"Quiet," Dimitri says, and he sounds wrecked, sounds like he's barely holding on, and that knowledge sings through the bond and makes Knox clench around him. "Fuck, quiet, angel, or everyone on this street is going to hear you taking my cock."
Knox bites down on his forearm. Dimitri pulls back and snaps his hips forward and Knox sees stars. The angle is devastating. Dimitri is tall enough that the difference in their heights works perfectly like this, Knox braced against the wall on his toes with Dimitri driving into him from behind, and every thrust hits deep, hits exactly right, and Knox can feel Dimitri's pleasure layered on top of his own through the bond, the tight hot grip of Knox's body around him, the sight of Knox braced against the wall with his hair coming loose and his shirt rucked up andhis pants shoved down his thighs, and feeling what Dimitri feels while feeling what he himself feels is—
It's too much. It's always too much and it's never enough and Knox's hand scrambles against the brick for purchase as Dimitri fucks into him with a rhythm that is punishing and precise and exactly what Knox needs.
"You have no idea," Dimitri growls against the back of his neck. His teeth scrape across Knox's nape and Knox's cock twitches, dripping, untouched between his legs. "What you look like right now. What you feel like. This pretty, pious little Templar taking a demon's cock in a back alley where anyone could—" He thrusts hard enough to push Knox up onto his toes and Knox gasps against his arm. "—walk by and see you. See what you let me do to you."
Knox should care about that. He should care that they're in a public alley in broad daylight and that anyone could turn the corner and find a Templar braced against a wall getting fucked by a demon. He should care about his reputation, the Order, everything he represents. But Dimitri's hand slides around his hip and wraps around his cock and strokes him in time with his thrusts and Knox stops caring about anything except the pressure building at the base of his spine.
"Come for me," Dimitri says, and his voice is raw, stripped of its usual sharp edges, and through the bond Knox can feel something that isn't lust, something underneath it that is tender and fierce and terrifyingly real. "Come on, angel. Let me feel it."
Knox comes.
It hits him like a wave cresting, pleasure so intense it turns white behind his eyelids and steals his breath and he is distantly aware that the sound he makes is loud, louder than it should be, muffled only by his own forearm between his teeth. He spills over Dimitri's fist and clenches down around him and feels the exact moment Dimitri breaks—feels it through the bond asa mirror of his own orgasm, a feedback loop of pleasure that doubles and redoubles until Knox doesn't know whose it is, doesn't know where he ends and Dimitri begins, only knows that Dimitri buries himself deep and holds and Knox can feel the pulse and the heat of him coming inside and the bond between them sings like a struck bell, resonant and clear and whole.
They stay like that. Braced against the wall. Breathing hard. Dimitri's forehead is pressed against the back of Knox's neck and his hands are on Knox's hips and neither of them moves for a long time.
Then Dimitri pulls out, careful and slow, and Knox hisses at the loss and tries to pretend the sound is something else. He hears Dimitri tuck himself away. Feels the gentle tug as Dimitri pulls Knox's pants back up over his hips and refastens his belt with a deftness that speaks to practice.
Knox turns around. He leans against the wall because his legs are unreliable and looks up at Dimitri, who is watching him with an expression that is half smug satisfaction and half something that Knox might call wonder if he thought Dimitri capable of it.
"We have somewhere to be," Knox says. His voice is hoarse.
Dimitri grins. Sharp and wicked and unbearably fond. "We do."
Knox pushes off the wall. His legs hold, mostly, and he runs his hands through his hair and reties his ponytail with fingers that only tremble slightly. He can feel Dimitri's satisfaction purring through the bond like a cat in a sunbeam, and underneath it, warm and constant, that thing that isn't lust. That thing Dimitri won't name and Knox won't push.
He glances down at his gray Templar coat with the red cross emblazoned on the back. He unfastens the buckles down the front, shrugs it off his shoulders, and folds it neatly. He looks around the alley, spots a recessed doorway with a shallow alcove behind a rusted gate, and tucks the coat inside.
Dimitri raises an eyebrow. "Stripping for me twice in one day?"
"We're walking into a coven's territory," Knox says, ignoring him. Without the coat he looks less conspicuously Templar—just a man in a fitted gray shirt with his sleeves rolled to the elbows and his mace on his belt, which could pass for a weapon anyone might carry in the Old City. The blessing rings on his left hand still mark him, but those are harder to spot at a distance. "I'd rather not announce my Order affiliation to a house of witches who might not appreciate it."
"Smart," Dimitri says, and it sounds almost like he means it.
They leave the alley and turn onto the main road. The Violet Corridor earns its name from the creeping wisteria that blankets every surface—climbing the brownstones, draping from the wrought-iron balconies, hanging in thick curtains over doorways and windows until the entire street is bathed in a haze of purple and the air smells sweet and old and faintly magical. It's a beautiful neighborhood. Quieter than the Old City. The kind of place where the supernatural residents don't need to hide because they outnumber the humans three to one, and the humans who do live here know exactly what their neighbors are and have made their peace with it.
Knox walks beside Dimitri, and for a few blocks neither of them speaks, and the silence is comfortable in a way that still surprises him. He had not expected comfort from this. From any of this. Two weeks ago he had walked into a warehouse to stop a summoning and had ended up bound to a demon, and the demon was cruel and volatile and sharp-tongued and dangerous and had hit him and threatened him and pushed him against walls. And Knox had saved his life. And Dimitri had refused to hand him over to Ruby. And somewhere in the space between those two choices, something had shifted, and now Knox is walking through a purple-draped street with Dimitri'scome drying between his thighs and Dimitri's hand occasionally brushing against his and the bond between them humming with a warmth that Knox is beginning to suspect isn't the bond at all.
He reaches over and takes Dimitri's hand.
Dimitri goes still. His fingers are rigid in Knox's grip for a moment and then they relax, slowly, and close around Knox's. His hand is larger, warmer, and the contact sends the familiar electric hum through Knox's skin, through the bond, settling into his bones with a rightness that still takes his breath away.
Dimitri doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to. Knox can feel him through the bond—surprised and cautious and something underneath those that is fragile in a way Dimitri would rather die than admit.
They walk. The wisteria sways overhead. Thornfield Row comes into view at the end of the block, a narrow cobblestone lane flanked by old brick buildings with ivy-covered facades and hand-painted signs. It has the feeling of a place that has been here for a very long time and intends to stay.
They're halfway down the lane, passing an antique bookshop with a crooked sign and diamond-paned windows, when the door flies open.
Someone comes stumbling out as if shoved—ejected from the interior with enough force to send them staggering across the sidewalk, arms pinwheeling, a worn leather satchel swinging wildly from one shoulder. Knox steps forward on instinct, one hand releasing Dimitri's to catch the person by the arm before they hit the cobblestones.
The person steadies. Looks up.
Long red hair. Freckles. Wide, startled eyes that go from confused to horrified in the space of a single heartbeat.
It's Newt.
Chapter 22
