The words are steady. Certain. Said with the voice that does not break, the one Lethe uses for frightened creaturesand impossible situations, except this time there is something underneath the steadiness that is fierce and tender and absolute.
His hands move.
They trace the smallest circle at the base of Zazyrus’s horns, a slow, deliberate rotation over the nerve-dense root where bone meets skull, and the sensation is devastating. It floods Zazyrus’s body with heat so intense his vision whites at the edges and his hips jerk involuntarily and the groan that was caught in his throat escapes, loud and broken, filling the cage.
Zazyrus’s hands release the stone.
They find Lethe’s wrists. Not to stop him. To pull him forward.
Into his lap.
Lethe goes willingly.
His legs part over Zazyrus’s thick thighs, settling on either side, and his weight comes down into the cradle of Zazyrus’s hips and the position is deliberate and the flush that spreads across Lethe’s face and down his neck and below his collar is vivid and immediate. He is flushed down to his chest. Zazyrus can see it blooming at the edge of his shirt, the pink spreading over pale skin, and his thumbs are still at the base of Zazyrus’s horns and his eyes are still on Zazyrus’s face and he is not afraid.
Zazyrus’s hands find the hem of Lethe’s shirt.
His clawed fingers work underneath the thin fabric, searching, seeking, pressing against the warm skin beneath. Lethe does not stop him. Lethe arches into the touch, his breath catching, his lips parting, a sound escaping him that is small and encouraging and does devastating things to Zazyrus’s control. For the first time in a long time, Lethe wants someone to touch him. The wanting is written in every line of his body, in the way he presses closer, in the way his thumbs keep circling at the base of Zazyrus’s horns, sending lightning through his body with every pass.
Zazyrus’s hands roam upward beneath the shirt. His claws are careful, his touch reduced to the broad, calloused pads of his fingers and thumbs, and they travel the terrain of Lethe’s torso, over ribs, over the flat plane of his stomach, up the center of his chest. His thumbs find Lethe’s nipples.
Lethe keens.
The sound is high and sharp and utterly involuntary, punched out of him by the contact, and his back arches and his fingers clamp down on Zazyrus’s horns and the dual sensation, Lethe’s sound in his ears and Lethe’s grip on his horns, sends Zazyrus’s blood straight south with a force that makes him dizzy. He is hard. Instantly, achingly, straining against his pants, and Lethe is in his lap and the boy can feel it, the press of it against his inner thigh, and his eyes widen and his flush deepens and he does not pull away.
Zazyrus pulls Lethe’s shirt over his head.
The boy is bare-chested in his lap, pale and freckled and flushed pink from his waistband to his ears, and his nipples are peaked and sensitive and Zazyrus lowers his head and takes one into his mouth.
Lethe gasps. Brokenly. His hands fly to Zazyrus’s horns and grip hard and the pressure races through the nerve pathways straight to Zazyrus’s cock and he groans against Lethe’s skin, the vibration making the boy shudder. His tongue works the sensitive bud, circling, pressing, and Lethe is making sounds above him that are small and desperate and wrecked, clinging to his horns while his hips roll, grinding the curve of his ass against the hard length pressed beneath him.
Zazyrus’s mouth moves. From nipple to sternum. From sternum to collarbone. From collarbone to neck, the column of Lethe’s throat bared and offered and Zazyrus presses his mouth to the pulse point and feels it hammering against his lips. His thumbs return to Lethe’s nipples, playing, circling, andeach pass draws another sound from the boy, higher and more desperate than the last.
His hand works down. Over Lethe’s stomach. Over the waistband of his pants, where the fabric is tented, where the boy is hard and straining and the damp spot at the front tells Zazyrus everything he needs to know. He palms him through the fabric and Lethe’s hips buck and a whimper tears out of him that is the most devastating sound Zazyrus has ever heard.
"Please." Lethe’s voice is wrecked. Thin and breathless and honest. "Please, please."
Zazyrus frees them both.
His hand works Lethe’s pants open, then his own, and the relief of the fabric loosening around his own aching length is immediate. He takes them both in his hand. Lethe stares down between them, at the contrast, at the size of Zazyrus’s cock beside his own, at the broad, clawed hand wrapped around them both, and his breath shakes and his eyes go dark and wide.
Zazyrus strokes.
Slow. Firm. His hand engulfs them both, the heat and the friction and the press of Lethe’s length against his own driving the fire in his blood higher with every pass. Lethe’s hands are on his horns and the constant pressure is making it hard to think, hard to pace himself, hard to do anything but feel the boy in his lap and the boy’s sounds in his ears and the boy’s body moving against his.
Lethe rolls his hips. Into the grip. Against Zazyrus. He finds a rhythm, rocking forward, and his forehead drops to Zazyrus’s shoulder and his mouth presses against Zazyrus’s neck and the sounds he makes are muffled against skin, broken and beautiful.
Zazyrus’s free hand grips Lethe’s hip. Steadying. Guiding. His thumb traces the bone, the sharp crest of it, and Lethe arches into him and the rhythm accelerates, both of them moving now, Lethe rocking in his lap and Zazyrus stroking and the heatbuilding, building, the cage dark and close and full of breath and sound.
Lethe comes first.
His body goes taut. Every muscle locks, his back arching, his fingers clenching on Zazyrus’s horns, and the grip combined with the sound he makes, a broken, gasping cry that cracks open in the middle, sends Zazyrus over the edge after him. The release tears through his body with a force that whites out his vision, his hand tightening around them both, his hips jerking up, and Lethe is pressed against him, shaking, and they come together in the dark.
Zazyrus holds him. Carefully. Reverently. One arm around the narrow back, the other hand resting on Lethe’s thigh, and the boy is boneless in his lap, his face pressed into the curve of Zazyrus’s neck, his breathing slow and deep and even. The flush is fading from his skin but the warmth remains, radiating from his body into Zazyrus’s, and Zazyrus can feel the boy’s heartbeat against his own chest, slow now, steady.
Lethe huffs out a laugh against his skin.
The sound is soft and self-deprecating and warm, and it vibrates against Zazyrus’s throat. Lethe lifts his head. His eyes are bright. His mouth curves in an expression that is sheepish and sated and something else, something deeper.
