Everil, with his true face on. Rivers threaded over the long golden lines of his body. Accents of finer filigree looking for all the fucking world like small, perfect scales.
Suited him, like those eyes, darkness and moonlight, and the wickedly sharp, serrated teeth did. Like the taste of him under Bo’s tongue, tracing over a shimmering stream along his side. Everil’s entire body trembled as he shifted to hands and knees, so readily following Bo’s direction.
Bo knelt next to him, one knee between parted thighs, hands tracing silver lines on tan skin. Unhurried, not pressing his cock to Ever’s thigh like an over-eager teenager. He let himself indulge, his reward for taking the time to loot his bag without ripping the fucking thing apart and for getting them both naked, clothes carelessly discarded or not.
“Bo?” The question was almost lost behind the dark tumble of half-brushed hair. Something there, under Bo’s name. A thread of wariness.
“Yeah?” Bo pressed the word into Ever’s hip with his teeth, punctuated it with his hand tracing the curve of thatamazingass. Squeezed, when Ever didn’t say anything.
“I–” Ever cut himself off with a soft gasp, rocking back into his touch.
Fuck. Right. Questions.
Bo dragged his hand up from Ever’s hip to his back, leaning in and close as he did. Stretched himself out over the length of him, one hand in dark hair, the other on the bed for balance.
Everil took a shaking breath beneath him. Still poised to bolt, that sense ofwaitingthrough their bond, fear muddled in with need. Fuck, Bo hadn’t seen how tense he was until that moment. Shit.
“Got it. I was too far away.” Bo kissed his shoulder and, yeah, yes, fuck, pressed his cock against Ever’s thigh, gave in to that. “That’s what you wanted. Me close.”
Ever breathed “Yes,” throat and teeth exposed, head to the side for Bo’s mouth. His own, red and wet, unbloodied, begging for a kiss only someone willing to follow a kelpie to the river would steal. “I don’t mean to– Please, Bo. Let me feel you?”
The warm security of their bond ebbed, melted towards caution at the ask. And maybe a day ago, Bo would have bristled, read it as a lack of trust in him. Maybe asked Ever if he was sure.
Today, Bo took advantage of that bared throat, kissing the river from Ever’s skin. Murmured, “I like how we both say ‘let.’ Like we’re doing each other a favor instead of both just getting what we want.” Want and want andwant. Bo shivered with it, thumbing open the lube. Kept running his fucking mouth. “Like it’s not me needing you.”
Bo fucking burned with it. And Ever, straining back against Bo, toward the slick fingers trailing along the inside of his thigh, burned along with him. The bond blazed with it, selfish and greedy and unseemly.
“Need you,” Ever echoed. Voice shaking just as he was, broken by the hitch of his breath. “All you’ll allow me. Please? Let me be yours?”
Yours, Ever said, and the river dragged Bo down.
Ever’s magic, hissoul, everything the kelpie kept tucked away inside, poured into Bo. All the things he thought couldn’t be shared bled through anyway, swallowing Bo with desperate, grabbing hunger. Possibility and potential, life and death and the same ruthless play Bo’d seen from the stallion on the riverbank.
Bo heard his own wrenching, ravenous gasp as if from a distance.Yours, all twisted up in magic and power and desire, that fuckingneedthe way a livewire needed to be grounded, reached for it and to hell with anything in its path. Crackling, bright on the skin, and, goddamn, too much.
Not enough. Never fucking enough.
Bo’s tongue burned with the taste of snow, of death and new growth and sex, dark and rich and clean.
“Fuck.” The word ripped free, as raw and starving as the clutching waters. Bo pressed his hand over Ever’s, fingers threaded together. He laughed, breathless, teeth to a freckled shoulder, slick touch over shivering skin. “Yeah, fuck. Yes, Ever. Mine.”
His, and Bo took him, slick fingers into tight heat. Ever, whimpering, pushing back until their bond fucking trembled, Bo’s name on his lips. Bo’s name and “Yours.”
Shredded. Both of their voices just fuckingshredded. And Bo, fuck, Bo slid back, fingers sunk deep, in and in and in, kissing winter from the arch of Everil’s spine, dragging another low cry from the gorgeous fucking kelpie. Bo groaned, base through gritted teeth, the sound of a man throwing himself into the rapids with every belief he’d be fine.
“Fuck yeah, you are.” Bo sat back on his knees, felt a flicker of hesitance from Ever as he did. Insecurity, and fuck no, he’d not make Ever guess where they were with this. He tangled a hand into ungodly soft dark hair, felt the hesitance ease. “Fuck back on my fingers, Ever. Give me the prettiest fucking sight of my life. Follow this.”
Bo tugged at Ever’s hair, a gentle nudge of pressure that had the kelpie rocking back without question. Gorgeous, taking Bo’s driving fingers. Made Bo greedy, had him aching for more, for kisses that tasted of oranges on shaved ice: bright rinds and crisp cold. Lying against the grass, wind chilling their faces as the river played nearby. Safety in a place of secrets, tasting something warm, like vanilla and honey.
“This goes both ways,” Bo said, soft and raw. Back and in and deeper, another finger in the next thrust, rewarded with a quiet, thin keen. “Yours and mine.”
“Mine?” The word little more than breath, half wonder, half question. Like Ever could taste it and savored the way it ran down his throat. So fucking sweet with it, whimpering and wanting with the press of Bo’s hand, the twist and curl. “Mine.”
If there was something more perfect thanminefilling the air in Ever’s melodic, wrecked voice, while he fucked himself on Bo’s fingers with his head thrown back, Bo couldn’t imagine it. (Though he’d have it soon. Bo had zero fucking doubts about that.)
“Yours.” Bo sounded as drunk as he felt, the world hazy in the wake of Ever’s low moans. With the bliss floating through their bond, Ever’s melting ease and heady joy.
And Ever, fuck, Ever kept following Bo’s soft pulls and rhythmic strokes, taking more (more and more, that greedy kelpie), and–
