Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Normal subconscious behavior.

This was normal subconscious behavior for both of them, Sazahk reminded himself as he closed his eyes again and leveled his breathing.

There was no reason to be concerned or nervous about the fact that he'd woken sprawled across Garin's body with his head tucked under Garin's stubbly jaw.

They'd sat up, pressed against each other's sides, watching the video of the party until it ended and a new one started with Garin's sister, Beaty, dressed in a robe in the style of archaic academic institutions. Then Garin had stopped the video, and they'd settled in to sleep, Garin's arm still wrapped around Sazahk's shoulders to ward off the chill.

It was that chill that had driven Sazahk so far into the human's arms. He was sure of it. He couldn't feel it now from within the cozy confines of the sleeping bag, but some of it must have slipped in to have caused Sazahk to drape half his body on top of Garin's.

Or Garin—enacting a completely normal subconscious behavior—had pulled him there. His arm wrapped around Sazahk's waist and pressed against the small of Sazahk's back, holding Sazahk comfortably in place on his chest.

Comfortable while they were sleeping, at least.

It wouldn't be so comfortable in the light of day. Or rather, in the light of the lanterns, coupled with knowing it was daytime.

Extracting himself without waking Garin and having him see the full extent of their entanglement would be more difficult this time, though. Sazahk couldn't simply let go and roll over.

And, of course, he didn't want to.

Garin was warm and solid beneath him. His deep, even breaths lifted and lowered Sazahk's head on his chest and his heart beat steadily in Sazahk's ear.

Steady. Not strict.

Sazahk clutched the fabric of Garin's shirt, turned his nose into the hollow of Garin's throat, and inhaled his scent. Garin hummed in his sleep and his arm tightened around Sazahk's waist.

And nurturing. Not controlling.

Sazahk had reflexively lumped Garin in with the other species-state-aligned authority figures he'd spent his life struggling with. He had never considered the possibility that a man like Garin existed: competent, caring, and controlled in equal measures.

Zyk and Ha'ral were close, but Zyk was chaotic and Ha'ral struggled with demons of the sort Garin couldn't possibly know. Patrick Smith was closer still, but Patrick loved a fight. He was kind, but he had a bloodlust and an alpha energy that Garin didn't.

Sazahk released Garin's shirt and brushed his fingers along the side of Garin's neck. Garin wasn't like any of those men. He was like the mycelium winding its way through the poisoned soil of the Dead Zone, cleaning it, soothing it, enriching it. Making a place safe and clean and welcoming and bright.

How had Sazahk not seen it sooner?

He pressed closer and buried his face in Garin's neck, suddenly overcome with affection.

Garin made a pleased sound and wrapped both arms around Sazahk's waist. He hauled Sazahk the rest of the way onto his body and settled him between his thighs.

Sazahk gasped when their hips slotted together. Oh goddess, that delightful quirk of human male anatomy. Sazahk squirmed as the hot bar of Garin's morning erection rubbed invitingly against Sazahk's own hardening length.

"G—" Sazahk caught his breath as lust sparked in his lower belly. "Garin."

Garin moaned and his hands closed around Sazahk's hips, trapping them close as his own rolled up to meet them.

"Garin." Sazahk braced himself on Garin's chest, meaning to push away, but clutching him closer. Goddess, Garin felt good beneath him, and the sleepy thrust of his hips made Sazahk's mouth slacken.

"Sazahk?" Garin's brow creased as he murmured in a rough voice. "Are you—" His eyes fluttered open as his lips parted on a moan. "Oh."

His hips stuttered up against Sazahk's again and Sazahk couldn't help rolling his own down to meet him. Their twin lengths rubbed against each other, and hot desire flowed down Sazahk's spine.

"Oh god, Sazahk, stop, I—" Garin's fingers dug into Sazahk's hipbones and stilled his movements. His heart thundered against Sazahk's chest, and his gorgeous green eyes gazed up at Sazahk wide and confused, but with pupils dilated in lust. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to?—"

"You were asleep." Sazahk shook his head and licked his dry lips. "You didn't know what you were doing. I'm sorry. I should have tried harder to stop you." Garin's eyes followed the flick of Sazahk's tongue, and Sazahk's cock twitched in his pants. "You're aroused."

Garin's throat bobbed as he swallowed. "Yeah."

"Does it feel natural?" Sazahk rested his hands flat on Garin's chest and forced them not to wander. "As in, do you believe it to be caused by extended exposure, albeit in small doses, to the spores of the surrounding mycelium?"

Garin's fingers spasmed on Sazahk's hips and he laughed breathlessly. "I'm pretty sure it's caused by having you on top of me."

Sazahk's heartbeat quickened. "By me in particular, or would any male body elicit a similar magnitude of response?"

Garin blushed but didn't break eye contact. "By you in particular, if I'm honest, Sazahk."

Sazahk's stomach flipped inside out. Garin wanted him.

"I'm sorry." Garin cringed and pushed on Sazahk's hips, but Sazahk shook his head and held on to the front of Garin's shirt.

"An apology isn't necessary. It makes sense that your body would associate mine with pleasure after my part in your most recent sexually satisfying encounter."

Garin cringed again, and his shoulders hunched, but the action just brought him closer to Sazahk. "I don't think it's just that, Sazahk."

"Would you be averse to seeking pleasure with me again?" Sazahk tried to keep the yearning out of his own voice. The urgent affection he'd felt as he'd held Garin's sleeping form grew painful as Garin visibly wrestled with his own desire.

Garin's eyes flicked across Sazahk's face, searching. "Are you asking that question for science or are you leading somewhere?"

"Both." Sazahk trailed his gaze down the column of Garin's throat to his pulse fluttering under his skin, then back up to Garin's eyes. "I told you I wanted baseline measurements of your normal sexual response."

Garin chewed on his lip, and Sazahk twisted his hips in his grip, tormented by the knowledge that Garin's hard length lay only an inch away from him. "Are you propositioning me, Sazahk?"

"Yes."

"For science?"

And to satisfy his own desire. But Sazahk nodded. "Yes. And for you."

"I don't need you to get me off?—"

"But you want me to." Sazahk knew that. He knew Garin craved Sazahk's hands on his body and Sazahk wanted to put them there so badly he felt as crazy as people said he was.

He also knew Garin's desire for him was a function of their forced proximity and isolation, combined with the lingering bond-promoting hormones released during their last encounter. It wasn't a function of Garin's actual interest in Sazahk as a partner.

But that didn't matter right now.

Sazahk edged his fingertip up past the fabric of Garin's shirt collar and grazed his skin. "You want me to touch you."

Garin swallowed again and kneaded Sazahk's hip. When he spoke, his voice came out in a whisper. "Yes."

"And I want to." Sazahk leaned in until their breaths mingled and Garin's heart raced against his own. "Let me?"

"Fuck, Sazahk." Garin finally tugged Sazahk's hips back against his and they both moaned at the contact. "I'll let you do anything you want to me."

"I just want to make you come again." Sazahk braced his hand beside Garin's head and thrust their hips together, already panting with anticipation. "And I want to know everything about how you do it."

Every sound, every twitch, every expression, every taste, every smell, Sazahk wanted to know everything there was to know about Garin in the throes of pleasure. What made him shake, what made him moan, what made him beg and whine? What did Sazahk have to do to wring him out so thoroughly he existed in nothing but his own body, free of all his pressures and responsibilities?

"I want you naked." Sazahk slipped his hand under the hem of Garin's shirt and skated his palm up the man's warm skin and flexing muscles.

"Okay." Garin went for his pants immediately, popping the button and dragging down the zipper before lifting his arms for Sazahk to sweep off his shirt.

Sazahk tossed the shirt away and bent over Garin's body to mouth along his collarbones. The gnarled skin and raised roughness of scars met Sazahk's lips and tongue as he kissed down Garin's chest. So much violence for a man with so much kindness.

Remembering Garin's desperate grip as he'd come, Sazahk grabbed Garin's hand and placed a kiss in the center of his palm. Then he pushed Garin's hand up into his hair. "Touch me as much as you want. Just stay away from my neck."

The thought of Garin's warm palm closing over Sazahk's incision site put a sour pit in Sazahk's stomach, but he shook it out. If he told Garin not to touch him there, he wouldn't.

"Are you sure?" Garin asked even as he unraveled Sazahk's braid and drew his hand through his hair.

"I'm sure." Sazahk kissed down the horrible scar cutting over Garin's left ribs, then nosed to Garin's pectoral muscle and licked a broad stripe across his nipple. "Your hands feel good."

"Saz—oh fuck." Garin's fingers pulled in Sazahk's hair and his whole body seized when Sazahk sucked that nipple into his mouth.

Garin liked sex on the knife's edge of painful. Sazahk kept one hand braced on the ground to hold himself up as he laved attention on Garin's sensitive bud and reached the other into his underwear. He liked to be overwhelmed and to squirm and to beg. It hadn't just been the aphrodisiac; it was Garin.

Sazahk fondled Garin's hard cock and balls, then released his nipple and kissed down his abs.

"Sazahk, are you?—"

"Don't ask me if I'm sure again."

Sazahk ducked under the blankets and descended into the dark of the sleeping bag, still touching and toying with Garin's most intimate parts. Garin's hands followed him, tangling in his hair, petting his cheeks and his ears and his jaw, but never straying toward his neck.

Garin's thighs shook as Sazahk pulled his pants and underwear to below his knees, where he had to let Garin kick them off himself in the tight quarters. With Garin bare, the heat of his human body filled the small space of the sleeping bag and Sazahk slipped between his legs and nuzzled into the hot V of his hips.

Days of travel with bathing limited to the hygiene wipes Garin had packed in his infinite preparedness should have made the smell of his body off-putting at best and intolerable at worst, but either Sazahk's arousal had hijacked his olfactory perception or Garin's pheromones were special because Sazahk's mouth watered at the musk that surrounded him and his own cock drooled in his underwear.

Sazahk dragged his nose down the crease of Garin's thigh to his balls and tasted his pulsing sack. Garin moaned above him, and his thighs spread wide, giving Sazahk more room to maneuver as he licked firmly.

Garin's body crunched forward as a breath punched out of him, shooting hunger into Sazahk's belly. He'd liked that. Sazahk hooked an arm around the back of Garin's thigh and drew it over his shoulder, spreading Garin's balls and taint before him.

"Sazahk." Garin's hips twitched toward him, and his fingers shook in Sazahk's hair.

He was so eager. So eager and so patient and so quick to deny himself, when he deserved everything Sazahk could give him.

Sazahk mouthed one of Garin's balls, licking and sucking and rolling it on his tongue. Garin moaned again and tangled his fingers in Sazahk's hair, but he didn't move him. He didn't push or pull. He took what Sazahk gave him and basked in it.

Sazahk had discovered this spot before, the one right along the seam of Garin's sack. Tonguing along it made him twist and tense and when alternated with open-mouthed kisses on his balls Garin swung between lax in bliss and spun up tight with the promise of it.

How far did the spot extend? Sazahk dragged the tip of his tongue down that seam to the smooth place behind his sack, and Garin's thighs flexed on either side of him.

Sazahk's cock kicked at the memory of Garin's hole clenching around his finger and of Garin with his head thrown back, keening as Sazahk had penetrated him. He groaned against Garin's taint and reached between his own legs to palm himself.

He had to get inside him again. If only to know if Garin liked it as much when he was in his right mind. Because Sazahk needed to know. Even if he never got another opportunity to put the knowledge into practice, he needed to know what Garin liked.

Sazahk rubbed the tip of his tongue into Garin's taint, and Garin's strangled cry was all the encouragement Sazahk needed. Garin liked to have his prostate played with. Sazahk filed the knowledge away in his growing mental folder of all things Garin.

Desperate to get started, Sazahk sucked a path up Garin's balls to the base of his shaft. When his tongue touched the hot velvet of Garin's cock, the justification for his proposition flashed back.

"Swab." Sazahk pulled his mouth away before he gave in and contaminated Garin's cockhead with his saliva. He called up to the edge of the sleeping bag still over his head. "Will you please pass me a swab for your pre-ejaculate?"

"Um, I—" Garin squirmed as Sazahk's hands slid down the back of Garin's thighs to his muscular ass. "Yeah. Yeah, give me a sec."

Garin twisted and reached, and after some muffled swearing, shoved a sterile swab under the blanket for him.

"Thank you." Sazahk took it and quickly swiped it over Garin's leaking slit. With a strange jealousy of the bit of cotton that had tasted Garin before him, Sazahk followed it with his mouth, sealing his lips around Garin's tip and sucking.

"Oh god, Sazahk, shit." Garin's hands latched onto him again and Sazahk let out a gratified hum. He was learning his way around this man's body. By the time he was done, he'd know more about where to touch Kevin Garin than anyone alive.

Sazahk left Garin's cock and crawled back up Garin's body with his covered swab in hand. He'd indulged in a lengthy oral exploration of Garin's genitals last time. He had other things in mind now.

Sazahk emerged from the blankets, set the swab aside, and hovered over Garin. "Can I penetrate you again?"

Garin's pupils dilated instantly. "Yes. You can do anything you want."

Sazahk's length throbbed to remind him of exactly what he wanted. Would Garin like that? He had enjoyed having a single finger inside him, but there were real and relevant differences between a finger and a cock that went beyond girth and length.

Luckily, a lifetime of study had taught Sazahk the best way to answer a question: a well-designed experiment.

All he needed was Garin's specific and informed consent. A lust-addled statement of blanket permission wasn't sufficient.

Sazahk tore off his own shirt, suddenly sweltering in the cold cave, and reached for Garin's bag and the petroleum jelly inside his medkit. "Lie on your stomach."

Garin rolled over without question and Sazahk's breath caught at the display of trust. No doubts. No hesitation. No reticence to give his back to a man he barely knew, experimenting with his body, and dragging him through a deserted wasteland. No doubts about Sazahk.

Sazahk peppered kisses across Garin's scarred, freckled shoulders, feeling his muscles ripple under his lips and tasting the salt of his skin. He could spend hours kissing and licking every inch of this man, soaking in his warmth and luxuriating in the quiet sounds of his enjoyment.

But he had an important experiment to conduct.

Question: did Garin like to be fucked with a cock?

Sazahk kissed down the center of Garin's spine, pushing the blanket away as he went. When he got to the crack of Garin's ass, he spread his cheeks and kissed down to his twitching entrance.

Hypothesis: because Garin had enjoyed being fucked with a finger and because he enjoyed pleasure on the edge of overwhelming, Garin did like to be fucked with a cock.

Sazahk thumbed Garin's hole, tugging at his tight rim and watching it clench to keep its shape.

Experimental method: once permission was procured, fuck Garin as expertly and attentively as Sazahk could manage and observe whether Garin maintained, increased, or decreased his current level and tone of vocalization.

Sazahk scooped a glob of jelly from the jar and smeared it over Garin's entrance, then pushed his finger inside.

Garin moaned into the blankets and pride zipped through Sazahk's chest.

"Does that feel good?" Sazahk moved his finger in and out, fucking Garin in a pantomime of what he'd do with his cock.

"Yeah." Garin nodded rapidly into his folded forearms. "So good. You?—"

Sazahk changed his angle to hit Garin's prostate and Garin's lost his sentence to a cry that shot straight to Sazahk's balls.

"God, you're amazing, Sazahk." Garin jerked his hips back to meet Sazahk's thrusts.

Orange and yellow swirled up Sazahk's green hand, a dark brown hot on its heels. He tried to fight it, but pride swelled in his chest. He continued to hit Garin's prostate while the man gasped and whined, and when his pitch struck a particularly high note, Sazahk shoved in a second finger next to the first.

"Oh fuck, Sazahk." Garin's back arched as his hole stretched.

"Is it too much?" Sazahk stilled his fingers and stroked Garin's straining rim with his thumb.

"No." Garin shook his head. "No, I can take more. I can take more, easy."

Of course he could. If he could take the pain spoken of by his scars, then he could take the stretch and burn of anal penetration. "Can you take my cock?"

Garin's hole clenched around Sazahk's digits, and he gaped at Sazahk over his shoulder.

"Do you want to take my cock?" Sazahk followed up to Garin's shocked expression, not wanting to make the mistake of conflating what Garin could do with what he wanted to do.

"You—" Garin panted and licked his lips. "You want to fuck me?"

"Yes." Sazahk kissed Garin's firm glute and started moving his fingers back and forth inside him again. "I want to know what you feel like. And I want to know if you enjoy it."

Garin's breath stuttered in his chest. "O-okay."

"Is that an acknowledgement of my statement or an answer to my question?" Sazahk scissored his fingers, rubbing Garin's prostate as he pushed in and spreading Garin's hole as he pulled out.

"Um, uh." Garin's eyelids fluttered as Sazahk worked his body and his hips spasmed. "What exactly was your question again?"

Sazahk smiled against Garin's warm skin and scraped it with his teeth. "I asked if you can take my cock and if you want to."

"Right." Garin groaned and dropped his face down when Sazahk teased a third finger along his puffy rim. "Both. Yes to both."

Excitement boiled through Sazahk's veins at Garin's consent.

"Tell me if it's too much." Sazahk stroked Garin's pucker and listened to his whines. Each one of them had a direct line to his own arousal, making him leak enough to soak the front of his underwear.

"It won't be." Garin shook his head, his face in the blankets and his forehead braced on his forearms.

So confident. So stubborn. He probably never gave in to anything. Sazahk added more jelly to the slippery mess of Garin's hole and pressed his third finger in beside his second.

Garin groaned as Sazahk's fingers filled him and he fisted his hands in the blankets. Sweat appeared on his brow and along his shoulder blades. His inner walls fluttered around Sazahk's digits and when Sazahk rubbed his prostate, they clenched hard.

Goddess, that was going to feel amazing. Sazahk squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his chin as early bliss tightened his lower belly. The hardest part wouldn't be making Garin's body sing, it would be holding off his own release until he had.

Sazahk's anatomy had never responded to another person like this. It hadn't even responded to Garin like this when they'd first met. Sazahk kept up a steady pace in and out of Garin's hole, brushing his prostate and stretching his rim while Garin slowly relaxed around him. But now he watched Garin writhe beneath him and his chest tightened with so much emotion it hurt, and arousal so potent it felt dangerous swirled within it.

"Sazahk." Garin reached his arm out in front of him and clawed at the dirt as his hips rutted into the ground below them. "Please. Just do it already."

Sazahk covered Garin's hand with his free one and laced their fingers together. "Are you sure?"

Garin gasped a disbelieving laugh. "You hate to be asked if you're sure."

Sazahk traced his nose up Garin's neck and kissed the hollow under his ear. "I'm about to enter your body in one of the most intimate and vulnerable acts our species can engage in." Garin shivered against him and Sazahk soothed his thumb along Garin's rim. "You have to be sure."

Garin hid his face in the blankets and made a quiet sound somewhere between a moan and a whimper. "I'm sure."

Sazahk closed his eyes against the torrent of hunger and fondness that flooded his throat. He swallowed it down and opened them again, then tugged on Garin's hand. "Lie on your back."

Garin's eyes flew open, and he turned his face to look into Sazahk's with a hopeful expression that knocked the breath from Sazahk's lungs. "Really?"

"Of course, really." Sazahk slipped his fingers free of Garin's loose rim and raised himself up to his knees to undo his own pants.

Sazahk wasn't about to make Garin lie face down and take Sazahk's cock like nothing more than a vaguely enticing hole. The man needed to touch. He needed to anchor himself. And if his constant cries of Sazahk's name were anything to go by, he needed to know it was another person making him feel good. He needed connection even if it was artificially created by millions of years of evolution designed to keep pack animals together for the sake of survival.

Garin flipped onto his back and stared up at Sazahk, his green irises bright around dilated pupils and his chest flushed. Sazahk traced that flush down to the rough trail of hair along his lower abs, then to his erect cock, curving up toward his belly and dripping pre-cum onto his skin.

"Taking mental notes for your writeup?" Garin licked his lips and grinned, but with a trace of nervousness. Baffling. How Garin could possibly be nervous about displaying his body still eluded Sazahk.

"Yes." Sazahk shucked his pants off and kicked them away. "You're a stunning male specimen of the human species, and your display of arousal is duly impressive."

"I…You…" Garin squirmed and ducked his head but looked up at Sazahk through his lashes. "Thanks." His eyes traced down Sazahk's chest, which swirled with dark green and brown, and lingered on his hips where Sazahk's cock stood erect. "You're a stunning specimen yourself."

"I'm not." Sazahk reclaimed his position between Garin's thighs. "I am exactly average for my species in almost all metrics."

Garin threw back his head and laughed and Sazahk filed the warm sound away in his memory, never to be forgotten if he could help it. Loss spiked through him and burned the scar on the back of his neck as he mourned the loss of his implant like a limb. A limb that would have allowed him to keep this memory instead of letting it corrode into a facsimile like all natural memories eventually did.

He fought through the negative feelings and re-laced his fingers with Garin's. He pinned Garin's hand down beside his head, pressing their palms together. "What amused you?"

"You're the furthest fucking thing from average I've ever met Sazahk." Garin grinned up at him.

"I can provide evidence when we return to the compound and regain access to communications." Sazahk took Garin's free hand and brought it to his cheek again, before scooping up a generous handful of jelly and spreading it up and down his length. He'd lubricated Garin's entrance well, but he didn't want to risk any unnecessary unpleasantness. Then he hooked Garin's thigh up over his hip. "After we come to a conclusion on whether you enjoy being fucked."

Garin inhaled sharply and clutched Sazahk's hand where it pressed his into the ground beside his head. "I do."

"That's my hypothesis." Sazahk shuffled closer and slid his hand down the back of Garin's thigh to his ass. Heat radiated off his every inch and Sazahk forgot for a moment what it felt like to be cold. He spread Garin's cheek and held him still as he pressed forward. "But it needs to be tested."

"Oh god." Garin's hand pushed into Sazahk's hair when Sazahk's tip caught on his rim. "Please." Garin's entrance quivered against him. "Just—just go, please."

"I will." Sazahk pushed and his cockhead forced its way into Garin's loose hole. "I will."

"Oh, shit." Garin's grip on Sazahk spasmed. "Oh god, Sazahk, you—you're?—"

"Inside you," Sazahk murmured when his head popped past Garin's ring, tremors of euphoria shaking through him. Goddess, the man felt good. Sazahk hissed when Garin clenched. He felt even better when he did that. Sazahk rested his forehead on Garin's and stroked his thigh as his rim spasmed. "Relax."

"I am." Garin twitched around him as he forced deep inhales and exhales. "I've done this before."

"You've enjoyed it previously?" Sazahk rolled his hips gently, fucking himself farther into Garin's body on each thrust, entering him inch by inch.

"Yeah." Garin stared into Sazahk's eyes and swallowed. "Mostly. Sometimes."

‘Mostly' and ‘sometimes' were not convincing, but the tiny moans Garin uttered as he lifted his hips to meet Sazahk's invasion were.

"But they weren't—" Garin's eyes rolled back when Sazahk thrust a little harder and drove farther inside. "None of them were anything like you."

"In physique, demeanor, or technique?" Sazahk bottomed out and pressed his hips flush to Garin's body. He slid his hand into Garin's crack and traced a finger along Garin's stretched rim. Stretched around him, Sazahk thought with a shiver.

"Fuck, I can't—I can't say any of those words right now." Garin tangled his fingers in Sazahk's hair and curled up toward him. He squeezed around Sazahk and groaned.

"We'll revisit the question in a follow-up session." Sazahk pulled out halfway and thrust back in and Garin moaned on every inch.

Frankly, it didn't matter if Garin had been fucked before or what sort of men had fucked him. The time for background information gathering had passed. He was clenching around Sazahk's cock now.

Sazahk pulled out farther and snapped forward harder. A cry tore from Garin's throat and a fresh drop of pre-cum spilled from his slit. Overwhelming pleasure on just the safe side of painful. That's what Garin liked. Sazahk dug his fingertips into Garin's ass to hold him at a good angle.

That's what Garin liked, and that's what Sazahk was going to give him.

He increased his pace and the slick slaps of fucking and Garin's wordless moans increased in volume along with it. He bounced Garin along the blankets, slamming into him with a calculated consistency and driving his pitch higher and higher.

Goddess, he was perfect. He cried out whenever Sazahk's hips slapped against his skin. He whimpered when Sazahk dug his nails into his flesh. He clung to Sazahk's hair and hand like they were the only things keeping him alive. Like Sazahk was the only thing keeping him alive.

Every move Sazahk made, every touch he laid on Garin's skin, Garin responded to beautifully. Each thing that he liked, each thing that he didn't, Sazahk read in his body.

This was sex.

This was what everyone had always talked about that Sazahk had never understood. The tightening pressure at the base of his spine, the waves of bliss rolling out from his hips and down his thighs, the tremble in his knees. They were all sensations Sazahk had experienced before, but never at this level. And never with his chest so full and his mind so focused on the man in his arms.

He wanted to give him more.

Sazahk changed his angle until Garin's back arched, and a new sound wrenched from his throat.

Twice Garin had demonstrated a positive sensitivity to prostate stimulation but delighted yellow with the darkness of pride to it still raced down Sazahk's forearm and swirled over his fingers laced with Garin's white-knuckled grip.

"Your baseline level of vocality is comparable to your level during the incident." Sazahk hammered Garin's prostate with a precision that made his muscles burn to maintain. "It's incredibly arousing."

"Sazahk." Garin forced his eyes open, his brows pinched. "Sazahk."

Garin's mouth hung open as though he had more to say, but his voice broke into a whimper as his hips jerked and his hole clenched and fluttered.

He was close.

Lust at the realization rushed through Sazahk so acutely he almost spilled on the spot.

Bringing Garin over the edge was the whole point of their actions, but the crystallized reality that Garin was seconds away from orgasming on Sazahk's cock, that he was so far gone the only word he could manage was Sazahk's name, knocked Sazahk's entire reality off its orbit.

It knocked his reality off its orbit and realigned him around Garin.

Sweet, patient, kind Garin who deserved the whole fucking galaxy, but would just give it away if he ever got it.

"I'm going to make you come, Garin." Sazahk wrapped his hand around Garin's cock and stroked him in time with his thrusts.

"Sazahk." Garin pressed the back of his head into the ground, a sob spilling from his lips.

"Is that alright?" Sazahk thumbed Garin's slit each time he grazed his prostate. "Do you want that?"

"Yes." Garin jerked his head in a frantic nod. "Yes, Sazahk, please."

He wrapped his legs around Sazahk's hips as Sazahk drilled into him. He twisted and squirmed, the muscles of his chest and shoulders bulging, but he never fought Sazahk's hand pinning his to the floor and he never forced Sazahk's head anywhere as he mussed Sazahk's hair into a wild tangle.

Sazahk knew all Garin's places. The spot under his cock, the seam along his scrotum. He knew the exact pressure he liked. And he knew the pace that would finish him.

Garin let out a broken wail. "Sazahk!"

"You're close. I know. I know, Garin." Sazahk bent double and nosed Garin's sweaty temple. "You're so close. You're almost there. You're safe. You're okay."

Soft words poured from Sazahk's lips from some intuitive place inside himself that he'd never factored into his equations.

"You're okay. You're almost there. You're so close, Garin, I can feel you. I can feel it in your body," Sazahk murmured and soothed as he relentlessly worked Garin to orgasm. "You're okay. Let me feel you come."

"Sazahk, Sazahk, Sazahk, oh god!" Garin grabbed the back of Sazahk's head and pulled their faces together as he came with a shout. His cock pulsed in Sazahk's grip and spurted long ropes of semen up Garin's chest and belly. His internal muscles clenched and rippled, catapulting Sazahk to his peak.

"Oh goddess," Sazahk choked on a stifled moan as the sight and sound, smell, and sensation of Garin's release overwhelmed him. He pressed back into Garin's forehead, their cries and breaths mingling. "Garin, god?—"

Sazahk pumped his cock through Garin's spasming heat, determined to bring Garin all the way through his climax. Then his own edge rose to meet him and he pulled out and covered his tip with his hand. Even exposure to the air didn't stop his release from hitting him like a cruiser. He moaned as he exploded into his hand, filling his palm and dripping down onto their only bedsheets.

Ecstasy on the level of transcendence rolled down Sazahk's spine, and warmth and contentment settled into his bones. He'd never felt so good in his life. He'd never known it was possible. He'd dismissed all reports of such feelings as hyperbole, if not downright fabrication.

He'd been wrong.

Garin kept his tight grip on the back of Sazahk's head as they panted into each other's mouths. Goddess, he was beautiful. Sazahk stared into his green eyes, still glistening with tears of exertion and overwhelming stimulation, brightened by the flushed color of his cheeks.

Slowly, those green eyes focused and cleared as the raucous release of hormones ebbed. They stared back into Sazahk's and gave him the terrifying and exciting sensation of someone peeling back some layer of his armor with a loving, worshipful touch.

Garin's fingers gentled in Sazahk's hair, and he reached up and closed the breath of distance between their lips.