Chapter 120: Compensation

Chapter 120: Chapter 120: Compensation

The last of Sebastian’s shirt dissolved into violet sparks and vanished, leaving him bare from the waist up against the cold glass. The contrast drew a sharp breath from him—icy window at his spine, Nero’s furnace of a body at his front—and Nero made a low, approving sound against his throat.

"Cold?"

"You know it’s cold."

"Mm." Nero’s mouth dragged down the side of Sebastian’s neck, unhurried now in a way that felt more dangerous than the kissing had been. "I could warm you."

"You are already—"

Teeth.

The barest graze of them over the muscle where Sebastian’s neck met his shoulder, and Sebastian’s entire sentence collapsed into a sound he refused to classify as anything but dignified.

Nero pulled back just far enough to look at him.

"That."

"What?"

"That sound."

"I made no sound."

"You made a sound."

Sebastian opened his mouth to argue, and Nero did it again, teeth scraping the same place, and this time Sebastian felt his own throat work around something embarrassingly close to a whimper.

Nero’s smile was unbearable.

"Sebastian."

"Shut up."

"You like it."

"I said shut up."

Nero kissed the spot, then lower, following the line of tendon down toward his collarbone, and Sebastian’s fingers found the back of his head again and held on because the alternative was letting his hands do something even less dignified.

Then Nero sucked.

Lips sealed over the curve of his neck, tongue flat, pressure drawing blood toward the surface, and Sebastian felt the exact moment it would bloom into a mark. He tipped his head back against the glass and let it happen because there was nothing else to do.

Nero released him with a soft, wet sound and leaned back to inspect his work.

"Good."

"You can’t even see it."

"I can smell it."

Sebastian blinked.

Nero’s expression had gone smug in a way that suggested he had just solved a problem that had been bothering him for weeks.

"Your neck was bare."

"Still is."

"No." Nero’s thumb brushed the fresh bruise, and Sebastian felt the faint sting of it under the pressure. "Now it isn’t."

Sebastian stared at him.

"You are compensating."

"I am not."

"You are absolutely compensating. You wanted to bite me, and at least a collar, so now you’re..." Sebastian gestured vaguely at his own neck. "Planting a garden."

"I am not planting a garden."

"You are planting a garden."

Nero’s jaw shifted.

"One flower."

Sebastian laughed, and the laugh broke halfway through when Nero ducked back in and sucked a second mark into the other side of his neck, higher, just beneath his jaw where it would be visible above any collar he owned.

"That’s two."

"Now it’s a pair."

Sebastian’s head thudded back against the glass. The cold was doing nothing to cool him anymore, because Nero’s pheromones had started to shift, thickening in the air around them, no longer sharp with the argument but something heavier. Syrupy. Warm. It crept along Sebastian’s skin like water finding every crack, and he felt his own body answer before his mind caught up.

His nipples tightened against the window’s chill and Nero’s chest both, the friction dragging a slow ache down his sternum.

Nero noticed.

His hand slid from Sebastian’s waist to his chest, palm flat over his sternum, and then two fingers found his right nipple and rolled it gently between them.

Sebastian’s hips jerked against Nero’s stomach.

"Ah," Nero said, conversational. "There it is."

"Don’t—"

Nero did it again, slower this time, and Sebastian’s spine arched off the glass before he could stop it.

"I hate you."

"You don’t."

"I do. I hate you enormously."

Nero pinched, just barely, and Sebastian’s head fell back with a sound that was definitely not dignified. ℯℯ𝑙.

"What were you saying?"

Sebastian’s fingers twisted in Nero’s hair and pulled his mouth back to his. The kiss was messier this time, less coordinated, more teeth, and Sebastian could taste the faint sweetness of his own skin on Nero’s tongue.

Nero hummed against his mouth and let him lead for exactly three seconds before taking it back, one hand spanning the entire width of Sebastian’s ribcage while the other slid down the plane of his stomach.

He paused there for a moment, his eyes glinting dangerously, then slid lower, wrapping it around Sebastian’s cock.

Nero’s fingers closed around him, and Sebastian’s entire body locked.

The palm was hot. It dragged up the length of him once, root to tip, and the friction was so much that Sebastian’s heels dug into Nero’s lower back before he could remember to be embarrassed about it.

"There you are," Nero murmured against his jaw.

"Don’t start."

"Mhm."

His hand moved again. Down, this time, and his thumb pressed just behind the head where the skin was thinnest, and Sebastian’s vision went briefly white at the edges.

"You’re leaking," Nero observed.

"You’re the reason."

"Mm. I know." He smeared the wetness from Sebastian’s tip down the shaft, using it, and the slide turned slick and obscene. "You’ve been ready for a while."

"I have not."

"Your slick is on my fingers."

Sebastian’s face burned. He could feel it—the cool trail Nero’s fingers had left behind when they’d found his entrance moments ago, already drying tacky against his skin.

"That’s—"

"Biology." Nero kissed the corner of his mouth. "Yours is telling the truth even when you aren’t."

Sebastian opened his mouth to argue, and Nero chose that exact moment to stroke from base to head in one long, deliberate pull, and whatever he’d intended to say came out as a low sound against Nero’s throat.

"There it is again."

"I will kill you."

"You won’t."

"I’ll try."

Nero’s laugh vibrated through his chest and into Sebastian’s, and then his hand left Sebastian’s cock entirely, and both arms came up to resettle Sebastian’s legs more securely around his waist. The glass creaked faintly against Sebastian’s back. Nero shifted his weight without warning, and Sebastian felt himself slide down the cold pane by a few centimeters, the friction dragging across his shoulder blades and the back of his skull.

"What are you doing?"

Nero’s arms locked beneath his thighs.

And then he simply lifted him higher.

Sebastian’s breath left him in a rush. Nero raised him the way a person might raise a glass of water, one arm hooked under each of Sebastian’s knees, spreading him open and hoisting him up the glass until Sebastian’s head cleared the lower stretch of the window and his shoulders braced against the cold pane above it. His feet dangled. His hands scrambled for the only solid things available, Nero’s shoulders, and found them.

"You’re..." Sebastian gasped. "Put me down."

"No."

"I weigh—"

"Ninety-one kilos. I know." Nero’s eyes had gone that flat, vivid violet that meant his control was running thin. "I’ve carried heavier."

"Bastard."

The position left Sebastian entirely exposed. Legs hooked wide over Nero’s forearms. Ass cradled in the apex of Nero’s crossed wrists. His cock stood up against his own stomach, and when Nero adjusted his grip and pressed in closer, the head of Nero’s cock nudged up against the underside of Sebastian’s balls, thick and hot, and slid along the slick valley behind them.

Sebastian’s whole body shuddered.

Nero watched him do it. Watching, always watching, cataloging every flinch and breath like a man building an inventory of weaknesses.

"Ready?" he asked.

Sebastian could barely form the word. "Yes."

Nero didn’t move.

"I need you to say it properly."

Sebastian stared at him.

The arrogant, unbearable, seven-years-of-waiting bastard. Even here, even now, with Sebastian spread open against cold glass and dripping slick down his own thighs, Nero was going to make him say it.

"Fuck me," Sebastian said, flat, just to rail up the younger man.

Nero’s mouth curved.

"Say please."