Page 47 of Margins

“I’m not her, and I—I don’t mean that as anything good or bad,” Elijah murmurs, just enough pressure on Alex’s hip to slow him down. “But whatever mistakes you think you made before, I need you to know they won’t be the same now. You’ll make some—we both will—but this isn’t the same.”

Alex nods, his head heavy and his mouth still half open against Elijah’s. “Is it going to be a mistake to sleep together tonight?”

“To sleep together tonight? Or to sleep together tonight?” Elijah asks with an amused hum. “Because no, it’s not going to be a mistake, and nah, it probably wouldn’t do irreparable harm, but I’m not convinced we should test that theory.”

Something about his tone warms Alex from the inside out, the subtle mix of humor and something so much more serious. Something that has absolutely lit him on fire. “You didn’t answer me about whether you need to borrow clothes.”

“No, I’m okay,” Elijah says, pulling his hoodie over his head before he lays it over the back of a chair Alex keeps in the corner. He strips off his socks and jeans next, and Alex tries not to stare once Elijah’s wearing nothing but his t-shirt and a pair of boxers that don’t bother to hide his arousal, Alex turning quickly toward his dresser to grab some sweat shorts and a t-shirt of his own.

The next several minutes are a perfectly dizzy kind of awkward, taking turns in the bathroom and crawling into bed and turning off the lights, neither one saying much as they go through a routine they don’t share. But then they’re facing each other and kissing again, and whatever need Alex thought could wait for another night begins to coil inside him again, and he wants to be even closer to Elijah, doing what he can to rock into him now while his body responds almost instantly. Elijah’s does too, and it has both of them groaning into their kiss, and when Elijah reaches for Alex’s leg and hooks it over his own thigh, it’s so much easier to feel everything.

Alex wants to feel everything.

“Can I touch you?” he pants.

“Jesus, that’s—” Elijah just barely manages to laugh as he sucks at Alex’s neck. “Did I mix up my answers about which kind of sleeping together we’re supposed to do?”

“Is that a no?”

Instead of saying anything out loud, Elijah’s hand curves over Alex’s ass and their next kiss turns filthy before it slows into something that’s anything but. It takes longer than that for Alex to figure out what will happen next, Elijah moving his hand again just so his confident fingers can find their way to where Alex’s shake, making enough room between them to lead Alex past the waistband of his boxers. The angle is awkward until Alex can turn his wrist and curl his fingers around Elijah’s cock, the sensation of touching another man utterly overwhelming already. And Elijah doesn’t leave him alone, guiding his first tentative strokes, their kiss forgotten for a moment while they breathe against each other, and Alex tries to memorize everything Elijah wants him to learn.

There’s so much more to absorb when Elijah brings Alex’s hand high enough for the pad of his thumb to drag over the head of Elijah’s cock, everything so fucking slick there, and easy to spread when they keep moving.

“That’s because of you,” Elijah says. “You do that to me.”

Alex swears under his breath or makes some kind of pitiful noise, and he has so many questions and confessions and pleas, and when he rocks into Elijah again—or rocks against their joined hands as they stroke Elijah’s cock—Alex is pretty sure he makes at least one of them heard. Elijah watches him closely when he lets go of Alex’s hand and trails a fingertip along the top of his sweat shorts, back and forth until Alex can barely maintain his own rhythm, nodding dumbly at something Elijah has only sort of asked.

“Yes.”

Elijah doesn’t just slip his hand into Alex’s shorts though, working to push them over Alex’s ass instead, and careful when he eases his cock free too. And because Alex has all but given up on however he was trying to touch Elijah, he begins to help, sliding his shorts all the way down his legs until he can kick them off entirely, naked from the waist down and nervous and so fucking turned on.

He’s probably lucky he doesn’t come as soon as Elijah swipes his thumb through the fluid Alex has been leaking for a while, because Elijah does that to him. It’s another close call when Elijah lifts that thumb to his own mouth and sucks it clean, slowly withdrawing it before he brushes his lips against Alex’s.

“You happen to have any lube nearby?” Elijah smiles. “Might make this a little better for you.”

Alex wants to ask what exactly this is, but he also can’t quite take his eyes off of Elijah’s mouth, curious about whether there’s anything left of himself on Elijah’s tongue, and after a few more seconds, Alex goes in search of the taste just because he thinks he can. He licks into Elijah’s mouth and doesn’t pretend there’s any reason for it other than his own hunger, and Elijah lets Alex take anything he wants for as long as he wants it. But also, there was a question Alex forgot to answer and he halfway nods and mumbles something even as he tries to keep kissing Elijah while their cocks drip side by side.

“Drawer. Behind me.”

Elijah rolls them just enough so he can reach for the nightstand, and his weight pressing Alex into the mattress is already becoming a familiar thing, though it’s there and gone once Elijah has what he needs. When they’re back to facing each other, Alex throws his leg over Elijah’s again and kisses him with abandon and grinds against him for another few seconds, Elijah’s boxers still mostly in place except for where his cock is thick and hard and pressed alongside Alex. Even with so little room to work, Elijah is able to get his hand between them, lube covering each of their cocks after a couple of individual strokes, and Alex clings to the back of Elijah’s shirt while he moans into his mouth.

“Fuck—that’s—fuck,” Alex gasps when Elijah opens his hand wide enough to jerk them off together.

Elijah nips just below Alex’s jaw and laughs there, only the slightest puff of air giving him away. “Not completely, but it’ll be close enough for tonight.”

“It’s so good. I—god, I didn’t know.”

“You wanna help, or you just wanna hold on to me?” Alex pulls his head back to look at Elijah, hoping that even the dark room will allow him to be given a clue about how to respond to that as he aches with need, and can feel himself getting wetter, and so badly wants to know if Elijah is too. But then Elijah is brushing the tips of their noses together and Alex can’t comprehend how something so tender and playful can be perfectly paired with the vulgar sound Elijah’s hand is making as he works them over. “There’s not a wrong answer, sweetheart. You can always tell me what you want.”

He can still barely talk though, so Alex only moves to release Elijah’s shirt and put his hand somewhere near Elijah’s instead, closing his eyes when he can feel so much at once—the play of Elijah’s muscles as his fingers slide and twist, the veins on their shafts when he can brush up against them, the almost unnoticeable slits threatening to spill more than they already have. And Elijah’s panting now too, which makes Alex think something about this is going right, even if it’s going to be over all too soon.

“I’m gonna—too much—”

“S’okay. Let go. I’m close too.”

Alex has a feeling that’s not always true—that Elijah can hold out for a very long time when it’s what he wants, a trick likely to make Alex lose his entire goddamn mind—but at least some part of this is new for Elijah too, and if tonight can be this small and special thing, Alex is grateful for it. Their hands speed up together and each breath is a little more of a struggle than the one before and they kiss when they can, except that Alex is so far gone that Elijah might be the only one doing anything at all. When he comes, it’s so unlike anything he remembers feeling before, his entire body involved somehow, and the sounds he makes through each aftershock are almost embarrassingly loud in his own head. Alex doesn’t want anything about the moment to pass, and in some ways, it doesn’t, Elijah stroking himself obscenely with so much more than lube covering him now, and Alex’s hand is still right there when Elijah comes all over both of them with the longest, most beautiful moan Alex thinks he’s ever heard.

Elijah’s shaking, or maybe Alex is, but they’re still face to face and neither one of them is looking away, so Alex takes a chance on a smile and watches when Elijah matches it with one of his own.

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