Wren tightened his grip on Ledger’s cock. He squeezed just enough to make Ledger squirm and catch his breath.
“Liar.”
Ledger clenched his jaw and swallowed hard as he tried to find his footing again.
“That’s to do with you,” he said. “Any mention of my deceased, estranged, serial killer father who was, most recently, seen inside half a dead coyote? Nothing to do with that.”
“OK,” Wren said. “I’ll remember that. If you’d thanked it, it would have followed you home.”
“And showing fear?”
“Good advice in general,” Wren said. He paused and then added pointedly, “Things like me can use fear.”
“In case you were worried,” Ledger said, “I’d not forgotten.”
“Good,” Wren said. There was something quietly grim in his voice. “You shouldn’t.”
It was an opportunity to ask.
What are you?
What’s Earl?
What is he to you?
Instead, Ledger curled his hand around the nape of Wren’s neck and pulled him into a kiss. It started quick and hard, all those unasked questions sharp in the back of Ledger’s throat, but then it softened. Ledger chased the taste of Wren’s breath across his lips and into his mouth, their tongues tangled around each other. Heat and want spread like hot wires under his skin as Wren kneaded his cock through his trousers. Ledger curled his free hand around Wren’s waist and down to cup his ass through worn denim. He squeezed the handful of hard flesh and pulled Wren closer, until they were pressed together from bare chests down to long, hard thighs. Ledger could feel the hard, insistent rise of Wren’s cock as it nudged against his thigh.
It was Wren who broke the kiss and pulled back. He tilted his head and ran his tongue over the wet curve of his lower lip. There was something vulnerable in that pause. He didn’t even have a cocky remark on deck.
“Drop your jeans,” Ledger said.
Wren’s eyebrows drew together in a sketch of a frown. It held for a moment, and then he reached down to the fly on his pants. Long fingers worked the buttons free, and the worn denim sagged down over his lean hips.
“You’re a backseat driver,” Wren said. He shrugged as he flicked the last button out of the slot. “That makes sense.”
Ledger stepped closer and rested his hands on Wren’s shoulders.
“I can stop,” Ledger offered. He ran his hands down Wren’s chest and the tense ridges of muscle in his stomach. His fingers grazed curls of gray ink, and he decided not to notice they felt significantly colder than the rest of Wren’s skin. He paused as his fingers reached the loose waistband of Wren’s jeans, caught precariously on the jut of sharp hip bones. “If you want.”
Wren swallowed.
“No,” he said. His voice sounded scratchy, and he stopped to clear it. “That’s OK. You do you.”
Ledger sank to his knees. He pressed a tease of a kiss to Wren’s stomach and felt the muscles jump under tanned skin as Wren groaned.
“I’ll do that,” Ledger said, pulling the worn denim down Wren’s thighs.
Wren’s cock was already hard. Fine skin was pulled taut over the thick shift, raised veins prominent along the length of it. It twitched slightly as Wren reached down to grab the base of it in one hand and gave it a quick, perfunctory stroke.
“I did specify ‘ass,’” Wren said.
“I know,” Ledger said. He pushed Wren’s hand out of the way and leaned in to press a loose, wet kiss to the underside of Wren’s cock. It made Wren swear, soft and choked, as he sucked in a quick breath. “We’re just taking the scenic route.”
Ledger gripped the back of Wren’s thigh in one hand, the long muscles clenched under his fingers. There was a drop of pre-come suspended from the head of Wren’s cock. Ledger lapped it up from the skin. The salty pop of it on his tongue made him uneasy, a chill at the base of his spine that spread up to the nape of his neck, but that would pass.
It was just the… associations.
Ledger sometimes wished his brain had latched onto something different as its identifier for evil. Something less common. Rosehips. The old standard of sulfur. Nobody had asked him, though, so he just had to adapt.
