Tris bit at his neck; pushed his shirt up to palm over his chest, and tweak his nipples.
Francis arched back into him, murmuring wordless encouragement, hips moving in a way that Tris was helpless but to echo.
Francis wanted it rough, he knew; hard, and unforgiving. A persistent fantasy, then: to be held down and taken mercilessly, to be shown that he was the weaker of the two.
But coming through what he had, wanting to stay, getting up again and again, no matter how many times he hit the mat; pushing back against every one of Tristan’s stupid, fearful protests – that was a strength that Tris didn’t know if he had the power to put into words.
And he would only be forceful if he was assured that Francis knew how much he admired and adored him, first.
He cupped his exposed throat with his whole hand, felt the fluttering pulse there, and slid the other down his belly toward his waistband.
“Do you have any idea,” Tris whispered, right in his ear, “how much I love you?”
Francis gasped. Twisted his head for a clumsy kiss at an awkward angle.
Then he covered Tris’s hand with his own, and urged it down.
He ended up getting exactly what he wanted, right there on the gym floor, because, finally, Tris understood that the fear of not having it was far more painful than the fear of eventually losing it.
Some things were too wonderful to hold back from.
vii.
“Does it hurt?”
“No,” Francis said, voice laced with wonder, as he rotated his hand in the air before his face. The black, metal-seeming stuff of his new arm gleamed faintly beneath the lights. The joints looked fused – there was no daylight in the lighter gray lines that marked the knuckles, and wrist, and the bend of each finger – but the hand moved eerily like a real one. No click of plates, no hum of servos.
They were in Francis’s dorm, standing in the cramped space between the desk and bed, the door closed, and Tris’s heart was still racing with residual panic. When the conduit had touched him…when Francis had hissed in pain…
Well, Tris had nearly done something stupid.
But Francis said it didn’t hurt, and he couldn’t seem to stop smiling; he laughed every so often, a soft, awed huff of breath as he waggled his fingers, gave a thumbs up, shot the bird.
“Hey,” Tris said, in response to the last.
Francis laughed again, belly-deep, and loud, and more carefree than he’d sounded in weeks. His gaze lifted to meet Tris’s finally, glittering and delighted. “Isn’t it amazing?”
He had to smile back. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. But…”
Francis cocked his head, fondly put-out. “But?”
“But I don’t see how it’s possible.”
“Possible?” The fingers gave another waggle. “It’s magic. Heavenly magic, even. It’s mystic. Morgan is an angel in a little girl’s body – why would it seem possible, you goof?”
Tris had been called many things in his life, but never goof.
He made a sour face that had Francis laughing again.
And then that new, metallic, impossible hand reached out, alongside the flesh one. Both landed on his face; cupped his jaw and drew him in closer, so that Francis could rest their foreheads together.
Tris held very still.
“Is it freaking you out to touch it?” Francis asked, the new thumb rasping against his beard.
He took a moment to reflect, seriously. When he opened his mouth, he said, “It’s warm.”
“Isn’t it? It’s the temperature of real skin when I touch myself with it.”
“Smooth, though.”
“Hm. Too smooth?”
“No, it’s – it’s fine.” He took a big breath. Use your words, meathead. “And if it lets you stay on active duty” – though the idea terrified him – “and it makes you happy” – which it obviously did – “then I’m all for it.”
The laugh that Francis breathed against his lips was soft, and sweet, and brimming with emotion. “There’s something they never managed to put in the magazines.”
“What’s that?”
“What an absolute sweetheart you are.” Francis kissed him. And then grabbed the front of his shirt with the new hand; fisted it tight. Tugged him forward, a little, which sent a jolt all the way down Tris’s spine, and kindled warmth in his belly. “Now take me to the gym. I dare you to try and pin me now.”
And, well, who was Sir Tristan Mayweather to refuse a dare like that?
Fin
*Look for book three of the Hell Theory Series*
*Coming Soon*
Mystic Wonderful : A Hell Theory Novella Page 9
