Thanus 26

The scene that went down and the flash of my swan tattoo made the men feel bad about what happened. Guilt had them wandering off with apologetic waves that I barely acknowledged as they left. Kiromir was distracted by… other things. Notably, my hand on his knee. Since our fires had touched the night before, every inch closer to him that I got made him tense and squirm. With my touch alone, he squirmed.

I pushed it an inch higher, testing my luck as I leaned into him.

I had his tattoo finished twenty minutes ago. I relished the vibrations in my hand of running the needle over his bands. Just for the feel of it, I wanted the touch now. I didn’t know how much longer he would let me before he pulled away again. He enjoyed the stinging notes of pain, and the way his feet moved and dug at the dirt below told me that his toes curled. Did he always do that? I knew he liked little things like that—took relish in life after a good fight, adrenaline, dopamine. Kiromir was intense.

I pushed my hand up a little higher, rotating it to his outer thigh, near his hip. I put the tattoo gun down and wiped over his fresh ink. I did a damned good job if I did say so myself.

His gold eyes locked onto mine. His intense look morphed into something more—something hungry. But fear swam deep in his eyes, and I felt afraid too for just a moment. My skin went cold as I likened it to standing on the edge of a cliff with my wings drawn. I leaned over, pitching my center forward and over. Would I lash my wings in time, or would we fall? Glorious fear settled in my gut, drawing adrenaline to the surface.

The cloying fear crawled up my spine in delicate prickles, and I realized where the fear came from, his aura. His anxiety set it free. But I shrugged it off, realizing that I had iron certainty with crystal clarity. I wanted him. I didn’t just want him to possess him. The raw certainty of my need slammed my aura around me, one of peace and calm. My brown eyes raked his face, and I knew that I wanted him against me.

I leaned into him as my finger hooked into the belt loop of his jeans. I tugged hard, jerking his hips, pulling him in closer to me. His gasp rattled out, pleading. He hesitated, and the uncertainty begged me to make the next move. I would do that for him. I pushed him further.

“Will you take my fires again, Mir? I’ll happily make a swan of you,” I told him. Damned if everything if he didn’t blush like a boy. 74 years old if he was a day, about 30 or so in human appearance, blushing like a teenager.

“What if someone sees? I don’t know,” he whispered,

“When has that stopped anyone?” I asked.

Our sex lives were complicated things.

When our fires came, we felt urges to feel another’s fire on us. Fires were addictive when you found one that matched you. You could try harder, soak your magic with another and curl up into the sensation of it. Kiromir couldn’t compare my fire to anyone else’s. I didn’t want to be the one to tell him how intense his felt compared to others. His first attempt brought out the best potential, something I knew would blossom into something extreme. Addicted to them, I wanted more.

If we kept melding and kept feeling the way, our fires might become a bridge. I knew something deeper called me, beckoning for another lick of his flame. The threads of our mana were weaving a knot, binding us. We’d be marked as lovers eternal, and I don’t think I’d mind. I couldn’t get the thought of his fires out of my head. I knew somewhere deep that I loved him in deeper ways that whispered of passion.

I charged my electricity over my palm and reached out to him. The coiled tingles of my fire flickered and invited him. Almost immediately, I felt his cold fire back against my own. It rushed through my veins like ice—sharp and fierce, just like him. A soft whimper came from his lips, and I charged my other hand, letting the yellow flicker of my magic grace my other palm for him to accept. I wanted to hear that noise from him again, mewling.

I did that.

I made him do that.

Every muscle in my body fought itself to restrain from taking more from him. I had never felt anything like it. Nothing in my life ever felt like this involuntary demanding sensation. It boiled in my belly, heat sinking deeper down.

Oh.

My body knew something that my mind didn’t. Kiromir’s body cried for me.

It was more intense this time, better, intoxicating. Feathers… I couldn’t take more.

“Mir?” I asked as I felt the swim of cool mist flowing through me. The syllable of sound came from my lips as a gulp and a gasp. I needed his touch.

“Tan?” His teeth parted as he said my name, and his gently pointed teeth framed over a soft pink tongue. I knew the thoughts that crossed his mind. I read them in his golden eyes, a reflection of my own.

I leaned in, the shadow of my beard going against the smooth of his own jawline. He smelled like sea and sweat. I jerked his waistband again, and the motion of it brought us to touch. Heat seared through me. I needed him with fierce urgency.

“Can I kiss you?” I asked. I’d kissed a man before on the last summer’s route. It was pleasant, felt decent enough, but our fires were not as heavenly as this. There was nothing that felt like this cloying and damning desire. My lips curled softly, having never felt his before. Though, I knew what they should feel like on my lips. I dreamed of it often. I didn’t wait for his response, just moved slowly in.

His lips parted, and eyes closed. His head turned in a graceful tilt. Trembling, his slender neck exposed for me. His soft lips begged even if his voice didn’t. Waiting for consent, he gave it wordlessly, and my lower lip caught his. Then we pressed together gently. His heartbeat raced like thunder against me; his breath flickered in a shuddering pant. His fear pulsed, and the ice he made pushed strong through my veins. I let my electricity flow back, fighting against him through our held hands like two opposing circuits firing back.

Feathers, this isn’t what it’s supposed to be. This isn’t chasing fires. This… this is...

I was bigger than him. I may not have been stronger, but I had that over him, and I pushed my hands back. His wings were still out, and he moved them to his sides as his back went to the table, then over the top of it as I pressed him down, our chests together, never breaking the kiss. I had to touch more of him, to get closer. Every inch of warmth to my own body satiated some deeper base instinct within me.

I need this. I need more.

I pinned his hands to the table, slamming them down hard. A few empty bottles and my tattoo kit clinked. The table creaked under our weight. It could hold us, and if it didn’t, we’d just keep on like this on the ground. His breath sped up, eyes watering. I felt his breath panting into my mouth, over my stubbled lip. I captured his tongue and drew his air into my lungs. Not an ounce of his warmth, mana, or fires belonged to anyone else but me, and I’d have them right then or nothing else. His light stubble felt so smooth in comparison to my own face. His chest constricted, and the things I could feel then…

I fisted my left hand into his, charging my fires harder. I needed to drive him as crazy as he drove me.

Intoxicated on his mana, I demanded more. My heart felt bottomless, but he overflowed me. I hungered for him and, as his fires flowed, pushing his body down under my own weight. Our hips contacted, and that simple touch felt like a new kind of electricity. Kiromir panted in panic against my mouth. I forced my tongue down in response, tasting over his teeth. His tongue tried to dart back at mine, and by all feather’s sake, he tasted so sweet. I wanted more and more still. I wanted to breathe him in like air and suffocate without him. His breath snuffled in desperate and wanton shudders. I bit his lip gently. I liked mine bitten, and so did he, apparently. An anguished groan eked its way from his throat and into my mouth.

Please. Please keep going.

I released one of his hands. He left it there, laying up above his head—limp. Electricity pulsed over my hand as I brought it down his arm, slowly down his side, my electricity tingling until I reached the hem of his shirt. My fingers slipped up under it, fingertips sending rivulets of static into the low dip of his hipbone, then over as my fingers traced his taut form. I didn’t know his body could move like that. Muscles squirmed beneath my fingers in tender shudders and flexing tautness. Every movement of his body drove desperate sensations through me. This man had total power to break me right this moment if he so much as pushed back against me.

Deny it all you want, but you were born to be a swan, Mir.

He broke free of my kiss as my hand went higher, his shirt up under his pectorals as my fingers teased his side and belly. Everywhere I touched spread goosebumps and flexing muscles. From his mouth came the most carnal and wavering cry of pleasure I’d ever heard, and I could see rivulets of tears pouring from the sides of his eyes. I wouldn’t have stopped, but his body went limp and quivering. The strong man beneath me reduced to jelly.

If this didn’t turn into something more tonight, I’d heed the call of the cycle. Life in this world would be pointless if this stopped. I had to stop, though. The tears pouring down his cheeks and his lack of motion signaled me to pull back. But, I could not, nor would I violate that trust he put in me.

I pulled away from him, stumbling as he laid there. Panting, I stepped back because I didn’t trust myself. The bulk of him sprawled over the picnic table, inviting me again. With his shirt pushed up high, his sculpted stomach exposed, wings out, and hair tousled, he looked like an angel fallen from grace. He’d obviously fallen, though it wasn’t from heaven that he stumbled. He’d fallen for me, as I had him. Kiromir’s cheeks blushed into a fierce crimson, wings shivered. He couldn’t catch his breath. His gold eyes were quite literally glowing, fire buzzing about in him as his full lips slacked softly open.

“Tan,” he whispered on a shaking breath full of the same urgency I held. He visibly shook, too weak to curl up or sit.

“Mir… You ok?” I couldn’t look away from him all sprawled out like that—defeated. We’d fought so many times in sparring practice, and he’d had me on my back and askew a thousand times. So, I relished the sight of him on his back and breathless for once. Given one more lick of fire and I might not have let him up again.

His chest shuddered, and his breath came in soft whimpers. His eyes watered in little rivulets like tears, and I was hesitant to approach. The bare flesh of his belly taunted me, warm milk tea skin and harsh angles.

“Mir?” I asked. I needed his answer. I knew I had crossed some threshold, but I didn’t know if I ruined our friendship just so easily.

The soft, fast breaths of his heaving chest turned into light laughter.

He sat up slowly, and his golden eyes were filled with something predatory, desperate.

“More,” He breathed, the word a sin over his full pink lips.

Gladly.

His shirt was still bunched, pants hung low. I knew what was coming. It wouldn’t be him and me after I finished with him. It would be us.

“En vera dir sooth sul val,” he said in haggard, desperate breaths. ‘I want your fires in me.’

Feathers...