Page 84 of Lovesick Gods

“Something happened,” Mal said, reaching for Danny’s face.

A hand came up to grasp his wrist as if Danny might push him away, but he just held Mal’s fingers there, gently, unsure. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Danny—”

“Not this time. Okay? I just want you to touch me.” Pulling Mal’s hand down, Danny trailed it along his neck and down the center of his chest. “I want to forget. Please. Help me forget for a little while.”

Mal stared at his hand being dragged lower and lower down Danny’s stomach. “Forget what?”

“Everything. Just for a while. Please. You always take care of me.” He grinned, and it was half forced, half honest with fond amusement. “They might even revoke your villain card if you’re not careful.”

“Never,” Mal smiled back at him as Danny brought his hand to the edge of the suit. “I’ve racked up quite a few points over the years to hold my position indefinitely.” Splaying his fingers low on Danny’s belly, he turned his hand so that it slid within the strange black fabric.

Danny bucked up as if to will Mal to reach in further, so Mal let his fingers sink deeper inside the suit. “Wait,” Danny said, even as his neck arched at Mal’s fingertips grazing him. “Wait, I…I want you to touch me, I do…but maybe it should be my turn to take care of you.”

“Oh? And what would you do for me, Sparky?” Mal whispered.

Grasping Mal around the shoulders, Danny rolled them, reversing their positions and dislodging Mal’s hand almost at lightning speed. Mal took a moment to blink up at him and get his bearings, and his pause caused the grin on Danny’s face to falter.

He pulled up. “I’m not trying to hold you down.”

Mal’s own smile grew strained. He was fine now. He didn’t mind Danny being rough when he was ready for it. “Just need to know what I’m in for. What do you want, Danny? What do you want to do for me?”

Planting his knees on either side of Mal’s hips, Danny scooted down so he could pull the tangled jeans the rest of the way off. He returned for the T-shirt, and old anxiety coiled in Mal’s gut, but he pushed it aside. Danny knew, he’d seen, it was okay. So even though Mal was tense, he let Danny remove him of his shirt, leaving him in just his underwear.

The worst of the scars were on his chest and back, where it was easiest to hide them from curious teachers or neighbors. A few were from things other than his father, but most… Most were his handiwork.

Danny tugged only lightly on Mal’s shorts, just enough to reveal his hips. There was a particularly jagged scar on the left side in the dip of the bone. Danny kissed it. Licked it.Sucked…

Moaning, Mal bucked up, feeling the edge of his ice stir to the surface again, but not like it had when he froze the bed. This version was different.

His scar tissue had almost no feeling, but the skin around it was hypersensitive. Usually, Mal hated that about his scars because he didn’t want to remember they were there. He kept them covered, hidden, untouched. ButDanny…he went right for them like he treasured every inch of puckered skin.

“They’re not ugly,” Danny said, licking one on Mal’s stomach, before moving to a smaller scar on his ribs. “You don’t have to hide them. Not from me. I want to kiss and tease them until they’re your favorite thing for me to touch.”

Mal snorted but then gasped when Danny moved from sucking on one scar to his nipple, then to another scar that he grazed with his teeth. “I doubt they would ever be myfavoritething,” he said as he ground his hips up.

Danny’s giggle was devious but still somehow sweet, not menacing. “I’ll show you, Ice Man. I want you to soak your shorts before I take them off of you.”

As Danny licked lightly around the scar along his clavicle, Mal moaned. Soaking his underwear would not be a problem. Only this kid could have him chasing pleasure after running from a panic attack. He wondered briefly why he’d never let anyone else adore his scars like this, but he knew the answer. No one had ever wanted to.

Danny worked his way up Mal’s neck, where he’d no doubt leave another mark with how firmly he sucked at that spot Mal loved, right beneath his ear. Priestly, Dom, Lucy—they could all say whatever they wanted; Mal couldn’t care less when it felt this good.

Occasionally, he’d get lost, distracted by a scar Danny focused on. He’d remember where it came from, how much it had hurt, how much he hated it even now for what it represented. But Danny never faltered, and the memories seemed to vanish in the haze of pleasure caused by his lips and teeth and tongue.

Jagged ice, hard edges, and cigarette burns were all erased by the wet trails left in Danny’s wake. Mal wanted to tell Danny how he’d gotten each one, when he’d never told anyone about all of them. He opened his mouth several times, but it always closed again as he stared at the ceiling or focused on the lights of his city.

“I don’t need to know their stories,” Danny said, as if reading his mind. “I know. I knowenough. We’re both battered and broken, Mal. You just wear your scars on the outside where they’re easier to see. But I know these aren’t the worst of them.”

They weren’t. Not even close. The worst were buried deep, etched into Mal’s blood and bones. They couldn’t be kissed away. They couldn’t be hidden or forgotten, because only Mal saw them, and he saw them every day.

The first tear startled him, warm and slow-moving down his cheek. He took a breath and realized how choked his throat was from holding the tears back. Gasping as it all caught up with him, Mal almost pulled away, but then he looked at Danny and the expression on the kid’s face froze him where he lay.

Danny stared, in awe of the tears marring Mal’s face as though they mesmerized him. When he surged up to kiss Mal, the attack didn’t throw him back into the clutches of panic. He coiled his arms around Danny’s back and held him skin to skin, tonguesdancing, hips rocking even with both of them still covered below the waist.

Rolling them again, Mal returned the other direction, not so he could get on top of Danny, but so they could lie side by side. Danny kissed down his neck with sharp nips of his teeth and Mal whimpered. Pulling and kicking at his underwear to get them down his legs and off, Mal then helped Danny do the same with his suit, until nothing remained but skin between them and it was barely enough to hang on and grind forward.

Lips sought each other’s mouths and necks. Hands grazed each other’s skin everywhere they could reach. They writhed, sharing the wetness between them, caught up in the moment and gasping together without thought of anything but friction—more friction.

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