Lake’s brain ground to a halt. He’d expected him to be hot. His mouth was perfect, his cheeks hollowed and jaw like carved marble…but he wasn’t just hot. He was fucking pretty, like in the way fairy tale creatures were pretty. Even in the dim amber light, Lake could make out hazel blue eyes, a mop of short curly brown hair that looked soft to the touch and a gaze that looked far too innocent to belong to someone so cynical.
Elven. That’s the word that came to mind. A small, compact, adorable, troublemaking elf. His ears were even a little bit pointy. Lake’s cuteness aggression battled with his need to fuck the innocent expression right off his stormy little face.
“You’re staring,” Miles muttered, before burying his face in the pillow.
God, who was he really? Miles wasn’t his real name, but everything elsefeltreal. At least to Lake. The way the boy trembled felt real, the goosebumps on his skin. The way he looked at Lake like he wanted him even if he hated himself for it.
All of it.
“Tell me what you want,” Lake said, voice low but steady. He wasn’t going to guess. He wasn’t going to assume. Not with someone like this.
Miles hesitated, then turned onto his back. His chest was flushed. His neck marked. His breathing shallow. He looked defensive, but his eyes were blown wide, vulnerable in a way he clearly hated. He seemed mad at himself for shedding his last shred of anonymity.
“I just don’t want soft,” Miles muttered.
Lake huffed a quiet laugh. “Liar.”
Miles’s jaw tightened. “I don’t do soft. I do fast and stupid and forgettable.”
For a moment, Lake didn’t say anything. He just brushed a knuckle along Miles’ ribs, slow and warm. Miles flinched, not away. More like his body didn’t know what to do with affection.
“You don’t seem that forgettable to me,” Lake murmured.
Miles’s breath snagged. He pushed at Lake’s chest, not enough to move him. More like he needed something to do with his hands so he didn’t feel so exposed.
“You’d be shocked at how easily forgotten I am,” he whispered.
Lake’s heart twisted, sharp and painful. He dipped his head, lips brushing the corner of Miles’s mouth. “I’ll let you think that if you need to.” He sucked at his lower lip. “How far do you want to take this?”
Miles hesitated, then kissed him hard, like it was the only way he knew how to speak. It was all teeth and need and urgency, until Lake softened it. Slowed it. And just like before, Miles melted under it, body arching, knees parting instinctively to reel Lake closer.
“I need words,” Lake coaxed.
Miles buried his face in Lake’s neck. “Everything. Fuck me. I need more.”
He said it like he was embarrassed just voicing his own needs, but Lake had never been so turned on in his life. Miles was addictive. Every twitchy, defensive inch of him.
Lake tugged him from his hiding place, then deepened the kiss, hands roaming up Miles’s sides. When he finally pulled the rest of Miles’s suit down, the boy gasped like he’d been stripped of armor, not clothes. Lake licked his lips as he took him in. He was…proportionate, his cock flushed a deep red and straining against his belly, already leaking.
He was so pretty it made Lake’s chest ache.
For someone who strutted around like he was all attitude, he was…small? Physically, he was wiry and strong, all lean muscleand restless energy, but he was also small in the way he curled into touch he pretended not to need. Lake didn’t know how to name what that did to him, but whatever it was…it was potent.
Lake caught his mouth in another bruising kiss, then whispered, “Roll over,” against his ear.
Miles hesitated for only a moment, before settling onto his belly again.
Fuck.
He really was gorgeous.
Lake climbed over him once more, this time letting the hard length of his cock settle between the globes of his ass as he kissed down the ridge of his shoulder, slow as honey. Miles shivered, hips canting as he ground against him. Lake bit gently at the curve of his neck, just enough pressure to coax a gasp.
“Spread your legs, bossy,” Lake bit at the shell of his ear. “I wanna taste you.”
“O—kay,” he managed, his words breaking on a gasp before he buried his face in the pillow.
Lake dropped a kiss just below his ear, then his shoulder, before moving lower. Miles spread his thighs. He was so good at behaving when he wanted to. He palmed the swell of his ass, spreading him open, staring unabashedly until he started shifting restlessly beneath him.
