maryjane

He's beautiful. He's outrageously beautiful, and he knows it, and that’s exactly why he’s never going to hear it from you. Still, you can’t help but drink the lines of him in, heat curling low in your belly, a laugh still caught in your throat.

The caption, when it comes, is one word.

well?

You roll your eyes, humming under your breath. Unbelievable. Annoying. You let the phone fall face down on the cushion, getting comfortable again.

You go back to Demons.

Aerion gets home an hour and twenty minutes later. 

You hear the elevator chime, the soft hiss of the door, and then the particular cadence of his bare feet on marble. Aerion never wears shoes in his own home, finds it gauche, a peasant's habit, sweetheart, only idiots wear shoes indoors. 

You don't look up as he enters, turning another page instead. A hum builds in your throat at one of his marginalia (Tikhon is the only honest man in this novel, and Dostoevsky knew it), and you feel, more than see, the moment Aerion registers what you're wearing.

The pause is small. A fraction of a beat. He covers it almost instantly, but you catch it.

"Oh, fuck off," he says pleasantly, dropping his gym bag beside the door. "Really. The shirt? And the book? You're being deliberate."

You make a vague, distracted sound, finger tracing another note he’s made.

"You've left no note unstruck. The little tableau of it, look at her, positively domestic—" He's coming closer, voice dripping with that mean, lilting drawl. "Tell me, did you set this up before or after I sent the photo?"

"Before."

"Liar."

You turn another page. "I was already wearing it. I'm always wearing it."

"Yes," he says, and his voice has gone darker, lower, the performance briefly slipping. "I know."

You finally look up.

He's leaned against the back of the couch behind you, both hands braced on the leather, peering down at you upside-down. You have to be careful, immediately, not to let him see what your face does at the sight of him.

Aerion hasn't showered.

The shirt he pulled on after the gym is loose and unbuttoned, hanging open down his chest, and you can see the gleam still catching at his collarbones, the faint sheen down his sternum. Clean sweat, cooled now, the smell of him filtered by the elevator ride into something concentrated and warm. Beneath the warmth of his skin lingers the faint cigarette he definitely smoked in the parking garage on the way up. 

There's still a vein up the side of his bicep where the pump from his last set hasn't fully dropped. The dragon's wing is half-visible where the shirt has fallen open, the ink across his skin stark and detailed, scales catching the light. The piercing glints. He's wearing his rings—the heavy platinum Targaryen signet, the cluster of thinner bands on his middle finger—and the hoops in his ear gleam. 

His hair has dried slightly damp at the temples, and he’s so unbelievably hot you could choke on it.

You arrange your face into perfect blankness instead.

"What are you reading?" he asks, though he already knows.

"Your annotations sound like the ramblings of a madman,” you inform him graciously. “I hope you know that."

"My annotations are analytical."

You snort. "You wrote self-pitying next to Stavrogin and then immediately walked it back."

"He is self-pitying."

You tip your head back, pitching your voice to match his. "And yet—"

"Shut up." His mouth twitches despite himself. "Don't quote me at myself. It's beneath you."

"Is it?" you pose.

You tilt your head back further against the couch cushion to look at him properly. Upside-down, Aerion’s features look even sharper. The devastating cut of his jaw, the strong line of his nose, the pale lashes lowered. His eyes look almost lavender in this light, washed pale, gazing down at you with an expression that’s half-irritation, half something he would rather die than name.

"You didn't text me back," he remarks casually.

You bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from laughing at the disgruntlement you hear simmering beneath the faux casual statement. 

"You sent me a thirst trap," you say flatly. 

"I sent you a photograph."

"Of yourself. Shirtless. Flexing."

"I was checking my form," he says, with the magnificent affront of someone who absolutely was not, in fact, doing that.

"You wrote the caption well?" you remind him.

Aerion’s eyes flash, mouth twisting sourly. "That was… a separate enquiry," he insists, irked. 

"Into what, exactly?"

"Your aesthetic opinions, sweetheart,” he drawls dryly. “I have a body, and you, allegedly, have taste, and the two intersect at—"

You hum. "Aesthetic opinions. Right, right."

"Yes."

"On your form."

"Yes."

You smile slowly, all teeth. You watch Aerion’s pupils widen at it—the involuntary little dilation, gone before he can mask it—and feel, low and warm in your stomach, the answering pull of yes, there you are, hello, pretty dragon.

He registers the smile, registers what it means, and his mouth tightens.

Aerion drops his head and bites your jaw.

Just sinks his teeth in, no playfulness in it. His teeth find you just below the curve of bone, where the skin is thin, with enough pressure that you feel the warning in it. A small, vicious nip designed to make you make a sound. 

He's been annoyed for an hour and twenty minutes. He went to the gym, worked out, rode up in his own elevator, let himself in, and found you wearing his shirt, reading his book, still not giving him what he wants. The bite is the smallest, pettiest way to communicate as much. You can smell him properly from this angle. The salt of his sweat, the warm damp of his hair, the faint cologne underneath that's gone hours-old and tacky. 

You don't react.

You let him bite, let Aerion hold there, jaw locked, his breath hot and moist against your skin. You let the silence stretch between you.

Then you turn your head lazily and press a single, light peck to his cheek.

You feel him seethe.

It's a tiny, beautiful thing, really. The way Aerion’s whole body goes rigid against the back of the couch, his teeth releasing with an audible click. He makes a soft, furious sound in his throat that’s nearly a hiss.

"Are you fucking serious?" he demands.

You shrug against the cushion, stretching your toes out with a wiggle. Readjusting your weight, you turn another page of the book.

Aerion’s hand catches your jaw.

He comes around the couch in one motion, fast, his fingers closing around your face. Thumb under your chin, fingers spread along your cheek, gripping with the kind of pressure that says look at me right now as he tips your face up and kisses you.

Properly, this time.

Aerion’s mouth is hot and slick against yours. It always is. Kissing him is like kissing an open flame. His tongue slips into your mouth before you've finished registering the intrusion. 

He tastes like whatever gum he chewed earlier, and underneath, Aerion tastes like him, that particular warm-skin-and-cigarettes thing that lives on his tongue. He kisses you like he's making a point. He kisses you with his hand still gripping your jaw, holding you exactly where he wants you. You let him for two full seconds, let him have the satisfaction of taking it, and then you bite his bottom lip.

He hisses, but he doesn't pull back.

"There," he mutters against your mouth, lips dragging on yours when he speaks. "That's better. Stop patronising me."

You lick at his bottom lip, and he chases the sensation, leaning closer. "You bit me."

"You deserved it."

You snort despite yourself. "Are you five?"

"Don't peck me on the cheek like I'm your fucking grandmother, you absolute —"

You drag your mouth, slow, off his.

Down. Along the line of his jaw. Past his ear—you feel him tense, the curse caught on his tongue, his hand still locked on your face—to the side of his throat where the vein is. Where the sweat is. You set your tongue against his pulse point and lick, leisurely, a flat wet stripe up the side of his neck. You taste the salt of him. The clean musk under it. The metallic edge of the chain at his throat, where the links lie cold against hot skin.

Aerion sucks in a deep breath. 

"Christ, you—"

You pull back, meeting his eyes. They’re glazed, lavender almost gone now, and you lean closer at an angle and spit in his mouth.

You've still got the salt of his sweat on your tongue, and you push it past his parted lips with your own, the wet of it landing and making him go completely still.

A whole beat passes as you stare at each other. You see Aerion’s pupils blow even as a sneer twists his mouth.

"Oh," he breathes. "Oh, you—"

You smile innocently. "Yes?"

"Did you just—"

"Did I what?" you question lightly. “Use your words, baby.”

"Did you just lick the sweat off my skin—"

"And spat in your mouth, yes." You smile at him, blinking innocently. “Do keep up, dear.”

"—and spat it back into me—"

"Yes, naturally."

His grip on your face has gone slack. He looks, for a beat, like he's been clubbed across the head—eyes wide, mouth slightly open, throat working—and you can feel the heat rolling off him in waves now, can see the colour rising up Aerion’s neck above the open collar of his shirt.

"You absolute minx," he says, his voice dropping two registers, and his hips press forward into the couch behind you, fully hard now, the line of him visible through the thin shorts. "You filthy—you think you can just—"

You smirk at his indignation. "You liked it."

"I hated it."

"That’s not very convincing," you note gently, poking his cheek. 

"Disgusting. Actually. Disgusting, I'm going to have to—"

He swallows.

You watch it happen. You watch Aerion’s throat move, deliberately, swallow the spit down, eyes still locked on yours, and his hand hasn’t left your jaw, his other hand coming up to brace on the couch beside your head. He swallows everything you gave him, and his lashes flutter. Flutter. Just briefly. The smallest tell.

"Hated it, huh?" you echo mildly.

"Shut up."

Your grin widens. "You swallowed."

"Shut. Up."

"You're going to let me come here—"

"Come where?"

You hook your finger into the open collar of his shirt and pull.

He comes.

Not easily because Aerion never comes easily, never gives you the satisfaction of obedience without a fight. But he lets himself be drawn forward over the back of the couch, his hands sliding down to brace on the cushion on either side of you, his face dipping toward yours. He stops, his mouth a breath from yours.

"You're being," he murmurs darkly, "insufferable."

You roll your eyes. "You're the one who sent—"

"I sent a picture—"

"Of your abs—"

"—of my form, you obscene little—"

You kiss him.

Aerion makes a sound against your mouth that’s half-laugh, half-snarl, and his hand fists in the back of your hair, tilting your head where he wants it. You bite his bottom lip again. Harder this time, and he bites you back, harder still, making you taste copper faintly. He's nicked the inside of your lip with his canine, and you feel him smile against your mouth when he tastes it too.

"Wolf," he murmurs, low and pleased. "I feared you’d gone all docile on me."

A snarl builds in your throat. "Shut your mouth."

"Make me."

You pull him over you. 

He goes. Laughing now, properly, that rare, ugly, delighted laugh that only comes out when you've genuinely surprised him. Aerion lands half on top of you, one knee braced on the cushion, one hand catching himself against the leather beside your head. The book falls. Neither of you cares. He's radiating heat through the thin shirt. Gym-warm, sweat-warm, the smell of him concentrated now where his open collar has fallen against your face. Underneath everything, he smells like himself, that particular skin-scent that you'd know with your eyes closed in a dark room.

He braces over you. His pale hair shines in the light, a single bead of sweat caught at his temple.

"On your back already," he observes smugly. "Predictable."

You kick him. "You're on me."

"You pulled me," he sniffs. 

"You came."

"I fell."

Snorting, you shove your hand up under his shirt. Your palm goes flat against his stomach, the muscle there tightening immediately at the coolness of your skin against his hot one. You drag it slowly upward. Over his ribs, the platinum bar at his nipple, up to splay flat across his chest. Aerion’s skin is faintly damp under your hand, heart hammering. He hates that you can feel it. You watch him decide whether to bite at you about it and see him, for once, choose not to.

You push the shirt off one shoulder. Slowly. The hem snags on his elbow where it's braced beside your head.

"Show me, then," you say. "Your form."

His eyes go dark.

"Greedy thing," he murmurs, and his voice has dropped into that register you only get in this room, in this apartment, in the moments when his performance starts to crack. "Insatiable. You'd think I never gave you anything."

"You give me almost nothing," you remark dryly.

"I gave you my shirt."

The bastard even manages to sound magnanimous about it. You almost kick him again. 

"I stole your shirt," you say flatly.

"I gave you the key to my apartment. Ungrateful—"

He pushes himself back. Just enough to drag the open shirt off entirely, tossing it somewhere over the back of the couch, and then he's bare-chested above you, and the dragon's tail curves around his ribs, and you can see every line of him. The lean lines of him, the indent of his hipbones, a trail of pale silver hair below his navel disappearing into his shorts, the pink of his nipples and the platinum bar through the left one.

He sees you looking. Aerion’s grin tips into a slow, lazy thing, feline at the edges. 

"Now she looks."

You roll your eyes. 

"Aesthetic opinions, sweetheart?" he questions, tipping his head slightly to one side. 

You extend your hand. "Get back here."

"No." He huffs, bracing his arm on the couch. "Look properly. You wouldn't text me back. Suffer a little."

You drag your fingertip down the centre of his chest. Purposefully. Through the faint damp of his sweat, between his pectorals, down the ridge of his sternum, over each rib. Aerion goes still above you. His abs flutter when you drag your nail across them, just barely.

"You're disgusting," you conclude pleasantly. 

Aerion bares his teeth, but you hear the shallow pitch of his breathing. "You licked me."

"Tasted like gym equipment," you say ruefully. 

"You liked that.” He presses into your hand, his skin burning and damp beneath your palm. “You spat it into my—"

You arch into him. "Aerion."

He drops his head to your throat.

His mouth opens against the skin under your jaw, hot and wet, tongue dragging slowly across your pulse before his teeth close. Light at first, testing. Then harder, harder, until you suck in a breath and Aerion hums against your throat like a man who's eaten well. 

He sucks a mark there. The pressure of it is obscene, the wet drag of his tongue working the skin between his teeth, and you feel the bruise rising under his mouth and know it'll be on display tomorrow and know, distantly, that this is the entire point. He moves down. The hollow of your throat, the dip at the base where he likes to bite. Your collarbone. His tongue traces the bone, then his teeth, and you feel him laugh quietly against your skin when you arch into it.

"Mine," he murmurs against your throat, but petulantly, possessively, the way a child claims a toy. "Pretty. Stupidly pretty. You think I sent you that picture for fun?"

“For attention.” You huff. “Because you’re so damn vain.”

"For yours." His mouth moves to your other collarbone, teeth scraping, lapping at the skin greedily. "Hate that you make me work for it. Hate it. I should be bored of you by now. Should've moved on. It's been—" He bites down. "—months."

"Are you?" you breathe, arching into the sensation.

He bites the bone. Hard. You hiss, and his hips press down, and you feel him through his shorts, hot and hard against your inner thigh. His breath stutters against your skin like he wasn't expecting his own response.

"No," he hisses, like it's been wrung out of him. "Obviously not. Look at you. Look at the—"

His hand finds the hem of the shirt. Pushes it up. Stops dead in his tracks when he sees nothing beneath.

"Oh," he says, so quietly you barely hear it. "Oh, you absolute creature."

"I told you. I was already wearing it."

"You were not wearing anything under it."

Your lips twitch, and you fail to hold back your grin. "No."

"All afternoon?” Aerion hisses. “On my couch? Reading my Dostoevsky?"

"Obviously."

He drops his forehead against your sternum and laughs. Low, wrecked, almost helpless. You feel the laugh move through his whole body. When Aerion lifts his head, his eyes are bright in a way you don't get to see often, that brief crack in the cruelty where the obsession leaks through.

"You'll be the fucking death of me," he declares.

You hum. "Probably."

"Don't sound so pleased about it."

He pushes the shirt up slowly. Inch by inch. Drags the hem up over your stomach, ribs, the underswell of your breasts, like he's unwrapping a present. He doesn't take it off. He just bunches it up under your collarbones and looks. His mouth parts slightly. His hand splays wide across your stomach, thumb dragging slowly across the soft skin, and you watch Aerion’s eyes track over you with the unbearable, greedy attention of a man who is, despite everything, still surprised every time.

"Greedy," he mumbles, and he isn't talking about you this time.

He doesn't go for your breasts first. He drags two fingers slowly down the centre of your stomach, then back up the side of your ribs, mapping. His knuckles brush the underside of your breast. Pull away. Come back. He's making you wait.

"Aerion—"

"Patience."

"Aerion."

"You made me wait an hour and twenty minutes," he murmurs spitefully, watching his own hand move across your skin. "I checked. You opened the photograph right away. You read it for—" his thumb drags across your nipple, lightly, just once, and you arch, making him smile "—the seventeen seconds it takes to commit it to memory. Then you put your phone down. You went back to my book. You didn't text. You didn't even—"

"Fuck—"

"—send a single emoji. Insulting."

His slick mouth closes around your nipple.

You suck in a breath so hard your throat hurts. Aerion’s tongue is hot and unhurried, the curve of his teeth an excruciating tease, while his other hand comes up to cup your other breast. His thumb drags across the peak, rough and testing, while he sucks slow and dirty at the first. Aerion takes his time. He sucks until you feel the heat building, until you're squirming under him, and then he switches, mouth on the other one, and the cold of his saliva on the first against the air makes you shudder. He works the second nipple harder. Tongue flat. Teeth scraping. He pulls off with an obscene wet sound and looks down at the slick peak of you, glistening, and exhales hot air across it just to watch you twitch.

"Aerion."

"Look at you," he rasps, low and pleased. "Sensitive little—"

"Will you stop?"

"Stop what, wolf, you're—" he licks, greedily, just the one stripe. "—gorgeous, stop complaining—"

His hair brushes your skin. The piercing scrapes against your ribs as he works lower, then back up. You drag your fingers up into his hair—damp at the roots, soft at the ends—and tug. Aerion makes a small, wounded sound against your breast and bites you in retaliation. Your hand slides down the back of his neck, across the top of his shoulder, and you feel the raised edge of ink there where the dragon's wing crests over his shoulder blade. You trace it. Lightly, gently, ever so carefully. You feel Aerion shiver.

"Remember," he murmurs, lifting his head just enough to speak, mouth still wet, eyes hooded, consuming, "the night of the gala. Last month. You came home in that black thing, the silk—"

You almost hit him because you know exactly what he’s doing. 

Your mouth parts, and you gasp, "I remember."

"You let me put my hand under it in the elevator."

"I did—"

"Your thigh." His teeth find your other nipple. His whole body presses into you, slick and burning above you, all encompassing. "Slick already. By the time we got upstairs, you were dripping for me. Down your leg. Onto my hand. Begging for it before I'd even—"

"I wasn't begging."

"You were. Don't lie to me. You said Aerion, please against my mouth. I have that shit memorised. I think about it in traffic. I had to—" he sucks, hard and mean, then drags his teeth slowly over the peak "—pull off the freeway last Tuesday because of it."

"That’s disgusting," you choke out, nails sunk into his back. 

"Wasn’t disgusting when I bent you over the kitchen counter. Remember that part? Pulled the silk up around your waist. You weren't wearing anything underneath that one either, you absolute—" Aerion bites the underside of your breath, and you jerk, gasping. "Came on my fingers before I even got my mouth on you. Twice. You soaked the marble, sweetheart. Wouldn't even let me touch myself, just sat me on the floor and rode my face until I—"

"Aerion—"

"—couldn't breathe—"

"Stop—"

"—made me come in my own hand without you even looking at me—" His voice cracks open completely now, strangled and frayed at the edges. "Made me wipe it on the kitchen floor like a fucking animal—"

"Aerion."

"—which makes me wonder," he goes on, lifting his head fully now, eyes wicked and dark, "if you'd be that wet for me right now or if I'm going to have to—"

You shove him.

He careens backwards, startled, laughing. Back into the couch cushions, and you climb him, hands flat to his chest, and slide down his body. His shirt, your shirt, has fallen back down around your hips and bunches obscenely at your waist. His shorts are loose. You can see, clearly, how hard he is through the thin fabric, a wet patch already darkening the front of them. Aerion’s face when you look up at him from between his thighs is gorgeous. Flushed high on the cheekbones, mouth bitten red, hair an absolute mess, sweat starting to gather at his temple again from the heat of you both.

"Don’t you dare," he snaps, but you know he doesn’t mean it.

“What’s wrong, dragon?” you wonder innocently, one finger tracing his thigh. “Afraid you can’t hold out the way I did?”

His head falls back against the cushion as you slide your hand up his thigh. "Fuck."

You don't pull his shorts down right away. Just like he didn’t put his mouth on you right away. You drag your palm over the front of them, noting the heat of him through the thin fabric, the wet patch where he's leaking through. He twitches. Aerion’s hand fists into the cushion at the slip. You drag your knuckles up the length of him leisurely, watching his abs flutter. Elegant line of Aerion’s throat work, and his hips press up into your hand without his permission.

You turn your head and bite the inside of his thigh.

He makes a sound.

You set your tongue against the spot. Suck. Just enough to bruise, to claim. You feel his thigh trembling under your mouth, the muscle still warm and tight from his workout, and you lift your head and look up at him. He's watching. He's gone half-undone with it. Head tipped back against the cushion, throat exposed, the chain at his neck catching the light, lashes lowered.

"Greedy," you echo softly. “Such a greedy dragon.”

He snarls under his breath.

"You're so wet, Aerion." You put your mouth to the bite, lick it, then kiss it gently, speaking into the skin. “So hard for me, baby.”

"Quiet."

"For what? Just a photo? Did you think about me touching myself to your little photo, baby, is that it? You're dripping through your—"

His hand tangles in your hair, "Shut up."

You laugh under your breath, hooking your fingers in the waistband to pull them down slowly. Aerion’s cock springs free, flushed pink and hard, the head wet and shining. You wrap your hand around the base of him and watch Aerion’s head fall back against the leather. His abs are tightening rhythmically with every breath as he fights for control. The dragon tattoo across his back bunches where his shoulders are pressed into the leather, his throat working. 

His hand leaves your ahir to fist into the cushions like he doesn't trust himself to put them on you yet.

You lower your mouth.

Not to take him in. You’re not that nice. You drag your tongue up the length of him from base to tip first. Once. Aerion shudders. You do it again—slower this time, flat tongue, the whole length of him from root to head—and he hisses something through his teeth. You circle the head playfully with your tongue, then again. You taste the salt of him, the faint bitterness of him, lick it clean and watch fresh wetness bead at the slit almost immediately. You lean down and lick that, too, kissing it. He twitches, throbbing insistently in your palm. The whole length of him jumps.

"Christ, you absolute—"

You hum, swiling your tongue around the wet, pulsing length of him.

"Take me. Properly. Stop—"

"You said patience," you remind him evenly.

"You fucking—"

You take just the head into your mouth. Suck softly. Swirl your tongue around the slit again, gathering the precum beading there. Pull off with a wet pop, and a string of saliva connects your bottom lip to him for a beat before it breaks. Aerion makes a noise like he's been gut-punched, and his hand finally flies up to your hair, gripping, not pulling, just holding on for stability.

"Please," he rasps, and immediately catches himself: "—fuck. Don't tell anyone I said that."

You smirk. 

You take him deeper this time. Slower. An inch at a time, and you watch Aerion’s face, you watch his eyes lose focus, you watch his mouth fall open. His hand tightens in your hair. You take him almost to the back of your throat and pull off, slow, dragging your tongue along the underside. A sound escapes him that he absolutely would kill someone for overhearing, high and keening. 

You set the rhythm. Slow first, mean, the kind of pace designed to make him beg. You hollow your cheeks, one hand sunk into the flesh of his thigh. 

You drag your tongue up the underside as you pull off, and watch his stomach flutter, his head falling back. Aerion’s throat works as he tries, visibly tries, not to make any of the sounds you can feel building in his chest. You know how loud he can be, how deliciously descriptive in a way that can make you squeeze your thighs together.

You let your spit run down him, let it pool at the base, slick and obscene. You take him deep again and pull off, letting spit and precum drip down the length of him, using your hand to spread it, sliding wet through your fist, working him slowly while your tongue circles the head. His thighs tremble on either side of your shoulders.

"Fuck, fuck, your mouth, your fucking mouth—"

You suck him down, going as far as you can, and stay there. Hold. Swallow around him, throat working tight around the head, and Aerion’s hips jerk up involuntarily, choking you for a breath. You let him. Your throat eases around the throbbing hardness, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. The wet of your spit runs down your chin, and Aerion makes a strangled sound.

"Sweetheart—"

You pull off unhurriedly. Drag your tongue up, take Aerion back into your mouth, sucking lightly, insistently.

"You're going to—" Aerion’s voice catches, cracks. "Slow down. Stop. I'm going to—"

You hum sympathetically, mockingly, as the taste of him burns on your tongue. 

"Fuck—don't you dare—"

But you do dare.

You take him all the way down one last time. You set a rhythm now, fast, dirty, your hand working what you can't fit, and you can feel it in him. The way Aerion’s thighs are starting to lock, the way his stomach is trembling, his hand gone vice-tight in your hair.

"Fuck, fuck, I'm—fuck, I'm going to—"

He comes with a sound that’s almost a laugh but mostly a curse. Entirely undone. His body goes taut beneath you, fingers tight in your hair. You hold him through it. You wait. Feel him pulse against your tongue, hot and thick, salt-bitter, filling your mouth in pulses. You wait for him to finish, wait patiently for the last twitch. His fingers loosen from your hair, and Aerion’s head falls back, his eyes closed. He’s gone. There’s a split second of complete peace on his face, his mind having gone somewhere far away.

Then, eyes locked on his when he finally cracks them open to look down at you, you lift your head, mouth still full, and let his cum drip off your tongue.

Down his length. 

A long, white string of it, sliding crudely over the head and down his shaft, and Aerion’s eyes go wide.

You smear it with your thumb. Spread it. Make a show of it. Work it slowly down the length of him, slick and pearly, watching Aerion’s expression crack through a hundred emotions. 

"What," he begins hoarsely, "are you doing?"

"Helping." 

There’s a pleasant rasp in your voice from him hitting the back of your throat, and you smile when Aerion’s breath hitches slightly. 

You see him puzzling out the word. "Helping."

You stroke him gently, your fingers slick and dripping, eyeing his hips twitch involuntarily. He's still half-hard, fluttering with aftershocks, and going to be hard again very fast at this rate. "In case you can't get me wet enough on your own, baby."

There’s a beat of utter silence.

Then Aerion lunges.

He hauls you up—roughly, hand around your wrist, the other in your hair—and flips you face-down into the couch cushions in one motion. You're laughing, practically cackling, half-muffled into the leather, as he yanks the shirt up over your hips and shoves your knees apart with his own. The leather is warm where he was sprawled across it; you can feel the body heat soaked into the cushion against your stomach.

"Get me wet enough," he spits, low and venomous, mouth at your ear from behind. "You insolent—"

You’re still laughing, muffled. "You came in thirty seconds—"

"I came in two minutes—"

"It was thirty—"

His hand closes around your throat.

A warning, a brand, the cold press of his rings against your pulse where they're still warm from his own skin. He drags you back up against his chest, your spine to his sternum, the dragon's wing somewhere behind you against your shoulder blades, and he holds you there. You can feel the sweat on him now properly—fresher, the heat of exertion not the gym anymore, the slick of his stomach against the small of your back.

"Behave, wolf," he murmurs against your ear.

"Make me," you mock.

His other hand slides between your legs.

Aerion hisses softly against your neck. You're already wet. You've been wet since the photograph. He drags two fingers through your folds, gathering evidence, and then he pushes them inside you, and your knees give a little against the cushion. His grip on your throat tightens by a fraction. Not cutting off your air, just holding. Claiming.

"Pretty liar," he whispers viciously. "I didn't have to do anything. You’re ready. Look at this—listen to it—" He works his fingers mercilessly, and the sound is lewd, wet and slick, and you can feel yourself dripping down his wrist. "Soaking my hand. Down to my elbow in a minute. Pretending you needed me to—"

You moan, the sound caught in your windpipe, your hips pressing forward for more friction.

"Greedy thing,” Aerion hisses into your nape. “Pretty greedy thing. Couldn't even let me catch my fucking breath—"

He pulls his fingers out. He drags them up, glossy and wet, across your stomach, your ribs. He brings them to your mouth and pushes them past your lips, and you suck, and he makes a sound against your neck that’s genuine hunger.

"There," he breathes out softly, mockingly. "Taste it. Taste how wet you are for—"

"Aerion."

"—a man you claim is insufferable—"

"You are."

You feel his smirk against your skin when he mocks lowly, "And yet."

He pushes inside you in one slow, mean stroke, hand braced on your hip.

You both make sounds as he sinks in. You feel the ridiculous, absurd intimacy of him—the heat, the stretch of him slick with the cum you spread on him with your mouth—and his hand flexes around your throat. He holds very still inside you and breathes, breathes, like a man trying to talk himself out of something foolish.

"Look at you," Aerion drawls, and you hear the naked pleasure in his voice, can feel his burning stare along your body. "Bent over my couch in my shirt. Reading my book. Took my come out of your mouth and put it back on me like you were doing me a favour—"

He starts to move.

He never goes slow when he wants you like this, when the dragon-thing in him has slipped its leash. He fucks you hard. Hand at your throat, other hand braced on your hip, fingers digging in with every thrust. You brace yourself against the back of the couch and let your spine arch, listening to the obscene wet sound of it and the bitten-off curses he's mumbling into your hair. His chest is slick against your back. The chain at his neck is hot now, dragging across your shoulder blade with each thrust.

"Mine," he's saying, mostly to himself. "Mine. Pretty mine. Pretty greedy mine. Look at—look at how you take me. You'd let anyone watch you like this, wouldn't you, wolf? You'd let me film you—"

You moan at the visual, clenching around him so hard Aerion snarls against your ear. "Aerion, harder—"

His thrusts turn bruising, and you melt into him, into the feeling, your walls gripping him close, clenching tighter, tighter.

"You're close," Aerion breathes into your ear knowingly. 

"Yes, yes—"

"Not yet," he breathes sharply. 

He pulls out.

You let out a snarl of genuine fury, and Aerion laughs—wrecked, breathless, the laugh of a man who's enjoying himself far too much—and flips you onto your back, pulling you up into his lap in one motion. Your knees settle on either side of his hips, his hands at your waist, his cock notching back inside you before you've finished registering the absence.

"There," he murmurs, mouth at your jaw, the same place he bit you earlier. You can feel him press his lips against the bruise. "Better. Wanted to see your face."

"Fuck you, I was about to—"

"I know, I felt it, I'm not charitable—"

What he said a moment ago registers fully in your pleasure-addled brain, and your eyes narrow. "Wait. Did you just say you wanted to see my face?"

He rolls his eyes. "Did I?" he poses dismissively. 

You catch his face in your hands.

Aerion goes still. Looks at you. His eyes are dark despite their paleness, hungry and lidded. There's colour high on his cheekbones, and his hair is a disaster. The proud curve of his mouth is swollen from being bitten, and there's still a faint wet shine on his throat where you licked him. He is, in this moment, the most undone you’ve ever seen him. You stare at him, and you say, quietly:

"You missed my pretty face?"

His hand cracks down on your ass.

You yelp, laughing, and he grins at you, full and mean and absolutely delighted, grabbing your jaw between his thumb and forefinger.

"Don't get ahead of yourself," he says dismissively. "Wanna suck your pretty tits, actually."

But you're both laughing. Properly, stupidly. He's still inside you, and you're laughing into each other's mouths. Aerion’s hand slides up to cup your breast, and his mouth drops to the other one, and he's working you, slow now, the rhythm changing—deep, grinding, the angle suddenly exactly right to hit that one spot inside you—and you feel it building again, faster this time, helpless.

You feel his rings against your nape, quiet, panting breaths escaping you. A whine working up your throat as he ruts into you. "Aerion—"

He hums at the need he hears in your voice, pulling you flush to him, burning somewhere in the middle. 

"Aerion, please, I need—"

"I know," he murmurs around your nipple, and you can feel the smile against your skin, "yes, sweetheart, I know what you need, let go for me, wolf—"

The coil inside your belly snaps. You come clutching him.

Both arms around his neck. Face buried in his hair. Body locking, shaking. Aerion fucks you through it, slower, his hands splayed wide across your back, clutching you, and you feel him follow a moment later. Quiet this time, no theatrics, just a starved, broken sound into your shoulder, his whole body shuddering and stilling.

For a while, neither of you moves.

Aerion’s heart hammers against your sternum. His hair is damp with sweat at the nape. You can feel the platinum of his piercing pressed against your ribs and the heat of him everywhere else. His arms are wound around your waist in that tight, possessive way that says don't move, don't go anywhere, stay.

You lift your head, eventually. To look at him. 

He's already gazing at you. No smirk, not posing, gazing, with that rare, naked expression you only get for half-seconds before he remembers himself and smothers it. His full mouth is slightly open, eyes gone soft at the edges. 

"What?" you mumble.

Aerion blinks, his mouth twitching. He doesn't smother it this time—too tired, maybe, or too undone—and just keeps looking at you.

"Why were you reading my book?" he asks suddenly.

You shift in his lap. He's still inside you, going soft, and your body aches pleasantly. Your forehead is against his. His hand come up to cradle the back of your skull, fingers in your hair, and his thumb is moving along the curve of your jaw.

"You annotate everything," you say vaguely.

"I know I do."

"In three languages."

His brows twitch. "I know."

"In ink so cramped, half of it's barely legible."

"Get to the fucking point, sweetheart."

You breathe out, let yourself look at him, let yourself say it. "I wanted to know how you see the world."

He goes rigid underneath you.

"I read your margins because… that's where you actually are. The real you. The book you're arguing with. The lines you double-underline. What you cross out and rewrite. The places where you've gone back years later in different ink and answered yourself." You shrug, a tiny movement, against him. "It's the closest you let me get without making me work for it."

There's a long beat where Aerion doesn't say anything at all. His thumb has stopped moving on your jaw. He's just looking at you, lavender-pale in the late afternoon light, mouth slightly open.

His arms tighten around you, hauling you flush against his chest so suddenly a breath escapes you. He drops his face into the curve of your neck. He breathes there. You feel him breathing. A ragged thing, the kind of breath a person takes when they’re trying very hard not to let anything else show on their face.

You stroke his hair. 

When Aerion speaks again, his voice is hushed, mouth against your throat. You can feel the words form against your pulse before you hear them.

"You can't do that," he says.

"Do what?" you question quietly.

"That.” It’s practically a snarl. “Say things like that to me."

"Why?"

"Because." You feel his throat move against your collarbone. "I can't—you can't say things like that and then leave."

There’s a pinch deep inside your chest, and your fingers tighten in his hair. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Ever." Aerion’s arms have gone so tight his hold is almost painful, and his voice muffles into your skin. "I mean ever. If you say things like that to me, I'm going to—fuck— I’m not built to—"

You soften because he can’t see your face, and it’s easier to be open like this. "Aerion."

"—let go. Of you. I'm not going to. You understand that. You understand it, don't you? Ever."

"I do."

"I'm telling you. I'm telling you now." He lifts his head, and there’s predator’s grace in the movement. "If you stay, then I’ll burn down anything you ask me to. I will buy us a country. I’ll set my name on fire. But I’m not going to—"

"I know," you tell him quietly.

"—let anyone near you, do you—"

You cup his face in your hands again. "I know, Aerion."

His eyes are burning, lit up from inside. "—and if you ever—if you ever decided to—"

"I'm not."

"Ever?"

"Ever."

He stares at you, searches your face the way he reads. Annotating. Underlining. Cross-referencing in three languages against everything he already knows about you and him, and you two together.

Then he kisses you.

No teeth, no performance, no game. His hand comes up to cup the back of your head, and his mouth moves against yours like he's memorising it, and against your lips, half-mumbled, almost reverent now where before it had been petulant:

"Mine."

But it's different this time. It isn't the dragon claiming a coin. It isn't pretty mine or greedy mine or any of the small possessive cruelties he's been muttering all afternoon. It's quieter than that. Lower. It sounds like kept. It sounds like known. It sounds like a thing a man says when he has just understood that he will not, in any version of his life going forward, be the one to walk away.

You hum, the word closing around your heart like a fist.

"Yours," you agree softly against his mouth.

"Mine," Aerion says again, into your mouth, into your jaw, into the soft skin under your ear. "Mine. Mine. Mine."

His arms don't loosen.

He keeps his face buried in your throat and doesn’t let go once.

You stroke his hair, and Aerion doesn't tell you to stop.

He won't, you realise, ever again.