“No.”
But, in this, Thomas would not be controlled. He twisted Micha’s hand free from his wrist and did the deed himself, his damp fingers fluting so lightly over the muscle that it made Micha writhe in helpless anticipation.
“Fuck’s sake.” Micha’s head tossed restlessly against the covers. “I want to feel y—”
The words were consumed in a cry as Thomas parted him with deft fingers and pushed inside. There was little to feel, the laudanum saw to that, but there was still the warm stretch, and the pressure, and the fact it was Thomas, to light tiny sparks behind Micha’s eyes. He rocked himself against the fingers inside him, wanting more, far more. Wanting everything.
“I could spend just watching you do that,” breathed Thomas.
“Well don’t.”
Thomas experimentally curled his fingers upwards, and the tiny sparks ignited into a silver-white inferno.
“Ahh, fuck, oh fuck.” Micha clawed at the covers, then at Thomas, grabbed for his hand and pulled it away, hard enough to feel the shock of withdrawal. He flipped onto his stomach, twisting his head so he could still see Thomas over one shoulder. “Like this.”
Thomas covered him, smooth heat and supple strength, and Micha just ... groaned. Ground his hips back. And Thomas answered with a kiss, pressed sweetly into the nape of his neck. A ripple of response ran all the way down Micha’s spine.
Micha drew in a sobbing breath of sheer, frantic need. “Please. Will you fucking ... please.”
Thomas’s hands moved over him, soothing his burning, trembling flesh, and Micha dropped his head onto his folded arms, lost in the waiting and the wanting. Then came the flutter of Thomas’s fingers and the darker, deeper pressure of his cock. Micha hissed out something that might have been “yes,” struggled onto his knees, and shoved back hard. A brightness that might once have been pain flashed briefly across his vision, but it stirred his dulled senses, and that was, in itself, a kind of pleasure.
Thomas steadied him by the hips, his ragged breath gusting across Micha’s skin in harsh benediction, but he would not move. Micha thrashed futilely, trying to force his own body’s yielding, incoherent obscenities tumbling from his lips. Thomas leaned over him, running kisses and love words up and down his spine like climbing roses until the tension went out of him. Thomas’s hands pressed Micha flat, and then came the muted burn and the rough-smooth glide of Thomas coming all the way into him.
Thomas managed something that might have been Micha’s name, transformed into a breathless prayer. And Micha spread his legs and arched his back, ceding himself to Thomas, in this, as in everything. He turned, as best he could, just enough to see Thomas’s face, strained and flushed with ecstasy, the slender muscles standing out on his upper arms as he braced himself above Micha. His eyes snapped open as though in answer, and, for a moment, there was nothing but the act of looking, their eyes and bodies locked together, like pieces of pattern, links upon a chain. Then Thomas caught him under the chin and kissed him, their mouths jostling clumsily, words and breath and tongues tangling together into a profane and private glossolalia.
At last, when shivers were chasing each other across Micha’s skin and his every breath was a smothered moan, Thomas released him. His hands covered Micha’s where they were clutching frantically at the coverlet and smoothed them out, spreading the fingers wide so Thomas could interweave his own between them. Hesitantly at first, and then with growing assurance, he began to move, claiming Micha’s body withthorough and powerful tenderness, just as he had kissed him that day in the woods near the white horse.
Their mouths found each other again and clung like their hands.
The ghosts of physical pleasure stirred shyly from within the prison of Micha’s flesh, but love was its own, still wilder bliss. And that was Thomas, all Thomas, only Thomas. Thomas’s body driving into his, Thomas’s tongue deep within his mouth, Thomas’s fingers curled around his own. The words themselves seemed meaningless. They were written into his skin and upon his soul, with every touch, and every breath.
Thomas’s thrusts were turning as ragged as his kisses, his body heaving with incipient culmination. And Micha wanted the other man’s pleasure, as desperately as though it was his own he sought. Something given, taken, shared. And perfect.
“Please,” he gasped, rough against Thomas’s mouth. “Come for me. In me.”
Thomas’s fingers tightened on Micha’s, a shudder shook him, and then his head dropped into the crook of Micha’s shoulder as he surrendered himself to the moment. Micha wished he could have watched his face, but he felt the echo through his own body and in Thomas’s muffled moans. Thomas was a damp, heavy weight, but Micha welcomed the closeness and the sweat-studded heat that blossomed between their still-joined bodies.
Thomas, however, was too considerate to linger like that for long. He slipped free of Micha and collapsed onto his side, still breathing hard. Micha tucked his hands beneath his chin and rested a cheek on them, feeling well loved and languid.
Thomas reached out and smoothed the heavy curls that fell across Micha’s brow. “Oh Micha.”
“Well,” he returned softly, “now we’re both damned.”
Thomas did not flinch, did not stop touching him. “No, my love, that was a sacrament, not a sin.”
Micha let his suddenly heavy eyes fall briefly closed. “If that’s what you need to believe.”
“We are fashioned in His image, Micha. To love each other is the most intimate communion with Him.”
“Can we leave God out of it for once?”
“I’m sorry.”
Micha sighed. “It’s like we’re having some kind of divine ménage à trois.”
“There’s only you in my eyes, in my heart.” Thomas’s fingers caressed his cheek, the edge of his jaw, warmth trailing in their wake.
Micha’s eyes drifted closed again, and, when he spoke, there was too much dreamy pleasure in his voice for his words to have any sting. “I thought He was supposed to be a jealous God.”
