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“Come on, Quinn. That’s it. Give me three more.”
Quinn was groaning, hauling herself up on the pull-up bar, ponytail swaying. She looked like a badass action hero, and Cole pulled out his phone to record her as he crossed Marshall Lane. Neither she nor Rust had noticed him yet, but the video wasn’t live. She’d kill him if he posted her without asking.
“Hell yeah,” Rust was saying. “Two more. You got this.”
She did another, arms starting to shake, breathing hard as she let herself back down slowly.
“One more for me, Quinn. You can do it.”
Rust’s voice was warm and encouraging, but Jesus, did he realize how he sounded? Cole was gonna have to play it back for him.
She completed her last one, and Rust clapped as she stuck the landing. “That’s my girl. Amazing.”
Quinn gave him a limp high-five and then took the water he handed her. “You’re up. Last set.”
“Oh good,” Cole said, drawing both of their attentions his way. “I was afraid I’d missed it.”
“Put your phone away.” Rust stood up from the bench and stretched his shoulders out, turning his back on them to adjust the bar up.
“No, come on. I’m not live.”
“Don’t care.”
“It’s for personal use.”
“Gross,” Quinn said.
Rust added, “I’ll make you wait in the house.”
“I’m feeling very ganged up on right now. This is not fair.” He was grinning, however, as he slid his phone into his back pocket.
Quinn, who’d gone back to gulping down water, paused and looked around. “I didn’t hear the car. Did you walk?”
“Yeah. Figured I’d enjoy the nice weather while it lasts.” It was early March, and a fool’s spring had melted most of the last snowfall, brought the temperatures up to a balmy mid-fifties. Quinn and Rust had clearly been working out for a while. Both of them were stripped down from the waist up: Quinn in a hot pink sports bra, Rust bare-chested. Cole considered cracking a joke about being the jealous type, but then Rust started doing his set, and the part of Cole’s brain that was capable of complex tasks like “words” lapsed into static.
His fingers itched to take his phone back out, to capture the play of shadows between Rust’ shoulders, the mesmerizing flex of muscles. Quinn said something, and Cole tried very hard to listen. So hard, in fact, that he retained exactly none of it. Damn, he thought. ‘So hard’ indeed.
“Cole,” Quinn said, snapping her fingers in front of his face. “You in there?”
“Yup.” He blinked several times and turned his whole body to face her, trying his best to ignore the movement in his periphery. “What’s up?”
“Are we still on for tomorrow?”
“Yes,” he nodded, glancing over his shoulder and then immediately back to her. “Yup. Absolutely.”
Quinn rolled her eyes. “I’m leaving.”
“No, come on. Stay.”
“Yeah,” Rust grunted from the bar. “Stay.”
“No way.” She drained the water bottle. “I’ve got a paper to write. Five more, Rust.”
“Wait, five? What number am I on?”
“No idea. Wasn’t counting.”
Rust rattled off a litany of complaints at her as she walked away, but he didn’t stop his set. Cole was sorry to see Quinn go, of course, but. Now it got to be his turn to engage in some highly-questionable encouragement. He slunk further into the garage, close enough to reach out and touch Rust if he wanted to.
He did want to, obviously, but he didn’t. Not yet. Instead, he leaned in and said, “almost there. You’re doing so good.”
Rust’s hand slipped on the bar. He caught himself, recovered, but it was a near thing. He didn’t say anything, however, which Cole decided to take as tacit endorsement to keep it up.
“That’s it, Rust. Give me a little more.”
Now Rust spoke. “Cole, I swear to god.”
He dropped his voice to a purr as Rust hauled himself up for his last rep. “Come on, baby. You’re so close.”
Rust lowered himself back down to the ground, and Christ, he belonged in a fucking museum. It wasn’t just the sweat-sheen, the muscles, the broad set of his shoulders and the thickness of his waist. It was the scars too, those topographic maps of Rust’s unstoppability. Rust wasn’t Instagram hot, dehydrated and cut, because none of this was for show. There was nothing decorative about the power in Rust’s frame. It was real and resourceful and ready.
“You’re such an asshole,” Rust said, once he’d caught his breath, but there was no heat in it. He grabbed his own water bottle from nearby and chugged. A bit escaped out the side of his mouth, trailing down his chin and neck to the swell of his chest.
Cole was only human. He leaned forward and traced the path it had taken in reverse with his tongue. He expected Rust to try to weave out of reach or push Cole away, to crack some joke about being sweaty and gross. Instead Rust’s fingers carded through his hair and cradled Cole’s head as he kissed Rust’s throat and jaw. Rust even tipped his own head back to give Cole better access.
That was promising. Thank god for sexy workout endorphins.
“Does Quinn know that exercise gets you all hot and bothered?” Cole asked.
“No, because it doesn’t,” Rust replied. He tugged a little on Cole’s hair. “Now you hanging around, saying obscene things…”
“That was some PG-13 innuendo at best, Rusty.”
“Still worked.”
“Mm.” Cole hummed happily against his neck. “You’ll have to show me.”
Rust took a step back and stretched. “Just let me take a shower, and we can head to your place. I’ll show you whatever you want.”
They headed in through the garage door. Rust’s house was quiet except for the dishwasher churning in the kitchen. “Is your mom not home?”
“They’re both away for the weekend. It’s their anniversary.”
“Aww, cute,” Cole said, and then, “wait. Does that mean you have the house to yourself?”
Rust was headed up the stairs, and Cole followed. “I guess so. Why?”
“Do you want to stay here, then, instead of going back to my place?”
“Do you?” He paused in the upstairs hallway, giving Cole a look. “You know this is it, right? I’m not hiding a secret mansion around the back.”
That was uncalled-for. Cole narrowed his eyes. “What, I need six bedrooms and a bedtime story from the butler to function?”
“I didn’t say that.” Rust leaned forward and kissed him. That was cheating, but it worked. “I just meant that the TV and the bed are both a lot smaller here.”
Sure. But the rooms were also sunnier, comfy and lived-in, with evidence everywhere of the Vances’ lives together. They had Rust’s elementary school artwork framed on the walls, photos on their fridge, blankets that Sibyl had crocheted over the years draped over chairs. Cole loved Rust’s house. Always had.
And there was something about the unseasonably warm day, the quiet house, Rust’s good mood after his afternoon with Quinn: something was taking shape in the back of Cole’s head. Something he wanted to breathe a little life into.
He leaned forward and kissed Rust back, letting it linger a minute, tracing his tongue along Rust’s bottom lip. “Ask me to stay over,” he said.
Rust must have been more okay with the idea than he’d let on, because he didn’t put up a fight. He just bumped their noses together affectionately and then murmured, “my parents are out of town this weekend; want to stay over?”
Rust made him wait in his room while he showered (“there is not enough room for two people in there, Cole”), so Cole sat on his bed, listening to the water move through pipes in the walls. Rust’s bedroom was as orderly and functional and unpretentious as its owner. Cole hadn’t been in here much recently. Jim and Sibyl invited him over for dinner about once a week these days, and everybody was doing their best to get along, but Cole kept to the common areas downstairs except on the rare occasion someone sent him to fetch something.
That was okay, though. It fed the fantasy he liked to indulge in sometimes that they were a normal pair of teenagers in a normal relationship, no killer clowns required. Rust’s parents would have rules when Cole came over, the kind you had for your son’s boyfriend: stay in the family room, keep the door open, no overnights.
Cole shucked his shoes off and sat cross-legged on Rust’s bed. He’d done that a lot as a kid, back when he stayed in Rust’s room all the time, and it was hard not to feel like all those other versions of himself were crowded in here with him, reminding him of how he’d felt back then. He was six and infatuated, eight and confused, ten and ashamed.
But the one thing he’d never felt in here was afraid. Fear had been Cole’s constant companion as a kid—afraid of his dad, afraid of himself, afraid of what he felt, afraid of losing control and being at other people’s mercy—but it couldn’t touch him in here. This was the place he’d felt safest in the whole world, and Cole was caught off-guard by how true that still was. The smell of Rust everywhere, his soft plaid comforter, his animal photos on the walls: all of it spoke directly to Cole’s nerves, familiar and soothing.
The shower shut off with a noisy clunk, bringing Cole back to the present. A handful of minutes later, Rust reappeared, toweling off. He gave Cole a once-over on his bed, then crossed to his dresser.
“Am I getting dressed?”
“That’s up to you.”
Rust squinted at him suspiciously. “Are you getting undressed?”
“Also up to you.” Cole smiled, and Rust’s expression said that his patience was fraying.
“Do you have something specific in mind?”
“I do.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and made grabby hands at Rust, getting ahold of his hips as soon as he was within reach and tugging him forward. Sitting meant he was at chest height, and he licked one of Rust’s nipples. It firmed under his tongue, and Rust swayed into it.
Very promising. Cole applied some teeth and felt Rust’s sharp exhale as well as heard it. Then Rust pulled back and leaned down, moving like he intended to kiss Cole before stopping, grimacing as the motion pulled at his drying scars.
“Hang on. I gotta take care of these.”
“Let me?” Cole asked. Usually he didn’t. Rust had to be very relaxed to let Cole help with his scars, fucked-out-and-halfway-to-sleep relaxed. But if Rust said yes to this, then Cole could be reasonably sure he’d say yes to the rest, which made it a gamble worth taking.
So maybe he stacked the deck by leaning back and letting his body language get a little looser, more inviting. Rust tracked it, eyes dark, and even if he knew what Cole was doing, that didn’t mean it wasn’t working, because Rust was nothing if not predictable.
“What are you angling for?”
—shit. Predictably good at outflanking Cole, that is. Strategic motherfucker.
Fine. He’d take the direct approach. “I want to touch you. Like, really touch you. Take my time with it. Maybe rub you down, give you a massage, and then open you up with my fingers and then—” shit, fuck, goddamnit, he was trying to be mature and a good communicator, but it was definitely starting to sound like dirty talk. And talking dirty to Rust always got him all worked up. It was an effort of will to keep his hands off the front of his jeans right now. He wanted to grab himself and grind down hard for a little relief. “And then fuck you.”
“Ah,” Rust said. He reached back to rub the nape of his neck, which did incredible things for his bicep, and Cole’s hips rocked up on their own volition—just a little, but there was no way to miss it. Rust certainly didn’t. “That’s what you want to do.”
“Uh-huh.”
The thing is, Cole liked to feel good, and Rust liked to make him feel good. Cole knew he could be selfish, but it was hard to say no when Rust seemed so into it. He’d drive Cole out of his mind and end up right there with him, blissed out on Cole’s pleasure, wringing it out of him like he couldn’t get enough.
But Rust’s relationship with his own seemed a lot more complicated, and the few times Cole had tried to turn the tables, reciprocate some of that lavish attention, Rust had locked up. He got self-conscious, distant; he’d start to rush things, like he was impatient for them to be finished. Cole had asked him point-blank early on if it just wasn’t something he enjoyed. That was fine; people liked what they liked and didn’t like what they didn’t, and it’s not as though Cole was getting the raw end of that particular deal if that was the case.
But no, Rust had said. That wasn’t it. He wanted it, and he wanted to want it, he just didn’t know how to let himself have it.
Let me show you how, Cole thought now, searching Rust’s face for any kind of clue to what he was thinking. He made himself sit there and wait quietly for an answer. No rushing.
Rust turned around and walked to his dresser, and Cole steeled himself for disappointment. Then he underhand tossed the tube of lotion to Cole, who caught it on a reflex. His eyes were wary, but his tone was light when he asked, “so where do you want me?”
Cole stripped the comforter off and had him sit on the bed to start, back against the headboard. Rust hadn’t been kidding about the size—this was a twin, for crying out loud, and the two of them took up a lot of real estate. But this let him start them in a familiar position, one he knew they both enjoyed: Cole straddling Rust’s lap, legs spread wide to bracket Rust’s thick-muscled thighs. Cole had stripped his own clothes off to even the playing field, and he hadn’t even sniped when Rust wordlessly pointed to the dirty clothes hamper.
Wordlessly wasn’t great. Rust had a lot of silences, many of them just fine, but “quiet during sex” was a bad sign. So Cole set about to fix that first.
He kissed Rust as he worked the lotion into his neck, trying to keep the motion of his hands gentle while he let his tongue draw lazy circles in Rust’s mouth. Rust kissed him back, hands resting in their usual spot on Cole’s waist. He liked to hear Cole, so Cole gave a soft moan of appreciation when their tongues brushed against each other, and Rust chased the sound like he couldn’t help himself, responding with an encouraging hum of his own.
Cole shifted to make room for his hand to move down, working lotion into the scar tissue mapped across Rust’s belly. Once, there’d been a trail of tawny hair here that had kept Cole awake for hours every time he pictured it.
The first time he’d noticed it disappearing into the waistband of Rust’s swimsuit, he’d gotten hard so quick he’d pitched himself into the water with his sandals still on. One of them was probably still floating around down there at the bottom of the reservoir, an offering to the gods of inconvenient boners.
Cole was hard now, and Rust was too, their cocks bumping up together between them in soft, teasing brushes. Sometimes when they were like this, Rust would cup his hands around both of them and stroke them together. Cole tried that now, hands slick with lotion, and earned a groan from Rust as his hips moved, chasing Cole’s grip.
“Good?” Cole asked, and Rust nodded. “More?”
Rust nodded again, then buried his face into Cole’s neck, body curved in a C under him. Cole would have preferred him to keep his head up, to see the expressions play across his face, hear his noises unmuffled, but he got the feeling this was a condition of Rust’s comfort at the moment.
On the plus side, not having Cole’s eyes on him seemed to relax Rust enough to lean into the feeling. Cole gave them both another long stroke, and Rust groaned through gritted teeth, body arching into him.
“You always make me feel so good, Rust,” Cole said, tracing the pads of his fingertips up the line of Rust’s cock, reveling in how soft the skin was there, how hard Rust was underneath. “You deserve to feel good too.”
Rust didn’t respond. He was panting against Cole’s neck, but when Cole smoothed his hand over his shoulders, he felt tension there.
Cole pulled back and ducked his head to meet Rust’s gaze. “Hey,” he said. “Look at me. How you doing?”
“Fine,” Rust said. He was flushed, and he kept dropping eye contact. “You can keep going.”
“I don’t want to come yet. Also, I gotta get your arms anyway.” Cole scuttled backwards, put some more lotion onto his hands, and rubbed it into the top of Rust’s left arm, the bottom of his right. Rust watched Cole’s hands work, obediently letting Cole move his limbs around like a store mannequin.
“I’m starting to feel like we should have agreed on a safeword or something,” Cole said. “Listen, say ‘Frendo’ if you want me to —“
Rust sputtered with surprised laughter, giving Cole a shove. “No way, asshole.”
“There he is. Thought I’d lost you for a minute.”
“I’m good.” Rust took a deep breath, one of those therapy breaths, and yeah. Absolutely. That’s what you wanted to see your boyfriend doing during sex. Forcing himself to enjoy it through breathing exercises.
“We don’t have to do this. If it’s too much…”
“No, it’s fine. Better than fine,” he added, before Cole could pout. “It’s good. I’m good.”
“Very convincing.”
“I’m serious.” He kissed Cole, pulling him towards him, gathering him up in his arms. “I promise.”
Cole let himself be kissed. It wasn’t a hardship. Rust was a great kisser, languid and thorough. He kissed like that was the whole game, and Cole was caught in it, reeled in, entranced by the unhurried rhythm Rust set with his mouth and tongue. So hazy that he almost didn’t notice when Rust started to push him onto his back, to climb over him, hand skimming down Cole’s body.
Almost. “Nice try, Rusty. I’m still driving.”
Rust chuckled against his mouth and withdrew, holding up his hands in an I surrender gesture. “Can’t blame me for trying.”
“I can and I do. On your stomach, Vance.”
“Ooh.” Rust gave an exaggerated shiver. “I don’t hate that.”
“Which part?”
“You ordering me around.” Rust stretched out on his stomach, arms folded under his head, looking so good that Cole wanted to bay like a hound. “You’d think I’d be used to it by now.”
“Rude.”
“Bossy.”
“I’m bossy? You’ve got no room to talk.” Cole lotioned up the spots on the back of Rust’s legs, then tickled behind his knee, making him yelp and kick. “But also, I feel like you deserve some kind of reward for telling me that you liked that.”
Rust hummed as Cole straddled his legs once again and rubbed lotion into the small of his back. He was glad Rust couldn’t see his face as he did. This spot, of all of them, made Cole anxious and sad. It had taken the brunt of the explosion, and the nerve damage had been especially bad here. Rust had been in so much pain as he’d recovered. Cole had never seen him so helpless. It had terrified him.
He pushed that down and away and made himself sound playful when he said, “so…what does Rusty get for using his words?”
“Rusty gets patronized, apparently,” Rust grumbled into his arms, but he sounded pleased nevertheless, even a little bashful, and Cole loved that, loved this, loved him. Loved that they had this chance to learn each other properly.
Cole ran his hands up Rust’s back, feeling tired muscles tense and flex under his palms. He started kneading at them as he thought about what Rust liked, what might constitute an appropriate reward. Cole could offer to suck him off, but that would require flipping him over, or at least getting him up on his hands and knees, and Cole wanted Rust where he was for the time being.
Cole briefly considered letting Rust suck him off for a bit, but that came with similar positioning problems, and was entirely beside the point. Did Rust like giving head? Absolutely. Man was a born cocksucker. But if Rust got his mouth on Cole, that would be it. Game over. Cole would be on his back, begging to be fucked in no time. And it would be good, of course it would be good, but it wouldn’t be what Cole had set out to accomplish here.
But that gave Cole an idea. “Maybe your reward should be that I use my words. How does that sound?”
Rust nodded his head. For all that he didn’t like to talk in bed, he loved hearing Cole do it. He’d work Cole up, get Cole babbling, and then Rust would lose his fucking mind.
“So since you were such a good boy, telling me that you like me bossing you around, I can tell you that I already knew that, because you always listen so well when you fuck me.”
Rust had shuddered at the words good boy, clamping his teeth down on something that had sounded suspiciously like a whine, and Cole filed that away as something that Rust liked (really liked, by the sound of it) but maybe wasn’t ready to cope with yet. Then he leaned forward, digging his thumbs together into Rust’s shoulder on the left side, working the muscle loose.
“Maybe we’re both bossy, but you like that I’m kind of a brat. While I—“ Cole moved his thumbs to the shoulder on the other side, “I love how you let me tell you what to do. You’re so hot and strong and competent and dangerous.” Cole kissed Rust’s spine with each word. “But if I say fuck me slow or touch me like this you just—“
Rust groaned, a long, low, satisfied sound, turning his face into his arms to muffle it.
Cole made his hands into fists and ground his knuckles into the center of Rust’s back, following the line of his lats up and out towards his shoulder-blades. He found a knot and dug in, making Rust moan. “There you go,” Cole said. “That’s the spot, huh?”
“Yeah,” Rust said, voice thick and blurry. “Little harder.”
“Good job, Rust. Tell me how you want it.” He worked his hands harder. “I can be good for you, Rust, because you’re always so good to me. You tell the rest of the world to go fuck itself, but if I said please, Rusty, you’d just break the sun in half for me, wouldn’t you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Rust said. “But—oh, oh shit, that’s it—yes, ‘course I would.”
The stubborn spot yielded, and Cole felt Rust melt into the mattress, limp with relief. He stretched forward over Rust’s back, kissing his shoulders, cock snug against the center of his ass. His own arousal had eased to a simmer, a pleasant background noise, but it started heating up again at the friction of skin on skin. He rolled his hips, cock slipping between Rust’s cheeks.
“You got a question for me there, Cole?”
“Can I put my fingers in your ass?” Cole put his mouth right next to Rust’s ear. “Please, Rusty?”
Rusty laughed, a sexy, throaty chuckle, and then he said, “Yes. Like this though, okay?”
Cole nosed at his curls and nodded. He wouldn’t have considered the alternative. The one time he’d tried to finger Rust on his back, Rust had been so tense and self-conscious that he’d gone soft and they’d had to call the whole thing off. Rust’s embarrassment and Cole’s guilt had soured the whole rest of the night—then he’d had a refinery nightmare to top it all off, and he’d woken up straight into a panic attack.
That wasn’t the worst night they’d ever had—obviously—but its lessons lingered nevertheless.
“Like this,” Cole agreed. Then he pulled off of Rust reluctantly and patted his flank. “Get up onto your knees for me, though.”
Rust did as he was told, slightly uncoordinated after the massage, but ultimately successful. Cole grabbed lube out of the bedside drawer, then gave himself a moment to appreciate the thick muscles of Rust’s thighs and calves. The hair on Rust’s legs was lighter than it was elsewhere, gold in the afternoon sunlight that came in from his bedroom window, and once again Cole felt awed that he got to have this. That they were here, together. That he hadn’t ruined it for good or broken it beyond mending.
“Now you’re gonna tell me how you’re doing,” Cole said. “What’s good, what’s not. If you need a break or to stop altogether.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“There’s no prize for gritting your teeth and getting through it.”
“I heard you.” Rust stretched, arms still folded by his head, shoulders dropped, his back one long elegant curve. He looked fucking incredible.
“You look fucking incredible,” Cole said, and Rust tucked his face into his arms. Cutie.
Cole started by squeezing some lube out onto his hand and reaching around to take hold of Rust’s dick. It hung heavy between his legs, and a couple of strokes saw it to full hardness. Cole jacked him looser and slower than he usually liked, enough to make him hungry for it without bringing him too close too quick. His hips rocked a little with the motion, and Cole rested his hand on Rust’s ass to keep a balance.
Rust’s ass was a miracle. A revelation. Cole had given up on believing in any kind of god a long time ago, but he’d consider taking it up again just to give praise to whatever had crafted Rust’s perfect fucking back deck. He had muscular glutes from working out, but there was also meat on those proverbial bones, thick handfuls of it that filled out a pair of jeans to mouthwatering effect. Cole ran his free hand over it now, dimpling his fingers into the smooth curves. Then he gave in to temptation and bit down on a cheek.
“Cole, if you leave a bruise, I swear to god.”
“I can’t help myself. I’m weak.” Cole bit him again on the other side, scraping his teeth a little harder against the skin. He kept jacking Rust as he did so. “It’s yours. You obviously don’t understand its power.”
“Obviously,” Rust echoed sarcastically, but the word came out breathier than he intended. Those slow strokes were starting to get to him. “You’ll have to show me.”
“With pleasure.” Cole had to use both hands to lube up his fingers. Then he resumed touching Rust’s cock with one while he started slowly running his fingers down the seam of Rust’s ass, keeping the pressure consistent but undemanding, just letting his fingers stroke in the same slow rhythm as his other hand. It didn’t take long for Rust’s hips to start rocking slightly into Cole’s touch.
Once that happened, Cole started moving his middle finger more deliberately, applying pressure to the rim and then slipping inside. He’d used a lot of lube; it was slick on his hands, likely to make a mess on the sheets as well, and Cole realized belatedly that he hadn’t grabbed a towel. Well, Rust would just have to be annoyed with him about the laundry later.
For now, he tightened his grip on Rust’s cock, long firm strokes the way he liked, running his palm over the head every second or third one to keep him distracted while Cole’s finger pressed in further. He didn’t move it too much yet, just thrusting gently, further in with each pass.
He kept an eye on Rust’s shoulders. His head was still pillowed on his arms, face tucked into the crook of his elbow, but his shoulders had tightened up when Cole started working his finger inside. Now, they were starting to loosen again, flexing deliciously as Rust relaxed by inches under Cole’s hands, the movement of his hips more pronounced now.
“Good?” Cole asked quietly, and Rust nodded against his arms.
“Yeah,” he said, lifting his head to be heard more clearly. His eyes were closed, and his lower lip was red like he’d been worrying at it. “You can keep going.”
Cole crooked his finger and started feeling his way downward inside. He knew he’d found what he was looking for when the pad of his finger brushed something and a shudder ran down Rust’s spine. “There we go,” he breathed. He found a rhythm for it, small, soft pets meant to stir without overwhelming.
Still, Rust looked like it wouldn’t take much to overwhelm him. He’d shoved his face back into his arm, which would have been a sign for Cole to back off if it weren’t for the noises he was making: these sweet little exhalations, ah-ah-ah, that made Cole’s toes curl. He didn’t think he could love a sound more—but then Rust turned his head to the side, and Cole heard them again louder, unmuffled, and he discovered that he absolutely could.
“So good, Rust. Let me hear you.” He put a little more pressure behind his finger, petting more firmly, giving Rust’s cock a loose stroke as he did, and Rust gasped, rocking hard back into Cole’s hand. “I can see why you like to do this for me so much. You look so good right now. You sound so good.”
Rust shook his head. “Not like you.”
“Agree to disagree.” Rust’s powerful body stretched out in front of him, drenched gold in late-afternoon light, liquid with pleasure that Cole was giving him, making him feel—it was unreal. Nothing could compare. Cole was going to feast on the memory of this view for weeks. Months. Years, even. When he died and his brain did all that weird shit at the end, he hoped his misfiring synapses would let him live here in this moment until all the lights went out.
“Cole,” Rust said, and Cole realized that Rust had been saying his name for a bit, along with other things. Things like please and wait— “Cole, please.”
“Please what?” Cole hauled his brain back online, annoyed with himself for having gotten so caught up in his own thoughts that he’d stopped paying attention. “What do you need, Rust?”
“It’s too much.” Rust whimpered, rubbing his cheek against his arm, eyes screwed shut. “It’s too—I feel—I don’t wanna—”
“You can, though.” Cole slowed his hands, even so. “I want you to, if you want to.”
“I don’t want to. Not like this. I want you to fuck me like you said you would.”
“Ohhh, okay.” He pulled his finger back out slowly, hearing Rust’s shivery exhalation. “Okay. Good job. Such a good job. Thank you for telling me.”
Cole squeezed out more lube and coated his dick with it, groaning at the contact. He’d lost track of his own hard-on somewhere in all the activity, caught up in the full-body sensation of arousal that fingering Rust had provoked. Now, however, the degree to which he was fully bricked up came screaming back to the foreground of his attention. It occurred to him that he might not last very long at all.
Still, he was committed to giving it his best. He kissed the scarred flesh of Rust’s lower back, then higher to the dip of his spine, up to the sweat-salt space between his shoulders. He lined himself up at Rust’s entrance and then pushed inside, feeling the tight grip of him around the head of his cock.
“You are so fucking good for me, Rust. So good.” He let himself sink in a little further as Rust opened up tight and hot and perfect around him. “I want you all the time.”
Rust pushed himself up onto his forearms and groaned, rough and deep, as Cole sank into him to the hilt. “Fuck, Cole.”
“Good?”
Rust nodded, head hanging heavy on his neck. Cole bit down on the knob of spine closest to his mouth and savored the way it made Rust whine. He’d done it on instinct, for the sake of having his mouth on Rust somewhere, but Rust seemed to interpret it as a rebuke or a spur, because he said, “yes, it’s good, I’m good, fucking give it to me.”
“Bossy,” Cole said, and bit him again. “But you used your words, so you get a reward.” He pulled out and then thrust in, earning a satisfied grunt from Rust. His body clamored for more—harder, faster, but he held that at bay and tried to find a steadier tempo.
Rust always made this part look so easy. He moved inside of Cole like he was born to do it. Like he’d taken lessons on it and aced every exam. He’d manhandle Cole into position, scoop his limbs up, and take him apart stroke by stroke, those big thighs working, core flexing, hips pounding into him steady and inexorable as a drum beat. Cole felt clumsy by comparison. His knees kept slipping on the sheets, and every time he thought he’d found his rhythm, Rust would rock back into him just off-time.
Still, it felt fucking incredible, and Rust didn’t seem to have any complaints, so Cole decided not to worry about it. He had as long as he wanted to improve his stroke game. There was no deadline. No rush. No countdown clock to when he’d have to give this up. Rust was his, finally his, and he was never ever ever letting him go.
“You’re mine, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Rust nodded, almost frantically. “All yours, Cole.”
Cole nuzzled at the back of his neck. “My Rusty.”
Rust made a noise like he’d been socked in the stomach. “Again, please.”
“Because you like it?”
“Because I like it,” Rust agreed.
“My Rusty,” Cole said again, and tried to put as much feeling into it as he could manage. “All mine. My best friend, my favorite person, my knight in flannel armor—” Rust huffed out a laugh at that. “—my shadow, my Rusty, all mine.”
He was starting to babble. He could hear himself doing it, feel his thrusts start to speed up, get sloppy and hurried as he lost control of himself. But Rust was urging him into it, muttering his own stream of affectionate nonsense, and Cole had fully intended to get Rust off first. Rust always made sure Cole finished ahead of him, he was a fucking gentleman like that, but Cole didn’t have that kind of self-mastery. He chased his pleasure down like a dog after a rabbit, single-minded once it was in his sights, and came with a punched-out cry.
Cole felt Rust move under him, hoisting him up like dead weight, and it took him a moment to realize that Rust was finishing himself off. He tried to summon the energy to move and take over for him, slid his hand down and tangled their fingers together around Rust’s cock, stroking it together, pressed together and panting together and how they were meant to be together. Cole must have been saying some of that out loud, crooning it in Rust’s ear, because Rust was moaning yes, yes, me too, I love you, and then he was coming all over their joined hands.
Rust hissed as Cole slipped out of him, and they collapsed onto the mattress, sweaty and messy and grinning into each other’s mouths as they kissed. It was exactly the sort of kiss Cole was craving: loose, a little sloppy, heavy on the tongue. They had to be tangled up to fit together on Rust’s ludicrously tiny bed, all their limbs thrown over each other.
Eventually, Rust bumped their noses together and drew back. He did that a lot, ended their kisses with some other touch or nudge or gesture, like the transition from ‘kissing Cole’ to ‘not kissing Cole’ was something he had to ease himself through. It made Cole’s heart clench with an affection that was almost pain.
“I love you,” Cole said.
“I love you too.” Rust ran his palm over Cole’s arm, tracking its path with his gaze. He didn’t look nervous, but Cole clocked how he wasn’t making eye contact when he said, “that was okay? I was okay?”
“You were amazing. Did you enjoy it?”
Rust nodded, a slow, thoughtful gesture. “I did. It’s not…I wouldn’t want it like that all the time. But it was good.”
“Good.” He dropped his head and kissed Rust’s bicep. “Because you were fucking hot.”
“I’m fucking sore is what I am.” Rust flopped back, body arching in an extremely unfair stretch. “Hope you’re satisfied for a while, because once I take another shower, I’m on that couch until my shoulders stop yelling at me.”
“Never. But I’ll persevere.”
Rust hauled himself to his feet, grumbling about water rates, and Cole fished his phone out of his pants on the floor. Quinn had texted the group.
New Thai place near the mall
Dinner?
do they have a menu online? Cole texted back as the shower noises started up again. gotta make sure there are rust-approved options
Bouncing dots, then a very judgmental emoji. You gotta get your man to eat some new foods. Expand his horizons.
true
but I think I’ve maxed out his adventurousness for the day
possibly the week ;)
Quinn's reply was a voice memo of her making wretching noises. From the bathroom, Rust said, “there’s like eight minutes of hot water left in here, Colton; you might want to get a move on.”
So Cole threw his phone back onto the floor and did.