Bel gave his cock a few tugs. Nicodemus could feel Bel’s gaze on his face, as he had always felt it. It made his insides quake, his heart thunder, his skin prickle. That was not fear.
“Oh,” he offered weakly, moving until he found Bel’s mouth and then letting Bel take his again. He couldn’t have kissed back if he’d tried. Bel was strong and he would do as he willed, and it was pleasing that what he willed was to plunder Nicodemus’ mouth and stroke Nicodemus’ cock until Nicodemus was gasping.
Nicodemus pulled at Bel’s hair, perhaps painfully. He rolled his hips as much as he allowed, and whined between kisses, and then spilled, flushed unbearably hot, jerking with shock, when Bel pressed him hard into the tree and bit his neck as if to hold him still the way animals did when they mated. He stripped Nicodemus’ cock until Nicodemus whined, but would not allow Nicodemus to move a single inch.
He kissed Nicodemus in the meantime, sucking on his throbbing bottom lip and then biting it again, brushing their mouths together when Nicodemus made a noise, although the noise had not been one of objection. Strange, that, when he stung and ached all over. But his blood was pounding and his nerves sang, and he knew, somehow, that he had surprised Bel, but also pleased him in return.
He should have done that sooner, instead of offering him cookies.
He twitched in Bel’s hands, his cock as well as the rest of him, and unclenched the fist around Bel’s hair in order to return to exploring the wonders of Bel’s shoulders. Nicodemus felt quite small, and also bruised, and frowned because he was still in a tree, before opening his eyes.
Bel watched, intent and impatient, as Nicodemus blinked back to some awareness. When Nicodemus parted his lips and said, “But what of—” Bel put his hand in front of Nicodemus’ face. His eyes were gleaming.
Nicodemus only had a moment to notice. His attention fell almost instantly to the spunk wet between Bel’s fingers, the drop hanging thickly from one dark claw.
“How the little lamb hungers,” Bel remarked, deep and rumbling; the Realm voice that suited his Realm body. “I would like to watch him feed.”
Nicodemus should not have been able to blush anymore, yet he thought he might. He didn’t know if he was supposed to tell Bel no, or to beg for this too. He absently pushed his glasses into place, still half-befogged and unconcerned with much beyond Bel’s interest.
His fingers could not quite connect when he placed them around this Bel’s wrist, but Bel consented to Nicodemus’ hold, inhaling sharply when Nicodemus brought his hand to his mouth. Again, he was surprised. “You….”
Nicodemus tugged Bel’s fingers into his mouth to lick them clean, shuddering faintly at the taste of himself, and the iron flavor of Bel, and how it felt to wrap his tongue around claws. He did not look away as he swallowed. It was not his own spunk that would satisfy him, but he suspected Bel knew that.
Nicodemus’ voice was slow and sticky as honey. “I can’t help it, Bel. You…how you look at me. Am I like that creature, do you think? I want your attention as much as it does.” He paused, hit with another thought, and reached up to feel his horns. “Am I changed here too? Am I different?”
“No,” Bel told him, in a voice Nicodemus had never heard from him before, almost wondering, “No, you are the same.”
Nicodemus sighed in relief, then frowned when Bel took his hand away to have the last of Nicodemus’ spill for himself, cleaning his wrist with one slow swipe of his tongue. He did not look away either.
“I still want.” Nicodemus suspected he was whining. “Will you have me? Like this?” Nicodemus was fairly tall. No one had ever tried to pick him up, much less fuck him against a tree. Bel the monster was more than capable.
“This is the Realm, innocent.” Bel raised his head, the light of the stars shining on the blue-black spirals of his horns. “It is whatever you want.”
Innocent.Nicodemus dropped his gaze to Bel’s chest. “Do you want me? You said—you promised things.”
“I made no promise there.” Bel was infuriating.
Nicodemus raised his head so Bel would see his scowl.
“On my knees.” Nicodemus remembered aloud, as Bel likely wanted him to, because Bel wanted everything. “With my mouth full and my thighs wet, you said. While I try to beg for more.”
Bel’s smile was cool. “That’s why you went out this evening, wasn’t it? To get that from someone. From anyone.”
“Oh,” Nicodemus said again, just as weakly as before.Everything. That’s what he’d thought, but he hadn’t realized…. Bel liked him held still—heldopen, and begging, or at least putting his mouth to use. He also wanted him honest and perhaps even humiliated. That it felt good to be and do all of those things for Bel was a surprise but somehow only a small one.
Nicodemus met Bel’s stare. “I wouldn’t have gotten that from anyone,” he admitted. Embarrassment was its own thrill around Bel now that he knew Bel only thought well of him and hungered for this. “They would barely touch me, or expect me to be an animal. And I would never have begged them for anything…outside of my rut. But you…I have begged you.” He didn’t think he imagined how Bel’s eyes glittered. “I could beg more.”
Places along his neck were beginning to ache. Nicodemus would have signs of this once he was home. Holt would certainly see, if he returned in time. Bel had probably done that on purpose, resentful of Holt’s freedom to touch him.Jealous. “I would have preferred you,” Nicodemus added, the fire in Bel’s eyes sending the same fire down his spine. “Even then. I would have thought it was pity from you, and I still would’ve…. Is that enough?”
“Not pity.” Bel leaned in to bite another mean, dragging kiss at Nicodemus’ throat. Nicodemus’ eyes fell shut. He put a hand to Bel’s shoulder to hold him there and Bel snarled. “I will have more, little lamb.”
Nicodemus trembled, rushing to think of what he was meant to say. “I told you that you could take your pleasure because I….”
“Wanted me to?” Bel finished for him, because, of course, he could feel it. “Like the beast they think you are?” He bit down, making Nicodemus cry out and go still. Then Bel let go. “I could hold you down, use you as I pleased, while you are too mindless and hard to care. Is that what you want…what you think you want?”
“Would you?” Nicodemus wondered faintly, imagining Bel in his room, on his bed, bent over him andtaking. He pulled weakly on Bel’s coat collar. “Fuck me like that?” He would never have dreamed of asking Holt anything so bold. “As though I am just a body?”Oh, he could not think of anything but the creaking of his bed and the width of Bel’s back. “A hole?” He bit his lip to make it throb anew.
“No.” The word was ripped from Bel, and for a moment, Nicodemus was cold. Then Bel raised his head and put his thumb to Nicodemus’ mouth. “Not just that.” Nicodemus flicked his tongue over the edge of Bel’s claw, the pad of Bel’s finger, then opened his eyes. Bel watched him, fire-bright, oven-hot, no doubt feeling every spark of want that he kept accidentally igniting in Nicodemus. “Did Holt not use you until you were sore?”
