Autumn: A Crow City Side Story

by Cole McCade

  Joseph let both his crutches fall, and curled his hands to frame Wally’s throat, stroking down the sleek column and following the path of his bloodstream. He felt it: how Wally’s heart raced, his carotid throbbing under Joseph’s touch, and when Wally let out a low, gasping moan and tangled his fingers in Joseph’s hair, Joseph bit down on his lower lip and suckled until that ripeness swelled and pulsed against his tongue, until Wally tasted just right and that moan turned into a breaking cry, erotic and crackling with wildfire heat.

  Struggling to breathe, he pulled back, leaning into Wally and fighting for words, fighting for thought when his blood was rising hot and he could think of nothing but the lithe body pressed against his own, nothing but a need that had been pent up for so long he could ignore it no longer.

  “Get in the house,” he rasped. “Right now.”

  Wally inhaled a hitching breath, his dazed, dilated eyes widening. “J-Joseph…?”

  Joseph couldn’t stop his smile. He thought he might burst with the warmth flooding through him, and he curled his hand against Wally’s hip, jerking him close. Pressing into him, and letting him feel exactly what Wally did to him. Wally and Wally alone, and God he didn’t want to waste it, not after so many lost unconscious days, not when his body was rested enough to finally cooperate, not when Wally melted into him so perfectly and clutched at him with his eyes so dark and startled and burning with need.

  “I’m feeling better. I’d like to find out how much better,” Joseph growled. “I want you, Walford. Get. In. The. House.”

  He’d expected a flippant comment. A demurral. A shy, stammering deflection.

  But Wally only looked at him, his lips enticingly parted, his breaths a shallow rush of sound.

  Then he pulled away, fingers trailing lightly down Joseph’s chest before falling as he stepped back. A single look that pulled hard on the core of Joseph’s need, and Wally was walking away, the glide of his steps and roll of his hips graceful, alluring, and Joseph barely remembered to capture his crutches again when those rolling hips had him by the lead and drew him on. That wild, unspeakable thing was running riot in his heart again, twining with the desire in his blood until he was nearly drunk, dizzy.

  He couldn’t give a name to that emotion. Not yet. Not now.

  But he’d make sure Walford felt it with every inch of his body, by the time Joseph was done.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  WALLY BARELY MADE IT INTO the house, into the bedroom, before he was on his back and completely lost—arching, gasping, shaking down to his very bones as Joseph’s kiss spun through him with a slow and luscious burn that turned every place that sinful mouth touched into a point of raw fire, sensation too stark and vivid and shockingly sensuous. He wasn’t even wholly sure how he’d even gotten here, when this morning he’d been changing Joseph’s IV and checking him for fever—but somehow low words and promising glances had become grasping, desperate hands and gasping mouths and the ferocity of a needy, claiming kiss.

  Once, the concepts of desire and pleasure had been distant memories, dulled by time and loss and the ache of bitterness, consigned to the shadows until he’d told himself they’d never been that much to begin with, merely paltry echoes of sensation that came and went with the brevity of a feeble spark. Yet as Joseph tumbled him back to the sheets, as the rough, thick, firmly capable hands of a craftsman tore at his shirt and slipped against his skin, the sparks of memory became a full-blown inferno. Callused palms abraded, scraping through that dulling filter to turn his body incandescent, and when that burning caress splayed over his sensitive rib cage he arched, twisting underneath Joseph’s bulk, caught and tangled and unable to escape the rush of clashing sensations that threatened to push him into sensory overload.

  Joseph’s mouth on his throat, sucking and wet and hot, branding his skin with a throbbing mark of pain, searing its way downward to leave marks along his collarbones, burning-sharp bites. Joseph’s body, spread over his, thick corded muscle moving tight and fiery and hard beneath Joseph’s clothing with the coiling and sinewy strength of a dragon. Joseph’s hands, exploring and lingering wherever Wally shuddered, wherever he cried out, finding every taut sensitivity in the arc of his ribs and the hollow of his navel and the dip of his collarbone and the hardening, tingling peaks of his nipples.

  And Joseph’s cock, pressed hard between them, a heavy and pulsing thing straining against the confines of Joseph’s jeans and moving against Wally’s hips until he saw bright stars, his vision flashing, as every racing throb of his heartbeat concentrated lower and lower until every burst of pleasure centralized in a single aching point of arousal.

  When those taut, muscular hips rolled, when Joseph’s thighs flanked him and pinned him, Wally choked back a whimper, writhing underneath him as wild shudders overtook him and lifted him as if he were a puppet controlled by this sudden and maddened desire, pulling his strings until he twisted and rolled his hips with luxuriant abandon, losing himself in the rhythm of friction and every sharp-shocking jolt of pleasure that made his cock throb so hard it bordered on pain.

  “God,” Joseph hissed. “Stop that. Fucking stop that or I’m not going to last five seconds.”

  Hard hands grasped Wally’s hips, pinning him down, holding him still. He opened his eyes, looking up at Joseph; the man swam in his vision, blurred in a haze of desire, yet it was impossible to mistake the wildness in his eyes, something fervent and possessed, as if he could consume Wally with a single look. That look rocked him, left him raw, when he had never thought to have any man look at him this way again—least of all this one, this man he had wanted for longer than he could even begin to remember.

  Am I dreaming? he wondered, when nothing made sense except the heat of their bodies and the taste of Joseph on his lips—only for the searing bite of Joseph’s mouth against his nipple to shock him back to reality with a cry, his voice breaking like glass in his throat.

  “Oh,” he gasped, digging his fingers into Joseph’s hair. “Oh, dear.”

  Joseph stilled. That tormenting mouth left Wally’s flesh, leaving his nipple tingling and peaking as cool air tickled at the dampness on his skin. Joseph pushed himself up on both arms, looking down at Wally flatly, the corners of his mouth twitching.

  “Really? Really,” he panted roughly, half-growling. “I’m doing everything I can to curl your toes, and all you can say is ‘oh dear.’”

  Wally blinked. “I’m sorry? I—I’m a bit flustered…”

  Fierce, sharp, gaze sparking, Joseph grinned. “Shut it,” he rumbled, then sank down atop Wally again, hard weight crushing him into the bed.

  Joseph leaned in, brushing their noses together, his mouth ghosting over Wally’s but never quite touching, until Wally strained up with a whimper, seeking that warmth with a quiet, craving hunger. But Joseph fisted a hand in his hair, rough strength used so gently, so carefully, stilling him so that Joseph could seal his mouth to Wally’s, kissing him with a depth and languor that stroked him open in layers, made him into a sweet thing to be licked and licked and licked down to its most delicious core.

  “Don’t ruin this, weirdo,” Joseph whispered against Wally’s mouth, low with teasing laughter.

  And before Wally could retort, Joseph kissed him again, chasing every thought from his mind and leaving only a pleasure so intoxicating he rode a dizzying high each time their tongues teased and bodies slid together in a slow and fluid cadence. As if they had become a melody of interlacing notes, ebbing and swelling in tandem, the push and pull between them becoming a strange ephemeral dance of touch and taste and rising heat melding in delicate counterpart, music made in flesh as much as voices that gave rise to sighs and whispers and moans. Each time Joseph touched him, Wally sank deeper into pleasure, deeper into this bursting emotion that had been building for so very long and only now found outlet, until he thought he would explode with the fullness of it.

  He needed this like he needed breath—but he wasn’t prepared for the moment when Joseph’s ha
nd strayed lower, when the buckle of Wally’s belt slipped away so easily, when his slacks parted and thick, coaxing fingers teased their way inside his clothing. He wasn’t ready for the touch of skin to skin; he wasn’t ready for that coarse palm to encircle his cock, enveloping him in a friction that scoured his senses and tore a gasp from his throat. And he wasn’t ready for Joseph’s exploring touches, that testing, teasing caress that played over the length of his cock with maddening lightness at first, only to gain in confidence with every new stroke, every spot Joseph found that quaked through Wally with an intensity that bordered on pain and left him moving wildly beneath Joseph with his breaths harsh in his throat and his fingers grasping desperately at the tangled sheets.

  Joseph made a thoughtful, curious sound. “So it’s not so different, is it?” he murmured. “Touching a man this way. If I know what feels good…” He deliberately traced the underside of Wally’s cock with just the tips of his nails, following the thick, sensitive ridge of the vein beneath, and Wally’s pulse labored and raced, a shudder racking him as he bucked his hips as if he could escape the torment of pleasure that flirted back and forth between too much and not enough, the pain of it taut and as thrilling as the satisfied, possessive rumble in Joseph’s voice. “…then I know what makes you feel good.”

  “Oh God—” Wally tossed against the bed, clutching at Joseph’s forearms. His body was a wild thing thrashing against his control, straining against the traces of his willpower when it had been so long and he’d needed this touch so much that everything in him reached for it, leaped for it, grasped at what hovered out of reach when he wanted nothing more than for this to last forever. “Oh, God—Joseph, love, please, I can’t stand this anymore. I…I need you, Joseph…”

  An odd silence settled over Joseph. His grip firmed on Wally’s cock, grasping to the point of pain, pushing him toward that gasping, struggling, helpless edge, captured in a vise of sheer and utter torment as Joseph stroked over him so slowly, so cruelly, maddening pressure that shaped his pleasure in the image of those rough fingers’ imprint and branded every inch of Wally with painful fire.

  “Do you mean it?” Joseph demanded, hissing and low. “Do you mean it?”

  Wally forced his eyes open, forced himself to look at Joseph when all he wanted was to abandon himself to this, let himself be swept away. But something strange lit Joseph’s eyes, something fierce and burning-bright, something that burned into Wally and demanded his…

  Everything.

  Every piece of his body, every whisper of his heart. Every truth of the love he had held silent and close for all these years, secret no longer and standing unspoken between them.

  “I need to know that you mean it.” Rough, desperate, Joseph’s voice barely a panting whisper. “I need to know that you’re not just pandering.”

  “Joseph…”

  It was hard to find words, hard to take everything inside him and give it to Joseph in such neat little sensible packages when the man was scattering his senses apart and throwing his thoughts to the wind, but he reached up to catch Joseph’s face in his palms, drew him down, kissed him until Joseph’s mouth went soft and wet and slack against his and he wasn’t sure whose needy moan bled between them but it didn’t matter when their mouths together tasted so right, so heady, so perfect.

  “I would never,” Wally whispered into those tempting lips. “Look at me. Look how mad you’ve driven me. This is all for you. Only you. I love you.”

  That punishing grip eased. Joseph braced himself against the bed, and his lips trembled against Wally’s, turning their kiss into the flutter of falling feathers, echoing the sensation in the pit of Wally’s stomach.

  “Walford…” Joseph leaned into him hard, breathing raggedly. “I can’t think straight.”

  “Don’t think. Simply…be with me.”

  Joseph’s answer came not in words, but in another crashing, desperate, hungry kiss; in the fit of their bodies, as Joseph tore Wally’s slacks and boxers away, tossed them aside, then sank down atop him and pinned him to the bed. Those knowing, capable hands parted Wally’s thighs with a rough grip hooked beneath his knees and a sudden sharp jerk that locked them together just right—until they pressed hip to hip and Wally could only clasp his thighs against Joseph’s sides as they moved, and everything inside him cried out to that rough, hungry rhythm one step short of what he truly craved. Denim against his bare skin brought agony, brought erotic bursts of sensation, and through the fabric Joseph was hard and hot and pressing into him until Wally arched his back and spread his legs wider and begged without words for more.

  Joseph clutched at him, dug his fingers into Wally’s bottom, kneading and pulling him deeper into every slow-rocking thrust, and the low deep sounds he made into their kiss turned Wally inside out with the sheer heady eroticism of them, this quiet, reserved man reduced to these uncontrolled noises of desire because of Wally, with Wally, for Wally.

  And with another of those sounds, Joseph broke back, gasping desperately. “Fuck. I’ve never—don’t we need…” He lifted his head, looking somewhere beyond Wally, then reached over him toward the nightstand. “That’ll work.”

  Wally tilted his head back, but couldn’t quite see what Joseph was doing. “What are you—”

  Joseph drew his hand back.

  Then slicked, oiled fingers glided over Wally’s bottom, slipped into the cleft, stroked silky and promising against his skin before pressing firmly against his entrance.

  “Oh!” He rose up off the bed, grasping wildly at Joseph’s shoulders, heat flushing through him and radiating from that single touch in intimately sharp shocks; this was bloody indecent and he shouldn’t be—shouldn’t be—oh, but he couldn’t stop, not when Joseph pressed and stroked and circled as if he held the controls to Wally’s body in his fingertips, and manipulated them so expertly that Wally could do nothing but surrender to every vibrant, shivering rush. “Joseph—Joseph!”

  “Say my name that way again.” Again that possessive growl, as the pressure of circling fingertips grew, searching, teasing, threatening. “So I can give you reasons to never stop.”

  Then an ounce more pressure…and Joseph’s fingers slipped inside.

  Wally nearly screamed—curses, Joseph’s name, he didn’t even know anymore. He wasn’t ready for one, let alone two, but those rough, thick fingers were already working into him, and his body clenched and locked and captured that touch until his world centered on the slickened strokes that filled every crevice of his inner self and touched the deepest points of pleasure hidden within. He strained off the bed as Joseph’s fingers slid deeper, deeper, working into his flesh until he filled him by another inch and another and another. Until thick fingers seated in him to the root; until Joseph twisted them, stroking from within and pushing Wally to sobbing cries as every spiraling touch wound him up tighter until he was coiled and ready to fly apart.

  “Are you ready?” Joseph whispered, something demanding and heady in his voice, something that pushed the anticipation inside Wally to fever pitch. “Or do you want to play a little more?”

  “Asshole,” Wally swore, only for Joseph to punish him with a thrust of probing fingers, spearing deep and sending him spinning, gasping, melting, moaning.

  “What was that?”

  “Ah—ah!” Wally tossed his head back against the pillows, cursing through grit teeth. “You’re…you’re a bloody fucking asshole; stop teasing me!”

  “But you’re beautiful like this.”

  Soft, reverent, as those maddening fingers withdrew, leaving Wally room to breathe, to think. He opened his eyes, only to find Joseph looking down at him the way he’d only looked in Wally’s dreams: brown eyes dark and warm and completely enraptured, taking him in as if swallowing him into the night of his darkest, most intimate thoughts. Wally’s heart leaped; no matter how his body might cry and strain and beg, no matter how his desire might wrap him in its tangled and cutting threads, it was this love that made this everything he had ever wa
nted, everything he had ever needed.

  “If you could only see yourself,” Joseph breathed, and traced the pad of his thumb along Wally’s jaw. “You’re always so controlled. So calm. So smooth. But right now…you’re undone. I’ve undone you. You’re a mess, swearing at me with your skin so flushed and your hair a tangle across the pillow—and I’ve never seen you so goddamned beautiful.”

  The pleasure that sang through him at those words was too much to bear. “Joseph.” Wally pushed himself up on shaking arms and brushed his lips to Joseph’s, to taste that confession against his skin. “Be with me. Please. Don’t draw this out any longer.”

  For a moment, Joseph leaned into him, kissing him deeper, tracing his mouth with the tip of his tongue until Wally’s lips tingled and he forgot everything else.

  Then Joseph tumbled them both over, and the world flashed by in a twisting rush before Wally found himself atop Joseph, those sure, firm hands guiding him, gripping him, settling him astride Joseph’s hips until he straddled that broad body while Joseph looked up at him with fire in his eyes and possession in his touch.

  “Do it,” Joseph growled. One hand slipped between them, the backs of coarse knuckles brushing Wally’s arousal and rousing a startled cry, before Joseph unzipped his jeans and freed the thick ridge of his cock. Hard, heated flesh pressed up against Wally, gliding along the length of his shaft in delicious caresses before Joseph lifted him up, held him astride, nudged the pulsing head of his cock against the cleft of Wally’s bottom. “Do it to yourself.”