Whatever the Cost (15 page)

Liam’s hands are everywhere, touching. Hands on Jacen’s chest, hands sliding down his sides, hands palming his bottom, fingernails scratching lightly down Jacen’s legs, pushing one of them back at a sharper angle in order to plunge farther into his body. Considering the desperation with which Liam entered him, the easy, languorous pace of his lovemaking, once he’s nestled completely in Jacen, is surprising. Taking his time, savoring the miraculous connection between them, now that they’re finally so intimately joined, Liam moves slowly and never stops touching, touching everywhere. Jacen watches through his lowered, dark eyelashes, with so much to say, so much to ask, but speechless. The ability to find his voice is stolen by how incredibly vulnerable he suddenly feels. For all of the fucking in his life, it may be the very first time Jacen has ever been made love to. It’s not about the sex at all, but it’s also all about the sex. It’s Liam inside him, Liam touching him, Liam moaning his name, being so careful, trying to hold back some of his urgency.

The anguish grows in Liam’s face as his rhythm quickens. Growling through his teeth, Liam is gasping, lip quivering, clutching to Jacen, pulling him in with his hands even as he pushes his cock in deeper, burrowing further, taking and taking and taking. Taking it all.

Nuzzling the side of Jacen’s neck, Liam stops abruptly, trembling a little, straining. The moment draws out and Jacen can’t figure out why until Liam resumes movement, pushing frantically into him, snapping his hips in shallow pushes, skin slapping against skin. Liam cries out softly, his parted lips dragging over Jacen’s neck, rocking into him as he comes down.

Sniffling, Liam pulls back slightly, enough so that Jacen can see the wreck of Liam’s face, his bloodshot, damp eyes, damp cheeks, lips and chin. Running the back of a hand under his nose, Liam sniffs again as Jacen wipes away some dampness that looks a lot like tears from under Liam’s eyes with the pads of his thumbs.

Jacen still doesn’t know what to say. But he knows something else—a truth, a very important truth, one that helps him find some peace with it all. He knows without an ounce of uncertainty that he loves this man, with all of his heart.

Liam collects himself. A flimsy curtain descends behind his green eyes, dulling some of the raw ache there. He pulls out, strips off the condom, shimmies out of his pants and promptly climbs on top of Jacen, straddling his hips.

“Oh, fuck,” Jacen moans.

“C’mon. Get me open,” Liam croaks, settling into place, taking his weight on his knees, braced on the bed at Jacen’s sides.

“Um,” Jacen blurts dumbly.
He’s not even ready. He’s always ready. He always gets himself lubed up and stretched open before. But this is different, isn’t it? It’s not a job. Of course he’s not ready.
“Lube?”

Liam takes Jacen’s right hand, bringing it to his come-soaked cock, folding Jacen’s hand up around it, squeezing up the length and groaning at the friction to his over-sensitive flesh. The hand comes away wet.

“Lube,” Liam grunts.

Almost afraid to ask, Jacen says, “C-condom?”

“Just touch me,” Liam begs.

Already hard enough to be dizzy from it, Jacen feels an added rush of blood surging to his balls at Liam’s gorgeously wanton pleading. Pushing his hand under Liam, Jacen rubs once over the tight knot of his hole, moaning shamelessly at finally having permission to do such a thing. He slowly but steadily inserts his middle finger to the hilt, watching Liam’s mouth fall open in a soundless gasp.

“
Liam
.” Jacen palms the side of Liam’s face, just loving him, loving him completely.

Liam rears up, pulling himself off of Jacen’s finger until only the tip remains inside. A second finger slips quickly inside before Liam pushes back down.

Liam cries out softly, beginning to ride Jacen’s hand, bouncing lightly on it as Jacen strokes gently over Liam’s inner walls, feeling the perfect, supple softness of him. Clearly Jacen isn’t being efficient enough for Liam, so he starts circling his hips, taking Jacen in to the last knuckle. Holding the arm touching his face with one hand, using it to steady himself, Liam also grasps the one between his legs that extends under his body. Following it up to the wrist, then circling the hand with his own, Liam moves Jacen’s fingers for him, feeling out where their bodies meet, jabbing Jacen’s fingers into himself harder with each push.

It feels right in a way Liam had almost forgotten was possible, to have Jacen inside him, violating him, impaling him, filling his empty places. It makes him greedy, selfish. He works himself onto the fingers even as he touches them and himself. Jacen’s thumb drags across Liam’s cheek to his lips, tracing them as they part softly. Turning into the touch, Liam’s tongue slips out, teasing over the tip of the thumb. Jacen pushes into the wet heat of Liam’s mouth, moaning as Liam suckles around the digit, playing it with his tongue.

Liam wants to get off just like that, on Jacen’s fingers stuffing him full, rubbing so gently in and out, and sucking on Jacen’s thick, long thumb. But it’s because he knows Jacen needs to get off too, because he wants to be clenched up around Jacen’s thick, gorgeous cock and wring every last drop of pleasure out of it for him, that Liam pulls off. He climbs off the bed.

“Condoms?”

“Nightstand. In the drawer.”

A few fevered seconds later, after some cursing and digging in the junk cluttering the small drawer, Liam is back on Jacen’s lap, fitting the condom onto him, rolling it over his reddened shaft.

This is happening. This is actually happening
, Jacen thinks deliriously, even as his ass throbs with a dull ache for missing Liam filling it up.

“C’mon... c’mon....” Liam sounds so impatient that Jacen cracks a smile, his eyes rolling up as Liam lowers himself onto Jacen and doesn’t even give them both a second to adjust or savor the novelty of it. As soon as he has Jacen fed halfway inside, Liam starts rocking down onto him, taking even more of him, moaning like it’s the best thing in the world. And then he’s just riding Jacen, bouncing on his cock, clenched up so tightly that it makes Jacen’s toes curl. Head thrown back, his back bowing, Jacen chokes out a rough cry, hands clamped to Liam’s bare thighs.

Slow down. He has to slow down.

Jacen bucks up into Liam, meeting every downward push with an upward thrust, their bodies slamming together, Liam hugged around him so exquisitely that Jacen knows it won’t last long at all.

Growling and grunting, cursing and sweating, all Jacen knows is the
slap
of Liam’s bare ass against his pelvis, the hot, tight, wet, soft hugging him.

He comes with a whimper, pulling Liam down onto him, holding him there. Liam rotates his hips, coaxing him through it, hands splayed on Jacen’s chest, tweaking his nipples. The room tilts and bends.

Things get hazy and unfocused. One minute Liam is lying on Jacen’s chest, catching his breath, pressing tender kisses to his sweaty skin, arms curled around him, bodies interlocked. The next, the heat enveloping Jacen is gone. So is the condom. Liam’s fingers stroke him up and down, playing through the mess of his spend, smearing it over his over-sensitive shaft, collecting it and then dragging it over Jacen’s stomach and chest. A thumb coats one dark, erect nipple, then the other in the milky fluid of Jacen’s come. As it slowly dries it makes the skin feel tight and cool.

“Lee. Lee, what’re you—”

Climbing back onto the bed, Liam kneels, leaning over him, and guides Jacen’s legs up to wind around behind his back. Hovering over him, Liam fingers Jacen’s rim, rubbing around it in small circles. They kiss and it begins soft and sweet, but in moments Liam is tongue-fucking Jacen hungrily. Not even aware of when or how Liam gets another condom on himself, all Jacen knows is the stretch and pressure of Liam entering him a second time. The wide, rounded head squeezes through his outer ring. Jacen’s fingers card through the soft, velvety texture of Liam’s short hair as full lips pepper kisses over his cheek.

“You shouldn’t give this away,” Liam hisses at him. “I won’t let you. I won’t let you give this to just anyone. Not anymore.”

“Yeah? Gonna make me yours,” Jacen asks, slurring a little in his daze.

“Yeah. I am, actually. Mine. This is mine, now. No one else gets to have it. No one.”

Distantly, Jacen wonders if it’s true, if Liam means it or if he’s just saying it because he thinks it’s what Jacen wants to hear. But does Jacen even want that? To belong to someone? He’s never considered it. It’s never been something he has craved before. He’s been happy experiencing a variety of partners, being free. The suggestion gets into his head, though. He imagines it as Liam makes love to him for a second time, splitting Jacen in half with his cock even as his fingers continue to move in wicked ways over Jacen’s skin, whispering over it and leaving trails of the sticky film of bodily fluid, like Liam has to mark him in every dirty way to make it come true, to obscure the remembered touch of hundreds of other men and women. He has to own him and fill him and claim every inch of him, inside and out. Liam’s. Jacen is Liam’s.

A shiver races down Jacen’s spine. His cock struggles to get hard again. Liam feels it twitch against his belly, so he fists it, squeezing it in steady, rhythmic pulses. Jacen rocks, into Liam’s hand, against Liam’s cock.

“C’mon, baby. That’s it. You want it?”

“Yeah...”

“Lemme feel you. Lemme feel how much you want it. Does it feel good?”

“
Liam
....”

“You feel incredible. You’re so perfect. Too—” Liam gasps. “Perfect. Knew... knew you would be. Knew you’d be perfect.”

Liam adjusts his angle so that he’s dragging over Jacen’s sweet spot on every thrust. Crying out, Jacen pulses. Liam rubs through the pre-come and keeps at it, milking him dry, turning him inside out. It goes on and on longer than Jacen dreams it can, marveling at Liam’s stamina. Every nerve, every fiber of Jacen’s being lights up, sizzling. He comes with a shudder, coating Liam’s hand, his stomach, Liam’s chest. The squelching of Liam’s hand squeezing through the mess is loud in the quiet room. In a moment of pure obscenity, Liam brings his index finger to his lips, licking Jacen’s come with a heady moan. Boneless, spent, full and then empty, Jacen feels Liam pull out. The soft, slight sound of the rubber coming off tickles at Jacen’s ears. One of Liam’s hands pulls apart Jacen’s cheeks. The cool air of the room teases over Jacen’s winking hole and then he feels the splash, hears the moan as Liam comes, too, marking him in yet another way.

Liam unloads every drop while aiming right for Jacen’s opening, shivering all the way to his bones at the sight of his come dripping down Jacen’s ass crack, pearlescent over his flushed pink wrinkled knot.

Awareness slips through Jacen’s fingers, leaving his grasp.

Jacen wakes an uncertain amount of time later, in his bed, covered in a sheet. Sticky everywhere, sore and used and wrung out, but in the best of ways, a sliver of shame still manages to wriggle down into the pit of his gut. Because he’s alone.

There’s no one else there.

His heart hardens in his chest, turning to stone, ready to shatter.

Without any hope of getting an answer, he calls, “Liam?”

The water runs in the adjoining bathroom. Someone spits into the sink.

“Yeah,” Liam mumbles. Jacen turns his head and he sees him, peeking through the doorway with a toothbrush in his mouth.

Everything in Jacen loosens. His relief is so palpable, he can’t bear to look at Liam anymore or he might die from the acuteness of his foolish, love-struck hope.

Jacen’s small, swallowed-back sob perks Liam’s attention.

“Hey. You all right?”

Jacen nods. He wipes at his eyes, his face, drawing his legs up. “I thought you left.”

Liam walks over to the bed, toothbrush still in hand.

He’s dressed, Jacen realizes.

Liam has showered and dressed in the cotton, drawstring pants that he sleeps in. Lying there completely soiled and debauched, Jacen is the counterpoint to Liam’s immaculateness. It leaves Jacen feeling cold.

“I’m right here.”

For how long?
Jacen wonders.

“I think we need to talk,” Jacen says with less conviction than he intends.

With a mouthful of toothpaste, Liam digests this and nods. Holding up a finger, he retreats to the bathroom to rinse his mouth, pausing to gaze at his reflection in an attempt to find himself there, not really recognizing much of what he sees. The urge to flee is there, as it always is, but it is surprisingly easy enough to conquer. The depth of his devotion to Jacen is what stays him.

Scooping water into his mouth, he swishes it around, spitting it out. Liam sets down the toothbrush. He wipes off his face and goes to meet whatever might be in store for him. It’s his own choices that have put them there. There is no hiding from this. Not anymore.

After a brief hesitation, Liam moves to lie down beside Jacen on the bed, settling on top of the covers and facing him. There is so much as yet left unsaid between them that cannot be ignored or pushed aside any longer that it thickens the air around them, suffocating them, threatening to drown them. The tension makes Liam in particular want to instinctively bolt from the room or maybe even the whole house just out of an instinctive need to fill his lungs with currently sparse oxygen. It feels as unnatural for him to stay there as it would for a fish to continue to flop around on jagged rocks while beside plentiful, soothing waters.