Page 32 of Crown of Ash

“Look at me,” Andre demanded, his voice rough and desperate. “Marcus. Look at me. Don’t you dare close your eyes.”

Marcus didn’t. He locked eyes with Andre, and it was like staring into the fucking sun, blinding, beautiful, and impossible to look away from.

They found their rhythm fast, hard, desperate thrusts that sent the desk skidding across the floor. Andre’s hands were everywhere, raking through Marcus’s hair, clawing down his spine, leaving red welts and wet trails in their wake. He was talking the whole time, half of it filthy, half of it heartbreakingly sincere.

“I never stopped,” Andre gasped, his voice breaking. “Six years, Marcus. Six fucking years, not one day, not one, ”

“Don’t,” Marcus warned, his voice strained, but Andre wasn’t done.

“I kept your number in my phone. Top of the fucking list. I looked at it every night like-”

“Andre-”

“I love you,” Andre said, his hand catching Marcus by the jaw, forcing him to hold still, to listen. “Not loved. Love. Present fucking tense. I’ve never had to put it in the past, and I’m done pretending I did.”

Marcus fucking shattered.

Not cracked, not crumbled, he came apart all at once, like a building collapsing under its own weight. He buried his face in Andre’s throat, his hips stuttering as he drove into him with everything he had. “I love you,” he whispered, his voice raw and broken. “Six years, Andre. Six fucking years. I love you-”

Andre came first, his back arching off the floor, Marcus’s name tearing out of him in three ragged, desperate pieces. His body clenched around Marcus like a vise, pulling him over the edge half a second later. Marcus buried himself as deep as he could go, shuddering, silent, every cell in his body exploding into fucking stardust.

They stayed like that forever, tangled together, neither of them willing to let go.

But it wasn’t over.

Marcus pulled out slowly, his cock still throbbing, and Andre whimpered at the loss. “Fuck,” Marcus muttered, his hands roaming over Andre’s sweat-slick skin. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

Andre smirked, his dark eyes glinting with mischief. “You’re not done with me yet, are you?”

Marcus growled, flipping him onto his stomach. “Not even close.”

Andre buried his face in the carpet, his ass in the air, ready and waiting. Marcus spit into his palm, slicked himself up, and plunged back in, harder this time, rougher. Andre’s moans were louder now, unfiltered, and Marcus fucking reveled in them.

“Six years,” Marcus growled, slamming into Andre again and again. “Six fucking years, and you’re still mine.”

Andre’s response was a broken cry, his fingers clawing at the carpet as Marcus took him apart piece by piece.

They weren’t done. Not by a long shot.

Andre's heartbeat came down under his ear by degrees. Marcus lay with his head on his chest and let himself be held in a way he had not permitted in six years. He did not think about the building, or Crimson, or the leak, or the six hours until the next real decision.

The carpet was terrible. It had been chosen because it did not show wear.

"Your knee's going to hate you," he said.

"My knee hates me every day. Today it earned its keep." Andre's fingers moved through the short hair at the back of Marcus's skull, slow, finding the gray at the temple and staying there. "You went gray."

"So did you."

"Mine's prettier."

"It is," Marcus said.

Andre laughed. It moved Marcus's whole head.

Chapter 17

Marcus had spotted the wrought iron gate from two blocks out. It stood full height, a formidable barrier against the world outside. The iron was meticulously worked into a lattice of thorned vines, the kind of intricate ironwork that would have taken a real smith months to painstakingly forge. Anywhere else in the city, it would have been seen as an ornate piece of decorative artistry. But here, in this part of town, the thorns sat menacingly at exactly head height, and none of them had been dulled to a harmless point. There was no keypad visible from the car, no call box to request entry.