His hard-on, unselfconscious and insistent, nudged the back of my thigh, a reminder that the morning sunlight and birdsong and all hadn't dulled his consistent hunger simmering under the surface.
If anything, the aftermath of survival stripped away pretense for both of us. We wanted. We took.
I slid my hand over his, guiding it lower until he was cupping my cock and balls. He hummed against my shoulder, the sound a mix of a growl and a moan. I grinned, rolling my hips back to meet his.
"You have to take it easy," he whispered. "You're—"
"Still alive." I pressed his hand harder, wanting both the pain and the pleasure of it. "The doc said I should stay active."
He laughed against my skin and then kicked the sheets off before he slid down the mattress, lips trailing along my spine. Lower still, his mouth mapped the hollows of my lower back, pausing when he reached the edge of the bandage.
There was nothing clinical about his touch, but he treated the area with the tentative gentleness of someone who'd become intimately acquainted with mortality. His hand bracketed my hipbone, not the wound, and his mouth planted a soft, sidelong kiss directly above the gauze.
"Gonna have to come up with a better story than kitchen accident for that," he murmured, lips grazing the fine line where healthy skin met injury.
"I'm open to suggestions. Maybe a shark attack. Or a fencing duel."
Matthew pressed his cheek against my hip as if he could listen to the healing happen. I craned my neck to watch.
He looked up, and our eyes met. "Stay there," he said. I stayed. I didn't fucking move.
Matthew slipped his arm under my waist and turned me until I was on my back. The motion pulled at the new skin, sharp and raw, but the distraction was immediate and worth it—his tongue was on the sharp ridge of my pelvic bone, hot and shameless.
He kissed the tape line gently and then, with a purposeful glance up, started working my shorts down past my thighs. He flicked his tongue out to chase the waistband.
My cock strained against the thin cotton, practically begging for his hand, and when his fingers finally curled around it, I nearly bit through my tongue.
"Fuck, Dorian," Matthew murmured. I was too busy trying not to arch off the mattress and pull my wound open to say anything clever back.
He circled my cock head with his thumb, slicking precum down the shaft. It was so gentle that I almost missed the edge of his teeth when he nipped the inside of my thigh. He followed the bite with a kiss.
"You sure you're okay?"
I wanted to call him out on his lack of awareness, but all I managed was, "Don't stop."
He didn't. Matthew dipped his head and took me into his mouth. My hands tangled in his hair as he groaned low in his throat. I lost track of the ceiling, the room, the pain, and everything but the wet heat of his mouth and the impossible, grateful pleasure of being alive right in that moment.
He was thorough. He alternated soft sucks with tight pressure, tongue tracing the underside, then the tip, and every time I gasped, he doubled down, like he was memorizing the parts of me that made me nearly black out.
I tried to keep quiet, but the pressure building was too much, and I let out a sound that might have made Mrs. Kaminski question her choice of residence.
Matthew grinned around my cock, the bastard, and bobbed his head faster, hand working the base in time with his mouth. Little black spots danced at the edges of my vision, and the next time he swallowed me down, I nearly lost it.
He slowed, backing off just enough to keep me teetering at the edge, then licked a broad, lazy stripe from root to tip. "Thought you said you wanted to take it slow."
"I lied," I managed. "Fuck."
He went back to it, more insistent, cheeks hollowing with every pull. My hips tried to buck, but his hands pinned me down, palms flat and unyielding against my thighs. I surrendered, letting him set the pace, the world narrowing to the grip of his fingers and the relentless heat of his tongue.
I was going to die. It wouldn't be in a hail of bullets but under the relentless, joyful assault of a man determined to worship every inch of me. I tried to warn him. "Matthew—fuck, wait—"
He shook his head, mouth still full, and bobbed harder, hand twisting at the base, the other splayed flat against my belly to keep me from bucking up and hurting myself.
The world narrowed into a single point, all nerves converging on the place where his lips met my skin. I made a sound, not even a word, just a helpless, animal noise, and he pressed in for the kill.
When the orgasm crashed over me, it was all blinding light and heat, the relief so violent it made me shudder from scalp to toes. My vision went white for a second.
Matthew didn't pull away—he took every last gasp and tremble, swallowing it all, and when I finally stopped shaking, he lingered for a beat, licking the last of me off with a little flick that made me jerk and yelp.
