by R. Cooper
But Trenne didn’t mean that, so Taji made himself smile.
“A pillow or two,” he revealed, “underneath me.”
Trenne immediately reached for some. Taji scrambled to lift his hips in time for Trenne to position them, not expecting that level of speed. He should have. This was Trenne’s dream. Not a wild, rough fucking but the service of an eshe.
“What else?” Trenne asked while settling Taji onto his pillows and petting Taji’s thighs as though he couldn’t help himself.
Taji stretched to capture a lock of wet hair and Trenne leaned over him, inquisitive and worried, eyes still so, so bright with the fever the hunt had brought on.
“More lube would be good,” Taji said on a sigh. “Though I’m out so I don’t—”
Trenne nodded and left him and the bed to dig through one of his bags. He held a personal supply kit aloft the way Larin would have held up a trophy and then dropped it after removing a small tube.
Personal supply kits were tailored in response to how someone filled out their health forms. At Taji’s assignment to the moon, he had been given hair removal supplies, tons of skin and hair oil for moisturizing, the standard infertility and abortifacient pills that everyone got, and a supply of low-level pain meds.
Which was why he gasped now to see what Trenne had in his. “That had better not be standard issue for IPTC soldiers. I didn’t get that!”
“You may have mine,” Trenne told him earnestly, evidently intoxicated on the idea of sharing with Taji.
Taji watched with wide eyes as Trenne came back to him. Trenne popped the cap and spilled a sizable amount of lube into his palms. He replaced the cap and put the tube down with care, then swept the lube over his cock with several slow, sure strokes. He picked up the tube again.
Taji put a hand to his chest as if that was going to help him now. He had a sudden vision of Trenne fingering him for hours and thought he might faint. But he didn’t say anything when Trenne added more slick to his fingers, once again put the tube down, and stood at the edge of the bed between Taji’s bent legs.
“If we….” Taji was strained “If we stay this way, it won’t be as uncomfortable for my hip. It should feel better, after.” He had never been so exposed in his life, naked and scarred, small and human. He’d already taken Trenne’s cock; he could only imagine how he looked to Trenne now.
Hungry, his mind supplied. Exactly as a shehzha should.
“This way,” Trenne said, not disagreeing. He placed a hand on one of Taji’s knees. He was as gentle with the lube as he’d promised, not that it mattered. Taji was keyed up and sensitive. At the first brush against his rim, Taji jumped, then sighed and closed his eyes. Trenne pushed his fingers in easily, but slowly.
Taji shifted and bit his lip, then realized he didn’t have to be quiet. He moved his legs again, spreading them a little wider, lifting his hips, and Trenne hummed, pleased. His fingers would have been more than enough to make Taji come. Taji took them, grasping the bedding and rocking forward while Trenne worked more lube into him.
Graceful, competent Trenne moved his other hand to Taji’s cock, his touch slick and rough on the tip, firm once he started applying pressure. Taji turned his head to pant and then whine as his prick swelled in Trenne’s hand.
“They were lucky, whoever you had before,” Taji growled, petulant and childish like he had never been. He put his hands over his face.
Trenne kissed the head of his cock and Taji moaned into his palms before flinging his hands dramatically back onto the bed.
“That doesn’t change anything,” he lied, and reached down to stroke himself. “You’re good at this and I’m glad,” he added, huffing. He wasn’t sure if he lied that time. He’d never been jealous before. It made him foolish.
Trenne kissed the knee of Taji’s real leg and had his ears up, alert and satisfied, while he watched Taji slowly work his cock in his fist.
“If you want me hard…” Taji explained, trailing off into a sigh when he was granted another kiss on his knee.
“All your words,” Trenne said, pinning Taji to the bed with his stare alone.
“You want those, too.” Taji arched his neck and shut his eyes because he wasn’t used to an audience when he did this. Trenne’s mouth was hot on his kneecap and then his thigh. “And I’m the greedy one?” Taji wondered, breathing too hard for that to come out playful. “I don’t mind,” he added before Trenne could try to take anything back.
“You are not capable of stopping.” It might almost have been teasing. “I worry,” Trenne confessed, low. A moment later, he bent down and pushed Taji’s hand aside to suck his cock as though he needed to hear Taji groaning to the two painted Shavians on the ceiling.
“You’re exchanging knives!” Taji realized aloud, hoping it wasn’t in a shout. He wrapped sleek hair around his fingers and ran his now-wet fingertips around the edges of Trenne’s ears and pushed up into Trenne’s mouth when Trenne grunted.
The lube Nev had given Taji had tasted chemical when Taji had tried it. That didn’t appear to bother Trenne.
“They’re trading knives. Is that a sex metaphor?” Taji demanded, talking nonsense that Trenne probably couldn’t even mentally translate right now. “They put us in a sex room. Of course, they did. They thought…they thought because I am.” He went still but only for a second. “I’m shehzha. Your shehzha, Trenne.”
Trenne took his mouth off Taji’s cock, only to drag it over Taji’s stomach. He looked up at Taji through his hair, eyes gleaming, lips parted and wet.
Taji begged. “Please.”
Trenne placed a hand down on the bed next to Taji and eased back with one graceful, lethal motion. He slipped his fingers out of Taji with care and wrapped that hand around his cock. He stared down between them as Trenne moved forward again, and Taji gulped in a breath and let it out as Trenne pushed that magnificent cock into him a second time.
Taji realized he’d thrown his head back when he opened his eyes and saw the mural again. “You gave me your knife,” he croaked, gasping at the end when Trenne stopped. “I held it while you fucked me.” Taji didn’t know his own voice, didn’t know where his hands were, couldn’t hear much above the rush in his ears. He’d intended to do something while being fucked this time, he remembered that much. But Trenne settled his hands on Taji’s hips and Taji decided that in Trenne’s mind, Taji probably wasn’t allowed to help right now. His participation was supposed to be vocal.
“A shehzha doesn’t hunt, doesn’t have a knife, so you gave me yours? In front of everyone?” Taji asked all at once, inhaling while he could. Trenne was too far away for him to touch. He ran his hands over his chest instead. Trenne said his name—no, Trenne said shehzha. Taji met that laser-focused stare. “You don’t know how this feels.”
Trenne held Taji’s hips to pull him closer. “Tell me, Taji shehzha.”
Taji made a strangled noise. “Good. Too much. More than I ever…” His muscles were shaking. “You can move now.”
Trenne took him at his word, textured palms holding Taji firm despite slippery sweat and lube. He was almost upright, only his hips moving in a gently torturous back-and-forth.
The sound that came out of Taji was barely human. His nerves were instantly alight. His brain was on fire.
“T—Trenne.” He struggled for even that.
“Good?” Trenne asked. He was breathing harder. It didn’t mean he wasn’t also amusing himself.
Taji flung his arms out on the bed, then slid a hand restlessly down his chest, drowning in sensation. “Ah,” he moaned in response. He was going to kiss the humans who taught Trenne this. He moaned again, volume rising with each slow thrust. “It’s not—” His tongue was thick and clumsy. He curled his hand around his cock and tried not to whimper. Trenne was going to kill him. Despite that, he wasn’t shutting up. “This isn’t everything.”
Trenne snapped into a faster rhythm.
Taji gasped soundlessly. His back arched as he tried to writhe but Tren
ne kept him anchored in place. He squeezed his cock—which was hard, not improbably, not with Trenne so determined—and closed his mouth tight. It didn’t work. “Trenne,” he whined. “Trenne.”
Trenne slowed again, pausing to rub soothing circles on Taji’s thighs. He leaned over to put his mouth to Taji’s skin, breathing harshly between careful, soft kisses. Taji slid his hands over Trenne’s shoulders, viciously, hotly aroused by the taut, straining muscles. He stretched his neck and tugged the fall of thick, wet hair until he had Trenne’s mouth against his.
The kiss was more of a shaky exhale against Trenne’s lips, Trenne startled but pliant. His lips were soft and tasted like lube and salt from Taji’s body. Taji tugged him closer and hitched his hips, urging Trenne that much deeper into him. One side of his body protested, but he didn’t care. He had this, Trenne groaning into a kiss and sliding over Taji as if staying distant now was too much.
It wasn’t their plan. It wasn’t careful. Taji ran his hands down Trenne’s back and dug his fingers in. He wrapped his legs around Trenne’s waist without any other thought except that this was all he wanted.
“Taji shehzha,” Trenne whispered against Taji’s throat. He brought his head up obediently when Taji tangled a hand in his hair, let Taji kiss him hard. He fucked Taji steadily, relentlessly, even when his voice was weak. “Taji shehzha.”
Taji thought he was answering, telling Trenne yes on an increasingly urgent loop, but he could have been saying anything. Trenne slid his hands back to Taji’s hips, beneath his ass. One returned to Taji’s cock. Taji growled something to the ceiling, hot and shocked. Trenne was panting—that was hot too, agonizing when Taji was nothing but nerves and pleasure.
Trenne tore the orgasm out of him bare seconds later, stroking Taji inside and out until Taji was shouting hoarsely. Taji couldn’t move with Trenne over him, couldn’t escape the cock in him, couldn’t stop clenching around it and spurting come between them.
Trenne slowed down, held still, his spine tight as a bow. He said one word, barely there, into Taji’s ear and Taji could speak again.
“Do it,” he ordered, trembling as he moved his hips. “I want it so much I can’t stand it.”
Trenne curved a sticky, shaking hand over Taji’s side. “Peha,” he whispered, and pulled almost all the way out of Taji just to drive back into him. He did it again, and again, thrusts uneven as if he didn’t want to come but couldn’t help himself.
Taji turned his head to moan and Trenne’s mouth stayed at his neck, his panting breath as much a sign of how close he was as his fierce grip on Taji’s hips. Taji was a wreck. He held onto Trenne’s shoulders and made noises that would echo down stone corridors.
He wanted them to hear.
“More than star. You are more,” he told Trenne nonsensically, a fool in love with someone beyond his reach. In his reach now, though, and for that, Taji made a mess of his hair and turned back to kiss his ear. He licked it, depraved and greedy for the groan that rumbled through Trenne’s chest, and the flex of his muscles when Trenne still tried to fight it, and when that didn’t work, Taji whispered, “Please,” and for a moment, his world was nothing but Trenne’s hands and Trenne’s breath and Trenne pinning Taji down to fill him with come.
Taji’s eyes were closed by the time most of the tension left Trenne’s back. He was mindlessly sweeping his hands all over Trenne’s body, but Trenne didn’t seem to object. Trenne put one hand to the bed, perhaps about to lift himself up, but he sank back down when Taji whined.
Taji opened his eyes to look up at the two Shavians who were all foreplay and no sex. “This really happened,” he whispered, dazed.
Trenne’s ear twitched, lightly smacking Taji’s nose.
Taji snorted, then surprised himself with a laugh.
Trenne raised his head. Taji met his stare, or tried to, through the curtain of Trenne’s hair, and then he was laughing again, his whole body shaking with it.
“Are you affected already?” Trenne asked.
Taji’s amusement faded, although not his smile. “I don’t think so.” His voice was hoarse. He couldn’t resist a glance toward the door. He hoped it was soundproofed, but doubted it was.
“You are laughing,” Trenne stated, not exactly asking, possibly hurt.
“I feel good,” Taji confessed and then felt his chest constrict when he got to witness pride and pleasure soften Trenne’s already beautiful features. If he could have, he would have run away to spare himself that memory, but it was too late. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Do you…will I do?”
Silence followed that. Taji cracked one eye, then two.
Trenne’s ears had swiveled in either direction and gone flat. He seemed confused.
It might have been Taji’s turn of phrase. “As shehzha,” Taji explained to those delicate eyes. “Am I acceptable?”
“Taji shehzha,” Trenne began after a Shavian pause that made Taji’s smile bigger with all it said, “it is my performance that changes us, not yours.”
Taji’s cheeks ached. “Oh. Well, your performance was exemplary. Top of the class. Never had a better….” He couldn’t finish that one because it was too true. “You were perfect.”
Trenne’s ears came forward. Taji occupied himself with tucking Trenne’s hair around them rather than saying the rest of the things he wanted to say.
“Taji.” With a single, gentle word, Trenne compelled him to speech anyway.
“There is, um, no chemical reaction happening that I can tell.” Taji was starting to feel his legs again and the pain down one side of his body was getting more glaring. But his throat was tight and it took effort to swallow.
“Are you upset?” Trenne was no less confused than before. “You should have no reaction yet, even though I…even though we were not careful.”
“I’m glad we weren’t,” Taji muttered, knowing damn well he wouldn’t be glad in a very short amount of time when he’d need to use the toilet and then clean up. “Hey,” he added, realizing belatedly that Trenne considered the lack of care a failure. “I wanted exactly that. I asked you for it.” Had commanded it, if he was being honest. Taji was grinning now. He tried not to, but it got worse at how anxious Trenne’s ear movements were. “Sorry.”
Trenne dropped his head and exhaled. “Did I hurt you?”
Taji shivered at the rush of air over his damp skin. “I thought humans were the ones whose brains turned to jelly after sex. Did I sound like you hurt me?”
“That is not ‘No, Trenne’,” Trenne complained, and his sleepy grousing was enough to send Taji’s heart fluttering all over again. Taji wasn’t ready to give him up, but if he was lucky, he wouldn’t have to, at least not for a long while.
“No, Trenne,” Taji answered pertly and couldn’t help smiling again when Trenne lifted himself up to study him. “I’m good,” Taji added with low honesty. “I’m better than good.”
Somehow, Trenne’s silence was unconvinced. Maybe he could tell Taji was holding something back. But Taji wasn’t going to discuss the future now.
“I suspect you aren’t capable of disappointing me,” he finished at last, feeling obvious in a way that begging for Trenne’s cock hadn’t done.
Trenne didn’t blink. “You honor me.”
Taji sighed noisily in return. “You gave me your knife.”
“You kissed me,” Trenne countered, ears straight up now.
“I thought the hunt was supposed to make you all ‘Asha as you are’ and instinctual instead of calmly smart as usual.” Taji huffed. He put his hands to his cheeks.
Trenne paused, probably to parse that into something understandable, then, apparently, decided to abandon that topic, more in the throes of his instincts than he appeared. “You kissed me,” he said again. “Is this something my shehzha desires?”
An unfamiliar, rosy weight in Taji’s limbs kept Taji still. His heart was thumping against his ribs so hard Trenne had to feel it. “Oh.” Taji’s mind had turned to jelly, after all. There was some
thing about how Trenne said that while looking at him that made Taji want to bury his face in Trenne’s neck and stay hidden forever. Like Elii with Larin, but Taji wasn’t feeling shame. “Y—yes. If you don’t mind.”
Trenne peered at him. “Now you are shy.”
“I’m…” Taji buried his hands in Trenne’s hair. “I’m having a lot of feelings.” He’d had sex but never a lover. Never Trenne. “I’m going to kiss you again. Okay?”
Trenne tipped his head down, offering his mouth. “That is all you ask me for?”
Taji pressed their lips together softly, let his eyes fall closed for a few moments. Then he swept a touch over Trenne’s cheekbones and all his beautiful markings before kissing him again. “Trenne,” Taji said, still talking, always talking. “You’re so pretty.”
