“Wait,” Davy interrupted. He strolled across the room, his tentacles hauling Hill along with him, and flopped down on the sofa.
A stray, unhelpfully prosaic part of Hill’s brain took a second to be distracted at that. There was a towel somewhere. If Davy had asked…
Shut up,he told it firmly,shut up, shut up.
“I’m a kinesthetic learner,” Davy said. He paused, head cocked as he waited. When Hill didn’t chip in, Davy prompted him. “Most people like to compliment me on knowing a big word like that.”
“Why?”
It was the real smile again, slow and warm and dimpled. Davy tilted his head to the side, fingers buried in his hair, and chuckled. Something about the gesture felt so intimate that Hill made a quick, deliberate attempt to absorb all the details, from the creases on Davy’s wrist to the scuffed skin on his knees. For…for later, when it was over.
“Never mind,” Davy said.
Hill tucked the memory away somewhere safe in his brain. He looked at Davy curiously.
“I’ll be honest, I thought my…appreciation…of this, of you, was already clear without any more compliments.”
“I mean, everyone likes to hear they’re pretty,” Davy said. He raised an eyebrow and dragged a tentacle along the bulge under Hill’s jeans. Hill hitched his hips up into the contact, but the tentacle flicked away after a quick tease of a grope. “But yeah, that is pretty flattering. So, back to business. Like I said, I learn by doing. So clear step-by-step instructions so I can follow along. Detail is always good. Where do I start?”
Part of Hill wanted to skip straight to the good part, but he’d been given a social cue detailed enough he couldn’t misinterpret it. So he probably should acknowledge it.
“Put your hand on your collarbone,” he said.
Davy did as he was told. If Hill had wanted to be pedantic, he could have pointed out he’d not said which shoulder. He’d also not said for Davy to do it seductively, rubbing his thumb along the sharp jut of his collarbone and licking his lips.
This once he’d let the improvisations slide.
“Like that,” he said, and then the words stuck on the back of his tongue as Davy repeated the gesture on him. A tentacle brushed gently along his collarbone and then…waited. So did Davy. Hill bit his lower lip and nodded. “That’s it. Just like that. Now run your hand down your chest to your…your nipple.”
Davy ran his hand down to his nipple. He grazed his thumb over it and mimicked the gesture on Hill’s with the flat of a tentacle. Breath or not, Hill’s lungs hitched in his chest, and his muscles tightened. Meanwhile, other tentacles stripped off his socks and sneakers, dropping them to the floor.
It briefly occurred to Hill that he could well spend the rest of Christmas naked, depending on how clothes worked in the Beyond. They’d “died” with him, but could they persist without him being in contact with them?
He supposed he’d find out. Tentacles wrapped around his feet, the tickle of them against his soles and around his bony ankles making him curl his toes. His cock ached, that increasingly familiar hollowing ache of lust in the Beyond.
“Pinch your nipple,” Hill managed to choke out. He groaned at the same time as Davy did, the stretched-thin tendril tip wrapped all the way around his. Davy rolled both of their nipples until they hardened, tight and puckered, under the attention. He clenched his fists. “Tighter.”
Hill stumbled through the next few steps of the seduction. The perfectionist in him demanded he put together a well-structured, logical guide, but his thoughts were scattered with lust and hunger. His own and the groans and lip-bitten reactions from Davy. Hands moved down and spread over lean, hard stomachs, combing through the short trail of sweat-matted hair under his navel. Davy’s cock thrust up between the V of his thumb and fingers as he waited. The grubby square of the gauze that covered his injured hand looked stark against tanned, bony hands.
“Touch yourself,” Hill got out, the words dry and stuck to the end of his tongue.
Davy smirked at him. “How?”
The image was in Hill’s head, long, competent fingers cuffed around the thickness of the shaft as the thin skin creased with each slow, steady pump. The way it slid, slick with come, against the palm as Davy’s hips fucked up into the tight grip. Except it wasn’t justtechnicallyHill’s hands in the fantasy; he could feel the heat and heartbeat of the erection against his skin and tighten his grip without having to input the directions.
It was raw and immediate, and he couldn’t break it down into easily followed steps. Not with his own body hollowed out and tight with his reaction to the attentive caress of Davy’s tentacles.
“If you don’t know,” he said, “I’m not sure you’re the one taking advantage of me.”
Davy caught his upper lip between his teeth and shrugged. His tentacles pulled Hill closer and lowered him until he was almost sitting in Hill’s lap.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said as he reached out. His hand grazed through the air a few inches above Hill’s waist, and the pressure of the tentacle thatactuallytouched him wasn’t that far off if he closed his eyes and pretended. He twisted the buttons off Hill’sjeans, one after the other, with a precise flick of a tentacle. “I was just warming up.”
Chapter Fourteen
Dec 23, 7.00pm
Davy peeled Hill outof his jeans and dropped them unceremoniously to the ground.
