What It Looks Like

Chapter 1 Rob Hawkes was a god. That was Eli’s first coherent thought of the morning, and largely for the way Rob was inelegantly sprawled in the bed, the sheets twisted around his waist and the morning sun pooling gold over his skin. His physique—those hard lines of muscle, the breadth of his shoulders and the narrow taper down to flat abs to his hips—was nothing short of mythological divinity. And f**k, Eli wanted him. But Eli was loathe to disturb him when he looked so peaceful. Rob didn’t look peaceful, as a rule. He had a hard face with scowling brows and a tense jaw; to see those harsh angles softened was a treat, and one Eli wanted to enjoy for a little longer. Carefully, biting his lip for fear of disturbing the sleeping dragon, Eli twitched the sheets down. Rob mumbled, but didn’t stir, and Eli sat up against the pillows to drink in the sight of the sleeping, naked body. Long legs with taut thighs smattered with dark hair, large but narrow feet hanging at strange angles from thick ankles and calves like concrete. Even relaxed, there was nothing but muscle there. The left leg was covered from hip to toe in dark, intense tattoos, not an inch of skin left naked from the ink, even if the whole body was naked from clothes. A chain coiled around the ankle, buried in the skin and created out of ink instead of iron. Eli wished fervently he were able to get a real chain, tether Rob to the bed, and never let him leave. The tattoos rose beyond the hips, but less crowded—a serpent hissed along the ribs, a mechanical heart beat over a breast and rose and fell gently with Rob’s breathing, and a galaxy, vivid purples and reds on a space-scape of black, disguised one powerful shoulder. His arms, one slung across the mattress towards Eli and the other tucked under the pillow, were as coated as his left leg in crowded sleeves, fire and skulls jostling for attention, the faces of loved ones immortalised in ink, dates and quotes hiding between leaves and eagles. Across his back, Eli knew more, but the sheets and mattress hid them from the morning. For now. Miles of inked skin stretched out in the sun like this was too much to resist. Eli sighed in disappointment at his own weakness, even as he bent low and dragged a dry, tempting kiss across slightly-parted lips. They were still swollen from the night before, the scar at the corner puckering the bottom lip a fraction. Eli buried his teeth around that fleck of white damage, and tugged. Rob’s groan was primal. “Morning,” Eli whispered, bracing himself with arms either side of Rob’s head. He nudged his nose against Rob’s face, pressing plucking, nipping kisses against the man’s chin and cheeks, nuzzling the harsh rasp of stubble and smelling the stale remnants of lager and wet leaves. Eli ached in memory, but the soreness was a welcome reminder. He dropped a hand down the bed to find idle, sated flesh and squeeze it. That got Rob to open his eyes. Just a crack, mind, but open was open. Eli—girly as it was—loved Rob’s eyes. The rest of the man was a hulking wall of dark, brooding temper. The body could have been cut from a men’s fitness magazine, but the eyes… Rob’s eyes were so startlingly pale the contrast against his pupils was almost violent. The grey irises were barely a shade darker than the whites, and it made his gaze ferociously intense, no matter the mood he was actually in. It made him look dangerous, like a feral animal or a predator on the hunt. Made him look alert and watchful even when he wasn’t, and never failed to get attention from whoever was near him. And, like every other time those incredible eyes fixed on him, Eli felt a jolt in his stomach, and leaned fractionally towards them, as though falling blindly—and uncaringly—into some abyss. He caught himself—almost literally, splaying his fingers across the broad muscles below the gentle curve of collarbones under skin. A lazy blink and lazier smirk served to promote Rob from merely a sleeping god to one of the arrogant overlords of ancient Greco-Roman mythology. “You look,” Eli whispered, “like Zeus. A beautiful, powerful, arrogant fuck.” He did—even lying down, Rob had so much physical power that it could almost be smelt on him. The idle way those eyes tracked Eli’s movements spoke of someone who knew his own ability to control the situation; the rough thumb that came up to rub at the corner of Eli’s mouth and push demandingly past his lips and teeth showed his quiet arrogance. And God, was it f*****g true. Eli would—did, had—bend over and grab his ankles for this man at just the twitch of an eyebrow. The watery warmth of the sun on Rob’s skin, the almost imperceptible ebb and flow of blood under the flesh, and the way he simply lay and waited, as though knowing what Eli would do before Eli himself… It brought a smile to Eli’s face as he pulled away from Rob’s intruding thumb, a kiss to be placed over Rob’s heart just shy of the n****e, and made him drop his hand from where it had idled on Rob’s inner thigh to more important places. Rob’s c**k was soft, warm in Eli’s hand when he took it, and pale against the dark bruise Eli had bitten into Rob’s thigh the previous morning. “You want me?” Eli whispered, even as he shifted away from Rob’s heavy hands and blew gently over the head. Rob was uncut, and it had been one of Eli’s favourite afternoons, quite literally tying Rob to the bed and thoroughly exploring him. But not this time. This morning, Eli wanted one thing and one thing only—he shifted to throw his leg over Rob’s shin and settle over his legs, bracing both hands on those narrow hips and taking the swelling c**k in his mouth. Eli was still a little unused to this—the sharp taste, the odd angle of his jaw, and the trick of trying to anticipate Rob’s movements. But at the same time, Eli enjoyed it, the way Rob’s smell would surround him, the guttural groan Rob would make deep in the back of his throat, the way his hand would— Fingers fisted in Eli’s hair as he rasped his tongue up the hardening shaft and rubbed his lips around the head. He rolled his throat, deliberately lathing Rob in as much spit as possible, because Eli had designs on more than just opening his throat for the god in his bed. He was going to get that c**k as deep as he could, so deep it f*****g hurt, and if Rob wasn’t going to move, then Eli could f**k his own brains out on him anyway. With a last parting suck, Eli pulled off and rose from the bed to drop his boxers without fanfare or finesse. Rob was watching, eyes raking Eli’s body with something unfathomable in the ice-white gaze. Eli smiled, biting his lip in the way he knew Rob liked best. “You look,” he whispered, trailing a single finger up the wet shaft jutting out from Rob’s still-prone form, “like you’re just waiting to be served. Like you’re the master of some decadent Roman villa and you’re just waiting for some flexible slave to come and finish you off.” A smirk pulled at that stern mouth, and Eli grinned, bending over Rob’s face to kiss him with open lips and a demanding tongue. Rob would be able to taste himself, Eli knew, and the return of a fist to clutch at his hair was no surprise. “You want to f**k me?” he whispered in a breathy tone. “I want to feel you. I can still feel you from last night, but it’s fading. I’m still loose, but it’s going to sting, just how I like it—” The fist tightened, and then Rob was sitting up. His gaze was feral, and then both hands were around Eli’s head and his jaw was being forced open by something that could have been termed a kiss, or a plundering. He smiled around it, hands fumbling for purchase on Rob’s broad shoulders, closing the kiss into something softer when one huge paw let go. Eli loved this, the aggressive attraction in Rob’s movements, the way he left no f*****g doubt as to his opinion of Eli’s body… Something crinkled, and Eli groaned. “Oh, Rob, c’mon…” Rob’s face was stern, and the condom packet cool against Eli’s fingers. “We don’t need it,” Eli coaxed. Rob’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. “Oh c’mon, Rob, the test would have come back with something by now, surely?” Not a twitch. And Eli knew the rules—question too much, push too hard, and the opportunity was taken away. And this morning…fuck, this morning… “Fine,” he grumped, and took the packet. He tore it open with his teeth, and got his lip bitten for his efforts before the lube was handed over. “You know my bedside drawers too well.” The grin was nothing short of lecherous, and Eli kissed it away before perching on the edge of the bed and wrapped his hand absently around Rob’s c**k. He hadn’t softened in the slightest. Eli sighed. “I want to feel this,” he breathed, “properly.” Rob raised a dark eyebrow, then tensed and closed his eyes entirely when Eli rolled the condom on. He gave a sadistic squeeze at the base of the shaft before reaching for the lubricant, silently willing next month—and next month’s test results—to hurry the f**k up already. But for now… “There,” Eli breathed, pushing Rob back into the pillows, straddling his waist with fluid ease. “Stay. I didn’t get to see a thing last night—you were too busy shoving me into alley walls and f*****g me raw—” Rob’s chest tensed and pushed against his arms; Eli gave a little shove to make his point, and carried on blithely. “—and last night and all the lager, that was good for a seedy f**k, but this morning…God, I woke up and you looked like a f*****g god, like something completely out of this world, so you—” He shifted up on his hips and wrapped a hand around Rob’s c**k beneath him. This was going to sting. Loose was loose, but Eli’s plan required something a little more involved. And Rob was going to kill him. Later. “—are going to lie there and let a mere mortal worship you.” In one motion, Eli pressed down onto Rob’s c**k. It wasn’t graceful; it wasn’t even seamless. The stretch burned, the edge of pain distinct, and Rob’s hiss and jerk didn’t help, his hands suddenly like vices on Eli’s thighs and his head thrown back in an arch of muscle and sinew. His sheathed c**k was slick, but Eli was not, and even the vague catch hurt. The ache from the previous night exploded anew—and yet it was also ecstasy, the sensation of being completely filled, of taking Rob so deep Eli felt as though he’d been seized by the back of the neck and was being held in a choking, possessing grip. “Oh my God,” he groaned, his little speech forgotten. “Oh f**k. Rob, f**k…” Rob’s hands cupped his hips. Eli took deep lungfuls of cool air before opening his eyes—and when had he closed those?—and taking in the messy hair, piercing gaze, and heaving chest. His thighs were clamped around Rob’s waist, and Eli watched in near-distant fascination as he tensed them and felt rather than saw Rob’s grunt of too-close, too-intense satisfaction. “You feel amazing,” Eli blurted out, and rolled his hips. The slick slide of the condom was unpleasant, but the heavy push of Rob’s c**k as Eli sank back down onto it again was dizzying and quite literally breathtaking. “f**k, Rob, I could f**k you every day and it wouldn’t be enough. I want to feel you proper, I want those f*****g test results, I want you to hold me down and just f**k me open with nothing between, I want—” Rob moved so fast it was a blur—his arm was suddenly tight around Eli’s back, the room was spinning, and then Eli hit the mattress. Rob drove into him so hard Eli saw stars. He yelled, digging his nails into Rob’s shoulders like claws, arching under the thrust until it felt like he could take Rob to the root, until the headboard smashed against the wall with deafening force, until— Someone shouted downstairs. Rob’s grin was feral in Eli’s neck before he bit down. The mattress was shaking with the force of those powerful, painful, driving thrusts. Eli didn’t give a f**k.