Levi’s breath died as the metal traced down the side of his neck the way Asher’s mouth always did, and it was cold and wrong and his body didn’t care. His chin tipped back before he could stop it, his throat presented for a gun the way it did for teeth, and he hated it.
“See?” Asher murmured as he pressed a kiss to Levi’s jaw. “You don’t need the gun. You don’t need the timers.”
The barrel found the bite mark and pressed, and Levi’s hands hit the wall flat as his hips jerked forward in one sharp involuntary movement he couldn’t take back. Asher smiled against his skin.
Fuck. Fuck.
“You just need me,” Asher whispered, and the barrel moved across his collarbone, dipping into the hollow of his throat, and that all too familiar heat in his belly was following it the way it followed Asher’s hands. “In this place, in the sanitarium, in the forest…all you’ve ever needed is me. You don’t always have to fight what you want because you think you have all the answers, Levi.”
“I’m trying to get us out of here, Asher—”
“Why?” The barrel traced down his sternum over the undershirt, the metal warming against him through the fabric. “We can be happy together anywhere if you just let yourself be happy.”
Levi clenched his jaw so hard his molars ached. His hands were fists against the wall and his hips were very still through sheer effort alone as the gun rested against his stomach, the barrel pointed down, almost forgotten. “I’m tired of dying,”he said through his teeth. “It’s hard to be happy when I’m constantly fucking dying.”
Asher pulled back enough to look at him. His eyes moved over Levi’s face — the flushed cheeks, the swelling from the slaps, the split lip, the tears from the compression still drying — and his expression did the thing it always did that made everything worse. His face lit up and he smiled that terrible tender smile.
“I did this,” he said. “All of this. The color, the breathing, how hard you are for me right now—” He stopped. Looked at the lip under his thumb. “I made you feel all of this.”
Asher placed the gun on the desk, then cradled Levi’s jaw, his thumb stroking his cheek with a gentleness that had no right to exist in the same room as everything else. “You’re so beautiful when you cry.”
Levi’s hands were still fists against the wall. The gun sat on the desk. His cheek ached and his hand ached and his body was still doing what his body did. Asher’s heartbeat was visible in the pulse at his throat — fast, much faster than the steady voice and the careful hands — and that was the thing that reached him. The hammering underneath the calm.
He’s scared too.
He uncurled his fists. He reached up, closed his hands in the front of Asher’s shirt, and pulled. Asher didn’t resist as he was tugged down and Levi kissed him.
He felt the shock move through Asher’s body — one second of complete stillness, every muscle locking at once. The kiss tasted like copper from his split lip, but Asher’s mouth was careful around it, aware of the damage, navigating it with a precision that meant he knew exactly what he’d done and was choosing to be gentle with the result. Asher made a sound against Levi’s mouth, raw and unguarded and grateful, and Levi couldn’t find the will to defend against it.
Levi pulled back. Not far. Asher’s forehead pressed against his, both of them breathing hard. “Promise you’ll answer me honestly.” Asher nodded too many times, his stilled hand stroking Levi’s cock again as he leaned in for another kiss. Levi bit back a moan and whispered against his lips, “Then yes. You can have me.”
7
New Skill Unlocked: Spit Take
Isaidyes.Isaid yes, and his mouth is on my neck, and my hand hurts from what he did to it, and I said yes anyway.
Asher pulled back enough to look at him. Those mismatched eyes moved over his face, while Asher’s thumb found Levi’s swollen cheek and pressed into it. Not hard, more like he was testing it the way someone checks fruit for ripeness. “Does that still hurt?”
“Yes,” Levi breathed.
“Good.” He kissed the cheek, and Asher’s lips felt cooler than the heat of the swelling. “I want you to feel it while I’m inside you.”
Levi’s stomach dropped.
“You’re thinking,” Asher said.
“I’m always thinking.”
“Not for long.”
His hands found the hem of Levi’s undershirt and pulled it up; the cool air hit his bare skin, making goosebumps rise across hischest and stomach, and Asher’s palms were on him before they’d finished arriving. Levi’s body did two things at once: flinch from the hands that hurt him and lean into the warmth of them, because the warmth was the only thing in the room that wasn’t cold metal or stale blood.
“Do you still have the…” Levi started, the reality of what he agreed to finally sinking in as Asher turned him and backed him toward the desk.
“No.”
“If we’re going to do this, we need—”
