If the “blue balls” comment hadn’t reset his brain, this would have done it.
By comparison, the deer-in-the-headlights look that Davy had been sporting was gone. It was replaced with an amused wickedness that darkened his eyes.
“Huh,” he said. “Did not know that was on the table.”
Hill bristled half-heartedly.
“What?” he snapped. “I don’t read as gay? Sorry. Should I take tips from you?”
Davy cocked his head to the side. “I mean, literally no one has ever questioned it,” he said. “So…maybe. But it wasn’t that. I just didn’t think it was on the menu while I’m, ah, already in you, so to speak.”
That was one way to put it, Hill supposed. It was a hotter thought than he’d have expected. Not just Davy’s cock in him, thick and solid as Hill squeezed around him, butallof him. He shifted his feet and, necessary or not, took a breath.
“You don’t look like me,” he said. “Nottome.”
Davy blinked, looked down at himself, and plucked the soft fabric of the T-shirt away from his chest.
“Well, that explains why you blush every time you sneak a look at my ass,” he said.
“I didn’t…” Hill spluttered the denial. “I haven’t looked at it.”
Davy snorted. “Please,” he said. “I thought you were just really up yourself, but I guess you wanted to be up me?”
“I don’t even know if the dead do…if they evencan,” Hill said. The tone of his voice was remarkably prim considering the topic. He didn’t seem to be able to fix it. “Fuck, I mean.”
“The dead fuck,” Davy said. He pushed himself up off the counter and took a step forward. His tentacles squirmed ahead of him, restless and curious. “I fuck.”
Hill feltparched.Light and hollow and dry with hunger. He thought he might knowenoughabout what sex was to the dead. No need to find out more. He ran his hand around the back of his neck, fingers caught in tangled curls.
“Not like it matters right now,” Hill said. Despite his very recent decision to be incurious, he felt bitterness like a rock in the back of his throat. “You can’t touch me, remember?”
Davy stopped mid-step. He shifted his weight so his legs were apart, soft sweats pulled tight over his thighs.
“Oh, you can touch me. See?” he said as he ran his hand down over his stomach. His fingers dipped under the waistband, went lower, black fleece tented over his knuckles as he wrapped his hand around his—aroundHill’scock. Color touched his cheeks, the faint spray of freckles on his face floating on top of the flush as he bit his lower lip. His eyes were already dark, black from edge to edge, but it was somehow more intense as his lids lowered over them. A breath swelled his chest, and Hill wondered whatthatfelt like after so long dead. Before he could chase the thought, Davy lifted those heavy lids and smirked at him. “And I can touch you. At least, part of me can.”
Hill caught his breath in an eager gasp as Davy wrapped a tentacle around his throat. It collared him briefly, tight against his skin, and slid upward. The tip of it—dry and a little rough, not like snake skin but rough leather—traced the curve of Hill’s mouth. It pulled his lower lip and slid into his mouth, thick and solid as it pushed against his tongue.
Oh.
When he breathed in, he could taste the cuttlebone and salt of it in the back of his throat.
Under the fig leaf of the sweats, Davy dragged his hand along his cock in slow, lazy strokes. His breath was ragged, his muscles tensed, and he watched Hill’s face for a reaction.
Two responses hung in Hill’s head and waited for him to pick. Recoil and make his excuses, or wrap his lips around the squirming tentacle and suck it deeper.
The version of him that sat in a pew and listened politely to Father Thomas every Sunday rattled the bars of his cage at the idea that the choice wasn’tobvious.It was one thing to use the Rite of Invocation, that was…frowned upon, but it wasn’t asin.
Not like this. This would be a sin.
This would be necromancy.
That should have made the choice easier, but…
Before Hill had to decide, Davy’s phone rang. It was like a switch flipped; the lazy, sultry heat was wiped off Davy’s face. He pulled his hand out of his pants and grabbed the phone, answering it with a cool, “I’ve been waiting.”
The tentacle drew back from Hill’s mouth, slick and wet. It nudged his mouth shut behind it and then gave his cheek a commiserating pat.
Hill felt like a husk. An echoing, desperate husk. He pressed his fists against his stomach as he tried to pull himself together. It felt like more than want; it felt like a weird sort of hunger.
