Captivated (The Verge Book 2)

by A. C. Thomas

  Jun gave him one hard thrust, and then another, until he had built up a brutal rhythm that set Theo’s teeth rattling and his heart racing. He started begging in every language he knew, which only seemed to encourage Jun to go faster and harder until the obscene slap of their flesh filled the room.

  Theo frantically tugged against the ribbons, wincing as they started to cut into his wrists.

  Slowing to a stop, Jun shushed him while he stroked his hands up Theo’s arms. “Shit, you’re gonna hurt yourself. Here, let me just—”

  He untangled Theo’s hands from the ribbons and brought his wrists down to rest on Theo’s chest between them. Jun rubbed at his arms and kissed the pinkened skin of his wrists in silent apology, then murmured into the marks, “Sorry, baby. Should’ve let you go, but you looked so good. I’ll do a better tie next time, so you won’t hurt yourself.”

  Next time.

  The words sparked a chain of small explosions in Theo’s chest, culminating in a flash fire that spread all over his body until he was nothing but flames in Jun’s embrace.

  He fisted Jun’s hair in one hand as he trailed his nails down his back with the other, scoring the lines of ink with his own signature. Jun hissed Theo’s name and bucked his hips, eyes reflecting the fire inside of Theo even as his hands remained gentle and sweet along his ribs.

  Theo urged Jun down onto his elbows, lifting his hips to rub his leaking cock against the straining muscle of Jun’s stomach with every thrust. “Jun. you’re so—I want—”

  He shut his mouth against unwanted words, biting them back with clenched teeth. Heavy, painful words he knew he couldn’t say. Words that would undoubtedly prove unwelcome, since Theo’s love and affection, once earned, was unrelenting.

  Stifling—as it had been described before. Things Jun did not want from a casual liaison such as this.

  Better to keep it to himself.

  Their lips brushed, softly, unconsciously. Less than a kiss but more than nothing.

  It wasn’t nothing.

  Theo’s breath caught in his throat, lips trembling as he tightened his neck muscles against the urge to reach up for more. He clenched his hands over Jun’s shoulders, nails digging in.

  Jun pushed in hard, frozen in place as he watched Theo with an expression so open it seemed like it hurt. He took one ragged breath, then pulled out to flip Theo over onto his stomach. Jun then worked his way back in with short, smooth thrusts, picking up the pace.

  His lips brushed over the nape of Theo’s neck, mouth open and panting with punched-out grunts and softer sounds, whispered low.

  His hands glided down Theo’s arms to circle his wrists and brought Theo’s hands up onto the pillow beside his head. Jun dug his elbows into the mattress and laced their fingers together.

  That wasn’t nothing either.

  Carefully, tremulously, Theo stroked his thumb across Jun’s knuckles where they interlaced with his own, and Jun gasped, hips stuttering.

  Then, just as slowly, just as carefully, Jun began to kiss Theo’s neck. Blatantly, unmistakably kissing him until Theo’s own lips ached with envy.

  Jun unlaced their fingers on one hand and dropped his to stroke Theo’s cock in time with his thrusts. He made a soft sound of surprise when Theo reached out to take his hand again, holding it tightly.

  “No, I don’t need it. I can finish like this; just keep going. I’d rather—” Theo laced their fingers back together and brought them up to press his lips to Jun’s knuckles. “—rather do it like this.”

  This time, the sound Jun made was anything but soft. “Fuck, yes. Come on my cock. Show me.”

  A minute shift of his powerful thighs and suddenly he was thrusting harder and deeper, dragging the head of his cock relentlessly over Theo’s sweet spot. Jun shoved Theo against the mattress with every push, rubbing his cock over the sheets in too-much, not-enough bursts of pleasure that built and built until Theo was shaking in his arms, clutching at his hands.

  “Right there! Right there, don’t stop. Please!”

  Jun caught the sensitive curve of Theo’s ear in his teeth with a growl, and Theo shouted as he spilled across the sheets, squeezing Jun’s hands even as his body tightened around his cock. Jun released his ear with a harsh, stuttering breath, barely able to pant out his words. “Good. That’s so good, baby. Holy shit.”

  Jun lost his rhythm, pushing in harder and faster as he whispered praise into Theo’s hair until he finished with a rush of warmth inside of Theo, muscles locking in place with a grunt.

  Theo braced for Jun to roll away, clean himself up, and leave without another word. In Theo’s experience, such was customary of a casual lover who held no interest in forging a deeper connection.

  That was his only excuse for the tight, relieved sound he made when Jun’s weight collapsed on top of him, crushing him into the mattress with a sigh.

  When Jun finally rolled to his back with a muttered apology, Theo simply followed him and propped his forearms on Jun’s chest with a bright smile.

  “See? I told you that you could be gentle.”

  The height to which Jun’s eyebrows aspired was rather ambitious, in Theo’s opinion. “You think that was gentle?”

  He took Theo’s wrists in his hands, prodded at the rapidly fading marks, and then he brought them to his lips to lay the softest of kisses across his skin. For some reason, those tiny kisses echoed through Theo like siren bells ringing. Jun cut dark, satisfied eyes up at him, and it was truly a wonder that Theo’s heart didn’t break a rib with the force of its pounding.

  Jun didn’t whisper, but his voice hovered below conversational tone. It was husky, and sweet, and all the more intimate for the curving dip in volume. “I should never have touched you. I told you, I can’t be gentle. I break things.”

  The regret written in two tiny parallel lines between Jun’s brows shot through Theo like twin arrows, stinging his eyes with the threat of ill-timed tears. He sniffed them away and donned a brisk, no-nonsense tone, tapping Jun smartly in the center of his chest. “Well, you can practice with me. I won’t tell anyone. You can still be big and bad and scary, and nobody has to know that you’re gentle with me sometimes. That you can be soft and sweet, too, when you want to be.”

  Jun pulled a face at that, full upper lip lifting in a sneer, but his hands closed over Theo’s shoulder blades, petting soft and sweet and, yes, very gently down his back. He ran a careful hand down the pale expanse of Theo’s spine, still speaking low as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “All of this blank, virgin skin. It isn’t safe.”

  Tucking his hand under his chin, Theo blew a lock of hair out of his eyes in a habit that Ari had assured him was terribly uncouth. “What makes you say that? Everyone looks this way back home. Regeneration fluid takes care of any scars, and we don’t do all of this lovely decorative ink either. Which I’m beginning to see is a terrible failing for us.”

  He slanted a glance up through his lashes as he dipped his head to trace one of the dark lines over Jun’s collarbone with his tongue. It was just as satisfying as he had imagined.

  Jun hissed and shifted beneath him but did nothing to stop Theo’s meandering tongue, letting his own hands caress Theo’s back in little circles. “It makes you look expensive. Valuable in a way you don’t want to be around here.”

  Theo pushed back up to study his face. Jun was chewing on his plush lower lip as he ran his hands over Theo’s skin with a soft reverence emphasized by the scrape of callouses on his tattooed fingers. He seemed as fascinated by the contrast as Theo was himself. It gave Theo a surge of confidence. “You like it, though, don’t you? That I look so different from you. Like a— What did they call me? Like a Doll.”

  Jun’s hands fell away as if Theo had slapped them, eyes wide on Theo’s face. “No. You’re not a Doll. Never say that again.”

  The slight tremble in Jun’s jaw drew Theo’s attention. And the thread of fear in his words. “Why not? That’s what your crew keeps saying.”

  J
un shook his head once, sharply, and tugged the twisted sheets up until they covered Theo’s hips. “Bad things happen to Dolls, Theo. You’re not a Doll.”

  Ari had once likened Theo to a shark, with the way he latched onto things in conversation and refused to let them go until they had been torn to shreds. “What’s a Doll, then?”

  Sorrow flickered across Jun’s face, leaving trace elements of sadness behind in the crook of his mouth and the corner of his eye. He sighed so deeply Theo rose and fell with it as though he were riding the crest of a wave. “People. They’re people in a shitty situation. Traded like collectibles between Crews. Like, fucking, objects.”

  It was a concept Theo had heard alluded to but never discussed in polite company. One of the horrors that lurked beyond the Verge. It made his skin crawl to ponder it. “But, that’s awful.”

  Jun’s hands tightened over Theo’s back as his jaw firmed with resolve, accented by the parallel lines of ink. “Yes, it is. And I’m going to stop it.“

  As he made that proclamation, all Jun needed was a cliff face along the moors as he stood facing the wind with a hand to his heart and a dark cape billowing in the wind. Or, at least, Theo’s vivid imagination insisted that he did.

  Theo tried not to let his breathless reaction to that mental image color his voice when he whispered, “How?” but objectively failed at the task. He could practically hear Jun’s walls going back up, heavy emotional doors slamming shut with a mental clang.

  “You don’t need to worry about that. I told you I’d keep you safe, and I always honor my word.”

  Theo played with the tattooed fingers of Jun’s right hand, humming with understanding. “Yes, I’ve seen your dedication to honor. Honor and Valor. Why did you choose those words?”

  Jun pulled his hand away and lifted his index finger, rubbed his thumb across the characters. “It’s a reminder.”

  Theo waited for further explanation, but it seemed Jun was finished. Theo angled his head inquisitively but Jun avoided his eyes. “A reminder of what, precisely?”

  Burying the tattoos under Theo’s curtain of hair with a sigh, Jun continued reluctantly. “A reminder of something I once forgot, but never will again.”

  The sudden fierceness in Jun’s voice brought Theo up with a jolt, cutting through the peaceful air incisively. Alarm trickled down his spine like a slow poison. “You forgot your honor? What—did you accidentally leave it under the table in a tavern one night?” Theo continued with a little smile, trying to lift the mood, “I left mine out behind the stables when I was seventeen, so I know the feeling.”

  Jun sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He grabbed his trousers from the floor and jumped into them with both feet at once. Theo made a valiant effort not to fixate on the still-visible shadow of dark curls at the open front to the exclusion of all else.

  Jun hesitated, then slowly, gently combed through Theo’s mussed hair and rubbed a few strands between his fingers. His expression was anything but distant when he met Theo’s eyes. “You should get some rest, Theo. Tonight, you were— That was—was really, um…”

  He looked so lost, floundering beneath that tough, inked-up, muscled exterior, it made Theo’s stomach flutter with simmering affection.

  Taking mercy on his captain, Theo stroked a hand up the outside of his thigh with an understanding expression. “Good?”

  Jun’s relief at not having to articulate the thought himself was palpable and gave Theo the oddest urge to gather him into his arms. He gusted out a grateful sigh. “Yes. That. You were. You are.”

  Theo padded after him to the door, carelessly nude and love-rumpled. Jun stopped in his tracks to stare at him like a starving man before a feast when Theo dangled one crushed red satin ribbon in front of his face. “Dream of me, Captain.”

  Jun’s nostrils flared as Theo tucked the ribbon into Jun’s front pocket with a conspiratorial smirk and a little pat.

  The door slid closed across Jun’s stricken face, his Valor hand raised to cover his pocket as if it contained something precious.

  Something he didn’t want to lose.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Theo wore his cravat to the bridge in the morning, the thin layer of linen and lace covering up the enduring marks Jun had left in the shape of his mouth.

  It was strangely akin to the imagined sensation of wearing a lover’s locket tucked away beneath his clothes. Something beautiful and secret, a trifle risqué, that only Theo and Jun knew about.

  The very thought of such a thing brought a spring to his step. The rest of the Crew did not share his jocular mood.

  Marco rushed in and out of the bridge with various small metal parts for Jun’s inspection, until one finally passed muster and he jetted off to his lair in the bowels of the ship, cursing in Patch.

  Theo now had a decent (or, rather, indecent) vocabulary built up in the language.

  He had yet to use it and was waiting for just the right opportunity to catch Jun unawares. To make him smile, perhaps.

  Every one of Axel’s screens held maps and figures that scrolled too rapidly for Theo to follow as the pilot worked at his station with unusual focus, not a snack in sight.

  Boom and Jun stood grim-faced before their stations, shouting back and forth with tense, clipped voices. “Orders, Captain?” Boom asked.

  So many screens hung open above Jun’s console that the translucent rectangles overlapped one another. He moved one angrily aside with the cut of his hand. “Commence defensive preparations. Our contact will be waiting on Drei X in six hours.”

  Grimacing, Boom entered something into her console that caused one of the dozens of closed doors on her screen to slide open and reveal a stack of metal crates somewhere inside the ship. “Drei X? They really don’t want to be seen in our company if they’re dragging us all the way out to the Wastes.”

  Still focused on his screens, Axel gave a low, foreboding whistle. “You gotta admit, we don’t exactly have a stellar reputation. Makes sense to lay low. Keep our grubby little noses out of big Crew business.”

  Jun swiped away three more screens with a growl. “Cowardice is never rewarded.”

  Cracking his neck, Axel leaned back in his seat with a disdainful snort. “Yeah, okay. Thank you for that dour bit of wisdom, Captain. Where are you gonna get that one tattooed? I think there’s still some space left on your pinky.”

  Theo stood up from his seat in objection, pad clutched in hand. “Surely adding a second condemnation of cowardice to his knuckles would be the height of redundancy.”

  A small scoff from Boom drew Jun’s scowl. But Theo’s attention remained on Axel when he made a high-pitched sound of epiphany.

  “Oh, I get it, now,” Axel crowed. “You’re both pretentious assholes. That’s why you go so well together. You know, me and Marco”—he blithely ignored Marco’s shout of protest over the open coms at being included in the conversation—“we’ve been trying to puzzle it out. Like, is it just chemistry? Opposites attract? Novelty? But, no. There’s more to it than that. You’re both huge fucking nerds. You deserve each other.”

  The storm clouds in Jun’s face gathered and intensified in such a foreboding manner that Theo stepped in to divert the next lightning strike, offering himself up as a sacrificial lightning rod. “I believe I would like to see these Wastes. I’m coming with you when you drop.”

  “Make the drop!” Marco shouted over the coms, then cursed and hammered at something that echoed through the speakers.

  Theo was forced to raise his voice to be heard over the clanging. “Yes, that. I’m coming with you to make the drop. It would be lovely to take a stroll planetside after being cooped up on the ship for so long.”

  He didn’t need to wait for the lightning strike.

  Jun’s hand clamped down around his wrist. “You’re staying aboard.”

  Theo pretended to give it some thought, lightly tapping his chin, and then reached out to boop the rounded end of Jun’s nose. “No, I don’t think s
o. I’m coming along.”

  A smooth, sharp snick of metal on metal drew their attention to the side, where Boom had drawn a pair of wicked-looking knives from her thigh holster. She balanced one on her fingertip with a wide, friendly smile.

  Jun abruptly released Theo’s wrist and pointed a finger in his face. “No. You’re not.”

  It was a struggle not to become distracted by either the tantalizing stretch of Jun’s neck as he stood at full height to loom over Theo, or the dangerous juggling act Boom was performing off to the side, a third knife having been added to the array.

  Theo focused on Jun’s dark, flashing eyes, lifting his brow imperiously. “How do you propose to stop me, Captain?”

  He wasn’t imagining the way Jun swayed into him, nearly curled around him as Theo leaned back against the console.

  “I could tape you to the chair again,” Jun growled.

  Marco shouted “Gross!” through the coms at the same time that his sister made a tiny retching sound in the back of her throat. One of her knives fell to the floor with a tink. Axel just started crunching something that sounded as if it could not be any good for his teeth.

  Raising to his full height as well, Theo jutted his chin defiantly. “I would simply gnaw through the tape and start pressing buttons on Axel’s console just to prove a point.”

  Jun’s growl dragged so low it hit Theo in the gut like a ball of fire, melting his insides until his blood burned. “I could tie you up and toss you into your bunk to wait for me.”

  “Guys! Turn off your coms, please!” Marco’s plaintive wail of protest was underscored by Axel spitting out a mouthful of shells and leaning over his com to shout back: “If we suffer, then so do you, Valdez!”

  The rest of the Crew might as well have not existed for all the attention Jun paid to their antics. He was focused entirely on Theo.

  It was the stuff of dreams, really.

  Some of the molten devastation Jun had wrought trickled into Theo’s voice as he refused to look away from Jun’s glare. “Yes, I suppose you could, if you wanted to. I have a plethora of ideas regarding that scenario if you’d care to hear them. Hand me your pad, and I’ll draw up some diagrams for you.”