Love for the Cold-Blooded (3 page)

“No,” Nicholas said, flatly.

Pat blinked. “No what? No you changed your mind and don’t want to do me after all, no you are not a Gemini, no you do not think Marciano Marcianas is the hottest new starlet to —”

“No, we are not roleplaying the rich playboy and the delivery boy.” Nicholas’s stare was inching closer to pyrokinetic all the time. If practice really did make perfect, Pat was going to end up astronaut shish kebab at some point. Or maybe caveman shish kebab, whichever most applied.

He tried a grin, and threw in an eyebrow waggle for good measure. “We kind of are, bro. By virtue of, you know. Being us. But it’s all good, I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“We aren’t — oh, honestly. Just get on the bed,will you?” Nicholas paused his advance to rub the skin between his eyebrows with two fingers, as though trying to stave off a threatening migraine. Which also meant he wasn’t staring so fixedly anymore, so Pat counted it a win. “You are odd beyond measure, Patrick.”

Pat snorted. “If only you knew how wrong you are. See, the entire world is populated by these really weird dudes, and I’m the only normal one. Nobody but me ever seems to get that.”

Ha! Score! There it was — that had been a grin, definitely a grin. Tiny, lopsided and reluctant, but entirely present and accounted for. It was gone again so fast Pat would almost have suspected he’d imagined it, if he hadn’t been watching for it so closely.

One grin was enough to break the tension. Pat returned it delightedly, relief rushing through him as he plopped down to sit on the edge of the bed. Nicholas had a very springy mattress, and Pat bounced on it once just because. Then he bounced on it again because it’d made Nicholas’s brows rise. And bingo, score again — that slight huff definitely contained amusement, among other things.

Had to happen, really. Most people were won over by Pat’s quirky charm at some point. Well, some people. Okay, a certain smallish but undeniable percentage of all people. (An even smaller but equally undeniable percentage tried to punch Pat in the nose, but fortunately, this evening did not look to be heading in that direction.)

Continuing his earlier streak of no-frills bossiness, Nicholas gestured for Pat to scoot back until he was entirely on the bed. Then, he put a hand to Pat’s chest and pushed him down.

Was this dude for real? But a moment later Nicholas was crawling up the bed like some kind of improbably sinuous predator, and Pat decided that yeah, okay, the guy had no style, but Pat was kinda into it.

And then Nicholas was right there, covering Pat’s body with his own and framing his face with huge hands.

At this range, the stare wasn’t half as daunting. Alternately, maybe Pat was getting used to it — maybe it was just the configuration Nicholas’s face fell into naturally. Normal people looked bored or stern or lost in thought when they were on neutral. Nicholas…

“Dude, has anyone ever told you that your neutral default expression makes you out to be a —”
murderous pyrokinetic psychopath?

But Pat never got to finish that sentence, on account of Nicholas’s mouth blocking the rest of his words.

Nicholas kissed slowly and thoroughly, almost methodically. It wasn’t a surprise, exactly; Pat hadn’t had a theory on what the man would kiss like. Plus, he didn’t have the attention to spare for surprise, what with everything else going on. Like the heavy weight of Nicholas pressing Pat into the bed — wow, who’d have thought that would be such a turn-on? And he was
right there
, one hand sliding slowly into Pat’s hair, fingertips dragging against his curls. And his thigh was snugged up against Pat’s cock, which, holy fuck, Pat wasn’t entirely sure he was up to processing how good that was just yet.

Somehow, Pat’s hands had ended up on Nicholas’s ass. It felt even better than it looked… all muscle, ridiculously firm and more than enough to grab hold of. This was actually happening. Pat was allowed to
touch
.

“Dude, I gotta touch you more,” he gasped into Nicholas’s mouth.

Nicholas grunted and nipped at his lower lip. Pat had never realized how great kissing could be — but, no. He wasn’t going to let himself get distracted here. He wanted to touch more,
now
. “Hang on, okay. Back up.”

It took a little squirming, but Nicholas did back up. He proceeded to stare at Pat like a particularly grumpy murderous pyrokinetic, but by now Pat was used to the guy’s face doing that particular thing. He just went ahead with shoving Nicholas over onto his back and letting his hands roam.

Pat found himself trembling as he stroked along Nicholas’s collarbones, down his arms all the way to the strong wrists… up his firm, trained stomach and chest. A confusing rush of greed and nerves swirled in his gut, mingling oddly with the intoxicating feeling of soft warm skin over hard sculpted muscle. And Nicholas obviously wanted this as much as Pat; it was easy to read in the way he tipped his head back to let Pat skim avid fingertips up his throat, how he held his breath when Pat leaned forward for a taste of the delicate skin over his pulse. How he watched him with glittery dark eyes all the while.

Nobody ever looked at Pat like that. It was doing weird things to his head.

Nicholas was still wearing underwear, which was clearly entirely wrong. Pat attempted to remedy the situation by tugging at the offending boxers, but didn’t get anywhere until Nicholas sat up to strip them off and toss them off the bed.

Outside of porn, Pat hadn’t seen an awful lot of erect penises that weren’t his own. Objectively speaking, Nicholas’s cock was probably entirely unexceptional. Except, it was right there in front of him, just as hard as Pat’s own and attached to a gorgeous man he was allowed to touch. Kinda hard to be objective when his hands were unsteady with lust, the blood rushing in his ears.

“Suck it,” Nicholas rasped. He’d flushed a hectic, uneven pink, a feverish gleam edging into the pyrokinetic stare. It was a startlingly good look on him, and… yeah. Pat might have hesitated for the merest second there — talk about jumping in at the deep end — but… yeah, sure, he could do that. Absolutely.

Nicholas’s erection felt improbably hot and heavy in his hand. When he stroked it once, experimentally, Nicholas gave a stifled sound that made Pat’s heart skip a beat; he only realized he was biting his lip when he looked up to find Nicholas staring at his mouth.

“Go on. Suck my dick, you little slut.”

The words came out so flat — almost bland — that they took Pat a moment to process.

“Uhm.”
Suck my dick, you little slut?
Seriously?

The hotness of the idea was gone immediately, vanished in a cloud of awful dirty talk, just like that. Pat barely managed not to snicker, caught halfway between amusement and disbelief. A bit of seductive competence would have smoothed the way nicely. But what did Pat get? A no-game superhero spouting awful porn dialog.

“Whatever, man.” He pushed himself back up the bed, running a not-quite-idle hand up Nicholas’s stomach. “Maybe later.”

It wasn’t even a real brush-off, but the guy had the nerve to look taken aback. “What — why aren’t you —”

Definitely not the right moment for a discussion, so Pat tried a grin, waggling his eyebrows. “Hey, I’m not just for looking at, you know? Feel free to touch, or whatever. I bet I feel pretty good. I mean, I am in good shape and all, you —”

He never got to finish. The confusion cleared from Nicholas’s face, and half a heartbeat later Pat was sprawled on his back, with no idea of how he’d gotten there. Nicholas was crouched over him, gaze smoldering and lips slanted smugly. “Lie still,” he growled. And — oh gods yes.

Nicholas’s hands sliding over Pat as though he wanted to consume him. That was — Pat didn’t even know. Being touched like this, with open desire and even need…

He thumbed Pat’s nipples roughly before smoothing his palms down his stomach; rubbed one thumb tantalizingly just beneath his belly button while leaning forward to bite at Pat’s jawline. Pat wriggled rather desperately to get the touch to settle just that little bit lower — but a large hand was on his hip, holding him down, steel fingers wrapping all the way around his side as though he really were as diminutive as Nicholas had made him sound.

He could feel Nicholas’s breath against his neck, cool on moist skin. There were teeth setting carefully into the sensitive skin at the base of his throat, and the steady touch on his abdomen was making Pat ache and burn, tension ratcheting higher with every torturous, slow swipe of the thumb.

“Come on.” That wasn’t a whine. Pat didn’t whine, it was only — “Come on, man, don’t tease —”

The touch vanished. Pat’s eyes flew open — when had he closed them? — in time to catch Nicholas giving him a look heated enough to make his breath catch. “You’re beautiful like this.” His voice was so gravelly he sounded angry. Pat shuddered. The small sound that escaped him wasn’t a squeak, honestly it wasn’t, and even if it was — “I’m going to fuck you so hard.”

Pat gave an inarticulate, choked sound and had to remind himself to breathe as Nicholas knelt to slide slow hands up his legs, thumbs pressing into the sensitive skin of Pat’s inner thighs. He spread his legs without prompting, and gasped involuntarily when cool fingers stroked lingeringly over his balls before slipping lower to press at his hole. Nicholas’s free fist closed around the base of Pat’s erection in the same instant, and for several chaotic moments, the flood of sensations was too much for Pat to sort out. He moaned and arched mindlessly into the touch, twisting on the bed as a rush of sparking delight tumbled through him.

“Okay,” Nicholas said.

Hell yeah, everything about this was okay. He had never been this okay, and might never be again.

Except that Nicholas stopped touching him, and that — no, that was not okay. Pat rasped an incoherent protest and reared up off the sheets to grab for him, but Nicholas’s hands were on his hip and shoulder again, and —

Pat wasn’t short or light, whatever Nicholas had claimed, but he almost felt like it when he found himself flipped onto his stomach with ridiculous ease. Before his mind had finished processing the change in position, Nicholas was already lifting Pat’s hips up off the bed and kicking his knees apart. And Pat liked it. It was amazing how much it turned him on to be manhandled like this… arranged just the way Nicholas wanted him.

Uncoordinated with lust and nerves, it took Pat a moment to get his arms under him and his face off the mattress. Nicholas was warm, solid muscle all along his back, one arm wrapped around Pat’s middle. Nicholas’s erection pressing between his cheeks felt absurdly hot and hard, and way larger than it had looked.

The mattress shifted as Nicholas leaned over to the bedside table. Pat sucked in several deep, shaky breaths; every sensation seemed exaggeratedly sharp and in focus. The air rasping in his lungs. The high-threadcount sheets against his hands and knees. The crinkly sound of a condom wrapper tearing.

He wasn’t nervous. Of course he wasn’t. He wanted this; was going a little out of his head with wanting it. It would be ridiculous to be nervous.

A heavy touch between his shoulder blades pushed him to his elbows, and large hands grasped his hips to tilt them back at the perfect angle. Pat jumped a little when moisture slicked over him, then pressed inside. Pat thought he’d been expecting this — had been expecting it — but somehow, he couldn’t keep in a surprised-sounding gasp, or prevent his arms from trembling.

“Dude,” he said, helplessly. “Dude.” His mind was blank, filled entirely with the feeling of cool air against his overheated skin. The ache of his cock. The overstretched, near-painful feeling of fingers working into his ass. Nicholas was breathing in near-tandem with Pat, and the sound was harsh and loud in the silence of the room.

He still hadn’t decided whether he liked the feeling of fingers inside him when they were gone. In their place, something big, blunt and relentless nudged at him. Nicholas gave a low, drawn-out groan that sounded as though it was being dragged from him. And then Pat trembled and gasped as Nicholas spread him open and pressed slowly, inexorably in.

His cock was hot, hard, and impossibly huge. It wasn’t, of course. Pat knew it wasn’t. It was a totally regular size, but it felt like, it felt —

That odd little hurt sound couldn’t be Pat, except that it caught in his throat on the way out. He was panting, sweating; he wasn’t sure if he was shivering, but the world was razor-edged and bright and slow, and his heart was beating so wildly it was making him dizzy.

“Yeah,” Nicholas rasped. He was plastered against Pat’s back, one large hand spread against his stomach, holding him steady, the other stemmed into the mattress right next to where Pat was white-knuckling the sheets. He was everywhere. All around Pat, between his spread thighs, over him and — and inside him, actually inside. It was — “Yeah, that’s it. Give it up for me.”

He said more than that when he started moving, weaving a rough backdrop of words, cut apart by gasps that echoed the rhythm of his hips. Pat didn’t understand any of it. There were too many other things clamoring for his attention.

Like the solid weight and heat of another man’s body. The way Pat’s body was moving to the rhythm of someone thrusting into him. The rasp of Nicholas’s breath in Pat’s ear; the low, slightly slurred, drugged-sounding monotone of his voice. The way his thrusts forced Pat to brace himself, made his elbows slide forward when Nicholas pushed inside him. Nicholas’s hand, slipping lower on his belly with every thrust, Pat’s erection brushing it with every movement of their joined bodies.

The feeling of a man’s cock inside Pat, thrusting into his body in a thick, solid glide that left him weak-kneed and desperate, trembling and gasping for air. The fullness and the stretch and the pleasure-pain intensity of it. Too much; too much of everything. Pat was shivering, moving pliantly under Nicholas’s touch. He suspected he was the one making that whining sound, that desperate drawn-out whimper.

Overwhelmed, that was the word. It was just — more than he’d expected. More than he knew how to deal with.

Everything hung suspended for the space of another thrust, two. Pat was panting, and he didn’t want this to stop, except that he did; he was burning up, so hot he felt stifled, ticklish curls of hair sticking damply to his neck and forehead.