: FOUR BY ONE : Swim Slash : Phelps/Adrian/Grevers/Lochte
Four By One.
:: Phelps/Adrian/Grevers/Lochte, Swim Slash, NC17.
Four By One.
"No way," Ryan laughed, elbowing Nathan in the side as they walked down the cool hotel hallway. He held his hands apart. "At least that much. Like, seriously. That much."
The carpet ate the sound of their feet; their steps were quiet even when Nathan shuffled to the side to push Ryan's hands closer together. "You weren't looking. You were screaming."
"You had your face in it!" Ryan shoved his hands apart only to have them dragged closer than ever and finally he gave up, dropping them against his thighs with a clap and a laugh. "Dude, you have no concept of what a half-second looks like in the water. Did you swim at Cal at all or just, you know. Study. And shit." The way Ryan laughed pushed his glasses up his forehead.
Nathan tried to express shock or dismay at the pseudo-question except that it was hard to keep a straight face when he was so busy smiling. He'd been smiling since he pulled himself out of the water and into first place with the rest of underdog Team USA. He'd smiled across the podium and main deck, into the warm-down pool and through the press mill...
God, it just felt great. It felt like the best thing that he'd ever been a part of, better than the Olympics in some intangible way because this was A team. He'd been the anchor. And no one was calling him stupid for smiling so much so Nathan figured that he would keep on smiling for a while. He would probably be smiling in his sleep.
When they got to the door of Michael's room Ryan produced a key from his wallet and waved it around like a magician. "It's good to know people," he said, flipping hair out of his face with a shake of his head. He flashed another grin that made his glasses rise and fall. Nathan had finally asked Ryan, in Riccone, if he had prescription goggles. Cullen had dissolved into whooping laughs that made Nathan feel just a little stupid until Cullen had quieted enough to grab his upper arm and somberly inform him that they were, "designer." Nathan still wasn't sure that he got it but then, that seemed to be Ryan.
Ryan had only smiled. Ryan did that a lot. He smiled from under the brims of ridiculous hats, from behind goggles and diamond-set retainers, smiled for cameras, smiled wet and flushed in the warm-down pool, smiled when he got food and smiled when he was utterly and completely decimated in a game of Risk. It made Nathan feel vaguely warm down in his stomach every time it happened.
He did know better. He knew that feeling didn't have anything to do, anatomically, with his guts. But in all honesty he had bigger things on his plate in Rome and a quiet flush of hormones here and there wasn't going to be the end of his world. The lock clicked over heavily with the turn of the key and Ryan shoved the handle down and pushed into the room with a hip.
That quiet flush of hormones suddenly became a flood and Nathan's lips stopped smiling for the first time in hours so that they could part in shock because at the foot of the bed stood Matt, taller even than Nathan, his skin backlighted and silhouetted by the yellow lamp in the corner. Michael was kneeling in front of him and his hands almost managed to look small spread across the wide plane of Matt's half-clothed hips. (Iliac crest, Nathan's mind stuttered, Matt's pelvis must be huge, should really watch out for arthritis...) Matt's hand, conversely, dwarfed Michael's bare shoulder as his thumb stroked down the smooth, long line of Michael's neck.
Sternocleidomastoid insertion was the medial one-third of the clavicle--
Nathan yelped as the door slammed hard in his face under its own weight and springed hinges, shattering the image and nearly his nose along with it. His eyes watered from the rush of air and the impact of the sound against his nerves and it took a moment for Nathan to breathe again. When he did it was shaky. He glanced down the hallway, rubbing a hand over his face.
In the seconds of silence that followed he thought that maybe... of course he hadn't seen what he thought he saw. Michael had been picking something up off the floor and Matt was. Matt was offering Michael a post-race massage--Michael's neck had been bothering him in Indianapolis. Right.
Too bad Nathan's dick didn't believe anything of the sort.
Nathan nearly toppled forward with the suction as the door opened inward with a yank. Ryan leaned against the edge of it on one arm, crossing his legs cockily at the ankle. The left half of his mouth was curved upward into the best impression of Mischief that Nathan had ever seen. His heart fluttered against the bottom of his throat and he glanced into the room because he had to, just to make sure. But unless Michael was picking something off Matt's hip with his mouth, Nathan's second guess of the situation was way off the mark. And there was Ryan, just hanging against the door, still smiling.
It occurred to Nathan as his eyes traced the curve of really full lips, that this might be how the phrase "swallow your heart" came around. If he didn't know that the heart was a completely and happily stationary organ he might have thought that he was choking on his own.
"In or out, dude," Ryan said after a moment of silence. "It's like, cool either way." The other corner of his mouth curled to match the first and Nathan started listing to himself all of the signs of a heart attack. He currently had three of the six commonly accepted symptoms. "But yanno. We are your team and everything so really it's only right to celebrate with us." When he grinned his teeth showed, the front a little too large for the rest but still...
Just, Ryan was beautiful. And the most attractive thing about it was that Ryan didn't even seem to know. He was either completely oblivious to the fact that the look he was giving Nathan was making his veins dilate or he just didn't care. Nathan swallowed and asked his knees to move but they weren't listening to him; all of his active neurons were being used by either watching Michael's nose brush the high arch of Matt's hipbone or noticing how the freckles on Ryan's face seemed to gather into a light bruise across the tops of his cheeks when he smiled--a view partially obscured by the bottom of those thick, black designer rims.
"Um," Nathan said astutely. All that money for education, down the drain.
"Shut the door." It was Michael's voice, the blunt edge of confidence he always spoke with undeterred by the fact that he was on his knees in front of another man. When Nathan looked from Ryan, Matt's eyes were on them and his long fingers wrapped almost possessively around the side of Michael's neck. There was the smallest of quick quirks of thin lips as the pad of Matt's thumb settled on the soft spot right behind Michael's closest ear and Nathan's pulse tripped, his mouth drying.
Ryan bumped his eyebrows up once, a comical gesture that Nathan didn't have any intention of laughing at as he tore his eyes from Matt. "You heard the man," Ryan said. "In or out."
Nathan was back to reciting the signs of a heart attack, named one for each step forward he took. Distraction was the only way he could get his legs to work. Erratic pulse. Elevated blood pressure--couldn't be sure of it, obviously, but he knew where he'd lay his money. Sweating. Vague sense of nauseousness.
He stopped four steps in, which proved just far enough for Ryan to be able to swing the door closed behind him. The sound of the jamb catching sounded final and Nathan closed his eyes, telling himself that was stupid. Psycho-somatic. Sounds couldn't be final. When a gentle touch slid across the dip of Nathan's lower back he jumped and Ryan laughed as he walked by, winking.
Nathan watched Ryan walk toward Michael and Matt and his brain spun onward. Erratic pulse. Elevated blood pressure. Sweating. Nauseousness. Tight chest. If his left arm started hurting he would have to ask someone to take him to the hospital. ("Please zip up your pants and get me a doctor...") Nathan didn't know how to say "I'm having a heart attack" in Italian. He'd only learned stupid things like, "Do you speak English?" and, "Where is the bathroom?"
God, heart attacks were so unsexy.
Ryan put his knees to Michael's back and reached up to slide fingers though light hair, pulling Matt's head down into a kiss that seared all thought from Nathan's brain. Mouths open, fingers knotted into blonde strands, Ryan's nose brushing Matt's cheekbone until Matt pulled far enough away to grab Ryan's bottom lip in his teeth, forcing Ryan's head back so that he could suck on it. Nathan watched the tight bob of Ryan's adam's apple. (Laryngeal prominence, his brain supplied, larger in men because the thyroid cartilage elongates during puberty.) One of Michael's hands wrapped against Ryan's closest calf, palming smooth tanned skin and pulling Ryan a step closer to both of them. Nathan forgot about cartilage.
It was amazing. The easy way they touched each other was erotic enough to make the skin on the back of Nathan's arms pimple, the response of muscles ingrained in such basic biology that it didn't matter that he'd shaved all the hair off. Fight or Flight. Nathan's mind supplied the scenario for his body even as he watched Michael suck a hickey onto the skin below Matt's navel. There was a wet noise as Ryan pulled back and scraped saliva off his bottom lip using his top teeth. Nathan's dick throbbed in appreciation and not a little jealousy.
Nathan exhaled, maybe for the first time since stepping into the room. He was jealous of his three teammates and at least it was a feeling that he understood--he was jealous of Matt's ability to take, he was jealous of Michael's control, he was jealous of Ryan's absolute ease. Nathan was just the new guy and a part of him wondered if that would ever change even though he knew that it would. It just felt like every time he turned around he was learning again that he was the rookie, he was the guy who studied first and swam second, he was the kid and maybe he didn't belong here. There were thirty World Champ rookies on the American team this year--a lot of them as young as him--but sometimes Nathan felt like he was the only one who doubted his place. Even Brennan Morris looked more confident than Nathan felt, and Brennan was barely nineteen. Of course Brennan also had Michael and Michael was... well, Michael.
Ryan was leaning against said swimmer, fingertips carding back through his short hair. Matt's earlier touch might have been possessive but the way Ryan dragged his fingers against Michael's scalp and the way Michael's eyes lidded in response made Nathan feel like he was intruding. He almost couldn't believe that Matt was ignoring it, leaning in to press his mouth to Ryan's shoulder and then neck.
"He's just standing there," Michael said, turning his attention to Nathan. Nathan felt his ears get hot but his knees firmly decided that proving Michael wrong right then was not in the cards. He swallowed. The inside of his mouth was very dry.
"So?" Ryan asked with a smile almost covered by curls as he looked down at Michael. He turned his head and his eyes and his smile to Nathan and Nathan's pulse crashed against his eardrums, almost drowning out Michael's response.
"Looks like he's gonna throw up." Michael sunk back onto his heels, using Ryan's thighs to rest against. Ryan's fingers were still in his hair. Michael's eyes hadn't left Nathan but despite his nonplussed tone there was an amused turn to Michael's thin lips that made Nathan feel just like a mouse must feel when he's backed into a corner by a tiger.
"Don't poke the tiger," Nathan murmured on low volume. He would have laughed at himself except his throat didn't seem to be working right so Matt handled it for him, his eyes almost disappearing as his mouth opened and his cheeks rose with laughter.
Michael just said, "Jesus Christ," and rolled his eyes.
Ryan kneed Michael in the back. "You can totally poke anything you want," he said to Nathan with a grin that cut his face from ear to ear. Michael groaned and got another knee from Ryan, this time right above the kidney. Nathan thought that maybe he should mention that it wasn't a good place to hit but his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Matt was still chuckling; he sat down onto the edge of the bed and shook his head at Ryan. "Not anything." Nathan could see the slightest curve of flushed skin from between the open fly of Matt's cargo shorts and he dragged his eyes back to Ryan so that he wouldn't stare.
Ryan rubbed the top curve of one of Michael's ears between a thumb and index finger. "Oh," he smiled. "Yeah, Matty doesn't do the pegging." Ryan's nose rose with his smile. "He's a big fucking top." There was a bark of a laugh from Ryan as Matt actually growled--wow, seeing a guy that big growling would have been a warning to any sane person but Nathan was thinking that sanity had nothing to do with why he was standing in this room--and grabbed Ryan by the wrist, hauling him clear over a swearing Michael until Ryan was forced to put a knee on the bed between Matt's legs or end up in his lap. And Ryan was still smiling as he leaned his head down and breathed against Matt's lips, moving away as Matt moved closer and finally grinning as Matt just wrapped a long arm around his waist to keep him in place.
Nathan watched them and he was back to not breathing. His blood was slamming through his veins and while he was sure that there was air conditioning on in the room he felt hot; he was very aware of sweat prickling at the back of his neck and under his arms. Ryan had straddled Matt and was rocking his hips in a way that made Nathan's brain jump tracks from medicine to underwater turns and man, he was never going to be able go off the wall again without thinking about the way Ryan could move.
"You're staring."
The low voice made Nathan jump. Michael was standing close, his eyes very dark. Nathan's forearms prickled again. He'd never been intimidated by Michael because he'd never had reason to be; the intensity that surrounded Michael when it came to the pool was diluted from Nathan's point of view, they swam different events and that alone was a little like being in different worlds at a meet. There was a little bit of hero worship--just a little--but off-deck Michael smiled a lot. He was laid back and easy to get along with, even if they weren't what anyone would call friends.
Feeling the full intensity in those dark eyes now was like a smothering blanket of heat across his skin and Nathan dearly hoped that Michael never decided to swim the hundred free. He swallowed but it didn't dislodge his heart from the middle of his throat. "Sorry."
Michael snorted a quiet breath. "You'll never hold your own if you just lay down like that." The vague lisp and the way he talked toward the left side of his mouth might have softened the words of someone else, but not Michael. The air of command was obvious. He was used to being good at what he did, and he was used to being listened to. Nathan had confidence in himself but from Michael it was something else; it bordered on the very edge of cockiness and right now it made Nathan a little short of breath. Heightened respiration could lead to shock. He closed his eyes for a moment but that didn't help get his breathing under control at all so he just opened them again. "What?" he finally asked. And he looked at Michael--had to look down, slightly, though he'd nearly forgotten that he was actually the taller one.
"Apologizing," Michael said with a single shrug of one shoulder. He shifted his weight forward and Nathan leaned back a little. "With them," Michael said, "with me. Being passive's just going to get you left out." Michael stepped forward and Nathan's shoulderblades hit the wall. "What do you want?"
Nathan's brain stuttered. It made his mouth stutter with it. "W-what do I--what do I want?"
The smile on Michael's face only made him nervous. "I thought my question was in English," Michael said and when he leaned further still Nathan had nowhere to go. He felt the brush of fingers against his stomach as Michael's mouth formed words against his jaw. Nathan tilted his chin up a little, breathing hard. "What do you want, Nathan?" Michael asked.
Really, Nathan wanted to remember what it was like to respire correctly but that wasn't going to happen, not here, not tonight. Not with Michael's voice vibrating against the underside of his jaw like a tuning fork touched to metal. "I want..." Nathan started. And beyond the facts and the science of it what he wanted was to be included, to feel like he belonged; Nathan wanted to stop thinking about it and start doing it, he wanted to...
"I want to suck you." It was the first truth that came to mind and Nathan nearly choked on the words though they made it out only a little battered for the journey. They tasted crass and wrong on his tongue. Taking the Lord's name in vain was usually more than Nathan managed even when he was upset and his father was a firm believer in Fudge.
"Fuck," Michael breathed--groaned--against Nathan's throat. Nathan felt the scrape of teeth over his pulse just before Michael leaned into him and the world splintered a little around the edges as a large hand pressed against his dick through fabric, palm curving around the shaft and fingers stroking down almost as far as his balls. Nathan shuddered gently, the reaction as involuntary as his heartbeat or breath. Michael rubbed down in one long, slow push. "Yeah, all right," he murmured. Then Michael pulled away, put his back to Nathan and stripped his shirt over his head as he walked away.
Nathan sagged against the wall, panting, but instead of closing his eyes he watched the flex of the muscles in Michael's back--serratus, rhomboids, levators, what he wouldn't have given to have Michael as a study partner for A&P--as his shirt was tossed against the wall before he rolled over onto the large bed. Michael pushed a heel into Matt's lower back as he crossed his arms under his head on the pillow. Matt grunted; he was otherwise entertained.
Ryan's glasses had gone missing in the time that Nathan had spent giving Michael his undivided attention and his pants must have gotten unbuttoned because Matt's hands had the waistband crumpled halfway down Ryan's ass. There was a straight line running across Ryan's lower back, tan to white, and Matt's fingers were digging into pale skin.
Nathan swallowed a groan.
There was a smile from Ryan with a flash of teeth as he leaned down and bit Matt's shoulder, his eyes on Michael. Matt sank fingers into curls but let go when Ryan relented and licked across the skin he'd abused. Nathan's dick twitched inside his pants when Ryan's blue eyes turned in his direction.
"Dude," Ryan said, his voice lower than Nathan had ever heard it, a purr of vocal cords that made Nathan's balls climb upward. He pointed a finger over Matt's shoulder at the splayed form of Michael. "In or out?"
Nathan might have opened and closed his mouth. His ears were going to burn clean off of his head and he wondered, as he felt the creep of heat up the side of his face, if spontaneous combustion was actually a plausible theory. He would have laughed at the idea of it yesterday. He would have laughed at it ten minutes ago. Now he wasn't sure.
Ryan shrugged. "You snooze, you lose." And with a wicked grin he climbed off Matt's lap with his ass half hanging out--vague pink bruises the size of large fingers dotting the white skin here and there--and crawled up Michael's legs to pop his fly with a practiced yank.
Any more blood lost from his brain and Nathan was going to pass out. He watched Ryan lean over Michael and wrap fists into the sides of Michael's pants to tug them down. Did anyone on the team except Nathan wear underwear? Michael's dick was flushed and dark lying against the paler triangle of skin between his legs. He didn't have the tan that Ryan had but then, no one really did. But the small thatch of dark hair at the base of Michael's dick made the skin look that much whiter. Ryan didn't give Nathan a chance to make a scientific study of it; he wrapped fingers around the shaft to lift it and Michael arched as Ryan licked around the head and then slid his mouth all the way down the length.
There was a bitter taste under Nathan's tongue as the scene stretched out to Ryan rolling Michael's balls up into the palm of his hand as his curls bobbed with his head. That taste was the flood of hormones sparked by arousal, desire acute enough that overproduction occurred in the salivary glands. Nathan realized suddenly that Matt was watching him watch Michael's fingers creep into Ryan's hair. At his sides Nathan's hands were clenching and unclenching and he forced them still. Involuntary physical reaction to mental stress. Nathan crossed his arms over his chest.
"Cm'ere," Matt said, the sound quiet enough that neither Michael nor Ryan paid them any attention. Matt could be so young when he smiled, Nathan remembered him doing a belly flop into the pool at Purdue; he surfaced sputtering, laughing and groaning at the same time. He remembered Matt from the relays in Beijing, both of them B team at their first Olympics (not that they'd ever celebrated like this)--but now Matt looked different, he looked very serious and assured of his place in this room with his large jaw set and blonde bangs falling over his forehead. The brush of hair barely shadowed eyes that were a hard electric blue.
For a minute Nathan stayed where he was and genetic tables for eye color spooled out in his head, dominant and recessive and what it would have taken to get eyes that bright. Then he took that first step, and another, and walked through all of it until his knees hit the bed in front of Matt. Hands rose to rest on the outside of Nathan's thighs, hot through the material of his shorts. Nathan closed his eyes but not too soon to see Michael watching them from under dark lashes.
Matt's hands slid up his body, thumbs grazing along either side of Nathan's dick and starting a slow burn under his skin. Fingers wrapped into the hem of Nathan's tshirt and he felt the push of soft cotton against his stomach and chest until Matt's hands were spread against his bare skin. Nathan took a slow, deep breath to feel the pressure against his ribcage and the echo of his heart against the hot palms. Nathan's stomach jumped and then trembled as a damp heat licked the lines of muscles, tracing from his navel upward.
The shock of sensation as the edge of teeth set against one of his nipples opened Nathan's eyes and a quiet sound crawled up this throat. He raised a hand to drag a finger across blonde bangs and Matt looked up through them as he flicked the captured nub with his tongue. Nathan's head dropped back, his eyes liding again. Matt sucked at the nipple and each quick pull sent a jagged flare of pleasure straight to the base of Nathan's dick. He didn't remember consciously making the decision to move his hand, but Matt's hair was soft and thin and Nathan was grabbing it, tensing his hand in time to those ragged pulses of nerves. Matt bit gently and then moved his mouth to leave that nipple aching and wet and start in on the other.
Nathan's eyes opened at a wet sound from the bed and his chin dropped enough to see Ryan rise from Michael's lap, sitting on his heels and dragging his hand against his mouth. His back was mostly to Nathan but it wasn't hard to identify the rise of his cheeks as a smile. Michael was holding fingers around the base of his dick as his chest rose and fell with shallow motions. His cheeks were flushed.
Physical arousal caused vasocongestion. Vasocongestion: the swelling of bodily tissues caused by increased vascular blood flow and a localized increase in blood pressure. Also common during menstruation, REM sleep, extreme emotion and allergic reactions.
But who cared about the definition when Michael was spread out on the bed in demonstration, eyelashes making bruises under his eyes and chest and cheeks glowing a soft pink? Nathan scraped his bottom lip through his teeth hard enough to make it hurt. Matt's hands dropped and squeezed at his hips and Nathan's attention slid downward. "You gonna do it?" Matt asked. "Or just look at him?"
Nathan wondered what the definition of insanity was. He could still feel a vague sort of buzz from the skin across his carotid pulse point where Michael's teeth had been. Ryan was watching. "We can always race," Ryan said, "to like, see who can get naked first." A smile still lingered around the corners of his mouth. His lips were faintly swollen.
Matt's head turned, one hand sliding free of Nathan's hip to tug on his earlobe absently. He shrugged.
Nathan stared at Ryan. "You're serious."
"He wouldn't suggest it if he weren't," Michael snorted and stroked himself once or twice; all of their eyes were drawn down with the motion. Ryan's were the first to rise and he shifted a bit as Nathan was still watching the careless tug of long fingers and the way they pulled soft skin up around that long erection with each draw.
"Dude," Ryan said. "Ready. Set--"
"That's not fair," Nathan said, his eyes peeling away to Ryan, whose pants were halfway down already. His dick was pushing up the hem of his white Speedo tshirt. For a moment Nathan lost his train of thought, looking at the line just under the head that divided the slightly gathered, tanned skin of the shaft from the smooth, reddish head. Ryan waggled it with a shake of his hips and Nathan's eyes snapped up, ears burning as he tried to remember what he'd been thinking. "Um. It's not fair because I have underwear on."
"And Mike's got big ears," Ryan said, "so it's really hard for him to get his shirts off." It didn't seem to matter that Michael had already taken his shirt off; Ryan's grin was absolutely maniacal. "Go!"
Nathan thought Matt was the first to get his shirt off but in the rush to get his own clothes shed (It's simple biology, he thought as he nearly took out an eye with his own thumb, competition. Every species.) he couldn't be sure. All he knew was that Ryan was laughing, his legs in the air as he shoved his pants off and Michael had slipped completely out of his own shorts even though Nathan hadn't seen him move.
"Worst time by far," Matt rumbled, standing in a puddle of his own shorts and reaching over to tuck thumbs into the waistband of Nathan's briefs as Nathan was still extracting his arm from his shirt. "The French could do better." He pulled Nathan's back against his front and Nathan froze, breath filling his lungs and then simply refusing to exhale. Ryan crawled toward them across crumpled sheets as Matt pressed his mouth to Nathan's shoulder, cool against the heat of his body. Not that he could feel anything except for the shape of Matt's erection through the single, worn layer of cotton covering his ass.
Nathan shivered, his breath sliding through his lips in a long, slow release. "What does that mean? I don't get a medal?"
Ryan crossed his legs under himself and sat at the edge of the bed. "It means you get to bottom," he said with half a distracted smile; his attention was on Nathan's briefs. "Fruit of the Loom?"
For a moment longer Nathan was still fully focused on the slight rocking of the body behind him. His breath came and went to the rhythm of Matt's motions. Hands roamed across Nathan's back and fingertips slid in and out of the elastic back of his underwear. "What?" Nathan murmured, eyes half closed. Ryan snapped the front of Nathan's waistband; the sting of elastic got his attention. His eyes opened. "What?" he asked again, more loudly for the repeat.
"Uh oh," Ryan said. "Looks like I poked the tiger."
Michael kneeled forward and knocked Ryan back flat onto the bed with a straight-arm shove. Ryan yelped but Michael ignored it, straightening up in front of Nathan while Ryan rolled to the side, trying to escape from the sheets and get his legs out from underneath himself. "Ryan's an underwear snob," Michael said.
Matt's hands slid over Nathan's sides, up his chest and all the way to his shoulders. Nathan spared a glance behind him as he said, "but he wasn't wearing any."
"That's because he hasn't done laundry," Matt said from behind Nathan's ear. The brush of breath made goosebumps ripple down the back of Nathan's neck.
"Hey," Ryan said. He'd rolled off the side of the bed in order to get free of the sheets--which he'd left on the floor--and stood up, scratching a hand back through his hair. "I have."
Michael pressed open lips to the hollow of Nathan's throat. (The supra... supra-sternal notch...) "It doesn't count when you get the girls to do it."
Ryan flopped back onto the bed, his blue eyes on them as Nathan fought to keep his head up and his eyes open when Michael slipped a hand into the front of his obviously inferior underwear and wrapped hot fingers around his dick. Nathan's whole body tried to move but Matt just flexed slightly, his arms creating an easy hold. His teeth caught the lobe of Nathan's ear and Nathan hardly heard Ryan say, "nuh-uh, Cullen did it."
Michael was twisting his hand around Nathan with a steady turn-tug that made Nathan's thighs tense. Whatever distance he'd managed to put between him and the situation snapped and his chest rose and fell with shallow, rapid breaths that left him a little light-headed. Nathan's hips jerked forward once, a bit more, and then fell back against Matt's waiting body when Michael simply stopped moving on him. Matt made a deep, pleased sound against Nathan's ear and pressed against him.
Nathan's nerves were singing, tingling, begging him to move. Michael's grip was tight around the head of his dick, squeezing the blood down and the pressure was nothing, it was like an itch that he couldn't scratch. Nathan wanted and Michael wasn't giving him anything. When his hips twitched Michael's grip closed a little more and deadened the sensation further. There was a medical reason for it, for why, but Nathan didn't search for it. Didn't care. A whine crawled up his throat and because his arms couldn't reach out for Michael they rose and wound fingers into Matt's hair as his back arched, shoulders pushing against a solid chest. Matt bit the long muscle at the base of Nathan's neck and Nathan shuddered.
Fingers were prying into his waistband and tugging his underwear down over hips but Matt's arms were still holding him immobile and Michael's fingers were still motionless and maddening on his dick. Nathan forced his eyes open to find curls and Ryan's bottom lip caught between his teeth as he worked Nathan's plain white briefs down his thighs. Nathan must have breathed or moved or made some inarticulate noise of pleading because blue eyes raised and Ryan's lip scraped free of teeth as he smiled. Michael's hand loosened and let go as Ryan straightened, leaning in past him. The rush of renewed blood to his dick made Nathan groan into Ryan's mouth as Ryan kissed him.
Ryan's mouth was warm and damp and he tasted like pistachios and smelled like suntan lotion. Ryan licked at Nathan's lips and teeth with an almost over-eager bluntness at first but when he slowed down, when he focused, his kiss became something sweet and soft and Nathan felt himself relaxing into it. His muscles unstrung and the frantic pace of his heart slowed to match the easy give and take of their mouths, a press that Nathan tried to lean into. Ryan's fingers climbed his ribs and settled against his chest and Nathan didn't even realize that Matt had let him go until his own fingers were tangling in curled hair.
It was tangible. Ryan's mouth was real and pliant, nothing like the tease of Michael's hand or the unseen drag of Matt's lips against his back. Nathan leaned over the bed and Ryan responded, twisting his body so that he could fall back underneath of him without ever breaking the suction of their mouths. The sheets were cool against Nathan's knees and forearms; compared to that sweet chill, Ryan's body rocking up against his felt scalding, burning him where hips and chests and thighs brushed and where their dicks ground together with a force that was almost too much. Ryan moaned into Nathan's mouth and the vibration of the sound set a fire deep inside of him that seemed to smolder outward in order to reach his already hot skin. There was no thought to Nathan palming the curve of Ryan's thigh and jerking him up, closer, tighter together.
The murmurs from above and behind them only registered in the back of Nathan's head. Ryan had his focus, Ryan moved against him like he wanted to crawl inside of him and between slick presses of bruising lips he'd murmur out filthy things through groans that Nathan had only ever heard in sneaked snatches of porn. Ryan made them real with an easy abandon. Nathan tried to lick them out of his mouth to see how they'd taste and was intent on that even after the bed had dipped under extra weight. In fact, it took a cool line of pressure between the cheeks of his ass to get his attention.
Nathan's head jerked up with a hiss; he felt Ryan relax beneath him as he rolled his head to the side to look over Nathan's shoulder. As Nathan turned his head to watch Michael squeeze a little more clear liquid onto his fingers from a small bottle, Ryan leaned up and pressed his mouth to Nathan's neck. "All good," he said, Ryan's voice low and murmuring.
The slight assurance wasn't enough to stop Nathan from having second thoughts about his choice of position on the bed; he'd tucked one knee up underneath of Ryan's thigh to shift their hips together but Nathan's other leg was straight back, toes off the bottom of the bed. Effectively, he'd spread himself out and Michael was taking advantage.
Nathan swallowed even though the slight pressure of Ryan's mouth against his throat made it difficult. Ryan's teeth scraped his jaw and hands moved over his sides in a light brush to settle on his hips. "You've done this before?" The question was murmured against his cheek; Nathan was still watching Michael over his shoulder.
The medical implications of anal sex were long and myriad but the next cool brush of fingers against Nathan's anus was remarkably effective in stopping him from making a list of them. His lips parted to let out a soft puff of breath. "Once," he managed, dropping his head back down. Once, in the dark, with a single partner who knew less about a body than any medical student had the excuse to. In other words it had been as widely removed from this situation as it was possible for anything to be.
Ryan kissed Nathan's mouth, his lips spreading Nathan's even as Michael was spreading one side of Nathan's ass and pushing one slick finger slowly inside of him. Nathan breathed into Ryan's mouth and fought his body's natural instinct to tense at the intrusion. Ryan bit his lower lip gently and then released it as he dragged Nathan's hand toward him. It forced Nathan to shift his weight and Michael's finger sank deeper. Giving another shuddering exhale, Nathan dropped his forehead to Ryan's shoulder and let his eyes close.
There was no pain, only a vague discomfort that made his breath short. His erection had wilted, killed by his own embarrassment, and Nathan could feel how his dick was just resting in the curve of Ryan's hip. He breathed in the lotion smell of Ryan's skin and his body jerked slightly as Michael twisted his hand in a sedate circle that dragged his finger inside Nathan around with it. But it wasn't that slick sensation that pulled a low sound up Nathan's throat, it was Ryan sucking Nathan's index finger into his mouth, all hot and wet and he curled the flat of his tongue against the underside of it as the back of his throat constricted against the tip.
Nathan's dick twitched against Ryan's thigh and his hips lurched involuntarily; Michael curled his finger up with the shift and Nathan's whole body jerked as his nerves suddenly lit against the back of his skin and behind the dark of his closed eyes. He heard the shocked sound that rattled up his throat and felt how Ryan rubbed up against him in response, mouth falling open around Nathan's finger so that he could pant. Nathan's own mouth was open against skin and his back was arching as Michael stroked up again with the flat pad of his finger. The sensation sharp and thick pulled his balls up toward his body and left Nathan shaking as Michael's finger slid away.
Heaving breath, Nathan picked his head up. Matt was handing Michael a small square wrapper. He looked at Nathan and gave him a slow smile before leaning across the white sheets and pressing a rough, quick kiss against Nathan's already throbbing lips. Then Matt took Nathan's wrist and pulled his hand away from Ryan's mouth so that he could kiss Ryan, too. Nathan had shifted to the side and watched, but he was increasingly distracted by the sound of ripping foil and the snap of latex from behind him.
Ryan looked undone when Matt pulled away even though the kiss had been relatively short. As Matt settled back completely Nathan noticed how dark Ryan's eyes had grown, the color nearly eclipsed by the wide black, just a blue ring around the circumference. Ryan's curls were kinked and spread out around his head on the bed and his cheeks were red under his tan in the same places that a hard race would make him glow. Nathan's body moved and he leaned back down. He would have touched the hot skin--with his nose, his mouth, his tongue--but Matt grabbed Nathan's chin, fingers turning his head.
"My turn," Matt said. Nathan heard a quiet laugh from behind him and pulled his face from Matt's hand to look over his shoulder.
Michael was resting on his heels, stroking his hard dick slow and carelessly as he watched them. Nathan swallowed. The smile that graced Michael's lips was sloppy, easy and anticipatory. It made something thick and hot unwind in Nathan's stomach and he pushed himself all of the way up and off of Ryan, felt Ryan move away but he didn't turn from Michael to look. Michael was still touching himself.
Reaching out, Nathan slid his fingers alongside Michael's around vaguely slippery latex and the warm, hard organ that it covered. Michael murmured something low in his throat and let his hand drop; Nathan continued to stroke him slowly, squeezing each time he pushed down the length of Michael's dick and watched as Michael's chin settled against his chest and his eyes closed, lips parting. Each breath he took was a little quicker than the last until his hips were shifting against Nathan's rhythm and Nathan felt bold enough to lean in and drag his mouth across the smooth skin of Michael's collarbone. He returned the favor of earlier by dipping his tongue into the hollow of a tanned throat and then chasing Michael's chin as it rose to lick across the thundering rush of a pulse.
Fingers dug into Nathan's arms with a sudden pressure and Michael jerked himself away, leaving Nathan's hands and mouth empty. For a moment Michael just looked at him, eyes darker than ever and chest heaving quietly. Then he was pushing Nathan around and there was a shuffle of knees and legs before Nathan found himself with a cheek to the cool wall at the head of the bed, fingers splayed open against the peach paint.
Matt and Ryan were nearby, standing in the strip of space beside the bed. Matt's back was to Nathan and he had Ryan pinned under him against the wall; one of Ryan's legs was held up under the knee by Matt's arm against his side and the other pushed a heel into the edge of the mattress as a brace. His biceps were on Matt's broad shoulders, muscles straining. Matt's face was hidden in the crook of Ryan's neck but Ryan's was perfectly visible, eyes closed and mouth making a shapeless sound with every thrust of Matt's body that sent him back into the wall.
Nathan twisted his head to look down, panting, bracing himself as fingers circled his anus and then spread him open. He shifted to help, his knees sliding apart over the sheets. His pulse drummed in his ears. Nathan could feel how the sweat gathered at his lower back spread as Michael's hand slid over his skin and then grabbed, fingers opening across his back as the blunt pressure against his anus became a stretch and quickly a burn.
Against the wall, Nathan's fingers tried to curl through plaster. He opened his mouth to breathe. Michael didn't stop and Nathan didn't tell him to, his eyes closing and his back arching further under Michael's hand for the continued inward press. It was slow and inevitable and Michael gave a gentle rock once he was deep enough, a small movement that was nevertheless enough to make Nathan gasp and rise slightly off the wall. The next rock of hips got Michael a little further and brought begging words to Nathan's lips; he bit them to keep silent.
The room was already filled with Ryan's voice. He had a constant, low litany of dialogue. "Fuck yeah," he would moan from the wall, or, "harder, jeah, right there." Nathan felt himself flush slightly when Ryan grunted, "fuck me, fuck me," but gradually it seemed that Michael was setting his pace to the increasing tempo of Ryan while Nathan just made his bottom lip bleed to keep himself quiet, the seep of copper bright on his tongue. Michael's fingers dug into his hips and Nathan let himself moan a little as he was pulled back with a jerk. He felt the flat press of Michael's hips against his ass but another rough yank of Nathan's body pulled him inches down the wall and settled Michael just that much deeper. The broken sound that fell from Nathan's mouth then had nothing to do with his brain and everything to do with how much he could feel, the violating stretch that his body not only accepted but wanted more of, ached for, with a constant raw throb in a way that Nathan would never be able to put words or definitions to.
"Please." Nathan heard his own voice, the way it sounded exactly as undone as he felt. "Please," he groaned, fingernails scraping against the wall as he rocked himself back. It wasn't enough. Michael's fingers tightened on his hips and there was a moment, time drawing out across Nathan's nerves, before Michael leaned down over him until he was breathing against Nathan's spine in hot little jerks of air.
"Because you asked nicely."
The words were quiet and they made Nathan ache. Long fingers moved and spread across the sides of Nathan's ass and then Michael's breath broke against his back as he thrust forward hard. Caught off-guard Nathan's forehead smacked the wall but he didn't care, just slid his hands higher to better brace himself as Michael came forward again. Nathan sucked in a breath through his teeth.
It wasn't careful, it wasn't slow or anything like the tease of Michael's hand from earlier. Michael shoved Nathan against the wall over and over and Nathan took it, he moaned into the paint and arched his back into every rough thrust. Sweat beaded and slid down his temple; Nathan could taste the salt of it on his tongue when he wet dry lips. Michael's breathing was loud behind him, erratic and hard. Almost loud enough to distract Nathan from the sound of Ryan and Matt's orgasms, almost loud enough to drown out Ryan's keening. Nathan raised one hand off of the wall and reached back to sink fingertips into Michael's thigh. Closer. More. It was just on the edge of being enough.
The bed rocked and Nathan's eyes opened, fighting to focus on Ryan crawling toward them. His curls were matted and his grin wide and fucked out; he looked drunk. Nathan swallowed and dropped his head back down against the wrist of his hand still on the wall. He didn't realized that Ryan intended to stay so close until fingers wrapped around Nathan's dick and gave it a long, quick stroke with a flick of a wrist. The crush of pleasure from the friction took Nathan right off the wall with a splintered sort of gasp--Michael's arms wrapped around him and pulled him the rest of the way up until their bodies were flush front to back before sinking an inch only to be able to thrust up again.
The new angle broke a new sound from Nathan's lips and his muscles tightened, thighs tensing. He groped for the wall to steady himself on and found Ryan's warm shoulder instead. He dug fingers in. Ryan closed in, his hand working quick and tight on the head of Nathan's dick as he scraped teeth up the long line of Nathan's collarbone and then raised to his ear. "Come on," Ryan whispered, breath humid. "You're so fucking hot, Nate. So fucking hot."
Motion at the side of his vision caught Nathan's eye as his lashes fell and his head rocked back from Ryan's pretty words. Matt. A moment later Michael's thrusts faltered and there was a breathless, choked sound into Nathan's ear as he gave one last rough shove and stiffened. Nathan arched against the solid wall of Michael's chest, mouth open, as Ryan's hand pulled him over the edge. The vague feeling of come hitting his stomach was lost in the orgasm and the hot skin under his hands. Nathan had hardly managed to start breathing again before Michael was sinking down toward the bed and Nathan's knees were weak enough that he was forced to follow when his support was taken away.
Sprawled on his back, Nathan soaked in the wonderful bone-deep exhaustion while his chest heaved and his skin tingled. He felt the shuffle and tilt of the bed around him as something welcoming and realized that he was smiling again--albeit for a much different reason than he had been an hour ago. But just like then, he didn't plan on stopping himself.
There was the slap of skin on skin and Nathan opened one eye as Matt barked a laugh and rubbed at his shoulder. He was sitting on the edge of the bed. "What was that for?" Through moving fingers Nathan could see a red palm print on Matt's arm.
Michael was laid out next to Nathan, both arms crossed over his face. "For sticking your finger in my ass," he said, lifting his forearms just enough to look at Matt, who was doing an awful job of not smiling back. Ryan dropped onto the bed in the too-small space between Michael and Nathan, bouncing them both and making Michael grunt as he got an elbow in the sternum.
Ryan shoved fingers into his hair to pull it out of his face. "So that was like, prelims, right?" He looked from Michael to Nathan, grinning.
Matt reached a long arm over to swat Ryan on the ass as Michael groaned and Nathan burst into happy laughter.
:: Phelps/Adrian/Grevers/Lochte, Swim Slash, NC17.
Four By One.
"No way," Ryan laughed, elbowing Nathan in the side as they walked down the cool hotel hallway. He held his hands apart. "At least that much. Like, seriously. That much."
The carpet ate the sound of their feet; their steps were quiet even when Nathan shuffled to the side to push Ryan's hands closer together. "You weren't looking. You were screaming."
"You had your face in it!" Ryan shoved his hands apart only to have them dragged closer than ever and finally he gave up, dropping them against his thighs with a clap and a laugh. "Dude, you have no concept of what a half-second looks like in the water. Did you swim at Cal at all or just, you know. Study. And shit." The way Ryan laughed pushed his glasses up his forehead.
Nathan tried to express shock or dismay at the pseudo-question except that it was hard to keep a straight face when he was so busy smiling. He'd been smiling since he pulled himself out of the water and into first place with the rest of underdog Team USA. He'd smiled across the podium and main deck, into the warm-down pool and through the press mill...
God, it just felt great. It felt like the best thing that he'd ever been a part of, better than the Olympics in some intangible way because this was A team. He'd been the anchor. And no one was calling him stupid for smiling so much so Nathan figured that he would keep on smiling for a while. He would probably be smiling in his sleep.
When they got to the door of Michael's room Ryan produced a key from his wallet and waved it around like a magician. "It's good to know people," he said, flipping hair out of his face with a shake of his head. He flashed another grin that made his glasses rise and fall. Nathan had finally asked Ryan, in Riccone, if he had prescription goggles. Cullen had dissolved into whooping laughs that made Nathan feel just a little stupid until Cullen had quieted enough to grab his upper arm and somberly inform him that they were, "designer." Nathan still wasn't sure that he got it but then, that seemed to be Ryan.
Ryan had only smiled. Ryan did that a lot. He smiled from under the brims of ridiculous hats, from behind goggles and diamond-set retainers, smiled for cameras, smiled wet and flushed in the warm-down pool, smiled when he got food and smiled when he was utterly and completely decimated in a game of Risk. It made Nathan feel vaguely warm down in his stomach every time it happened.
He did know better. He knew that feeling didn't have anything to do, anatomically, with his guts. But in all honesty he had bigger things on his plate in Rome and a quiet flush of hormones here and there wasn't going to be the end of his world. The lock clicked over heavily with the turn of the key and Ryan shoved the handle down and pushed into the room with a hip.
That quiet flush of hormones suddenly became a flood and Nathan's lips stopped smiling for the first time in hours so that they could part in shock because at the foot of the bed stood Matt, taller even than Nathan, his skin backlighted and silhouetted by the yellow lamp in the corner. Michael was kneeling in front of him and his hands almost managed to look small spread across the wide plane of Matt's half-clothed hips. (Iliac crest, Nathan's mind stuttered, Matt's pelvis must be huge, should really watch out for arthritis...) Matt's hand, conversely, dwarfed Michael's bare shoulder as his thumb stroked down the smooth, long line of Michael's neck.
Sternocleidomastoid insertion was the medial one-third of the clavicle--
Nathan yelped as the door slammed hard in his face under its own weight and springed hinges, shattering the image and nearly his nose along with it. His eyes watered from the rush of air and the impact of the sound against his nerves and it took a moment for Nathan to breathe again. When he did it was shaky. He glanced down the hallway, rubbing a hand over his face.
In the seconds of silence that followed he thought that maybe... of course he hadn't seen what he thought he saw. Michael had been picking something up off the floor and Matt was. Matt was offering Michael a post-race massage--Michael's neck had been bothering him in Indianapolis. Right.
Too bad Nathan's dick didn't believe anything of the sort.
Nathan nearly toppled forward with the suction as the door opened inward with a yank. Ryan leaned against the edge of it on one arm, crossing his legs cockily at the ankle. The left half of his mouth was curved upward into the best impression of Mischief that Nathan had ever seen. His heart fluttered against the bottom of his throat and he glanced into the room because he had to, just to make sure. But unless Michael was picking something off Matt's hip with his mouth, Nathan's second guess of the situation was way off the mark. And there was Ryan, just hanging against the door, still smiling.
It occurred to Nathan as his eyes traced the curve of really full lips, that this might be how the phrase "swallow your heart" came around. If he didn't know that the heart was a completely and happily stationary organ he might have thought that he was choking on his own.
"In or out, dude," Ryan said after a moment of silence. "It's like, cool either way." The other corner of his mouth curled to match the first and Nathan started listing to himself all of the signs of a heart attack. He currently had three of the six commonly accepted symptoms. "But yanno. We are your team and everything so really it's only right to celebrate with us." When he grinned his teeth showed, the front a little too large for the rest but still...
Just, Ryan was beautiful. And the most attractive thing about it was that Ryan didn't even seem to know. He was either completely oblivious to the fact that the look he was giving Nathan was making his veins dilate or he just didn't care. Nathan swallowed and asked his knees to move but they weren't listening to him; all of his active neurons were being used by either watching Michael's nose brush the high arch of Matt's hipbone or noticing how the freckles on Ryan's face seemed to gather into a light bruise across the tops of his cheeks when he smiled--a view partially obscured by the bottom of those thick, black designer rims.
"Um," Nathan said astutely. All that money for education, down the drain.
"Shut the door." It was Michael's voice, the blunt edge of confidence he always spoke with undeterred by the fact that he was on his knees in front of another man. When Nathan looked from Ryan, Matt's eyes were on them and his long fingers wrapped almost possessively around the side of Michael's neck. There was the smallest of quick quirks of thin lips as the pad of Matt's thumb settled on the soft spot right behind Michael's closest ear and Nathan's pulse tripped, his mouth drying.
Ryan bumped his eyebrows up once, a comical gesture that Nathan didn't have any intention of laughing at as he tore his eyes from Matt. "You heard the man," Ryan said. "In or out."
Nathan was back to reciting the signs of a heart attack, named one for each step forward he took. Distraction was the only way he could get his legs to work. Erratic pulse. Elevated blood pressure--couldn't be sure of it, obviously, but he knew where he'd lay his money. Sweating. Vague sense of nauseousness.
He stopped four steps in, which proved just far enough for Ryan to be able to swing the door closed behind him. The sound of the jamb catching sounded final and Nathan closed his eyes, telling himself that was stupid. Psycho-somatic. Sounds couldn't be final. When a gentle touch slid across the dip of Nathan's lower back he jumped and Ryan laughed as he walked by, winking.
Nathan watched Ryan walk toward Michael and Matt and his brain spun onward. Erratic pulse. Elevated blood pressure. Sweating. Nauseousness. Tight chest. If his left arm started hurting he would have to ask someone to take him to the hospital. ("Please zip up your pants and get me a doctor...") Nathan didn't know how to say "I'm having a heart attack" in Italian. He'd only learned stupid things like, "Do you speak English?" and, "Where is the bathroom?"
God, heart attacks were so unsexy.
Ryan put his knees to Michael's back and reached up to slide fingers though light hair, pulling Matt's head down into a kiss that seared all thought from Nathan's brain. Mouths open, fingers knotted into blonde strands, Ryan's nose brushing Matt's cheekbone until Matt pulled far enough away to grab Ryan's bottom lip in his teeth, forcing Ryan's head back so that he could suck on it. Nathan watched the tight bob of Ryan's adam's apple. (Laryngeal prominence, his brain supplied, larger in men because the thyroid cartilage elongates during puberty.) One of Michael's hands wrapped against Ryan's closest calf, palming smooth tanned skin and pulling Ryan a step closer to both of them. Nathan forgot about cartilage.
It was amazing. The easy way they touched each other was erotic enough to make the skin on the back of Nathan's arms pimple, the response of muscles ingrained in such basic biology that it didn't matter that he'd shaved all the hair off. Fight or Flight. Nathan's mind supplied the scenario for his body even as he watched Michael suck a hickey onto the skin below Matt's navel. There was a wet noise as Ryan pulled back and scraped saliva off his bottom lip using his top teeth. Nathan's dick throbbed in appreciation and not a little jealousy.
Nathan exhaled, maybe for the first time since stepping into the room. He was jealous of his three teammates and at least it was a feeling that he understood--he was jealous of Matt's ability to take, he was jealous of Michael's control, he was jealous of Ryan's absolute ease. Nathan was just the new guy and a part of him wondered if that would ever change even though he knew that it would. It just felt like every time he turned around he was learning again that he was the rookie, he was the guy who studied first and swam second, he was the kid and maybe he didn't belong here. There were thirty World Champ rookies on the American team this year--a lot of them as young as him--but sometimes Nathan felt like he was the only one who doubted his place. Even Brennan Morris looked more confident than Nathan felt, and Brennan was barely nineteen. Of course Brennan also had Michael and Michael was... well, Michael.
Ryan was leaning against said swimmer, fingertips carding back through his short hair. Matt's earlier touch might have been possessive but the way Ryan dragged his fingers against Michael's scalp and the way Michael's eyes lidded in response made Nathan feel like he was intruding. He almost couldn't believe that Matt was ignoring it, leaning in to press his mouth to Ryan's shoulder and then neck.
"He's just standing there," Michael said, turning his attention to Nathan. Nathan felt his ears get hot but his knees firmly decided that proving Michael wrong right then was not in the cards. He swallowed. The inside of his mouth was very dry.
"So?" Ryan asked with a smile almost covered by curls as he looked down at Michael. He turned his head and his eyes and his smile to Nathan and Nathan's pulse crashed against his eardrums, almost drowning out Michael's response.
"Looks like he's gonna throw up." Michael sunk back onto his heels, using Ryan's thighs to rest against. Ryan's fingers were still in his hair. Michael's eyes hadn't left Nathan but despite his nonplussed tone there was an amused turn to Michael's thin lips that made Nathan feel just like a mouse must feel when he's backed into a corner by a tiger.
"Don't poke the tiger," Nathan murmured on low volume. He would have laughed at himself except his throat didn't seem to be working right so Matt handled it for him, his eyes almost disappearing as his mouth opened and his cheeks rose with laughter.
Michael just said, "Jesus Christ," and rolled his eyes.
Ryan kneed Michael in the back. "You can totally poke anything you want," he said to Nathan with a grin that cut his face from ear to ear. Michael groaned and got another knee from Ryan, this time right above the kidney. Nathan thought that maybe he should mention that it wasn't a good place to hit but his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Matt was still chuckling; he sat down onto the edge of the bed and shook his head at Ryan. "Not anything." Nathan could see the slightest curve of flushed skin from between the open fly of Matt's cargo shorts and he dragged his eyes back to Ryan so that he wouldn't stare.
Ryan rubbed the top curve of one of Michael's ears between a thumb and index finger. "Oh," he smiled. "Yeah, Matty doesn't do the pegging." Ryan's nose rose with his smile. "He's a big fucking top." There was a bark of a laugh from Ryan as Matt actually growled--wow, seeing a guy that big growling would have been a warning to any sane person but Nathan was thinking that sanity had nothing to do with why he was standing in this room--and grabbed Ryan by the wrist, hauling him clear over a swearing Michael until Ryan was forced to put a knee on the bed between Matt's legs or end up in his lap. And Ryan was still smiling as he leaned his head down and breathed against Matt's lips, moving away as Matt moved closer and finally grinning as Matt just wrapped a long arm around his waist to keep him in place.
Nathan watched them and he was back to not breathing. His blood was slamming through his veins and while he was sure that there was air conditioning on in the room he felt hot; he was very aware of sweat prickling at the back of his neck and under his arms. Ryan had straddled Matt and was rocking his hips in a way that made Nathan's brain jump tracks from medicine to underwater turns and man, he was never going to be able go off the wall again without thinking about the way Ryan could move.
"You're staring."
The low voice made Nathan jump. Michael was standing close, his eyes very dark. Nathan's forearms prickled again. He'd never been intimidated by Michael because he'd never had reason to be; the intensity that surrounded Michael when it came to the pool was diluted from Nathan's point of view, they swam different events and that alone was a little like being in different worlds at a meet. There was a little bit of hero worship--just a little--but off-deck Michael smiled a lot. He was laid back and easy to get along with, even if they weren't what anyone would call friends.
Feeling the full intensity in those dark eyes now was like a smothering blanket of heat across his skin and Nathan dearly hoped that Michael never decided to swim the hundred free. He swallowed but it didn't dislodge his heart from the middle of his throat. "Sorry."
Michael snorted a quiet breath. "You'll never hold your own if you just lay down like that." The vague lisp and the way he talked toward the left side of his mouth might have softened the words of someone else, but not Michael. The air of command was obvious. He was used to being good at what he did, and he was used to being listened to. Nathan had confidence in himself but from Michael it was something else; it bordered on the very edge of cockiness and right now it made Nathan a little short of breath. Heightened respiration could lead to shock. He closed his eyes for a moment but that didn't help get his breathing under control at all so he just opened them again. "What?" he finally asked. And he looked at Michael--had to look down, slightly, though he'd nearly forgotten that he was actually the taller one.
"Apologizing," Michael said with a single shrug of one shoulder. He shifted his weight forward and Nathan leaned back a little. "With them," Michael said, "with me. Being passive's just going to get you left out." Michael stepped forward and Nathan's shoulderblades hit the wall. "What do you want?"
Nathan's brain stuttered. It made his mouth stutter with it. "W-what do I--what do I want?"
The smile on Michael's face only made him nervous. "I thought my question was in English," Michael said and when he leaned further still Nathan had nowhere to go. He felt the brush of fingers against his stomach as Michael's mouth formed words against his jaw. Nathan tilted his chin up a little, breathing hard. "What do you want, Nathan?" Michael asked.
Really, Nathan wanted to remember what it was like to respire correctly but that wasn't going to happen, not here, not tonight. Not with Michael's voice vibrating against the underside of his jaw like a tuning fork touched to metal. "I want..." Nathan started. And beyond the facts and the science of it what he wanted was to be included, to feel like he belonged; Nathan wanted to stop thinking about it and start doing it, he wanted to...
"I want to suck you." It was the first truth that came to mind and Nathan nearly choked on the words though they made it out only a little battered for the journey. They tasted crass and wrong on his tongue. Taking the Lord's name in vain was usually more than Nathan managed even when he was upset and his father was a firm believer in Fudge.
"Fuck," Michael breathed--groaned--against Nathan's throat. Nathan felt the scrape of teeth over his pulse just before Michael leaned into him and the world splintered a little around the edges as a large hand pressed against his dick through fabric, palm curving around the shaft and fingers stroking down almost as far as his balls. Nathan shuddered gently, the reaction as involuntary as his heartbeat or breath. Michael rubbed down in one long, slow push. "Yeah, all right," he murmured. Then Michael pulled away, put his back to Nathan and stripped his shirt over his head as he walked away.
Nathan sagged against the wall, panting, but instead of closing his eyes he watched the flex of the muscles in Michael's back--serratus, rhomboids, levators, what he wouldn't have given to have Michael as a study partner for A&P--as his shirt was tossed against the wall before he rolled over onto the large bed. Michael pushed a heel into Matt's lower back as he crossed his arms under his head on the pillow. Matt grunted; he was otherwise entertained.
Ryan's glasses had gone missing in the time that Nathan had spent giving Michael his undivided attention and his pants must have gotten unbuttoned because Matt's hands had the waistband crumpled halfway down Ryan's ass. There was a straight line running across Ryan's lower back, tan to white, and Matt's fingers were digging into pale skin.
Nathan swallowed a groan.
There was a smile from Ryan with a flash of teeth as he leaned down and bit Matt's shoulder, his eyes on Michael. Matt sank fingers into curls but let go when Ryan relented and licked across the skin he'd abused. Nathan's dick twitched inside his pants when Ryan's blue eyes turned in his direction.
"Dude," Ryan said, his voice lower than Nathan had ever heard it, a purr of vocal cords that made Nathan's balls climb upward. He pointed a finger over Matt's shoulder at the splayed form of Michael. "In or out?"
Nathan might have opened and closed his mouth. His ears were going to burn clean off of his head and he wondered, as he felt the creep of heat up the side of his face, if spontaneous combustion was actually a plausible theory. He would have laughed at the idea of it yesterday. He would have laughed at it ten minutes ago. Now he wasn't sure.
Ryan shrugged. "You snooze, you lose." And with a wicked grin he climbed off Matt's lap with his ass half hanging out--vague pink bruises the size of large fingers dotting the white skin here and there--and crawled up Michael's legs to pop his fly with a practiced yank.
Any more blood lost from his brain and Nathan was going to pass out. He watched Ryan lean over Michael and wrap fists into the sides of Michael's pants to tug them down. Did anyone on the team except Nathan wear underwear? Michael's dick was flushed and dark lying against the paler triangle of skin between his legs. He didn't have the tan that Ryan had but then, no one really did. But the small thatch of dark hair at the base of Michael's dick made the skin look that much whiter. Ryan didn't give Nathan a chance to make a scientific study of it; he wrapped fingers around the shaft to lift it and Michael arched as Ryan licked around the head and then slid his mouth all the way down the length.
There was a bitter taste under Nathan's tongue as the scene stretched out to Ryan rolling Michael's balls up into the palm of his hand as his curls bobbed with his head. That taste was the flood of hormones sparked by arousal, desire acute enough that overproduction occurred in the salivary glands. Nathan realized suddenly that Matt was watching him watch Michael's fingers creep into Ryan's hair. At his sides Nathan's hands were clenching and unclenching and he forced them still. Involuntary physical reaction to mental stress. Nathan crossed his arms over his chest.
"Cm'ere," Matt said, the sound quiet enough that neither Michael nor Ryan paid them any attention. Matt could be so young when he smiled, Nathan remembered him doing a belly flop into the pool at Purdue; he surfaced sputtering, laughing and groaning at the same time. He remembered Matt from the relays in Beijing, both of them B team at their first Olympics (not that they'd ever celebrated like this)--but now Matt looked different, he looked very serious and assured of his place in this room with his large jaw set and blonde bangs falling over his forehead. The brush of hair barely shadowed eyes that were a hard electric blue.
For a minute Nathan stayed where he was and genetic tables for eye color spooled out in his head, dominant and recessive and what it would have taken to get eyes that bright. Then he took that first step, and another, and walked through all of it until his knees hit the bed in front of Matt. Hands rose to rest on the outside of Nathan's thighs, hot through the material of his shorts. Nathan closed his eyes but not too soon to see Michael watching them from under dark lashes.
Matt's hands slid up his body, thumbs grazing along either side of Nathan's dick and starting a slow burn under his skin. Fingers wrapped into the hem of Nathan's tshirt and he felt the push of soft cotton against his stomach and chest until Matt's hands were spread against his bare skin. Nathan took a slow, deep breath to feel the pressure against his ribcage and the echo of his heart against the hot palms. Nathan's stomach jumped and then trembled as a damp heat licked the lines of muscles, tracing from his navel upward.
The shock of sensation as the edge of teeth set against one of his nipples opened Nathan's eyes and a quiet sound crawled up this throat. He raised a hand to drag a finger across blonde bangs and Matt looked up through them as he flicked the captured nub with his tongue. Nathan's head dropped back, his eyes liding again. Matt sucked at the nipple and each quick pull sent a jagged flare of pleasure straight to the base of Nathan's dick. He didn't remember consciously making the decision to move his hand, but Matt's hair was soft and thin and Nathan was grabbing it, tensing his hand in time to those ragged pulses of nerves. Matt bit gently and then moved his mouth to leave that nipple aching and wet and start in on the other.
Nathan's eyes opened at a wet sound from the bed and his chin dropped enough to see Ryan rise from Michael's lap, sitting on his heels and dragging his hand against his mouth. His back was mostly to Nathan but it wasn't hard to identify the rise of his cheeks as a smile. Michael was holding fingers around the base of his dick as his chest rose and fell with shallow motions. His cheeks were flushed.
Physical arousal caused vasocongestion. Vasocongestion: the swelling of bodily tissues caused by increased vascular blood flow and a localized increase in blood pressure. Also common during menstruation, REM sleep, extreme emotion and allergic reactions.
But who cared about the definition when Michael was spread out on the bed in demonstration, eyelashes making bruises under his eyes and chest and cheeks glowing a soft pink? Nathan scraped his bottom lip through his teeth hard enough to make it hurt. Matt's hands dropped and squeezed at his hips and Nathan's attention slid downward. "You gonna do it?" Matt asked. "Or just look at him?"
Nathan wondered what the definition of insanity was. He could still feel a vague sort of buzz from the skin across his carotid pulse point where Michael's teeth had been. Ryan was watching. "We can always race," Ryan said, "to like, see who can get naked first." A smile still lingered around the corners of his mouth. His lips were faintly swollen.
Matt's head turned, one hand sliding free of Nathan's hip to tug on his earlobe absently. He shrugged.
Nathan stared at Ryan. "You're serious."
"He wouldn't suggest it if he weren't," Michael snorted and stroked himself once or twice; all of their eyes were drawn down with the motion. Ryan's were the first to rise and he shifted a bit as Nathan was still watching the careless tug of long fingers and the way they pulled soft skin up around that long erection with each draw.
"Dude," Ryan said. "Ready. Set--"
"That's not fair," Nathan said, his eyes peeling away to Ryan, whose pants were halfway down already. His dick was pushing up the hem of his white Speedo tshirt. For a moment Nathan lost his train of thought, looking at the line just under the head that divided the slightly gathered, tanned skin of the shaft from the smooth, reddish head. Ryan waggled it with a shake of his hips and Nathan's eyes snapped up, ears burning as he tried to remember what he'd been thinking. "Um. It's not fair because I have underwear on."
"And Mike's got big ears," Ryan said, "so it's really hard for him to get his shirts off." It didn't seem to matter that Michael had already taken his shirt off; Ryan's grin was absolutely maniacal. "Go!"
Nathan thought Matt was the first to get his shirt off but in the rush to get his own clothes shed (It's simple biology, he thought as he nearly took out an eye with his own thumb, competition. Every species.) he couldn't be sure. All he knew was that Ryan was laughing, his legs in the air as he shoved his pants off and Michael had slipped completely out of his own shorts even though Nathan hadn't seen him move.
"Worst time by far," Matt rumbled, standing in a puddle of his own shorts and reaching over to tuck thumbs into the waistband of Nathan's briefs as Nathan was still extracting his arm from his shirt. "The French could do better." He pulled Nathan's back against his front and Nathan froze, breath filling his lungs and then simply refusing to exhale. Ryan crawled toward them across crumpled sheets as Matt pressed his mouth to Nathan's shoulder, cool against the heat of his body. Not that he could feel anything except for the shape of Matt's erection through the single, worn layer of cotton covering his ass.
Nathan shivered, his breath sliding through his lips in a long, slow release. "What does that mean? I don't get a medal?"
Ryan crossed his legs under himself and sat at the edge of the bed. "It means you get to bottom," he said with half a distracted smile; his attention was on Nathan's briefs. "Fruit of the Loom?"
For a moment longer Nathan was still fully focused on the slight rocking of the body behind him. His breath came and went to the rhythm of Matt's motions. Hands roamed across Nathan's back and fingertips slid in and out of the elastic back of his underwear. "What?" Nathan murmured, eyes half closed. Ryan snapped the front of Nathan's waistband; the sting of elastic got his attention. His eyes opened. "What?" he asked again, more loudly for the repeat.
"Uh oh," Ryan said. "Looks like I poked the tiger."
Michael kneeled forward and knocked Ryan back flat onto the bed with a straight-arm shove. Ryan yelped but Michael ignored it, straightening up in front of Nathan while Ryan rolled to the side, trying to escape from the sheets and get his legs out from underneath himself. "Ryan's an underwear snob," Michael said.
Matt's hands slid over Nathan's sides, up his chest and all the way to his shoulders. Nathan spared a glance behind him as he said, "but he wasn't wearing any."
"That's because he hasn't done laundry," Matt said from behind Nathan's ear. The brush of breath made goosebumps ripple down the back of Nathan's neck.
"Hey," Ryan said. He'd rolled off the side of the bed in order to get free of the sheets--which he'd left on the floor--and stood up, scratching a hand back through his hair. "I have."
Michael pressed open lips to the hollow of Nathan's throat. (The supra... supra-sternal notch...) "It doesn't count when you get the girls to do it."
Ryan flopped back onto the bed, his blue eyes on them as Nathan fought to keep his head up and his eyes open when Michael slipped a hand into the front of his obviously inferior underwear and wrapped hot fingers around his dick. Nathan's whole body tried to move but Matt just flexed slightly, his arms creating an easy hold. His teeth caught the lobe of Nathan's ear and Nathan hardly heard Ryan say, "nuh-uh, Cullen did it."
Michael was twisting his hand around Nathan with a steady turn-tug that made Nathan's thighs tense. Whatever distance he'd managed to put between him and the situation snapped and his chest rose and fell with shallow, rapid breaths that left him a little light-headed. Nathan's hips jerked forward once, a bit more, and then fell back against Matt's waiting body when Michael simply stopped moving on him. Matt made a deep, pleased sound against Nathan's ear and pressed against him.
Nathan's nerves were singing, tingling, begging him to move. Michael's grip was tight around the head of his dick, squeezing the blood down and the pressure was nothing, it was like an itch that he couldn't scratch. Nathan wanted and Michael wasn't giving him anything. When his hips twitched Michael's grip closed a little more and deadened the sensation further. There was a medical reason for it, for why, but Nathan didn't search for it. Didn't care. A whine crawled up his throat and because his arms couldn't reach out for Michael they rose and wound fingers into Matt's hair as his back arched, shoulders pushing against a solid chest. Matt bit the long muscle at the base of Nathan's neck and Nathan shuddered.
Fingers were prying into his waistband and tugging his underwear down over hips but Matt's arms were still holding him immobile and Michael's fingers were still motionless and maddening on his dick. Nathan forced his eyes open to find curls and Ryan's bottom lip caught between his teeth as he worked Nathan's plain white briefs down his thighs. Nathan must have breathed or moved or made some inarticulate noise of pleading because blue eyes raised and Ryan's lip scraped free of teeth as he smiled. Michael's hand loosened and let go as Ryan straightened, leaning in past him. The rush of renewed blood to his dick made Nathan groan into Ryan's mouth as Ryan kissed him.
Ryan's mouth was warm and damp and he tasted like pistachios and smelled like suntan lotion. Ryan licked at Nathan's lips and teeth with an almost over-eager bluntness at first but when he slowed down, when he focused, his kiss became something sweet and soft and Nathan felt himself relaxing into it. His muscles unstrung and the frantic pace of his heart slowed to match the easy give and take of their mouths, a press that Nathan tried to lean into. Ryan's fingers climbed his ribs and settled against his chest and Nathan didn't even realize that Matt had let him go until his own fingers were tangling in curled hair.
It was tangible. Ryan's mouth was real and pliant, nothing like the tease of Michael's hand or the unseen drag of Matt's lips against his back. Nathan leaned over the bed and Ryan responded, twisting his body so that he could fall back underneath of him without ever breaking the suction of their mouths. The sheets were cool against Nathan's knees and forearms; compared to that sweet chill, Ryan's body rocking up against his felt scalding, burning him where hips and chests and thighs brushed and where their dicks ground together with a force that was almost too much. Ryan moaned into Nathan's mouth and the vibration of the sound set a fire deep inside of him that seemed to smolder outward in order to reach his already hot skin. There was no thought to Nathan palming the curve of Ryan's thigh and jerking him up, closer, tighter together.
The murmurs from above and behind them only registered in the back of Nathan's head. Ryan had his focus, Ryan moved against him like he wanted to crawl inside of him and between slick presses of bruising lips he'd murmur out filthy things through groans that Nathan had only ever heard in sneaked snatches of porn. Ryan made them real with an easy abandon. Nathan tried to lick them out of his mouth to see how they'd taste and was intent on that even after the bed had dipped under extra weight. In fact, it took a cool line of pressure between the cheeks of his ass to get his attention.
Nathan's head jerked up with a hiss; he felt Ryan relax beneath him as he rolled his head to the side to look over Nathan's shoulder. As Nathan turned his head to watch Michael squeeze a little more clear liquid onto his fingers from a small bottle, Ryan leaned up and pressed his mouth to Nathan's neck. "All good," he said, Ryan's voice low and murmuring.
The slight assurance wasn't enough to stop Nathan from having second thoughts about his choice of position on the bed; he'd tucked one knee up underneath of Ryan's thigh to shift their hips together but Nathan's other leg was straight back, toes off the bottom of the bed. Effectively, he'd spread himself out and Michael was taking advantage.
Nathan swallowed even though the slight pressure of Ryan's mouth against his throat made it difficult. Ryan's teeth scraped his jaw and hands moved over his sides in a light brush to settle on his hips. "You've done this before?" The question was murmured against his cheek; Nathan was still watching Michael over his shoulder.
The medical implications of anal sex were long and myriad but the next cool brush of fingers against Nathan's anus was remarkably effective in stopping him from making a list of them. His lips parted to let out a soft puff of breath. "Once," he managed, dropping his head back down. Once, in the dark, with a single partner who knew less about a body than any medical student had the excuse to. In other words it had been as widely removed from this situation as it was possible for anything to be.
Ryan kissed Nathan's mouth, his lips spreading Nathan's even as Michael was spreading one side of Nathan's ass and pushing one slick finger slowly inside of him. Nathan breathed into Ryan's mouth and fought his body's natural instinct to tense at the intrusion. Ryan bit his lower lip gently and then released it as he dragged Nathan's hand toward him. It forced Nathan to shift his weight and Michael's finger sank deeper. Giving another shuddering exhale, Nathan dropped his forehead to Ryan's shoulder and let his eyes close.
There was no pain, only a vague discomfort that made his breath short. His erection had wilted, killed by his own embarrassment, and Nathan could feel how his dick was just resting in the curve of Ryan's hip. He breathed in the lotion smell of Ryan's skin and his body jerked slightly as Michael twisted his hand in a sedate circle that dragged his finger inside Nathan around with it. But it wasn't that slick sensation that pulled a low sound up Nathan's throat, it was Ryan sucking Nathan's index finger into his mouth, all hot and wet and he curled the flat of his tongue against the underside of it as the back of his throat constricted against the tip.
Nathan's dick twitched against Ryan's thigh and his hips lurched involuntarily; Michael curled his finger up with the shift and Nathan's whole body jerked as his nerves suddenly lit against the back of his skin and behind the dark of his closed eyes. He heard the shocked sound that rattled up his throat and felt how Ryan rubbed up against him in response, mouth falling open around Nathan's finger so that he could pant. Nathan's own mouth was open against skin and his back was arching as Michael stroked up again with the flat pad of his finger. The sensation sharp and thick pulled his balls up toward his body and left Nathan shaking as Michael's finger slid away.
Heaving breath, Nathan picked his head up. Matt was handing Michael a small square wrapper. He looked at Nathan and gave him a slow smile before leaning across the white sheets and pressing a rough, quick kiss against Nathan's already throbbing lips. Then Matt took Nathan's wrist and pulled his hand away from Ryan's mouth so that he could kiss Ryan, too. Nathan had shifted to the side and watched, but he was increasingly distracted by the sound of ripping foil and the snap of latex from behind him.
Ryan looked undone when Matt pulled away even though the kiss had been relatively short. As Matt settled back completely Nathan noticed how dark Ryan's eyes had grown, the color nearly eclipsed by the wide black, just a blue ring around the circumference. Ryan's curls were kinked and spread out around his head on the bed and his cheeks were red under his tan in the same places that a hard race would make him glow. Nathan's body moved and he leaned back down. He would have touched the hot skin--with his nose, his mouth, his tongue--but Matt grabbed Nathan's chin, fingers turning his head.
"My turn," Matt said. Nathan heard a quiet laugh from behind him and pulled his face from Matt's hand to look over his shoulder.
Michael was resting on his heels, stroking his hard dick slow and carelessly as he watched them. Nathan swallowed. The smile that graced Michael's lips was sloppy, easy and anticipatory. It made something thick and hot unwind in Nathan's stomach and he pushed himself all of the way up and off of Ryan, felt Ryan move away but he didn't turn from Michael to look. Michael was still touching himself.
Reaching out, Nathan slid his fingers alongside Michael's around vaguely slippery latex and the warm, hard organ that it covered. Michael murmured something low in his throat and let his hand drop; Nathan continued to stroke him slowly, squeezing each time he pushed down the length of Michael's dick and watched as Michael's chin settled against his chest and his eyes closed, lips parting. Each breath he took was a little quicker than the last until his hips were shifting against Nathan's rhythm and Nathan felt bold enough to lean in and drag his mouth across the smooth skin of Michael's collarbone. He returned the favor of earlier by dipping his tongue into the hollow of a tanned throat and then chasing Michael's chin as it rose to lick across the thundering rush of a pulse.
Fingers dug into Nathan's arms with a sudden pressure and Michael jerked himself away, leaving Nathan's hands and mouth empty. For a moment Michael just looked at him, eyes darker than ever and chest heaving quietly. Then he was pushing Nathan around and there was a shuffle of knees and legs before Nathan found himself with a cheek to the cool wall at the head of the bed, fingers splayed open against the peach paint.
Matt and Ryan were nearby, standing in the strip of space beside the bed. Matt's back was to Nathan and he had Ryan pinned under him against the wall; one of Ryan's legs was held up under the knee by Matt's arm against his side and the other pushed a heel into the edge of the mattress as a brace. His biceps were on Matt's broad shoulders, muscles straining. Matt's face was hidden in the crook of Ryan's neck but Ryan's was perfectly visible, eyes closed and mouth making a shapeless sound with every thrust of Matt's body that sent him back into the wall.
Nathan twisted his head to look down, panting, bracing himself as fingers circled his anus and then spread him open. He shifted to help, his knees sliding apart over the sheets. His pulse drummed in his ears. Nathan could feel how the sweat gathered at his lower back spread as Michael's hand slid over his skin and then grabbed, fingers opening across his back as the blunt pressure against his anus became a stretch and quickly a burn.
Against the wall, Nathan's fingers tried to curl through plaster. He opened his mouth to breathe. Michael didn't stop and Nathan didn't tell him to, his eyes closing and his back arching further under Michael's hand for the continued inward press. It was slow and inevitable and Michael gave a gentle rock once he was deep enough, a small movement that was nevertheless enough to make Nathan gasp and rise slightly off the wall. The next rock of hips got Michael a little further and brought begging words to Nathan's lips; he bit them to keep silent.
The room was already filled with Ryan's voice. He had a constant, low litany of dialogue. "Fuck yeah," he would moan from the wall, or, "harder, jeah, right there." Nathan felt himself flush slightly when Ryan grunted, "fuck me, fuck me," but gradually it seemed that Michael was setting his pace to the increasing tempo of Ryan while Nathan just made his bottom lip bleed to keep himself quiet, the seep of copper bright on his tongue. Michael's fingers dug into his hips and Nathan let himself moan a little as he was pulled back with a jerk. He felt the flat press of Michael's hips against his ass but another rough yank of Nathan's body pulled him inches down the wall and settled Michael just that much deeper. The broken sound that fell from Nathan's mouth then had nothing to do with his brain and everything to do with how much he could feel, the violating stretch that his body not only accepted but wanted more of, ached for, with a constant raw throb in a way that Nathan would never be able to put words or definitions to.
"Please." Nathan heard his own voice, the way it sounded exactly as undone as he felt. "Please," he groaned, fingernails scraping against the wall as he rocked himself back. It wasn't enough. Michael's fingers tightened on his hips and there was a moment, time drawing out across Nathan's nerves, before Michael leaned down over him until he was breathing against Nathan's spine in hot little jerks of air.
"Because you asked nicely."
The words were quiet and they made Nathan ache. Long fingers moved and spread across the sides of Nathan's ass and then Michael's breath broke against his back as he thrust forward hard. Caught off-guard Nathan's forehead smacked the wall but he didn't care, just slid his hands higher to better brace himself as Michael came forward again. Nathan sucked in a breath through his teeth.
It wasn't careful, it wasn't slow or anything like the tease of Michael's hand from earlier. Michael shoved Nathan against the wall over and over and Nathan took it, he moaned into the paint and arched his back into every rough thrust. Sweat beaded and slid down his temple; Nathan could taste the salt of it on his tongue when he wet dry lips. Michael's breathing was loud behind him, erratic and hard. Almost loud enough to distract Nathan from the sound of Ryan and Matt's orgasms, almost loud enough to drown out Ryan's keening. Nathan raised one hand off of the wall and reached back to sink fingertips into Michael's thigh. Closer. More. It was just on the edge of being enough.
The bed rocked and Nathan's eyes opened, fighting to focus on Ryan crawling toward them. His curls were matted and his grin wide and fucked out; he looked drunk. Nathan swallowed and dropped his head back down against the wrist of his hand still on the wall. He didn't realized that Ryan intended to stay so close until fingers wrapped around Nathan's dick and gave it a long, quick stroke with a flick of a wrist. The crush of pleasure from the friction took Nathan right off the wall with a splintered sort of gasp--Michael's arms wrapped around him and pulled him the rest of the way up until their bodies were flush front to back before sinking an inch only to be able to thrust up again.
The new angle broke a new sound from Nathan's lips and his muscles tightened, thighs tensing. He groped for the wall to steady himself on and found Ryan's warm shoulder instead. He dug fingers in. Ryan closed in, his hand working quick and tight on the head of Nathan's dick as he scraped teeth up the long line of Nathan's collarbone and then raised to his ear. "Come on," Ryan whispered, breath humid. "You're so fucking hot, Nate. So fucking hot."
Motion at the side of his vision caught Nathan's eye as his lashes fell and his head rocked back from Ryan's pretty words. Matt. A moment later Michael's thrusts faltered and there was a breathless, choked sound into Nathan's ear as he gave one last rough shove and stiffened. Nathan arched against the solid wall of Michael's chest, mouth open, as Ryan's hand pulled him over the edge. The vague feeling of come hitting his stomach was lost in the orgasm and the hot skin under his hands. Nathan had hardly managed to start breathing again before Michael was sinking down toward the bed and Nathan's knees were weak enough that he was forced to follow when his support was taken away.
Sprawled on his back, Nathan soaked in the wonderful bone-deep exhaustion while his chest heaved and his skin tingled. He felt the shuffle and tilt of the bed around him as something welcoming and realized that he was smiling again--albeit for a much different reason than he had been an hour ago. But just like then, he didn't plan on stopping himself.
There was the slap of skin on skin and Nathan opened one eye as Matt barked a laugh and rubbed at his shoulder. He was sitting on the edge of the bed. "What was that for?" Through moving fingers Nathan could see a red palm print on Matt's arm.
Michael was laid out next to Nathan, both arms crossed over his face. "For sticking your finger in my ass," he said, lifting his forearms just enough to look at Matt, who was doing an awful job of not smiling back. Ryan dropped onto the bed in the too-small space between Michael and Nathan, bouncing them both and making Michael grunt as he got an elbow in the sternum.
Ryan shoved fingers into his hair to pull it out of his face. "So that was like, prelims, right?" He looked from Michael to Nathan, grinning.
Matt reached a long arm over to swat Ryan on the ass as Michael groaned and Nathan burst into happy laughter.