Everything Carries Me to You (Axton and Leander Book 3) (47 page)

Leander was bracing himself against the counter, as if he needed the support to stand--he did not, but he vividly remembered a time where he did.

Abruptly, still facing the mirror, Leander said, "You look like you should have smudged eyeliner and runny mascara on for this conversation."

"What?" Axton asked, a flicker of confusion pulling him out of his guilt spiral for a second.

"It's your facial expression," Leander said. "It's a particular shade of miserable, and it wears running black eyeliner."

Axton smiled and glanced away from the mirror.

"I could if you want," he said. "It's never really been my thing, but..."

Leander turned away from the mirror, grateful that he'd succeeded in cracking the anguish shell open even fleetingly.

"I'll just imagine it," he said, and he held out his hand towards Axton.

Axton shied back, regret shining softly in his eyes.

"Oh, c'mon," Leander murmured, not lowering his hand. "I made you smile, didn't I? I've earned it. Come here."

Axton hung back for a second longer, then stepped forward and folded himself carefully in Leander's arms.

"The blood," he said.

"It's fine," Leander said. "I packed a first aid kit." He held Axton to him tightly.

"It scares me," Axton said softly. "It scares me, being reminded that you bleed, that you could be gone again from me again so easily, and for forever."

"Well it scares
me
that you almost starved yourself to death in a basement," Leander said. He had meant it as a chiding reminder that Axton, too, was mortal, to minimize the stated delicacy of the human condition, but--

Leander had managed to upset himself more than Axton, with his words.
If you're too sharp, you'll cut yourself
, someone had told him once, and occasionally it was true. Imagining Axton alone, in the dark, sick with love and ready--no,
wanting
--to die... Leander hated to picture it and so he had pictured it repeatedly, compulsively, since he found out.

From within his arms, Axton shrugged.

"It scares me, too, I guess," Axton said, "if I'm still having nightmares about it."

"Still?" Leander asked. "You haven't had--"

"I used to have that nightmare all the time," Axton said.

"Ah," Leander said.

"I thought it would stop," Axton said, "now that we're together."

"Well," Leander started.

"I'm sorry," Axton said, in a rush, burying his face in Leander's chest, hiding his eyes. "I'm sorry, Lee, I'm
sorry
--"

Leander smiled faintly.

"What are you apologizing to me for?"

Axton's breath was hot and damp on his neck. Leander held him patiently.

"For being like this," Axton said finally."For not, I don't know--being better. Stronger."

Leander sighed.

Ah, his heart. The metaphorical wooden spoon. The metaphorical beating. Life had been so much easier, when he dated random girls he met at farmer's markets.

"Axton," Leander murmured. "Oh, Axton,
corazón
, my darling,
mi vida
--don't be ridiculous."

"I
feel
ridiculous," Axton muttered.

"You're upset about being upset," Leander said, rolling his shoulder in attempt to gently urge Axton back into the open. "You're meta-upset, and that's not helpful."

"I have nothing helpful to offer," Axton said, but he allowed Leander to coax his head up with a finger under his chin.

"You have every right to be upset," Leander said. "Honor that. Let yourself feel it."

"I can't afford to be upset," Axton said. "Not if it puts you in danger."

"It's just a scratch," Leander said.

"What if next time it's more than that?" Axton asked.

"You can't beat yourself up about this," Leander said.

"Better I beat myself up about it than beat you up about it," Axton said sharply, pushing away.

"I'm fast," Leander said, "and I'm a light sleeper. I can--"

"I almost got you tonight!" Axton objected.

"But you
didn't
," Leander said, leaning closer to Axton, wanting to be within touching distance again. "And you realized it was me pretty quick, and--"

"I wish I could turn you," Axton blurted out.

Leander dropped his hands and blinked. His face fell.

"...I'm sorry," Axton said immediately. "Leander. I'm sorry."

"So you internalized it, huh?" Leander said softly. "You didn't want to, before."

"No, I--" Axton flushed, color high in his cheeks, which was more telling than anything he could have said. And he didn't seem to be able to find something to say, in any case.

"Ah, love," Leander said sadly, after regarding Axton silently for a moment. He turned away.

"It would be easier," Axton whispered.

"Would it?" Leander asked, looking vaguely into the mirror.

"Yes," Axton said.

"Easier how?" Leander asked. "Easier to fuck? Easier to date? Easier to fall in love? Because maybe one of those is true, but unless I'm deeply, truly mistaken? A lot of what you love about me is my cultural context, how my life made me who I am. I wouldn't be the same, as a werewolf."

"Would you want to turn?" Axton asked. "Would you say yes, if I offered?"

Leander nailed Axton with his gaze in the mirror.

"You don't know how," he said. "You don't even know if it would work."

Axton hung his head.

"No," he said. "I don't even know if it's ever worked, or if that's just a myth."

"You know, it's like dating Catholic school girls," Leander said. "When you're really young, and they're really young, and only one of you has had sex-ed? And the girl thinks that, like, giving head will get her pregnant? It's like that."

"Wow," Axton said.

"It's the deep and broad band misinformation and ignorance," Leander said, "about transmissible conditions. And how we always fuck with condoms just in case lycanthropy
is
sexually transmissible. I wasn't insulting your general manhood."

"No, I mean, when did you date Catholic school girls?"

"All throughout high school," Leander said. "Obviously."

"I never realized," Axton said, "that you have an opposite technique to the thing you do where you feel uncomfortable, so you get snarky to break the mood."

"It's the exact same technique," Leander said. "Just breaking a different kind of mood."

"Mood Breaker," Axton said. "Shit Talker. He Who Laughs Too Loudly."

"I love epithets," Leander said mildly. "I would have been a skald, except for how, you know, I was born several centuries too late and I'm Latino."

"I'm sure the Vikings would have loved to have you," Axton said.

"Poet-jock multiclass all up in here," Leander agreed.

They regarded each other silently.

"So," Axton said slightly. "Can I apologize?"

"Only for the turning comment," Leander said. "You have nothing else to apologize for."

"I don't know," Axton said. "What if I did internalize it? And to what extent?"

"Probably not too much," Leander said evenly, and he hoped he wasn't lying.

"It worries me," Axton said.

"A lot of things do," Leander pointed out. "Explain?"

"I could feel myself changing," Axton said. "From witnessing the stupid power displays or I don't even know what, but I...violent urges. Everything offended me. Short fuse. Five seconds away from snapping at all times. Every action of disrespect had to be corrected..."

"It's like you went to prison," Leander said. "It's like you did time. But you've been as patient as usual with me, and with Sarah, and you were even approximately normal to New York even though we'd just sprung you and you didn't know him from whosis."

"What if it changed me forever?" Axton asked. "What if I'm doomed to hurt you?"

"Nothing could ever change you that much," Leander said. "You won't hurt me."

Axton crossed his arms across his chest and sighed.

"You don't--"

"I
do
know that," Leander said. "You've been exposed to violence. Trauma. All kinds of shitty things. That changed you, and processing it will change you further. But you're still Axton, and I love you, and you will change for the
better
."

Axton studied him intently, eyes darting over Leander's face as the rest of his body was held in perfect stillness. His posture was strange, a subtle giveaway of his lupine nature, shoulders at what should have been an awkward angle--but he still looked perfectly graceful, like he'd chosen to make that shape and clearly he had his reasons.

It made Leander ache, deep in his guts. This was the Axton he'd first met, and Axton still had no idea what he looked like sometimes--the flashing gold eyes, the wiry strength of his body, those high cheekbones and those thin lips...he looked beautiful and untouchable, unknowable and wild, equally likely to bite or flee. When they'd first met, Leander had told himself that it was the silent aloofness combined with the model good looks that that thrown him off, but, oh, what a terrible fucking lie that had been. Axton was beautiful. Leander had always seen it. But what made Axton so irresistible was the vulnerability in his soft eyes, not just the hard angles of his body and presence...

And Axton looked so vulnerable now.

It made Leander impatient.

"You really believe that, don't you?" Axton asked.

"Yes," Leander said, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

Axton cast his gaze down, surrendering the point, perhaps. The long, curled lashes stood out against his skin and only made his cheekbones look higher, his face sharper.

"Are we done yet?" Leander asked, given the new silence.

"Um," Axton said, uncertain eyes flickering back up to Leander's face. "I guess?"

"Okay, good," Leander said.

"What?"

"Fuck me," Leander said. "If we're done here? Let's fuck."

Axton flashed him the look usually reserved for deer on highways.

"Yes?" he said.

"Yeah," Leander said.

"Yes," Axton said slowly. "You mean, like--"

"Yeah," Leander confirmed.

"Oh," Axton said, swallowing noisily. "All right--yes."

"Okay, cool," Leander said. There was more silence, more stillness, like they were frozen in place. "Maybe not in the bathroom, though?"

"Oh," Axton said, dazed, and then he moved out of the way.

When Axton had thought about it--which he had, often, back when they'd first started dating--he'd always pictured Leander's first time as a sort of shy and hesitant event. He knew that Leander had infinite tenderness in him, and that love and desire could overwhelm him to softness and gasps and sweet surrender. Also, Axton figured that all the hours he'd logged in anonymous hook up duty would serve him well, and he would finally have a time when he could muster up all his knowledge and experience and put it to good use. So he'd pictured himself as a hyper-competent and gentle lover, directing their every action until they moved slowly, sensually, in tenderly erotic choreographed action.

What happened instead was this--

Distracted by the intense look in Leander's eyes, Axton was easily herded towards the bed. The back of his heel hit the bedpost, he was so busy looking at Leander's face, his own eyes wide. The pause while Leander slid his underwear off gave Axton no time to recover. Leander pushed him back on the bed, slow and deliberate. Axton went down readily, dreamily unresisting even in his surprise, and Leander climbed on top of him. By degrees, leaving ample room for objections, Leander caught up Axton's wrists in his hands, guiding them over Axton's head. His fingers circled Axton's wrist individually, each closing in with intentional, measured weight.

Axton shifted under him and breathed shallow and careful.

"All right?" Leander murmured throatily, checking in.

Axton nodded, mouth too dry to speak, his headspace somewhere beyond words. His hesitance shamed him although it wasn't born of panic or inner conflict, and he burned with the need to let Leander know that,
yes
, he wanted this, he was just... Axton arched up lightly, pressing against Leander from chest to crotch, trying to say with his body what he couldn't say otherwise. His cock had stirred to hardness already, brushing against his navel, and his pulse...

"I can feel your heartbeat," Leander said wryly.

Axton held his arch to catch the smile hidden at the corner of Leander's mouth in response. Then he fell back and lay still, looking up at Leander with eyes that were more pupil than iris.

"Heart's beating fit to burst," Leander breathed, flexing his fingers and adjusting how he had Axton's wrist's pinned over his head. "Like you're a bony baby deer. But you're a waiting tiger, too."

Axton canted his head to the side, and he would have smiled if he didn't need the promise of Leander's teeth.

Leander understood, Axton thought, because he leaned in close and brought his mouth to Axton's neck. Seconds ticked by and he didn't bite, just breathed and brushed his lips, tantalizingly light, over Axton's skin. Tenderness undid Axton like pain never did, and he moaned, low and tormented and achingly hard.

He felt Leander's mouth curl into a smile.

Axton was panting by the time Leander pulled back to look at him, and the teeth hadn't even come out yet. Leander had lost his smile somewhere between Axton's gasps, and his grey eyes were sharp as the electricity in a storm as he looked Axton over. His eyes and mouth looked
hungry
, and Axton could have shivered under the intensity of it, could have cried out in raw and bare desire, could have wept with impatience. But he stayed still and silent, for his breath alone betrayed his desire, and the beat of his heart had not slowed.

When the kiss came it was ravenous and demanding, with savage, searing heat. Axton pressed back just as hard, and the clash of their teeth or maybe the way he nipped at Leander's lips broke skin somewhere. Axton tasted blood, faint and anonymous, and did not know or care who it came from. There was already the suggestion of sweat at his temples, and he pressed his cock, insistent, against whatever part of Leander was near, desperate for friction. Yet Axton did not strain against the grip on his wrists in the least, all his frustration contained in his mouth and his hips. He was not swooning, was not passive or absent from the experience, but the stillness of his wrists in Leander's hands spoke of his sweet surrender. Axton would not change their pace or their position, though he'd make his neediness clear.