His heels dug into the hard muscles in the back of Wren’s thighs as he tried to pull him closer. He could taste his own blood as he chewed on his lower lip, the taste of Wren spliced through it like seasoning.
Wren’s fingers tightened around Ledger’s hips, his nails sharp as they met thin, unpadded flesh, and the muscles in his jaw stood out in knots under the scruff of stubble that darkened in his jaw. In the light from the window, the gray inked patterns on his skin looked like they were in motion: the flick of a wing or gape of a sharp beak.
“What are they?” Ledger asked.
Wren glanced down, his chin tucked against his collarbones, as if it was obvious what Ledger meant.
“Me,” he said
Before Ledger could puzzle out what that meant exactly, Wren let go of his hips. He shifted his grip to the table, the long, exaggerated triangle of his body bent over Ledger, and thrust into him harder. Ledger’s shoulders slid on the sweat-slick formica with each thrust. He grabbed onto Wren for support, arms tangled around Wren’s body and his face pressed against his damp, hot shoulder.
Ledger’s cock was squeezed between their bodies, ground against lean, smooth skin and hard muscle. The scattered sparks of pleasure that zapped along Ledger’s nerves suddenly had one direction. They knotted together in the cradle of his hips, jostled by Wren’s rough, uneven thrusts, and Ledger groaned, his mouth open against bare, salted skin as he gasped for breath.
On a whim, he bit down, scraping his teeth over the taut line of muscle and tendon. It made Wren stiffen in reaction. Ledgerfeltthe groan in Wren’s throat against his mouth before it escaped Wren’s mouth.
That worked.
The table really wasn’t going to be the same after this. Ledger stroked his hands over Wren’s tense shoulders, tracing the knots of muscle under the skin, and then down his arms. He kissed his way up the tendons in Wren’s throat to the soft hollow behind his ear.
“I like this,” he rasped, his voice ragged and hungry. Wren groaned something low and gravelly in his throat. He buried his cock in Ledger with deep, jerky thrusts that rattled the table under them. “I like your cock in me and the smell of your sweat on me.”
Wren rasped out a guttural “Fuck” and came inside Ledger.
This time, Ledger expected the dread. It didn’t help. The chill of it left him hollow and gasping. He was vaguely aware of his fingers as they clenched around Wren’s shoulders, his grip strong enough that it had to hurt. Ledger could feel the dull ache of the pressure in his knuckles. Emptiness poured into him, through him, and he clung to the pieces of himself desperately, only to see them wash away.
Then he was wrung unceremoniously back to life, sprawled on an unfit-for-the-purpose hotel table. Come splattered his stomach, and his ass was wet. Wren leaned over him, propped up on his elbows, and watched as Ledger choked in a spasmodic gasp of air.
Everything was washed out, the edges of the world smeared away into white glare, until Ledger blinked. Then it dimmed, like someone had turned the dial on the brightness.
Wren leaned down and licked the sweat off Ledger’s collarbone. The table creaked as he did so.
“You should probably get up,” Wren said. He unfolded himself in one easy movement, naked and sweaty. He held his hand out expectantly.
Ledger considered his options. None of them were dignified. He sighed and took the offer of help. Wren smirked and pulled Ledger to his feet, unsticking his back and ass from the table with an audible smacking noise.
“I told you I’d break it,” Wren said.
Ledger raked his fingers through his hair, his curls sweat-matted to his skull, and looked at the table. It was slightly crooked—and needed to be wiped down—but…
“Doesn’t look broken to me,” he said.
Wren gave him a wry, “really?” look. He reached out and leaned one hand on it. The table held for a moment and then dramatically collapsed under the applied weight.
“It does now,” he said.
CHAPTER17
WREN SPRAWLED ONthe bed in unbuttoned jeans—the waistband slung so low around his narrow hips that it seemed impossible it wasn’t indecent—and nothing else when Ledger came out of the bathroom. Ledger stopped in the doorway, scrubbing the damp towel over his head.
The ink had moved. The bulk of it shifted from his chest to his shoulders.
It wasn’t the weirdest thing Ledger had seen in the last few days.
“I’ve been thinking,” Wren said. He had the tub of mint vinaigrette out of Ledger’s salad in his hand. The thin plastic lid popped as he flicked it off with his thumbnail. “Why didn’t Syder and your dad re-up? Sign up for the extended warranty on their bodies?”
He downed the salad dressing like it was a shot.
It made the inside of Ledger’s mouth pucker, but it still wasn’t as bad as the chicken bone. Probably. Ledger didn’t say anything about it. Even if passing for human mattered to Wren—and he was always the first to point out he wasn’t—Ledger wasn’t sure how to explain that this wouldn’t help.
