Page 45 of Branding the Bat

"Tell me you want it."

"I want it." The words came out hoarse and immediate. "I've wanted it since the first night I brought you home and tied you to your own bed and slept on your couch smelling your pillow."

"That's either very romantic or very creepy."

"It's a cat thing. We like the way people smell." Trevor's hands found Sero's hips, tentative at first, then firm. "How do you want to do this?"

Sero had thought about it. He'd thought about it on the walk here, thought about it during the branding, thought about it while Trevor's claws were pressing into his chest and the pain was bright and chosen. He'd been fucked by the machine: the dildo, the vibration, the relentless mechanical precision that had forced his body open and taken from it without his knowledge. The first time anything entered him in this relationship; it had been a theft.

He wanted to rewrite that.

"I want you inside me," Sero said. "Your cock, not a toy. And I want to see your face the whole time."

Trevor kissed him. Not softly, not carefully, not with the tentative permission-seeking of the past three weeks. He kissed Sero like a man who'd been holding back for months and had just been told he could have what he desired most. His mouth was hot and insistent and his hands pulled Sero against him hard enough that Sero felt Trevor's cock stiffening against his hip through two layers of denim.

They made it to the bedroom. Barely. Sero's shirt came off in the hallway, and Trevor's mouth found the claw marks on his chest and kissed each one, the five pale lines from the first branding and the five fresh ones from today, and the tenderness of it made Sero's breath catch in a way the pain never had.

"I want the lights on," Sero said against Trevor's skin.

"They're on."

"Good. Keep them on."

They fell onto the bed. Trevor's bed, the white sheets pulled taut, the king-sized mattress that was too big for one person and exactly right for two. Sero kicked off his jeans. Trevor did the same, and then they were naked together for the first time without a scene, without a pole, without handcuffs or a flogger or the amber light of a private room at KK. Just Trevor's bedroom, the late afternoon light through the blinds, and two bodies that had known each other through extremity and were learning each other through something quieter.

Trevor's body was different from how Sero had experienced it before. In the sessions, Trevor was partially clothed, controlled, a presence felt through voice and impact rather than skin. Naked and horizontal, he was leaner than Sero had realized, all sharp angles and long muscles, the hardware-store version of him stripped of every layer. His cock was hard against Sero's stomach, and the heat of it, skin on skin with nothing between them, made Sero's hips roll forward.

"Lube," Sero said.

Trevor reached for the nightstand. The bottle was new, still sealed. He cracked it open and poured it over his fingers, and the simple domesticity of the gesture, a man opening a new bottle of lube in his own bedroom for the person he was trying to deserve, hit Sero harder than he expected.

"I'll go slow," Trevor said.

"I know you will." Sero spread his legs and pulled Trevor down over him. "But don't go too slow. I'm not fragile."

Trevor's slicked fingers found him. One first, circling, pressing, the same patient preparation he'd used before the machine's dildo, but without the clinical distance. It was Trevor's hand, Trevor's fingers, warm and precise and shaking slightly. The shake mattered. The shake said this means something to me and I'm afraid of getting it wrong.

Sero bore down against the pressure and Trevor's finger slid inside. The stretch was familiar, the angle different. Trevor curled his finger and found the spot that made Sero's hips buck, and when Sero gasped, Trevor leaned down and swallowed the sound with a kiss.

A second finger. Stretching, opening him up. Sero grabbed the sheets with one hand and Trevor's shoulder with the other, his nails digging in hard enough to leave marks. Trevor didn't flinch. He worked his fingers deeper, his mouth on Sero's neck, his free hand braced beside Sero's head.

"More," Sero said.

A third finger. The stretch burned, and Sero's body categorized the burn the way it categorized everything: data, information, a signal that mapped directly to the ache in his cock and the heat pooling low in his belly. Every stretch was a spark. Every press of Trevor's fingers against his prostate sent a jolt through him that made his cock leak against his stomach.

"Now," Sero said. "I'm ready."

Trevor withdrew his fingers and reached for the lube again. He slicked himself, his hand tight on his own cock, and the sight of Trevor stroking himself while looking down at Sero with those blue eyes, blown dark with want, was enough to make Sero's breath stutter.

Trevor positioned himself. The blunt press of his cock against Sero's ass was thick, hot, and real, nothing like silicone, nothing like a toy. This was a man's body asking to be let in.

"Look at me," Sero said.

Trevor looked at him. And pushed inside.

The first inch drew a groan out of both of them. Trevor was thick, thicker than his fingers, and the stretch burned in a way that Sero's body translated directly into pleasure. He wrapped his legs around Trevor's waist and pulled him deeper, and Trevor slid in another inch, and another, slow and steady, hisjaw clenched, his arms braced, his whole body trembling with the effort of not slamming forward.

When Trevor was fully seated, they both stopped breathing.