Elemental

by K. L. Noone

  “You know magpie rhymes?” Sterling tipped his head up to investigate his own thigh and Dan’s fingers caressing him, which was technically not listening, but Dan let this go. “Normally they’re for divination—counting how many in a visitation, all that—but yeah, the idea is it’s a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. One for sorrow, two for mirth, and so on. There’re actually seven in the family crest.”

  “I can see it.” He could. Mirthful was a good word, he thought, for that kind of courage: not naïve, not innocent of pain, but brave and generous and sweet at heart. And fond of bright colors. “Is it…seven for a secret never to be told, that one? I looked them up once. Research. Folklore. Patterns for a plot to follow.” That’d been for the fourth Johnny Stone book. A villain interested in mysticism. He’d got some of it right, unknowing, maybe.

  “It can be,” Sterling said, “though there’re lots of magpie rhymes. But you’re not wrong. And I like that version. The one on my ankle’s the alchemical symbol for silver. For my name. If you were wondering. Can we get back to the part where you’re not naked yet?”

  Dan laughed, sat up—stopping to leave a kiss upon the nearest knee along the way—and stripped off clothes: shirt, jeans, boxers. No self-doubt. No hesitation. Sterling wanted him.

  Sterling, his beautiful sarcastic sorcerous gift from the windswept night, wanted him. Had shown up at his door, asked for his help, called him both hot and kind, and meant it. Worried about Dan not finding him attractive, which was ludicrous in any universe. Needed care and anchors, and sought those anchors in Dan’s touch, Dan’s arms.

  He could do that. They could do that.

  And the wanting throbbed in his veins, electric as the storm.

  Naked, he came back over to the sofa. Sterling watched him, but then nibbled at that lower lip and glanced away: not as if afraid, but fleetingly avoiding eye contact. Dan considered this. “What?”

  “I…um, I don’t know! You’re all naked and gorgeous and nice to me and—I’ve still got socks on!” This registered less as a protest, more as newfound dismay. “I’ve never had anyone tie me up with my own clothes while I’ve still got socks on!”

  Dan put a hand on Sterling’s hip, processing all the different parts of this statement. “You’ve had people tie you up before?”

  “Well, yeah, I mean, I told you that I like—I mean yes, but not—this is different!”

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “If you want to stop—” He knelt between trapped legs; he watched Sterling’s face. “You can say so.”

  “I don’t want to stop.” Sterling started to move arms, let out a huff of comprehension, turned the exhale into a crooked smile. “I want you. I want to be held down and filled up and reminded that I’m here and alive. It’s just. I’m doing this all wrong. I actually do like you. This is ridiculous and I want more.”

  “I like you with socks on.” Dan snuck fingers under those violet boxer-briefs again, began to coax them down. “I like that you have no fashion sense. Or maybe groundbreaking fashion sense. I like that you taste like honey and you could enchant the world into doing anything you want and you tell me you want me. And this is perfect.” He’d gotten Sterling naked except for the striped socks, spread out and tangled up in clothing, flushed and eager and laid out beneath him. Their eyes met; at the same instant, the rain picked up, eager too.

  Might’ve been a moment for more laughter. Might’ve been a moment for a kiss. Both those emotions stretched across the space, shared between breaths. Dan’s thumb rubbed across Sterling’s hipbone, drifted over to the equally pretty stiffness of his cock, nicely proportioned and hot in his hand and shining at the tip.

  The moment thrummed, charged and quivering: from teasing to affirmation to pure white-hot need.

  Sterling did that swift half-conscious lip-lick again, eyes pleading, nearly inaudible inhale pleading as well.

  That sound snapped the night into motion. Pushed Dan into firmer strokes, assertive grip on that lovely length, watching the movement of heated tip and shaft through fingers, feeling ready wetness spread. He murmured, “More?” and was rewarded with whimpered begging, please and yes and even his name, caught on those lips; that intimacy made him growl something wordless in response and bend closer, bodies pressed together, making use of his weight and height.

  Sterling moaned again, arching up, seeking contact. Dan paused. Brought fingers down over his hip: not quite a spank or a slap, but a reminder. “You’re staying put. Being good. Letting me decide what you get. You enjoy that, you said.”

  “Please…” Lovely, decadent and debauched and utterly certain, smiling up at him. “Yes. Please.”

  “Good.” He accepted penitent obedience with attention to those rosy nipples, playing and pinching and rolling until they became redder, until Sterling was gasping and nearly sobbing, fingers curling in their makeshift bonds. He offered kisses after, pleasurable drawn-out licks and laps that’d be amplified by sensitivity; Sterling trembled under him and tried to spread legs further, as much as possible, cock leaking slick drops between their bodies. Dan grinned at him. “Still okay?”

  “You want me to talk? Um…wow…yes. Very okay. Are we going to—would you want to—”

  “Are you asking whether I want to fuck you?” He did. Some part of him remained astounded. He, Daniel Rose, writer and general hermit, did not do this, did not fall into the orbit of clairvoyant eyes and bewitching young men. But, looking at Sterling, who trusted him, he let himself believe. “I do. I will if that’s what you want. I’m not going to hurt you, though. Hang on a minute.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Supplies. Stay put. Don’t move.”

  “As if I could,” Sterling pointed out, squirming in place; Dan tweaked his nipple again, right under the approving half-moon, and he yelped and stopped talking.

  “So that works,” Dan said, with satisfaction, and ran to his bedroom, threw items around in a particular drawer, ran back.

  “What do you mean that works,” Sterling said, when he got back, “you did that and then ran away—” He hadn’t moved. He was smiling.

  “And I’m here and naked. And you could leave anytime. You know you could.” He let fingernails scratch very lightly across one inner thigh. Pressed down, not enough to break skin, enough to be felt. “Anchors, you wanted. Being here. You want this?”

  “Please,” Sterling said. His hair was tumbling in every direction, stylish upward wave destroyed; his eyes were wide and sincere. His cock quivered, slick and hard against his stomach. “Dan. Please.”

  “Yes,” Dan told him, “yes—” and bent to kiss him, to touch him, to stroke hands across him and down between those parted thighs and to remind them both that this moment, them together, bodies and sensations and need, was real.

  Lube. Slickness. Fingers. Sterling’s tiny gasp at the initial invasion, followed by a radiant grin. That welcoming glide, as muscles yielded and relaxed and accepted caresses. Sterling plainly had done this before, but nevertheless gazed up at him with a strange kind of curiosity, grave and trusting, eyes fixed on Dan’s face as if discovering something new.

  Dan moved his fingers. Adjusted position, searching. Fondled Sterling’s eager stiff cock with his other hand, finding rhythm again, steady and firm. His own arousal pulsed, rigid and demanding; he forced himself to be patient, and that self-control caught fire under his skin: doing this for Sterling, to Sterling, with that please hanging in the air. Yes. This, yes.

  Sterling moaned his name; those hips jerked abruptly, as if sensation mirrored lightning, streaking wild across the dark. “Dan—that, please—more—”

  “Shh. Not too much. You’re tired, remember, we’re taking care of you. I’m taking care of you.” A bit more, though. Until his delectable miniature-artwork psychic was quivering on the edge, head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, wrists and ankles jerking uselessly against bonds. Dan moved hands, slid fingers away. Sterling practically collapsed into the s
ofa at this denial, eyelashes damp, panting his name.

  “I know. I know, I’m here, I’ve got you.” With a kiss, a few kisses: scattered over those lips, that chest, a shoulder, as he fumbled for the condom. “You’re here too, and you can feel this, you can feel me—” He pushed in, one careful but inexorable thrust, with the words. Felt glorious tight heat close around him. “I can feel you. And I want you to feel it—being taken, being claimed, you said, and I want you, and you’re mine—”

  Sterling’s next breath caught, fractured, amazed; both those lovely eyes opened, enormous and desire-hazy and full of bliss, finding his.

  “Mine,” Dan whispered again, and moved inside him, atop him: thrusts more forceful now, deep and undeniable and sure, one hand finding bound wrists and pinning them down even harder. Traces of herbs, of dried scarlet, clung to fingers: evidence of magic, of the night, of freedom given and found. The edge of that new bandage.

  The sight flew into his heart and stuck there, clinging in gold: power and fragility, witchcraft and humanity. Himself caring for that arm. Calling Sterling back. To him. “Mine—you said you want that, and you are, you can be, I’m here and you’re here and you can feel this, me making you mine—”

  “Yours,” Sterling gasped, tightening around him, shuddering, “yours, please, yes, make me—”

  Dan got the other hand between them, found his cock, did not so much stroke as simply grip him roughly and rub a thumb over the slit, and plunged into him hard. Sterling very nearly screamed, went rigid, clenched around him, and fell into a shaking openmouthed orgasm, release spilling over Dan’s hand and between their bodies, wave after wave of sticky heat. Dan groaned, buried to the hilt inside that euphoric slim body, and let the storm take him too, thunderclaps and dazzling eruptions and the flare of diamond-clear ecstasy.

  After a few moments he managed to recover—he couldn’t recall the last time he’d come like that, if ever—and eased gingerly out and away, thanked the universe that he’d remembered to bring tissues for disposal of the condom, and then wanted to panic but couldn’t find the energy: Sterling’s eyes were shut, eyelashes still and dark across fair skin, hands and lips and whole body quiescent for once.

  Dan whispered, heart fluttering in his throat, “Hey,” and bumped their noses together. “Sterling. Was that…are you…was that good?”

  Both eyes opened. Slowly. Drowsily. Magnificently satisfied, awash with glittery silver. “Wow.”

  Dan started laughing, discovered that he couldn’t stop, put both arms around his wonderful tiny brat of a psychic, and covered rumpled hair and amused eyebrows and quirked-up lips with more kisses. “I thought you liked words.”

  “I do like words. I think I’ve forgotten all of them. Syllables? What’re those?” Sterling yawned while talking, and tucked his face into Dan’s neck. “Did you call me…yours?”

  “Um,” Dan said, and tried to ignore belated mortification. Their companion-spirit onyx puffball had woken up too—he didn’t know how he knew, since it lacked eyes, but it was definitely contemplating him and his care of Sterling from atop his bookshelf—and he tried to ignore that as well. “I…might’ve? I don’t know. It just came out. You said—and I thought—I don’t know, okay, I’m sorry!”

  “It just did what,” Sterling said, flawlessly straight-faced until his lips twitched. “No, seriously, I, ah, I might’ve liked that. I needed that, I think. After touching—someplace else—this felt like coming back to me. Feeling everything. Feeling human. With you.”

  “Oh. Um. Good?” Orange captured the corner of his eye; he remembered the presence of clumsy restraints, though Sterling apparently did not mind remaining in them. He yanked desperately at knots. “Here—sorry, sorry, I can—um, tissues, cleaning up, I should—do you need anything? Are you feeling okay? After—after?”

  “Dan.” Sterling, hands free, caught him and tugged him back down. “Cleaning up yes. In a minute. But I meant it wasn’t just that I needed this.” Those eyes, those hands, were awkward but truthful: Sterling meant this too, meant to say it, wasn’t afraid to offer up the confession. “I needed you. Not a random anyone. My hot, famous, extremely nice genius author. Thank you.”

  “Me,” Dan breathed. Thank you? What had that meant?

  “You, and I guess an audience of one protective spirit, up there.” Sterling tipped his head back enough to grin at the ink-spot; it bobbed up and down in recognition. “Thanks for the help, you, but we might have to talk about ground rules for who gets to be in the room during sex, if you’re sticking around…Speaking of, I am unbelievably sticky. And I have herb-hands. Can we shower?”

  “Oh,” Dan said. “Um…yes?”

  Evidently being with Sterling involved a whirlwind of energy, assumptions about shared showers, and spontaneous acceptance of supernatural companions; he was not sure he minded. He was sure that this also came with mind-blowing sex, a mystical world full of intoxicating stories and possibilities he’d never known, and a smile that surfaced like sunrise behind opalescent clouds. He did not want to lose this; he did not want to lose any of this.

  He did not want to lose Sterling. He knew that thought was true.

  If Sterling only needed him, wanted him, for this one rain-soaked improbable night—

  If this could only ever be one night, one story he could never tell—

  Then he’d smile and let go. He couldn’t do anything else. He couldn’t make Sterling want to stay.

  He could be grateful that he’d been here. That he’d been allowed to glimpse this at all. And he’d have the story to hold onto. To tuck away and keep safe; to pull out of his heart and revisit every once in a while, when in need of rainbows.

  He said, “Don’t get up yet—let me just take care of—” and swiped tissues over fair skin and tattoos. He freed Sterling’s ankles. He let one hand rest over one ankle; those socks had stayed on, silly blue and white stripes in the night. He stripped those off too; no objections, only a tiny wordless smile.

  Sterling even had adorable toes. And more tattoos: that ankle, and the top of one foot, done in rich onyx and ruby and sapphire colors. Alchemical symbols. Intimations of power. Another world. The world Dan wasn’t a part of, had only barely met, and wanted to never leave.

  He knew that wasn’t only because of the magic. He knew that he’d never be the same, after this night; he thought that might’ve been true when Sterling had first turned up at his door.

  He got up. Held out a hand. “Shower?”

  Sterling took the hand. Regarded him thoughtfully. Hopped to both feet, stepped in close, went up on tiptoes. Kissed him. Fierce and indisputable. “You looked like you needed that.”

  “I—”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Sterling said, naked and hopeful, tattoos bathed in storm light and lamplight, standing in Dan’s living room. Cream-colored rug-fuzz hugged their toes; the bookshelves beamed. “I mean, I’ve got your building to finish, it’s still an assignment, and I’m not done. But when I said I needed you, when I said it felt right because it was you—I know I was kind of high on psychic backlash and endorphins and whatever but I meant it, I mean it, don’t think I didn’t. So. If you want to. More. Us. This. I do.”

  “You want this.” He wanted this too. He wanted this so badly. He put up a hand, stroked it through haphazard exertion-mussed dark waves. “You want me.”

  “Not just for tonight.” Sterling tipped his head into the touch. “I want to see where this goes. I want to find out with you. You and me. And I’m really not going anywhere.”

  “You said this was an assignment…?”

  “Your building is. I’m moving in properly, though. Not only for this week.”

  “…you are?”

  “I actually do have an actual job. Well, it’s basically the same job. But still.” Sterling, happily naked, nevertheless managed to shrug with enough self-confidence for an entire raft of young entrepreneurs. “I even have business cards. Interior Design Flow and Ambiance Special Consultant.�
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  Dan put arms around him. Held on tighter. “Did you make that title up?”

  “Yes. You’d be amazed how much rich people will pay to have their meeting rooms and corporate towers and personal sex dungeons cleansed of negative energies. Of course I do bring sage and strawberry leaves and my own particular talents, so they genuinely get something for their money. Everybody goes home happy. Including any resident negative energies. I’ve got an impressive client list. My point is…” He put arms around Dan’s neck in turn. “I’m moving here. For good. I’ll still have to go home sometimes—the family needs me, I told you, and I’m not abandoning anyone—but when I moved to the city it was because I needed space that wasn’t family property. My life. Seeing what I could do on my own.”

  “I believe you,” Dan said. He did. He believed it all. “You also locked yourself out of your apartment, you said.”

  “Thank you for remembering that. I can maybe talk to the locks, if they aren’t charm-proof. And…” His eyes danced, watched Dan’s, watched the reaction. “If I’m not too tired.”

  “Oh,” Dan said. “Oh, well. In that case. No, you shouldn’t talk to your locks. You should, um. First come shower. And then…”

  “And then what?”

  “Clean my coffee table? Naked.”

  Sterling stared at him, opened that mouth, closed it, figured out that he was joking, attempted halfheartedly to scowl, and instead dissolved into amusement. “You—that—you are fucking perfect, oh my God.”

  “Stay,” Dan said, holding him. “Stay the night. More nights. However long you want. We’ll worry about tomorrow in the morning. You don’t have to clean the table. I don’t mind messy. Um. A little bit of messy?”

  “I can clean your table,” Sterling said. “And your knife. And this is going to be messy, my life’s kind of weird, you saw how weird, and I think we’ve adopted a ghost puppy, and I own a lot of shirts in colors that totally clash with your interior design, and Mom and Verity are going to want to know about you, and yes, yes to all of that, tonight and tomorrow and—yes. We can figure it out. After we shower? Because now I’m sort of definitely thinking about more sex with you in the shower.”