by Amy Lane
Edward sat up and clutched Mullins’s hand. “Is it provisioned?”
“It will be by the time you get there,” she said sweetly, and Leonard assumed the faraway look he often got when practicing his own magic. She came forward then, and blessed them both with a kiss on the forehead. “Make the most of your time,” she cautioned. “Mullins, I think you’re right. I think this is far from over. I have an idea of who gave us this chance for you and Edward to know each other, but I do not know why. Take nothing for granted, my children, are we clear?”
“Yes, Emma,” Edward said, sober and practical as always.
She smiled faintly and ruffled his hair, motherhood written in every line of her face. “Maybe get some sleep,” she told them. “If you can find the time.”
She made to take a step back, but before her foot even landed, Mullins and Edward were deposited, without ceremony, in the front room of the small cabin where Edward had first kissed him, less than a month before.
The Time We Stole
EDWARD TOOK a breath and yawned to make his ears pop.
“I am going to have to learn that damned spell,” he muttered, looking around the little cabin. It hadn’t changed much since he and Mullins had met there to plan. He was pretty sure Emma had it cleaned every so often—maybe if they left out beer and forwent the blackberry pie, they could lure the brownies back.
“Why haven’t you?” Mullins asked, and Edward spared a moment to smile at him. He was still so beautiful—his eyes were that lovely lake blue, his mouth soft and sweet. His hair—dark and chestnut—fell across a poet’s brow, and he had a tendency to bite his lower lip as a man, which was something he’d not done as a beast.
“It makes no sense,” Edward murmured. “It relies on instinct and partial guesswork, and Harry keeps trying to teach me that, but I don’t understand.” They were standing still in the circle of each other’s arms. They’d not stopped touching since Mullins had shown up in the living room, surprised and desperately happy to be there. Edward had felt every emotion radiating from him—incredulity, joy, surprise.
And now, as Edward took in his very human face and body, shyness.
Edward took a step in to touch him again when Mullins said, “I must wash.”
“I’m… okay, why?”
Mullins shook his head. “I smell like hell,” he said, twisting his lips. “Don’t tell me you can’t smell it.”
Sulfur, brimstone—things that Mullins had always worn on his skin.
What would he smell like when they’d been washed away?
“Let me help you,” Edward said, thinking of the intimate possibilities.
But Mullins shook his head, his expression serious and sad. “Please, Edward—I was barely starting to hope, and now this. Let me feel myself as a man and not a beast. That way I can remember how to please you as a man. Please?”
Edward nodded, understanding. He took a step in and captured Mullins’s chin. “You cannot wash away four hundred years there,” he cautioned. “You can’t wash away who you are. Soap your hair, your tight spaces—I’ll be in bed, waiting.”
This Mullins had fair skin, and a heated flush spread along his cheekbones. “I don’t want to… to spread my hell to your bed,” he said, pulling his dignity around him.
Edward leaned forward and took his mouth hard, relieved when Mullins opened to him on a soft gasp.
He tasted like wine—a dark red—and like chocolate, and Edward could have gotten drunk on his kisses alone. He pressed the kiss, pushing Mullins back from the center of the room, toward the bed in the corner, and he was disappointed but not surprised when Mullins stopped and made a stand.
“Please,” he panted, hands on Edward’s shoulders, fingers kneading as much as his palms were keeping Edward back. “Please let me do this for you.” He looked to the side, his mouth twisted bitterly. “You’re literally bailing me out of hell,” he said softly. “Can I just not bring it into our bed?”
“Five minutes,” Edward told him, jaw set. “You won’t be any cleaner in thirty than you will be in five. My arms ache for you, Mullins. For years I’ve barely dared to dream and now here’s my dream—and he’s got a pressing need to go shower. Five minutes.” Edward took a step back, reminding himself that if Mullins was not comfortable, what they were about to do wouldn’t be comfortable. “Please,” he whispered, running his fingertips along Mullins’s jawline. “Think of me out here, waiting for you, naked. Make it quick.”
Mullins made a desperate sound and turned and fled. Edward made good to his word and stripped down to his skin, and then slid between the covers. He reached into the drawer and pulled out a bottle of lubricant that he personally had stocked the place with after their last meeting, hoping for this exact moment.
Edward liked to be prepared.
He lay there, cotton quilt protecting him from the worst of the dampness and the cold of the room, his hand traveling up and down his body, sensitizing his skin, making himself ready. His fingers found his own nipples in anticipation, and he pinched softly, then harder, as he gave himself over to pleasure.
This new Mullins, this human man, was younger than Edward had expected—he must have been achingly vulnerable when seduced into the world of hell. His smile was shy and a little bit needy, and Edward wanted to give in to his every need.
Shelter him from anything that might hurt him.
He closed his eyes and ran his hand down his abdomen, his cock swelling heavy against his thigh as he did so. As if in a trance, he heard the bathroom door open, and he inhaled lightly, taking in the scent of Emma’s specially made family body wash—lavender and leather, clean and light and incongruously male.
“Starting without me?” Mullins asked, sounding a little hurt, and Edward rolled to his back, pulling back the covers.
“Acquainting myself with the equipment,” he said soberly, grasping his cock in his palm and squeezing. “It’s been a while.”
“Has it been 400 years?” Mullins asked archly, and Edward smiled at him. He’d wrapped a towel around his waist, and his skin was flushed pink from the hot water.
“You’re the one who had to shower.” Edward’s playful expression softened. “Is the smell completely gone?” he asked.
Mullins closed his eyes and shook his head. “I might always smell a little bit of hell,” he confessed. “I’m not good enough for my boy.”
Edward sat up, reaching for him and pulling him close to the bed by his fingertips on Mullins’s backside. “Can I touch it?” he asked, feeling the restless swish of the thing by his knuckles.
“Not now,” Mullins begged. “Do you want me to drop my towel?”
Edward met his eyes. “I’ll die if you don’t.”
The towel was gone. Edward closed his eyes, kissing his naked thigh, the space under his navel, his hipbone.
Clean, bare skin met his lips—but no beastly fur. No magic guise. No shifting between what was under his hands and lips and reality. Mullins knotted human fingers in his hair and tilted his head up.
“All that about losing the towel…,” he joked.
Edward grinned. “Get down here in bed with me,” he ordered, scooting back and turning to his side.
“Fine,” Mullins said, obeying. “What are we doing?”
Edward grinned at him, shivering. “Me. I’m doing. I’m touching you. Your male human body. I want to celebrate it.” He cupped Mullins’s shoulder in wonder, ran his palm down a developed tricep, around his elbow, to the tips of his long artist’s fingers. “Look at that. Hands. We really are a marvel of design.” He pulled Mullins’s hand to his mouth and proceeded to take each finger, one by one, between his lips, where he sucked on it and released it with a nibble at the end.
Mullins let out a little groan, hips wiggling, as Edward scraped the pad of his thumb with sharp teeth. Perfect.
Edward wanted to pleasure him, making him so comfortable in his human body that his soul couldn’t even conceive of being trapped in hell again.
&n
bsp; “I want to touch you… oh!” Edward moved closer, nibbling his chin, his jaw, his neck. All that skin—soft and human—so forbidden, so hidden from sight for so long, touching it with his lips and tongue was the most erotic of acts.
Mullins slid his hands along Edward’s arms, shuddering at their nakedness, Edward was sure.
It was why every touch made him tremble.
He pulled a nipple into his mouth and suckled, the taste of wine and chocolate suffusing his senses. Mullins cried out, arching his hips against Edward, and came without warning, his semen scalding Edward’s stomach as he pulled.
Edward ignored it.
Edward had been abstinent for five years—his body was primed and ready.
Mullins had been void of human touch in time that could be measured in centuries. His skin was an organ ripe for the playing, and every touch would produce a new note.
“Edward!” Mullins panted. “I… oh hells… oh… oh gods! Augh! Again!”
This time his entire body convulsed as his cock spat come, and Edward pulled away and licked a lazy circle around a pink areola.
“How you doing?” he asked, his body on high alert just from bringing Mullins off. “You have a few more of those in you?”
He gave the nipple a pull and started to lick his way down Mullins’s belly, pausing when he came to patches of semen. He licked them up, almost laughing when they tasted like merlot and chocolate too.
“You have words yet?” he asked, peering up to see Mullins’s expression.
“No words,” Mullins choked. “What are you—oh!”
Edward took him into his mouth, cleaning him off with happy abandon. Ah! He’d forgotten how good a man tasted on his palate, the joy of that presence stretching his mouth. He pushed forward, taking Mullins deeper and deeper into his throat, aware of the tug of Mullins’s fingers in his hair as he sucked hard, once, twice, again—
“Augh!”
Sweet.
The taste of a man’s spend, hot and salty, spilling down his throat. Mullins cried out again and again, his entire body spasming as he lost control and gave in to human touch for the first time in centuries.
Finally he battered weakly at Edward’s shoulders, and Edward scooted up in bed so he could rest his head on Mullins’s chest. He stayed there for a moment, soothing, patting Mullins’s abdomen, quieting him as he shuddered the last of the orgasm out.
“Oh heavens,” Mullins mumbled. “I’m so weak. I had… I had no idea. Every touch, it’s magnified a thousand times. I could come again just by stroking your hair.”
Edward rolled slightly to the side and traced his mouth with a gentle finger. “Is that bad?” he asked, biting his lip with joy.
“I… you’re not getting much out of it.”
Edward sobered. “Oh, my love. I’m getting to touch you. The real you. I’m getting to hear your sounds and taste you. This is a prelude—this is getting the awkwardness out of the way. I’m going to drape myself all over your body until you get used to the idea of wearing me like a shirt. When every touch doesn’t send you into a spiral of orgasm, then I’m going to show you what it feels like when you can control yourself, when you can let the passion take over.”
Mullins looked away. “Honestly, I’m sort of in this position because that’s what I did.”
Edward rolled over to prop himself up on his elbows. “Really? That’s wonderful! You went to hell for lust?”
Mullins shook his head, a small smile twisting at his sober mouth. “No. I went to hell for….” He sighed, and Edward’s heart ached. “The consequences of perfidy,” he said at last. “I went to hell because an otherworldly being showed up at my window and I thought that gave me leave to betray a lover who truly cared for me. He… he was hurt. He told the entire town the devil showed up at my window, and….” He shuddered. “They burned down my house and chased me and my sister into the night. I called on the forces of hell to save my sister, since it was my own weakness that put her in danger.”
“Ah.”
Mullins turned back to him. “I… I put off telling you that,” he confessed. “I… there you were, going to all that trouble to get me out, and I might not be a good bet as a lover. Now you know.”
“Know that you were young and confused and frightened?” Edward asked softly. “I’d already guessed that.”
“I was unfaithful, Edward,” Mullins said baldly. “I—”
“Will you be faithful to me?” Edward asked, knowing the simplicity of the question was what Mullins needed to calm his fears.
“I’d die before I hurt you,” he answered, as though honestly shocked. “I can’t… I’d die.” And something in his brow relaxed then, his chest, his neck, as though he’d been holding on to the last of the tension a good climax should relieve. “I’d die before I hurt you,” he said again, and Edward moved up so he could pull his lover into his chest and let him weep softly, for the sins he’d committed long ago and still held tight to his heart.
“Mullins,” Edward whispered after his quiet sobs had stilled. “I’m falling asleep.”
“Me too.”
“Good. Sleep. I trust you in my bed, naked next to me. We’ll have more lessons when we wake.”
“Lessons?” Mullins struggled back to gaze up at Edward with tear-reddened eyes.
Edward wiped traces of brine from his cheek. “Human lessons,” he said, popping his thumb in his mouth to savor the salt. “This was only the beginning of lovemaking. This was the glory of touch. There is so much more. But sleep for now. Heal. Know you’re cared for.” Edward closed his eyes and carefully set up every ward and protection Emma had ever taught him. “Know we’re safe here. There is so much for us to share together before we finish this quest. Don’t fear, don’t ever fear, that I’ll be done with you.”
Mullins nodded weakly, and Edward sheltered him again in the haven of his arms. His body was tingling with unfinished release, and his cock throbbed against his thigh. These were small prices to pay, though, for knowing his lover was safe, was replete, and was learning how to be human again so they might share their more than mortal lifetimes together.
They were hardly payments at all.
HE AWAKENED to Mullins’s touch, featherlight, over his chest, and kept his eyes closed so as to not startle him.
“I know you’re awake,” Mullins murmured, kissing his shoulder.
“Pretend I’m asleep,” Edward told him, his lips quirking up.
“Why?”
“So you won’t be afraid to touch me just a wee bit harder. You’re going to tickle.”
Mullins let out a grunt that should have been a laugh, and Edward realized that he had heard his laugh that day, when talking about the brownies—and that it had been the first time.
He opened his eyes and returned Mullins’s caress along the curve of his jaw. “Laugh more,” he whispered.
Mullins ducked his head behind his bicep. “There is no laughter—no good, pure laughter—in hell.”
“You’re here now.”
Mullins sobered. “For how long—”
“Don’t,” Edward said, his chest suddenly aching. “Don’t… don’t assume this will end. Hope. I begged you to hope when we went looking for the list—did you?”
A shy smile tugged at Mullins’s lips. “Not at first,” he admitted. “But hells, Edward—the things you five did for me! Dinosaur toes and red grains of sand and… just everything! I… I was a part of it, I guess. I saw it. All of you. They love you so much, and… and….”
“And I love you,” Edward prompted. It could not be said enough. “I forgot, you know. That they’d do anything for me. It wasn’t until I started artifact hunting and Harry called me to task that I remembered. Getting Harry and Suriel together was a full-family project too.”
Mullins met his eyes soberly. “You were so worried.”
“Oh yes.” Edward nodded. “And they were worried about me and you. And they still are. You were in hell for four hundred years for infidelity, Mul
lins. Can you come out long enough to remember why to be faithful?”
“I am out!” He ducked his head again, and Edward brushed the chestnut strands from his forehead.
“Kiss me,” he whispered. “Kiss me until our bodies forget the fear.”
Mullins looked up, searching Edward’s eyes with his own, and pushed up, claiming Edward’s mouth this time, taking his advantage.
Edward relaxed back against the pillows, taking Mullins’s tongue into his mouth, letting him pillage, inviting his plunder. Mullins’s light touch grew firmer, strong, his palm and fingers mapping all the skin they could find.
Mullins stopped with a gasp when he found a scar across Edward’s ribs. “I remember this,” he said, moving so he could kiss it. “You damned kids didn’t wait for me. You summoned me and went in first and….” He mouthed the scar, and Edward bucked up, remembering how angry Mullins had been when Harry had carried Edward out of the melee where they’d just broken up a child pornography operation. No man had been left to stop them, but Edward had needed Suriel’s healing that time.
Mullins had stayed by Edward’s side until Suriel’s glow became overwhelming. They hadn’t known what would happen if both of them were summoned at the same time—but Edward remembered the anguish on his face as he’d faded.
“I’m fine,” Edward whispered, threading fingers through his hair. Mullins moved up to take Edward’s nipple into his mouth, and Edward gasped. “I’m even better than fine.”
Mullins didn’t answer, just suckled as Edward had, until Edward cried out and tugged hard at his hair.
“You like that?” Mullins whispered.
“Very much. But it’s not what you want to do to me.”
“It’s not all I want to do to you,” Mullins agreed, moving unerringly toward Edward’s thickened, dripping cock.
He moaned as he took it into his mouth, and Edward threw his head back, eyes fluttering closed. Oh! Yes—somebody had taught Mullins how to do this and do it well. He teased the head with his tongue, he teased the frenulum, he stroked with his fist.
