up north, it was starting to feel like he’d become, somehow, less than himself. Sort of a sketch. Just blunt lines and the basics. What a fucking joke. Not north, not south. A straight gay man.

  He turned and tried a welcoming gesture. “So this is me like.”

  Fen was staring at the awful carpet.

  And suddenly all Alfie could think about was the man’s mouth under his, so absolutely right that nothing else seemed to matter. Fuck it. “Come ’ere.”

  To his surprise, the guy—Fen—did. This time, Alfie didn’t even hesitate, just caught him and kissed him, hard and deep and as rough as he wanted.

  This game they were playing, this notion somehow formed between them, that Alfie had a clue what he was doing, was something he could really get behind.

  He splayed his hands across Fen’s back, slid down that supple curve and just . . . grabbed his arse, as if that was a totally reasonable thing to do, grinding their bodies and hips and cocks together.

  Fen went wild and shuddery, his mouth turning slack against Alfie’s. And he was sort of moaning and sort of muttering, and what he seemed to be saying was “Ohgodohgodohgod.” So Alfie grabbed that too, sucking the words from Fen’s tongue, licking them up from all the velvet crevices of his mouth with the last of the salt spray and the sweet-sour trace of cheap wine.

  “Fucking love how you taste.”

  Fen just whimpered, eyes so tightly closed it looked like he was frowning, his fingers latched into the dips between Alfie’s biceps.

  “So . . .” Alfie dutifully repeated what Greg had said to him that first time because it was apparently the rules “. . . what you into?”

  Fen’s eyes fluttered open. God, those lashes. Better than a girl’s. Alfie swooped in, pushed Fen’s glasses out of the way, and kissed his eyelids closed. His eyelashes were so soft. They tasted a little of salt as well.

  “Oh,” said Fen. “Oh.”

  And trembled all over again.

  Alfie was kind of dizzy with joy and disbelief. Touching men, in general, was still kind of magical to him. Just the freedom of it. How fucking good it felt. He’d had some pretty enthusiastic reactions before, but nothing to match this one, or even come close. It was, honestly, a bit amazing that this hot, angry, weird guy was letting Alfie put his big hands all over him.

  And acting like he’d been waiting for it his whole life.

  Alfie rubbed his cheek against Fen’s, then nuzzled his way up into his hair. His jaw was rough, but the stubble was so pale you could barely see it. “Well?”

  Fen tipped his head back, giving Alfie his throat, pale and slender. “You can . . .” He lost control of his breath entirely as Alfie swept his tongue over that vulnerable, shuddering Adam’s apple. “You can do whatever you like to me.”

  Fair enough.

  “I’m going to suck your cock, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  But when Alfie tried to drag him out of his fraying pink jumper, Fen froze. His eyes lost their pleasure-blur. “You first.”

  Alfie shrugged. “All right.”

  He wasn’t vain—at least, he didn’t think he was—but he took care of his body, and you could tell. He tugged open the buttons on his shirt, peeled it off his arms, and tossed it onto the floor.

  Fen stared so long and so hard it was a wonder it didn’t burn the skin right off Alfie’s bones. After what felt like forever, he reached out a shaking hand and ran it over the tribal tattoo that swept in thick black lines all the way up Alfie’s left arm, across his torso, and down his back. The skin beneath the ink prickled with awareness. “This is new.”

  “Naw, had it since I was like seventeen. My best mate was supposed to be getting one as well, but he chickened out.”

  Fen leaned dizzily forward and pressed his mouth worshipfully to a flourish that finished just over Alfie’s heart. He bowed his head, whispering in a swirl of hot breath, “I’m so fucking stupid.”

  Once again feeling like he’d probably lost the plot, Alfie petted Fen’s hair. It was soft as his eyelashes. Silky. Not like his body at all. Or his hands, which were rough and dry and strong. “Don’t be like that. I know I look a bit of a hooligan and the ink’s a bit daft, but I was a kid—didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

  “I like the way you look,” muttered Fen. “And I’m so fucking stupid.”

  Alfie tried to think of something reassuring he could say. Because I’m not a serial killer was probably exactly what serial killers said before they serial-killed you. And maybe it was pretty stupid for a guy who was all of five foot six, and basically made of bones and air like some kind of exotic bird, to go waltzing off for casual sex with an enormous tattooed stranger. But, stupid or not, who said it had to turn out bad? For either of them.

  It was already the best stupid thing Alfie had ever done.

  Way ahead of the tattoo. And coming out to his family.

  “Look,” he tried, “if it makes you feel any better, I’m kind of new to this. I only realised I was, y’know, gay, like two years ago. How’s that for fucking stupid?”

  Fen’s head jerked up. “Seriously? You mean—”

  Alfie nodded. “So we still doing this, or what?”

  Though he didn’t answer, Fen’s eyes flicked downwards. And Alfie could take a hint. He stepped back, toed off his shoes, ditched his socks, and finally shucked both trousers and boxers.

  Fen actually put his hands over his eyes like one of those see-no-evil monkeys Alfie’s grandma used to have. So Alfie took him by the wrists and pulled gently until, at last, Fen yielded. And looked. Stared. The longing and the greed naked on his face.

  Heat rushed over Alfie’s skin like he’d been touched. His voice came out all husky. “Your turn.”

  Fen nodded and let Alfie tug the jumper over his head, emerging a few awkward seconds later in a tangle of fraying wool, steamed-up glasses, and floof
ed-up hair.

  That had gone better in Alfie’s head. But better was relative when the result was a half-naked Fen, blinking dazedly and pushing static-wild silver strands away from his face.

  Alfie heard himself make a sort of growling sound. “God, you’re hot.”

  He was too. Beautiful, if you were allowed to say that about a man. Sleek and strong and smooth, all white and gold, dusted here and there in softly curling hair, and a few shining drops of sweat.

  And the next thing Alfie knew, he was in there, all over him, hands and mouth and tongue and nails, and Fen was letting him, twisting and moaning and chanting “ohgodohgodohgod” again.

  “Now the rest.” Alfie’s hands fumbled with belt and zipper, and Fen wasn’t much help either, but somehow they got him out of his clothes.

  Which meant they were both naked. So very naked.

  For a moment, neither of them moved. Or dared to touch. Fen’s breath was harsh in the room, and Alfie thought his heart was probably thumping loud enough to piss off the neighbours.

  “You . . .” said Alfie. “I . . .”

  Fen dug his hands into his own hair and pulled, his eyes closing tight as barnacles, deep lines that looked like pain creasing his brow.

  Alfie went to his knees. The carpet was rough as well as awful, but he didn’t care. He was looking up at Fen, who still wouldn’t look back. He ran his hands up the outside of Fen’s legs. Coarse hair and lean, hard muscles like a runner. On the inside, though, it was all secrets, like the skin at the back of his neck. Smooth and tight and quivering when he put his lips to it.

  “Oh. Oh.”

  Fen’s hands tightened in his own hair. He kept returning these dazed, shocked little noises for every kiss Alfie gave him.

  It was a fair trade, Alfie reckoned, because they went straight to his cock, like Fen had his hand wrapped tight round it. Or his mouth.

  And when he got up to Fen’s cock, all it took was the first brush of his lips to make Fen cry out. Alfie managed to get his arms around him as his knees buckled, just in time to half catch him and bring him tumbling messily onto the bed.

  For a moment, Fen just lay there, pale and sacrificial, breathless, arms flung wide, chest heaving. Then he pulled himself into a sitting position, blinking at Alfie who was still crouched on the floor.

  Alfie peered up at him. “All right?”

  Fen frowned and adjusted his glasses like maybe he thought they were lying to him about what he saw. “Oh I don’t know. Probably not. I don’t care.”

  Alfie hoped he was going to say more, but he didn’t. He just reached down and the flaky-rough tips of his fingers drifted over Alfie’s face. Alfie closed his eyes for a second, swallowing a sound, overwhelmed somehow by the simplicity of touch, and reached out to Fen’s wrist. Took his hand prisoner. Kissed his fingers. Drew them into his mouth, and made Fen shake again and spread his legs. Invitation. Surrender. More than enough encouragement.

  Fuck, it was hot. All that exposed skin. And Fen’s cock, rising insistently and a little bit desperately, powerful and vulnerable at the same time.

  Alfie swiped a bead of moisture from the tip. Salt again, but purely male, underlaid by sweetness and the taste of skin. Alfie ran his hands up the inside of Fen’s thighs, holding him wide, velvet, sleek muscles trembling against his palms.

  Fen went rigid and then his hips pressed forward, and Alfie let him. He let Fen slide the head of his cock between his lips and tried to think of nothing but the deep, hot thrill of it.

  Never mind that he was kneeling on the floor with another man’s dick in his mouth.

  Never mind that he was kneeling on the floor with another man’s dick in his mouth, and he wanted it so badly, he thought he might come.

  He bowed his head, taking Fen deeper. Because the invasion was part of the pleasure. And it was an invasion, a sick, wonderful, perfect invasion, stretching his mouth, just on the edge of choking of him.

  He told himself it was nothing to be ashamed of, shuddering and groaning around a man’s cock, taking those harsh, stuttering thrusts.

  Then Fen made a noise so like a sob. One of his legs came up to rest on Alfie’s shoulder. And Alfie stopped thinking about anything but the man he’d made do that. Feel like that.

  The man who was coming apart beautifully and fearlessly above him and with him. Because of him.

  “Oh God.” Fen clawed into his shoulders. “S-stop. Or I’ll—”

  Alfie drew back. “But I want . . . I want you to.”

  For a moment, they were silent, breathing hard, staring at each other, Fen’s eyes banked behind misted glass. Then he said, “Fuck me.”

  “Uh.” Alfie curled a hand absently about one of the other man’s knees, nestled his head against his leg. “I don’t really . . . not casually, like.”

  “Saving yourself for marriage?”

  “Just . . . more than . . . Just a proper relationship. Something real.”

  Fen was wearing a look Alfie couldn’t read. It reminded him of the way he’d been at the Rattler: brittle and angry and not liking Alfie very much. “Well, didn’t you grow into a nice heteronormative young man?”

  Alfie pressed an openmouthed kiss to the inside of Fen’s thigh. Sucked at the skin until he moaned. “This not enough for you?”

  “No, it’s, it’s . . . Oh God, Alfie, I just want to feel you.” His voice got so ragged Alfie barely heard him whisper. “Please.”

  Alfie’s heart gave a sort of lurch. “Fuck, mate, I’m really sorry. I haven’t got anything.”

  “W-what?”

  “I haven’t got anything. I thought I was going to a wedding. Not out on the pull.”

  Out of nowhere, Fen laughed. Like his smile, it didn’t seem very happy. He covered his face with his hands again, pale hair falling wildly through his fingers. “Oh God, I just begged you to fuck me. Oh God.”

  “Mate, Fen, it’s all right.”

  “It’s not. It’s really not.”

  Alfie gazed up at him, bewildered, suddenly miles away from whatever the man was thinking, as if all that touching meant nothing at all. “I liked it.”

  “Hah. I bet you did.”

  There was an endless silence. Alfie’s cock ached.

  “I can go out?” he offered hopelessly. “The big Asda is 24/7, right?”

  God, what would he look like? Running in there half-dressed at eight o’clock at night to buy extra strong condoms and a tub of lube.

  That was Daily Mail gay.

  But if he had to do it, he had to do it. He wanted that tight, angry note out of Fen’s voice.

  Wanted his secrets. The softness in him. Everything his body gave.

  Fen took his hands away from his face, blinking slightly owlishly, his eyes flat and green through a haze of glass and gold. “You’re going to drive to the nearest superstore for condoms? All because I want you to fuck me?”

  Alfie grinned. “I’ll pick you up a box of Milk Tray while I’m there.”

  “Don’t go.” There was a pause. “Just . . . just . . .”

  Alfie rose, and Fen reached out to embrace him, and they fell together onto the bed. It groaned and creaked beneath them, and Alfie winced internally, and maybe a little bit externally, because it was a sex noise. Not necessarily a gay sex noise. But some part of him thought people might instinctively know how to tell the difference.

  Then Fen raised his knees to cradle Alfie’s hips, pulling their bodies more tightly together, and Alfie sweetly, helplessly, drowned in skin. Fen’s hands swept over his shoulders, and he felt taken and held and wanted.

  “You feel so good.” Fen’s breath was hot against his neck. “So strong.”

  His hips writhed under Alfie’s, nudging their cocks together, which was so completely and perfectly the right sort of not enough that Alfie could only groan.

  “So safe.”

  Alfie kissed him under the chin. Then again at the base of his throat. The tender, beating spot beneath his ear. Everything was heat and sweat and
corn-silk secrets.

  “Alfie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “H-hold my hands.”

  “Erm, what?”

  “Hold my hands, pin them down.”

  Alfie hesitated.

  Fen’s eyes fluttered open, caught Alfie with their hunger and their pleading, and would not relinquish him. “Don’t hurt me. Just . . . just hold me.”

  Alfie wasn’t really into what he thought of as kinky stuff, but he was very, very into Fen. And he would have agreed to pretty much anything when he was asked in a voice so frayed with longing.

  “Like this?” He wrapped a hand around one of Fen’s wrists and pressed it tentatively against the bed. Fen arched and whimpered, closed his eyes tight, and nodded. Offered up his other wrist, not like a sacrifice at all, and Alfie kissed it before he claimed it.

  He expected Fen to feel fragile beneath his hands, but he didn’t. He didn’t at all. His wrists were slender, yes, but supple, like maybe an artist’s or a musician’s, used to moving and working. The muscles on his forearms stood out so strongly Alfie wanted to lick down the straining ridges of them. Except they were both as good as trapped. His hands holding Fen’s hands. Their bodies locked together.

  So Alfie kissed him and kept kissing him until they were both beyond breathless, and everything was wet and hot, and Fen was moving under him, not struggling but clumsily driving their bodies together.

  Alfie’s mouth was full of groans, incapable, so he pressed it against Fen’s neck, tasting sweat and fever.

  “Yes, oh . . . oh yes.” Fen’s voice was sweet and wild, heedless, his head thrown back, straining against the hotel pillows.

  Their bodies writhed and twisted, rough, uncertain pleasure conjured between them like flame from flint. It was beautiful and maddening, and Alfie never wanted it to stop.

  Fen was all in pieces: broken words and fading gasps, touching Alfie everywhere and nowhere in flashes of too-much-too-little sensation, soft and harsh and strong and fragile, all skin and sweat-slick heat. He rolled under Alfie, restless but relentless, a wave with its own currents, its own tides, turning everything to bliss, his cock pressed between them, sliding within and against the constrictions of their pressed-together selves. His heart was beating so hard and fast that Alfie almost thought he could reach down, gather it into the palm of his hand, and hold it safe against the world.