Page 112 of Incubus
Of course all Nathan could look at was the remains of the scar that he realized parodied his dark fae mark almost too perfectly.
“I’m going to be okay,” Sasha insisted, taking Nathan’s hand and placing it right on top of the scar over his heart. “Steady rhythm. All because ofyou.”
“Sasha…” Nathan didn’t want to offer protests but he felt them rise up within him anyway. “Would you just listen to me for a second and maybe—”
“No,” Sasha shot back. “I’m done listening to your excuses, Nathan. Why can’t you just let this happen? Why does it have to be so hard? I almost died! I thought I was dead for sure. I’d accepted that I was never going to see you again. Or Jim. Or anyone.”
“I know,” Nathan said, hating that this seemed to be turning out even worse than he could ever have imagined. “I thought the same thing. That’s why I need to—”
“No,” Sasha said again, fiercer, with his hands coming up to grip Nathan’s biceps hard. “I’m done letting you run away from me. We’re here now. Tomorrow, maybe we won’t be. What if this is the only moment we ever get? Don’t you ever think about that? I don't want anyone else, Nathan. I don't want toneedanyone else. I just want you.”
Nathan wanted to cry, scream,something. He thought about today being his last day all the time and, with each day that passed, he saw himself getting closer and closer to one or all of them being taken or killed by Gabriel, or dark fae, or maybe even the world ending.
“If tonight is all we get,” Sasha said, “then I don’t want to waste a single moment.”
Blue eyes glowed, too bright and so close to Nathan that he could see every variation in color. Then Sasha was kissing him again, deeper than before, possessive and demanding, and Nathan couldn’t care about hesitations, or the bounty on his head, or Gabriel, or anything that could be enough to make him turn away or tell Sasha to stop. He focused only on the moment he was in and it felt so thrilling that Nathan let all of the built up anxiety in his body fade.
Nathan pushed Sasha away again, but only so he could flip their positions, pressing Sasha back into the wall and pinning him. Sasha looked stricken at first, taking Nathan’s harshness for refusal, but then he must have noticed that Nathan’s expression had changed, because soon he was smiling.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Nathan said. “If we’re going to do this…then I amnotgoing to be some pansy ass little girl about it, understand? Nathan Grier doesn’t do fainting violet.”
The smile on Sasha’s face widened. “About damn time,” he said and, grabbing Nathan by the front of his shirt, he crushed their lips together. They trembled in each other’s hold and that was it for Nathan. No more reservations. This was happeningnow.
They kissed heatedly against the wall, with Sasha, albeit taller than Nathan, pinned willingly. The tangling of their tongues made Nathan forget for at least a little longer why he could ever be anxious about giving in to Sasha.
He felt the telling presence of weight and heat against his thigh from beneath Sasha’s sleep pants. Nathan knew Sasha wasn’t wearing anything underneath. How low the pants hung on Sasha’s hips didn’t leave much room for imagination. Nathan felt the heat in his own gut flowing more and more southward too, especially when Sasha’s fingers feathered up under his T-shirt and tickled along the muscles of his stomach.
Sasha tugged on the shirt, pulling up, and Nathan let the cotton lift over his head and disappear so that their equally bare chests pressed back together. Their lips reconnected, and when Nathan pulled back a moment later, the heat from Sasha’s eyes was almost enough to burn him.
A gentle push at Nathan’s chest told him that Sasha wanted freedom from the wall. Nathan took a few slow steps backwards, but Sasha pushed on his chest again, smirking and biting his lower lip. Again, Nathan obeyed, taking a few more steps backuntil there were several feet between them. Then he understood what Sasha intended to do.
The incubus teased his fingers along the drawstring of his pants just as he had that morning. Nathan swallowed low in his throat, his heart beating hot and fast as he watched Sasha pull one of the strings out of its bow, loosening the pants just enough so that they fell past slim hips straight to the floor.
Nathan took in the sight of Sasha’s enticing lower tattoo—every last bit of it. The black markings did indeed go everywhere, even a little down Sasha’s thighs.
Nathan swallowed again, finding it surprisingly difficult since his throat was so dry. Those voices that hung out in the back of his mind were screaming at him, but he couldn’t care to listen, not when the sight of Sasha made the heat in his gut swell and boil over, pooling down lower and making him ache.
“You’re way too beautiful for your own good,” Nathan said, his voice rough and shaky, “and I’veneversaid that to another guy.”
Sasha laughed, and even that simple sound made Nathan tremble a little. “I’m glad you think so,” Sasha said. He stepped out of his discarded pants to move closer.
Nathan recognized the look on Sasha’s face, all confidence and hunger. That was the same look Nathan wore when he was with a woman. He hoped he was managing a semblance of that look now, but his breath hitched when Sasha reached him, toying at the waist of his jeans with a whisper.
“Your turn.”
Nathan felt so small suddenly. Sasha was taller than him, but it was more than that. Nathan knew his butterflies had nothing to do with Sasha being an incubus or even a man. It was just that this wasSashaand that made everything different.
He felt pressure as his jeans button was undone and then heard the slow separation of metal teeth as the zipper went down. All the while Nathan stared up into Sasha’s eyes, thosetoo-blue eyes, and the way Sasha looked at him, hungry, heated, and penetrating as it was, made Nathan feel stronger.
Sasha pulled Nathan’s jeans and shorts down his body in a single slow movement, crouching all the way down when the jeans reached Nathan’s ankles so he could help him step out of them. Then Sasha was climbing back up Nathan’s body, and Nathan had to sayclimbing,because Sasha’s hands found holds everywhere, gently passing along the bandages over the wound on his leg, trailing up his thighs, his hips, his stomach, and then reaching around Nathan’s back to pull their bodies flush and steal another kiss.
There was an involuntary jerk below Nathan’s waist as their mutual erections brushed past each other. Nathan pressed harder into the kiss, and pressed his hips forward too. The friction was definitely different than what he was used to. Nathan had never been enveloped before, but that’s what Sasha’s body did, larger than his own and so possessive. And then Sasha shivered—Sashashivered—and it reminded Nathan that he had just as much of an effect on the incubus as the other way around.
Nathan pulled enough away while still maintaining their kiss to slide a shaky hand down Sasha’s chest and keep going. He paused at the groove of Sasha’s well-defined hip bone, but only for a moment. As Nathan’s hand passed into coarse hair, he couldn’t help smirking.
“I guess you weren’t lying about that fire engine red hair after all,” Nathan whispered, just about the time his fingers curled around Sasha and gave a gentle pull.
A gasp left the incubus that sounded suspiciously like relief and his forehead fell gently against Nathan’s. A few non-syllables trying to pass for words answered Nathan’s tease, and Sasha tried to continue kissing with softer, light touches of their lips as if he was unable to function any more than that.
