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by Kaje Harper

  Darien got up and moved behind him. “That’s what we’re going to ask Locke. In an hour.”

  Grim met Darien’s eyes over Silas’s shoulder, then jumped neatly to the floor. “Come on, pup. Let’s see if Mistress Clarice can be charmed out of a bowl of cream.” He headed to the door.

  Pip pranced in one spot, looking up at Darien. “Do you need me here? Because cream is good. Although I could probably Fetch the cream. I’ve been practicing. My Fetch is getting good.”

  Darien chuckled. “Don’t steal it. Go with Grim. We’ll meet you down there later.” He opened the door for the familiars, then shut and locked it behind them and turned to put his back to it.

  Silas eyed him, brows drawn together. “Where are they going? We haven’t figured out a plan.”

  “We figured out we don’t know enough to make a plan. So we have fifty minutes to kill.”

  Darien spotted the moment Silas finally caught on to what he was suggesting. The mix of heat and disbelief and confusion wasn’t very flattering. “Seriously? Now?”

  “Stress relief. I’m detecting some serious stress.” He moved into Silas’s space, crowding him back against the bookcase. Silas caught Darien’s upper arms for balance and the contact echoed heat through Darien’s body. He looked into Silas’s eyes and licked his lips again, slowly. Silas’s pupils widened. The gray darkened. Yeah, he’s not as reluctant as he seems.

  “I don’t play around when there’s work to do.” But Silas’s fingers tightened on Darien’s biceps.

  “You don’t play enough, period.” Darien pulled free and stepped back. “I have an idea to take you out of your head, till we can make that phone call.” His bag was on the chair. He dug around in it and found the little tin, held it up.

  “Vaseline? Where on earth did you get that?”

  “You dropped me off at the drugstore for essentials last week, remember? A new toothbrush, a comb, a razor, and this.” He turned the jar in his fingers. “Only question left is, who uses it?”

  “I don’t—” Silas stopped like too many words were jammed up in his mouth.

  “I don’t want to?” “I don’t bottom?” “I don’t know how that works?” Darien wanted this, had wanted it since about the third time they’d ended up in bed together. Let me, Silas, let me do this. No, he realized, that was wrong. Want me to do this. He waited for some sign that he’d read Silas right.

  “Clarice is in the house.”

  That wasn’t a no. “She’s down in the kitchen baking. Halfway across the house. And Annie’s out.”

  Silas bit his lip.

  Darien went to the big bed and shoved it, rocked it. The legs stayed put and nothing thumped the wall. Thank God. “I know you can be quiet.” He took it as a challenge to get noise out of Silas. The older man’s years of worrying about discovery meant a gasp was the equivalent of a shout.

  “It’s been a long time.”

  That still wasn’t a no. “Get undressed, necromancer. We’re going to remind ourselves that we’re alive.”

  Silas looked like he might protest, but when Darien quickly stripped to skin, Silas’s hands hovered over the top button of his shirt.

  Needs more convincing. Darien moved in close until his rising erection brushed the fabric of Silas’s slacks. “Wouldn’t want to get cum on those clothes,” he murmured, enjoying the hint of flush that tinged Silas’s ears at the crude word. He pushed Silas’s hands aside and took over the unbuttoning. “All buttoned up and proper is not the look I’m going for. I want naked and eager with your ass in the air.”

  Silas’s hips jolted— at the image or the brush of Darien’s hand across his fly, Darien wasn’t sure. Silas’s dick was getting harder under there, so he clearly didn’t hate the idea. Darien unbuttoned, unzipped. Pushed the shirt off Silas’s shoulders, then squatted and tugged slacks and boxers down Silas’s legs until his erection bobbed out from the descending elastic, naked and eager. Darien blew a hot breath across the head.

  “You could suck me,” Silas suggested.

  “I could.” Darien eased the clothes off one foot, then the other, skinning Silas’s socks off while he was at it. Then he looked up, putting heat in his gaze, and stood smoothly. “But I won’t. Get on the bed.”

  For a moment they stared into each other’s eyes. It wasn’t the first time he’d told Silas what to do in bed, but there was always a tipping point where Silas’s confidence that bordered on arrogance had to give way. Darien set a hand on Silas’s shoulder, dragged it slowly down over the dark fur on his chest, and tweaked his nipple. “On the bed. I’ll make you feel good.”

  Silas eased away from the bookcase, went and sat on the edge of the mattress. His back was still stiff and his chin high. It wasn’t surrender yet. Darien picked the Vaseline back up, took off the lid, and stalked toward him, putting all of his want and need in his body language. Crowding between Silas’s knees, he dropped the jar on the bed, took that chiseled jaw in both hands and brushed a thumb over the elegant lower lip. “Might get you to suck me first.”

  Silas’s lips parted at his touch. Darien bent and kissed him instead, using lips and tongue and a hint of teeth to make the kiss messy and needy. Darien dropped a hand to where Silas’s cock stood rigid, more on board than the rest of him, and did one fast stroke. Silas gasped, then whimpered, a thread of sound he clearly couldn’t hold back. Darien grinned against his mouth. “Yeah, I like that.” He kissed him again, slower and deeper, and felt Silas opening for him, not just mouth but whole body, giving under his hands.

  “Good.” He slid his hands to Silas’s shoulders and pushed. “Lie back.”

  He got just an instant of resistance before Silas lay back obediently across the bed, knees still bent over the edge.

  Darien straightened. “Now that has possibilities, but I think I want you flat. Upsie daisy.” He took hold of Silas’s ankles and lifted, pivoting him. Silas had to scramble a bit to get oriented on his back, head at the pillows, as Darien swung his feet onto the sheets.

  “Upsie daisy? What are we? Twelve?”

  “We are two grown men—” Darien nudged Silas’s ankles apart and crawled onto the bed between them. “—who are about to do some very grown up things, if you keep listening to me this way.”

  “I can’t help listening. You talk more during sex than any man I know,” Silas grumbled, but he was opening his thighs wide as he said it.

  Darien set his hands on the insides of those thighs and slid upward until his fingers bracketed Silas’s groin, where his cock rose eagerly from its patch of dark curls. “I’m not seeing a complaint here.” He eased his hands deeper, cupping Silas’s sac and rolling his balls lightly under the thin skin. Silas made another one of those excellent gasping sounds, and his cock bobbed, leaking a strand of glistening fluid onto his stomach.

  Darien bent and licked the salt-slick off Silas’s flat abdomen. Silas bucked under him. Darien laughed. This was heady power, to move a man like this with just one touch of his mouth.

  “Grab your knees,” he ordered.

  “I don’t know—” Silas pressed his lips together and eased his hands under his thighs. Darien pushed his legs up and apart, till those long fingers curled under bent knees, spreading Silas open for him. He kissed his way down one thigh and up the other, then around and under the bobbing erection, brushing the shaft with his jaw but not his lips. He laid his open mouth over one testicle, closing gently, feeling the firm roundness against his tongue. Silas hissed a breath.

  Darien lifted his head. “If you want to stop at any time, tell me.” He slid a finger around behind Silas’s balls and down the soft skin below them, pressing firmly. Silas jolted at the touch, looking down his body.

  “I want to see.” Silas crunched his abdomen, raising his shoulders off the bed.

  Darien leaned forward on one hand to snag the pillows off his side of the bed and stuff them behind Silas. “Better?” He sat back and in one motion bent and licked the length of Silas’s dick, root to tip, with a l
ittle probe of his tongue in the slit. The tiny sound Silas made wasn’t a word, and Darien tasted a welling of salt-sweet slick. Jesus.

  He was hard as stone himself, just from the tastes and the sounds. He slid a hand under himself, gripping tightly until the moment passed. Control, Darien, can’t top without it. He hadn’t done it often. His college lover had preferred to be the one on top. But he knew damned well what he liked, and he was going to give it to Silas, and that included lots of time to prepare.

  When the worst need had ebbed, he used both hands to jack Silas a few times, then eased one finger down his cleft. When he touched the tender skin around Silas’s opening, he got a shiver that shook Silas’s whole body. He looked up to meet Silas’s eyes. “Good? Bad?”

  “Keep going.” A flush had risen up Silas’s chest to his neck and his lips were parted on a fast breath.

  “It’s better with some jelly.” He found the jar and dipped a fingertip in it. “Licking is good too, but you need to shower for that.”

  “You would lick me there?” Silas’s eyes widened.

  I don’t think he’s ever done this with someone he trusted that much. The realization made Darien hot and tender. He kissed the inside of one hairy thigh. “Sure. Save it for the next time.” Silas whined under his breath and Darien laughed, joy and power mingled. “For now, relax and let me touch you.”

  Silas made an obvious effort but he still jolted as Darien’s slippery finger touched his anus. Darien rubbed slow circles, soothing and petting, not pushing in, until Silas said, “Go on. I’m not fragile.”

  “Definitely not. My strong man.” Darien pushed more firmly and sank his finger to the first knuckle. Silas gasped, but then smiled. Gonna wipe that smile off your face. Gonna be too sex-crazed to smile. Darien probed deeper, crooking his finger, and found the right spot. Silas gasped and arched off the bed, clamping tight around Darien’s finger. Darien grinned and did it again.

  More jelly, another finger. He found a rhythm of stroking and spreading that had Silas’s hard cock leaking against his stomach. Silas shuddered and moaned, his voice deep and hoarse. “Do it.”

  Darien had planned to hold out for a please but he was hard and ready himself, his pulse throbbing hot in his groin. Not spilling before I get in him. He had to ring a tight grip on himself for a moment, before he dared slick himself up with the Vaseline. The slurping sound of his hand on his rigid length made Silas take a sharp breath. Darien knelt high so Silas could watch him prep.

  “Should I roll over?”

  The breathy quality of the question made Darien lean forward, slippery jelly and hard dicks between them, to kiss Silas’s open mouth. “No. I want to watch your face.”

  “Like this?”

  “Yep.” He hesitated. “You have done this before?”

  “A couple of times. Not face to face.” Something flickered across Silas’s face. “And it was… difficult.”

  Darien rubbed a slippery finger over Silas’s hole, which opened easily to his touch. “You say stop, and I’ll stop. Yes?”

  Silas took a tight breath like a man facing a beating. “Yes.”

  Gonna make you like it. Back to front might be a bit easier, but he wanted to see Silas’s expression. He had a feeling this man was the kind to endure silently in order to please a lover in bed, and he was damned if this was going to turn into a sacrifice on anyone’s part.

  He eased down the bed, lined himself up, and pressed firmly against Silas’s ass. Silas opened for him a little then balked, hot and resisting against Darien’s cock head. He let go of himself to rub with a fingertip, pressing, coaxing, slipping inside. “Bear down a bit, Silas. Let me have you.” Shifting his grip, he pressed forward again and sank home an inch in tight, silky heat. “Yeah, oh yeah, almost.”

  He wanted to watch Silas’s face, but couldn’t take his eyes off the point where his rigid cock was sheathed in Silas. Of all men, Silas, taking this from me. He rocked, tiny shifts of weight, slipping a fraction deeper, another fraction. Then resistance was gone and he slid home half his length, Silas’s ass a tight ring around his shaft. “Jesus.”

  He flicked a look up at Silas. The flush had climbed Silas’s neck to color his cheekbones. His mouth hung open, his chest rose and fell with fast breaths. The lean muscles in his arms flexed, where he held his knees in a death grip. He was staring down at their joining too, but then his eyes met Darien’s, the gray almost eclipsed by his wide pupils.

  Damn, I knew he’d look amazing like this.

  “All right?” Darien asked.

  “If you don’t—” Silas took a breath as Darien flexed his hips slightly. “—get on with it… ngh!”

  Darien pushed in another inch, which shut Silas up nicely. God, he’s tight and perfect. Darien found the right angle, leaned over Silas, braced on one hand and wrapped the other arm around one of Silas’s raised legs. More. He flexed his hips, pushed, dragged back slowly, pushed again. Each stroke buried him a little deeper inside Silas, drawing a faint gasp or moan from Silas’s parted lips. More. Hell, yes, more.

  He sank to the hilt, took a moment to enjoy the feel of his groin pressed up against Silas’s ass, then began to move faster. He’d maybe overdone the jelly but the slurp and slide were part of the messy, sticky, musky earthiness of this. His cock took Silas’s ass, drove home inside his man, setting up a rhythm. Silas’s head twisted and turned on the pillows, then he caught his lower lip between his teeth, neck arching, then his mouth dropped open on a series of moans, getting louder as Darien picked up the pace.

  Maybe just a bit… Darien braced a knee and changed his angle slightly and Silas keened and shivered. Yeah, there. I have you now, lover. Each stroke drew a low cry from Silas. The tight grip of his ass around Darien’s cock clamped down, almost too much, not enough, need climbing in Darien’s groin until he wanted to ram home, drive into Silas and through him and claim him and— Come on, Silas, come on.

  Silas shouted without words and spilled, the sharp scent of cum filling Darien’s nose as Silas striped his chest with jizz, even hitting his own chin. Jesus, this man. Darien gave up restraint and pounded home, short fast rabbit punches with his hips, his cock stroked and clamped tighter than a fist, pressure against the head, the length, and the scent of sex and sweat a heady mix of need and now and yes. Ah, hell, yes.

  Climax hit him, and he ground deeper into Silas, shaking, pulsing his cum inside his man’s hot body. Take it. Take me. Jolts of pleasure wrung him out, till his vision blurred and he couldn’t catch his breath. Something rang like a chime in his head, like the moment when an arrow strikes the bullseye. The air seemed to vibrate and for a wild instant it felt like he and Silas were one person, one body, filled with lightning, with two hearts racing in unison.

  Eventually his body began easing down the other side of that peak. He stilled himself, dragging harsh breaths through his dry throat. Pushing up with his arms, he looked down to where his cock was still buried deep inside Silas. Sexiest thing on this planet. Sitting back slowly on his heels, he rubbed the tight ring as he pulled free, a gentle touch to ease the twitching, overstimulated hole. His softening dick managed another hopeless little pulse, smearing a few drops on Silas’s thigh. He rubbed the cum into Silas’s skin. On you and in you.

  Eventually he looked up to meet Silas’s gaze. Except Silas lay with his eyes shut, fingers still locked around his knees, breathing in long shaky exhalations. Darien wiped his hands on the sheet, which was a lost cause anyway, and reached for Silas’s hands. “You can let go now.” He eased clamped fingers open.

  “Holy hells.” Silas opened his eyes, blinking a few times, and stretched his legs out with a grimace. “That was something else.”

  Darien felt ridiculously pleased with himself. “They don’t do it like that in the hallowed halls of the Guild?”

  Silas’s chuckle was rich and warm. “Pretty sure they don’t do homosexual sex at all in the hallowed halls. But I’ve never done it like that in a back room, or little motel either
. No one took the time… and spit isn’t the best for comfort. I’d never tried Vaseline.”

  “It’s messy,” Darien said, easing down beside Silas. “We might want to pay a laundry to tackle these sheets. But yeah, beats the hell out of spit. Although I think it could still stand to be slipperier.”

  Silas put an arm around him. The weight of it felt comforting, and Silas’s body along his seemed relaxed, no longer strung tight. I did that. Fucked the tight right out of him.

  Darien hid a grin against Silas’s shoulder. “Maybe the Great Spell that says ‘technology is wonderful, do more tech’ could have a bit added about ‘work on better lubricant’?”

  Silas snorted. “I don’t think I’ll be suggesting it to the Guild.”

  “Well, all this magic stuff should be good for something.” Except even that little reminder leaked a bit of tension back into Silas’s body. Dammit, what does it take to make you relax?

  “You’d think, right?” The humor sounded forced and sure enough, Silas lifted his arm and eased up to sitting. “Mph. I’m going to head to the bathroom and clean up.” He pushed up off the bed.

  Darien sat up too, his self-satisfaction fading. “You’re not too sore? That was okay?”

  Silas bent, set a hand under Darien’s chin, and kissed him hard. “You know how good that was. You were there with me.”

  Somehow, that settled Darien’s sudden nerves more than any effusive praise would have. Yeah, we were there together. And it was incredible. Darien dropped back on Silas’s pile of pillows and watched as his tall, lean, sexy necromancer pulled on a shirt to cover his nakedness, found clean clothes, stuck his head out the door to make sure the coast was clear, and then went to wash off the mess. Except the part of me that’s inside him. That’ll last.

  Chapter 7

  Silas fiddled with the tangled cord of the phone on Clarice’s kitchen counter, while he listened to Locke tell him why it was unlikely they’d actually encountered a ghoul.

  When Locke ran out of words, he repeated, “I know they’re rare, but it was dark and amorphous with many hands and mouths and it ran off with a woman’s shade and left only a wisp of a ghost. What would you call it?”