Only You (9 page)

“So it would seem.”

“Where’d you get all this? Abram?”

“Who else? That burly bastard dishes more gossip than a three-church sewing circle.”

Barrett chuckled quietly. “He does, doesn’t he?”

Nick wished he hadn’t put his wine aside. He wanted it now, but not enough to shift himself off the couch and reach when Barrett had stretched out his legs and it was easy, so easy, to do the same and tangle their bare feet together.

“So,” Barrett said after a moment. “Proximity triggered them. Ivan and Robbie.”

Nick nodded and gave a quiet hum. His pulse had picked up with the tension thickening the air between them. Talk about other things though they might, it didn’t change the reality of what was happening. What they’d face in moments, just moments, or so it felt. This sense of inevitability coming closer and closer.

He could tell Barrett felt it, too. He gripped the stem of his wineglass too hard, and the level of liquid vibrated in tiny waves.

“That’s the other thing about triggers,” Barrett said. “They set things off. I’ve heard the stories from people besides Daniel, about what it feels like when you cross paths with your mate. That it can drive you wild. Make you more of an animal than a person.”

“Not always,” Nick said. Insisted. “Not always.”

“But almost always. And when I look at you…” Barrett leaned back, resting his head against the crimson knitted throw. “Do you feel any different about me than you did before?”

Damn it.
“No more than usual,” Nick said when he couldn’t take another second of the silence. “I want you the same as always.”

“God.” Barrett tipped back his glass. “You don’t feel it now. But you will soon. And so will I.”

“I don’t feel anything different at all,” Nick insisted. “Maybe mine’s broken.”

Barrett snorted. He disentangled their feet and pushed forward, setting his glass roughly on the table and standing. “You’re the furthest thing from broken, love.”

Nick frowned, watching him. “Barrett?”

Barrett touched his tongue to his lips and held out one hand. “We’re changed. Not broken. I’d like to show you that.”

Nick let Barrett pull him to his feet. He could hear his pulse thudding in his ears now, fast as a quarter horse’s hooves striking wild green turf. He overbalanced but caught himself with an arm around Barrett’s waist. “I won’t let you go,” he said. “I don’t care what happens. I will never not love you. Understand that.”

He thought for a second that Barrett would argue—but Barrett didn’t. Barrett’s arms went around him, and Barrett pressed his head to Nick’s. “We’ll figure something out,” he swore. “All right? I promise. We’ll find a way. I’m not letting you go either.”

“Good.” Nick took the hand that’d gotten them both into this mess and tugged. “Bed. Now.”

Slow. Slow.
As if they had all the time in the world, even if they had almost no time left at all. He could feel it building, the pressure behind his eyes and against his eardrums that would leave him half-blind and half-deaf until he’d set his teeth into his true mate’s skin.

God, he hoped whoever it was lived close by, or they were looking for him, just so he could get the worst over with quickly. Then he scrunched his eyes tighter shut in disgust. He didn’t hope that at all. He hoped they
never
found him.

Only the same would be happening to them. They wouldn’t have someone like Nick to cling to.

He couldn’t be that cruel, no matter how much he might want to. Barrett bit back a sound that was half shout, half cry, and banged his head against Nick’s hip.

Nick hesitated before stroking his hair. “I know,” he said. “Me too.”

They lay side by side on top of the mattress. Never had made the bed that day. It didn’t matter. Nothing to get in the way, and not even any pillows to kick aside. Plenty of room to stretch out and make a circle at the same time, formed and fitted together.

Barrett ran his lips over the length of Nick’s cock and dropped small nipping kisses against the softer skin of Nick’s inner thigh. He hissed in a breath as Nick did the same.

“Do you remember the first time?” he asked, barely louder than a whisper.

“God yes. Scared out of our minds.” Nick had hold of Barrett’s hips, kneading them. “I remember I asked you if you’d brought anything.”

“And I hadn’t.” Barrett let go long enough to reach to the bedside table. They hadn’t neatened that either. A clutter of wrappers littered the drawer, but a half-empty tube of slick and a smattering of intact foil lurked at the bottom of the mess. “Learned from my mistakes.”

He had to stop, to moan, at the touch of Nick’s tongue as low as Nick could go, almost between his cheeks. “Learned this the first time,” Nick murmured, wicked. “Might be something to say for necessity and invention.”

He made Barrett laugh. Always, always made Barrett laugh. Barrett flexed his hips, pressing into the light brushes of Nick’s tongue against his skin, and fumbled open the cap to the crinkled tube. “Don’t want me to share?”

“I didn’t say that.” Nick put out his hand.

Barrett’s hands shook and he nearly lost his grip, but the second time he tried he squeezed the middle of the tube and poured a puddle of cool gel in the cup of Nick’s palm.

They didn’t do this often—prepare each other, as if they’d both have a chance. Mostly because they’d only wished they could go twice, or more, the way real mates did.

Sometimes, though, they’d pretended.

One more time, Barrett decided. Once more for the memory of it. He emptied the tube across his fingers and slipped behind Nick’s heavy sac to slide two fingers in. Nick could take it. He liked it a little rough. Would the mate waiting out there for him figure that out, or—?

He shook his head hard enough to hurt, to stop himself thinking. At least for now.

At the other end of the bed, Nick put his slippery fingers to good use. Teasing Barrett, the way Barrett liked best, sliding fingers inside a knuckle at a time. God, yes. So good. He wrapped his lips around the end of Nick’s cock again and sucked, milking Nick for the tiny bubbles of pre-cum trickling out, tongue flat and cupped. He pumped his fist, slick and slow, velvety skin sliding over an iron core.

If only their marks were made for one another. If only he had the courage to
look
. But if they weren’t—

Nick moaned. Barrett could hear the rustling of hair against the sheets as Nick tossed his head.

Mine.

He’d left Barrett slick and open and empty, but God, Barrett didn’t care. He squeezed his thighs shut and clenched tight, imagining Nick inside, and that was good enough to let him bury his nose in the wiry curls around Nick’s cock and hollow his cheeks with sucking.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Oh—
Barrett, stop. Stop.” He shoved at Barrett’s hips, clumsy but meaning it.

Barrett licked his lips clean. “Don’t want to stop.”

“Hell, no.” Nick tried to sit up, coordination be damned. He reached for Barrett. “One of us needs to get inside the other. Don’t care which, but that’s what I want.”

Barrett could have said no. He’d wanted to feel Nick let go. To taste the cum rolling over his tongue, to drink it down to the very last drop, but the emptiness made up his mind. “Lie on your back,” he said, his voice rougher and deeper from taking Nick too deep. “I want to ride you. Want you in me.”

He heard the noisy click of Nick’s hard gulp, and in the last fading light of day saw the shape of him nodding. He slid down, onto his back, and reached for Barrett.

Barrett rose to his knees. He’d meant to carry a condom with him, but he flicked it aside with a scowl. If this was the last time—if—he’d make it count, by God. Let them both make mess enough to soak the bed. He wanted it. He slid one leg over Nick and laid his hands on Nick’s chest for balance as he found his saddle in Nick’s lap. “Hold yourself steady.” He arched when Nick did, and knuckle-bumped his sac along the way.

Fuck
. He couldn’t wait—not a second longer—and he didn’t have to. Nick knew what he needed. He flexed his hips, thrust up, and slid home.

“Oh. Oh, God, yes,” Barrett gasped. He ground down once—couldn’t help it—then raised himself almost completely off Nick’s cock then plunged back down. “More,” he breathed. “Harder.”

Nick reached up, grasping what he could of Barrett, rough scrubs of his palms rubbing Barrett’s nipples into stiff peaks. He arched his head back, fumbling his way down. His hand fitted hard and tight around Barrett’s hip and held him there. With the other, he took Barrett’s cock in hand and squeezed.

“Oh, fuck, Nick…” Barrett’s thighs began to shake. “Harder, God, please, harder—”

Nick caught the beads of slick that slipped out and massaged them into Barrett’s skin. “Look at you. Gorgeous.” He quirked his hips, moving deeper without moving down.

Barrett would swear he could feel the length inside him, not only at the ring of muscles that he bore down with. “The way you take me, it’s…”

The back of Barrett’s neck prickled and burned. Blindly, half-mad, he tore the gauze off and let the cool air soothe his skin. “Only you,” he said. “Never will be another you. Want you. Only you. God, Nick—”

“Don’t care what happens,” Nick swore. “Only you. Come on. Harder. Squeeze me. Work me.”

Barrett’s body obeyed. He clamped down on Nick’s cock, buried deep inside. When he rose up and sank down again, the pulse-beat pounding in his groin rose to a fever pitch. “Nick,” he panted. “Nick!”

“Yeah. God, yeah. Me too, baby, almost—” Nick said, voice strangled. “One more time. Hard. Hard as you can. Like that, like that—
Barrett,
fuck!” he cried, driving deep—deeper—deepest—

Barrett bowed forward, twisting in on himself as he streaked Nick’s chest and belly. Nick’s fingers dug hard into Barrett’s hips, pounding him fast, frantic, racing against the ticking of the clock and greedy for more.

He shouted when he came, a harsh yell that echoed in Barrett’s ears even above the rush of blood to his head. Barrett’s hips jerked, pushing him that much tighter to Nick. He held on, not willing to let go, not even for a second, not until he lost his balance and fell forward.

Nick caught him as he landed across Nick’s chest, one hand in his hair and one moving in hungry sweeps across his back. He found Barrett’s mouth with his and took all the control Barrett didn’t keep for himself, tongue sliding deep, lips hard, the kisses hungry.

But he didn’t pull out. He stayed there. Hard, still. Impossibly hard.

And when Barrett reached down to feel, his cock jutted tight before him, full and fat and straining at the seams. He took himself in hand and almost had to let go. He jerked, a moan escaping him.

Only soulmates could do this…

Only soulmates could do this
. Nick knew that. It’d started, then. The soulmarks would be fully dark by now, come into their own. This belonged to the nameless, faceless men who would lay claim to them.

Unless they were…

He closed his mind to the thought. Maybe Barrett’s attitude was catching. But if he even let himself think for a second that they might get that lucky, he’d lose the last crumb of self-control he could call his own. He’d lock them both up and let the devil deal with the fallout.

Still, God, he was so hard as Barrett eased off him. “Nick?” he asked, uncertain-sounding. “Nick, I…”

“Do it,” Nick said. He spread his legs wide. “Come here and do it.”

Barrett hesitated. Nick could see the whites of his eyes in the darkness. “You’re sure?”

“Don’t ask me that. Don’t even think about asking me that.” Still clumsy, but stronger than he’d known he could be, Nick wound his arms and legs around Barrett to pull him close and tight. Same as before, but so different. “For me. Once for me, now.”

Barrett buried his hands in Nick’s hair. Nick let him, even when he pulled too hard and made him wince with the sting of it. He chased his own taste deep in Barrett’s mouth, holding his head with one hand and kneading his ass with the other, urging him closer and closer still. Barrett wasn’t just letting it happen. He encouraged, hands and mouth moving over every bit of Nick that Nick could offer up to him.

“Nick, look at me.” He stopped—tore himself away—to say, “Look at me.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.” Nick raised his knees to bracket Barrett’s sides, shepherding him move by move. “You’ll only hurt me if you don’t fuck me,
now
.” He could feel the blunt, hard, wet head of Barrett’s cock pressing against him, and he hadn’t had enough prep but that was all right. He wanted to feel it. Wanted to carry that memory for hours.

Not willing to see if Barrett would hesitate or give up, Nick reached between them and guided Barrett. His hands were slippery, and he could still feel the slide of lube from their playing before. He tightened his legs around Barrett’s and raised his hips, easing Barrett deep inside him on a long, long stroke. Hot, hard, slightly curved, hitting him exactly right. He would have sworn before—still would, now—they’d been made for each other, the way they fit together. Barrett could go deep, so deep, longer than the toys they’d used every now and again, never more than once or twice.

No one else would ever compare. No one could.

Nick reveled in the stolen moment. Barrett had a hand around Nick’s cock, stroking him hard and fast, not stopping. Sweat rolled down his forehead and beaded at the base of his throat. Nick raised his head to lick it away, but that was as much as he could manage. The kissing had ended, no coordination left over for more than moving their mouths open and wet against skin, but that would do fine.

Nick pressed his mouth everywhere he could reach, and tightened his legs around Barrett’s hips. Barrett swore under his breath and stopped for a moment, giving himself room to slide out, catch Nick’s leg and push it back to his chest then—back
in
—

The new angle drove Nick hard against the bed. His throat arched, straining with the pressure of the way he bent his head, and his mouth went dry from hanging open in a soundless shout. He imagined he could feel Barrett swelling harder still inside him as his thrusting stuttered and stumbled through long and still, short and fast—