Fic: Sympathetic Magic Part 3 (final)
So here it is, the end of my venture into 'The Dresden Files'. Hopefully it lives up to expectations, and thank you all for such great comments.
Title: Sympathetic Magic
Author: Nemo the Everbeing
Rating: NC-17 for this part. Heed my warning! Thar be sex.
Summary: So the world was ending, and I had to choose between murder and gay sex to save it. My life is so weird.
Part I
Part II
“You will hate yourself for this, Dresden, and me as well.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “No, I won’t. And it’s Harry, John. For tonight, if no other time, it’s Harry.”
He studied me, eyes flickering across my face, gauging my sincerity and my determination. I could practically feel it on my skin and shivered at the sympathetic waves tingling across me.
Then he made his decision. His expression softened into a crooked smile and he returned my touch on his face with one on mine. He looked younger, and reckless, and alive. “Harry,” he breathed, and if I didn’t know better I would think he actually liked me.
He kissed me as softly as I had kissed him, with a weight of desire and something like flirtation behind it. I knew it was all an act. I had just asked him for it, but some part of me couldn’t help but wonder if some of this wasn’t pretend. If he was just as sick of penning in his emotions as I would be in his shoes. If maybe this outlet, when he could disavow it as a lie, was the only time he could really express any honest desire.
Or maybe that was just the sort of wishful thinking he was fostering to get the job done. Whichever it was, I grasped that thread and pulled. We kissed slowly, keeping passion banked in favor of something sweeter. I felt like such a girl for indulging in this, but John was just as active a participant as I was. I tasted him with quick flicks of my tongue, never letting it be more than a tease. He tasted like expensive coffee.
“Harry,” his whispered again when we came up for air.
“John,” I whispered right back. I kissed him again, deepening it slowly. I wasn’t even aware I was lowering him to the mat until we were horizontal. I pulled back a little and he looked at me with a hazy sort of appreciation.
“Christ, but you’re gorgeous,” he said.
I wanted to tell him not to sell it to the cheap seats quite yet, because I knew that was a lie. But I didn’t open my mouth. I didn’t want to burst this fragile illusion he’d created for my benefit. For this to really work, I had to half-believe.
So I kissed him again, hard, to shut him up. He kissed me back with just as much heat, but without that competitive edge we’d had earlier. Seemed like he’d covered that up in the make-believe too.
I had an idea. If John was willing to play a little pretend for me, I wondered if I could do the same. Nothing major, but one word? One word that just might shake things up in the best possible way? We’d established that nothing said here could be taken seriously. What did I have to lose?
I broke the kiss and looked down at him, eyes lidded with that illusion of love still in place.
“Please,” I whispered to him.
His eyes went wide. For a second I was pretty sure I’d broken through both illusion and stone-cold façade to something a lot more personal. It looked a lot like shock and a little confusion and a whole lot of I-want-me-more-of-that. Seemed like I’d found the right button to push. His kiss had an edge to it and he rolled me under him.
I ground my shoulders into the yoga mat when we broke apart, and I arched my neck. I hoped I was presenting a picture of wanton desire and not making him think I was having a seizure. “Stars,” I groaned. Was that my voice? Maybe I was a better actor than I thought, because I really sounded like I meant this. Which wasn’t something I wanted to think about. “Please, John. Anything.”
I heard a soft growl as illusion and façade cracked again, and saw just how deep that desire went, and it was all directed at me. My head swam and the sudden, terrifying thought that maybe the reason he’d fought so hard against losing himself to this was that very reaction: it wasn’t that he didn’t want me, it was that he wanted me too much. Hell, he’d wanted me under him in one way or another since five minutes after we met, and this suddenly seemed a lot like giving in.
Before I could put the breaks on that particular crazy train, we came crashing together. I was holding onto the illusion that I could save him in this, and he was holding onto the illusion that he finally got to see me give in. We weren’t kissing like we meant it to hurt, we were kissing like we were devouring one another. There were hands at my sides, and then at my hips, and finally there were fingers working between us to unbuckle, unbutton, and, with a quick flick of the wrist, unzip. I felt the chilly air reach through my boxers and I burrowed closer.
“Not going to get your pants off if you keep that up,” his voice said in my ear before he worried at the lobe with his teeth and palmed my dick.
I let out a moan that was in no way soft and reedy and in all ways girly, so it must have been some other poor bastard whose voice I could hear begging, “Oh, Stars. Please, John. Please.”
I squirmed and begged as he skinned me out of my jeans. He managed some really colorful phrases when he had to take time to unlace my boots. I could hear the first hit the wall in the distance. Then the other hit, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass.
My boxers and socks had come off in the tussle, and as I lay there, some part of my brain that wasn’t drooling with pleasure registered that I was naked and he was not. His eyes ranged over me with naked avarice.
It was my turn to jerk his t-shirt over his head, and then fumble at his belt, which went pretty well. Fumbling at his pants didn’t go quite as well. Stupid things had inner buttons, and button flies, and too damn many buttons. Finally, in a fit of irritation, I zapped the remaining two buttons away, keeping the magic strictly under my control so as not to burn certain sensitive areas and destroy the mood for good.
He noticed. Oh, boy did he notice if the noise that tore itself free of his throat and the unguarded grind against me was anything to go on. I scraped my teeth against his throat and he made another soft noise, but this time he didn’t retreat. Just for that, I gave him a hickey somewhere that his collar would cover up. Because I’m a gentleman, and unlike some guys I don’t even need it in my name.
I managed to shove his pants and boxers out of the way, but I couldn’t figure out how to do anything more. Between the magic and the sheer physical joy of full-frontal contact my brain was pretty much shot.
He pulled back to rid himself of the pants, and for a second we looked at each other. The brief glimpse I’d gotten was only a small extent of the scars running all over his body. I felt like I’d gotten off light, if that was what this life did to a vanilla mortal. That ragged ear of his was only the tip of an iceberg that stretched from his neck to his feet.
Although most of my scars tend to vanish after a few years I acquire enough in that time to look pretty banged up. My hand was a continued source of embarrassment, since it was nothing but a mass of scar tissue. He zeroed right in on it, lifted it and regarded the damage. I like to wear gloves, not only to cover how bad it looked, but also because the scar tissue could get sensitive on some days, so that any cold or heat or pressure was felt acutely. I didn’t know what that meant, but figured it had to be some byproduct of the wizardly growing-back thing. I hadn’t thought to put them on that day, since I was supposed to be sitting on my couch with a beer and relaxing. Now I just felt weird and exposed.
Then he slipped the first two fingers of that hand into his mouth and started sucking and I found a good side to having my hand burned to a crisp. Maybe blowing was back on the menu.
His eyes slitted, vivid green and intent on my face. I was gasping like I’d run a mile, and he started to get back a little of his cool.
I wasn’t about to let that happen while I was still a dribbling moron, so I reached down and wrapped my fingers around his dick. John fell forward, losing his grip on my hand in that rare moment of graceless sprawl. I rolled us sideways, following him, not giving him time to think. Thinking was bad at this point. It only led to better walls.
So I stroked at him, a little clumsy. I always hated masturbation, and I wasn’t in great practice. He didn’t seem to mind when I licked at one flat nipple. It was going out on a limb, hoping that what worked for girls would work for him too, but from the urgent sound he made, and since he didn’t elbow me in the throat, I was pretty certain that was a winner.
He hauled me back up, chest heaving and his eyes unfocused. I kissed him again, rubbing against him and planting my hands on either side of his head. We were making noises that got so mixed up in one another’s mouths I couldn’t tell who was making what. I felt him start to tense up and dragged myself away. That growl of protest was definitely him.
We stared at one another. Not at the scars, or at that body, but right into one another’s eyes. For the first time since I’d met him, I was really happy we’d gotten that soulgaze out of the way.
“What do you want?” he asked.
In that moment I realized that I did want something from him: an indelible memory. Something that got under his skin and stuck there. And, yes, it was stupid, and yes, I did remember that all the affection was pretend and that I wasn’t going to save him. None of that mattered, because, Stars, I wanted to save him. I wanted to be the hero and I wanted reality to go fuck itself. Barring that impossible dream, I wanted to give him one thing he’d never experienced before. I could guess, in what had to be a more storied sexual repertoire than mine, what he would have never let anyone do.
But approaching it was something else entirely.
In the end I couldn’t think of another way to put it aside from really bluntly. What can I say? Words have never been my strong point. “I want to fuck you,” I said.
He sucked in a breath and his eyes went wide.
“Please,” I said. I didn’t moan it. This wasn’t a show. I knew exactly what I was saying to him, and somehow that seemed to catch him even deeper. “I mean it. Please.”
“Jesus fuck, Harry,” he said, all his newscaster perfect English stripped away in that bare moment.
“Please.”
He closed his eyes, turning his head to press against the cold stone floor, then reached out, grabbed the bottle of oil and slapped it into my hand. “Fucking well do it before I change my mind,” he said, harsh and demanding and scared shitless.
I admired him more than a little in that moment. Of course, most of my gray matter was occupied with the ‘how’ of this whole thing. In theory I knew how to go about this, sure. I did spend over a year with an incubus sleeping on my couch. But in practice that seemed suddenly like a really little hole for a not so small thing. I had no idea how to convince slot A that tab B was a workable proposition.
He was glowering at me. Shit. Well, my motto is: when in doubt, do something big and stupid. I went down on him. It definitely stopped the glower in an explosion of fervently Catholic swearing and hands firmly planted in my hair.
I can say now that it wasn’t awful. It wasn’t great, and I’m pretty certain I wasn’t great either, but it wasn’t awful. I knew that I had to keep my teeth out of the picture, and suck and lick and do all those things that I enjoyed the one and only time I’d been on the receiving end of one of these.
I oiled up my fingers while I was busy trying not to choke myself, and tried to think of the best way to approach this without fumbling horribly and convincing Marcone that the last thing he wanted to do was risk his ass in my inexperienced hands.
I was tentative as all hell when I stroked at him, just trying to gauge a reaction and figure out if he’d really let me do this. There was a sligh jump in the muscle under my fingers, which, yeah, weird. I tried again, and there was less of a jump. And even better, he hadn’t knocked me back on my ass yet, so I was pretty sure that was a go. Or as much of a go as he would ever give me for something like this.
One finger ventured where no man had gone before, and then I just tried to focus on blowing him, which seemed like a hell of a lot less of a trespass when put into perspective. I just sort of let my fingers figure things out. They tended to do better without my brain, anyway.
Somehow I managed two fingers, and they apparently got sort of curious, because they found some sort of bump up there that got me another torrent of Catholic swearing. Wow, John. Way to go for the blasphemy.
“Dresden,” he gritted out, “if you intend to do this, I suggest you do it now.”
I pulled off him with a popping noise that made me blush all over, and clambered up his body. We were nose to nose, and I could see that his money green eyes had gone the color of grass, vibrant and alive. He was panting, his expression halfway between desire and terror.
“Right there with you,” I muttered, or at least I got about half those words out before he slicked me up in the most efficient hand job I’d ever received.
And then, yeah, it was time. I shuffled forward so that my knees were spooned up under his lower back and after a second I felt his legs wrap around me. Moment of truth. I had to follow through on what I’d said I wanted, but now that I was there I was wondering exactly how long a guy like this was going to let the guy who took him up the ass during the Apocalypse survive after we saved the world.
“Dresden-” he started to say, and I pressed forward. I’m a reckless bastard.
His hands were at my sides, gripping hard enough that I knew I was going to be sporting some interesting bruises in the morning. Our eyes were locked, and I didn’t dare look away. My head was spinning, my breath was ragged, and he was so amazingly tight around me. One of my hands stroked at the blaze of gray at his temple, while the other was keeping my upper body from squashing him.
The initial reaction was a jerk of pain on his end, and I froze in place. Both of us were gasping, and I could feel his fingernails bite into my flanks. I thought about telling him to breathe through it, but decided I’d rather not get gutted like a fish.
After a few minutes of harsh breathing and trying not to be soothing or caring or any of the things that the chivalrous part of me was pretty much demanding at that point, Marcone gave me a nod. I started easing forward again, and after a second’s resistance I slid all the way home.
“Oh, Stars,” I whispered, pressing my face against his neck and trying to get enough of my own control back that I wouldn’t embarrass myself. Carefully, I pulled back, and then pushed forward with even greater care. He squirmed under me, and I pressed a kiss to his temple.
I kept the pace slow and gentle. I wanted this to be good. I wanted-
“I’m not going to break, Dresden,” he said, and the raggedness in his voice me draw back to look at him. His expression was teetering on the edge of something. “And I’m not your girlfriend. Put your back into it.”
I snapped my hips forward and he met me. “Do you always have to be in charge?” I asked.
His grin was sharp. “I don’t have to Harry, but I always am.” I moved hard against him, and he hissed. “No one ever quite seems to step up to the challenge.”
Oh, it was on. We were moving against one another for a few breathtaking minutes, fingers scrabbling and clawing, and then somehow were we moving together, like every damn fight we’d ever had, that always ended with us on the same side against the things that go bump in the night. John’s hand was between my shoulder blades, and his other scratched at my chest. The electric zing of pleasure drove me nuts and I was fucking him harder than I’d ever dared with any woman. The hand propping me up grated against the yoga mat, and the other hand was wrapped around his dick, jerking.
I could feel the magic binding around us. It was like ropes tying us together, running through us and around us until I could almost feel what he felt. He gasped hard, and twisted his head to one side, his eyes closed tightly and his body gone rigid in my arms before jerking hard against me. Then I was shouting, shoving myself as deeply as I could in sharp, powerful thrusts as I felt the rush of orgasm from my toes all the way to the top of my head, and then back down, building to an unbearable intensity in my groin. The explosion, when it came, burned out every fuse I had.
And it blew out all the street lamps in my block, but I wouldn’t find that out until a few hours later.
My ears were ringing when my brain decided to power itself back on, and the first thing I noticed was that I was sticky. The next thing I noticed was that we were tangled up in a human pretzel of arms and legs. My natural inclination to cling in the aftermath had taken over while my mind was taking a break from the world. The air still tingled around us, the whole circle was super-charged with sex and sympathetic magic.
My knees had gone out from under me, and I managed to get them back in something like working order so I could pull out. I went slow, but there was a definite wince under me. I glanced down, and Marcone had slipped back into neutral. His expression was unreadable, even though he was totally naked, just as sticky as I was, his lips were swollen and his hair was a mess. I rolled over, muttering the incantation and tapping at the nearest crystal. The flare of power and light made me arch, almost an aftershock of orgasm in itself. I fell back, blissed out and drained. The silence above our heads was louder than the explosions, and the emptiness of the circle was like an ocean separating us from anything else.
“Dresden?” I heard after a while. I flopped my head in Marcone’s direction. Any second now I was going to recover my senses and get really embarrassed about all of this, but exhaustion had trumped modesty. “I take it from that vacant look of self-satisfaction that we have succeeded in saving the city.”
“John, no shop talk,” I mumbled, closing my eyes and indulging in some well-earned basking. Saved the world and got laid. Go me. “Just get your ass over here. I’m cold.”
After a second, I felt my duster draped over me. I cracked my eye open to see him moving to retrieve his clothing. “Really not what I was thinking.”
He glanced at me, and oh boy was that mask back in place. I rolled to my feet and let the duster fall off. His eyes scanned me carefully, but I couldn’t tell if it was appreciation or if he was assessing a threat. I set my jaw. I’d known this was coming, but, dammit, I wanted more than him walking out like a guilty one-night stand. Even if that was exactly what this had been. An emotional appeal was going to get me nowhere, not with him closed up as tight as he was. I had to come at him sideways again, and use logic.
“Leaving?” I asked.
“There will be a great many matters that demand my attention in the wake of this disaster,” Marcone said.
I nodded, then I said, “Stay for an hour. That spell took it out of us. You’re going to be no good without food, and I might be crazy, but a shower would be a good idea too.” I gave him my best cheeky grin. “You look like you spent the last half hour having mind-blowing sex, John.”
“Are you telling me the truth, or are you being sentimental?” He gave me a look that was definitely assessment.
“The great thing is, I can be both at once. I’m cool like that.” I stepped in close to him again. “Stay, John. Just for a while.”
He lifted his chin. “Come with me,” he countered. “I could use some help keeping the supernatural elements of the city in check at this point. Many of them may be tempted to take advantage.”
I didn't even consider it before I shook my head. Yeah, dealing with supernatural shit was my job, but if I was seen in the company of the Freeholding Lord, that was me taking a side. More sides than I was already roped into. And it was dangerously close to working for him.
He dressed himself carefully, the suit slipping on like it had never been off. The shirt, without buttons, and the pants, with only about half the buttons, were more complicated. He glanced down at the tails of his dress shirt and shook his head. “Even in this you manage to destroy my property.”
I dragged on my boxers, jeans, and duster. I left the shirt in the corner. Fair was fair. “All those tiny buttons? That shirt asked for it.” He glanced my way, and I swear I saw his lips quirk just a little. After a second, he left the shirt unbuttoned and untucked over his t-shirt and under his suit jacket. Dammit, he even made it look fashionable. If I’d done that I would look homeless.
“You won’t come with me, will you?” he asked, doing up his cufflinks with that crazy precision I was never going to manage.
“I would if I didn’t think it was about business.”
“Everything is about business.”
I wanted to press him on that. I wanted a straight answer about whether the last half hour had meant anything to him. But Marcone doesn’t do straight answers, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be handing me ammunition I could use against him.
I leaned against the lab table. “What about a beer after the cleanup? Would a beer have to be about business?”
He opened his mouth, and then shook his head. “Yes it would. The alternative is unimaginable, given the realities of our lives.” He smoothed his hair down and glanced in my direction. For a second, I thought I saw something soften in his expression, but then he iced over. “The impasse, Harry, was never crumbled. We just managed to ignore it for a time.”
He made his way over to the ladder out of the lab. I watched him go. It wasn’t that I wanted him to stay, but I didn’t want to be alone. And he was there, and I could remember what he looked like when he wasn’t so guarded. I wasn’t in love with him. He was still an asshole mobster. He was still an embodiment of human suffering. But he was warm, and this place was cold and empty after everything we’d done.
I wasn’t going to beg, or even ask him to stay. I’m not the brightest axe in the monkey barrel, but even I know better than to appeal to John Marcone’s softer side. But I was still good at irritation. I started whistling ‘Who Wants to Live Forever.’
He half-turned. “Queen, Mr. Dresden?”
“Highlander, Johnnie. There can be only one.”
He looked at me again, and for a second he laughed. Really, honestly laughed. “You are a preposterous man.” He climbed up and away from me, and called over his shoulder, “I’m sure I’ll see you when next some megalomaniac with delusions of godhood decides to destroy my city. Until then, Mr. Dresden, it’s been as much a pleasure as anything else.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to blow me, but that sounded really awkward after I, you know, had. “See you around,” I murmured instead. Marcone vanished up the ladder, and left me alone in a stone room, not wearing nearly enough.
I leaned against my lab table with a huff. My consolation in the middle of this craziness was that no one knew. Hendricks and Gard were blissfully unaware that Harry had hot man sex with the Freeholding Lord for the city, because if they had guessed, I’d already be perforated.
And then from the shelf I heard a little, awed voice. “Hot damn, Boss. You keep doing that, and I’ll work for you gratis.”
Shit.
Title: Sympathetic Magic
Author: Nemo the Everbeing
Rating: NC-17 for this part. Heed my warning! Thar be sex.
Summary: So the world was ending, and I had to choose between murder and gay sex to save it. My life is so weird.
Part I
Part II
“You will hate yourself for this, Dresden, and me as well.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “No, I won’t. And it’s Harry, John. For tonight, if no other time, it’s Harry.”
He studied me, eyes flickering across my face, gauging my sincerity and my determination. I could practically feel it on my skin and shivered at the sympathetic waves tingling across me.
Then he made his decision. His expression softened into a crooked smile and he returned my touch on his face with one on mine. He looked younger, and reckless, and alive. “Harry,” he breathed, and if I didn’t know better I would think he actually liked me.
He kissed me as softly as I had kissed him, with a weight of desire and something like flirtation behind it. I knew it was all an act. I had just asked him for it, but some part of me couldn’t help but wonder if some of this wasn’t pretend. If he was just as sick of penning in his emotions as I would be in his shoes. If maybe this outlet, when he could disavow it as a lie, was the only time he could really express any honest desire.
Or maybe that was just the sort of wishful thinking he was fostering to get the job done. Whichever it was, I grasped that thread and pulled. We kissed slowly, keeping passion banked in favor of something sweeter. I felt like such a girl for indulging in this, but John was just as active a participant as I was. I tasted him with quick flicks of my tongue, never letting it be more than a tease. He tasted like expensive coffee.
“Harry,” his whispered again when we came up for air.
“John,” I whispered right back. I kissed him again, deepening it slowly. I wasn’t even aware I was lowering him to the mat until we were horizontal. I pulled back a little and he looked at me with a hazy sort of appreciation.
“Christ, but you’re gorgeous,” he said.
I wanted to tell him not to sell it to the cheap seats quite yet, because I knew that was a lie. But I didn’t open my mouth. I didn’t want to burst this fragile illusion he’d created for my benefit. For this to really work, I had to half-believe.
So I kissed him again, hard, to shut him up. He kissed me back with just as much heat, but without that competitive edge we’d had earlier. Seemed like he’d covered that up in the make-believe too.
I had an idea. If John was willing to play a little pretend for me, I wondered if I could do the same. Nothing major, but one word? One word that just might shake things up in the best possible way? We’d established that nothing said here could be taken seriously. What did I have to lose?
I broke the kiss and looked down at him, eyes lidded with that illusion of love still in place.
“Please,” I whispered to him.
His eyes went wide. For a second I was pretty sure I’d broken through both illusion and stone-cold façade to something a lot more personal. It looked a lot like shock and a little confusion and a whole lot of I-want-me-more-of-that. Seemed like I’d found the right button to push. His kiss had an edge to it and he rolled me under him.
I ground my shoulders into the yoga mat when we broke apart, and I arched my neck. I hoped I was presenting a picture of wanton desire and not making him think I was having a seizure. “Stars,” I groaned. Was that my voice? Maybe I was a better actor than I thought, because I really sounded like I meant this. Which wasn’t something I wanted to think about. “Please, John. Anything.”
I heard a soft growl as illusion and façade cracked again, and saw just how deep that desire went, and it was all directed at me. My head swam and the sudden, terrifying thought that maybe the reason he’d fought so hard against losing himself to this was that very reaction: it wasn’t that he didn’t want me, it was that he wanted me too much. Hell, he’d wanted me under him in one way or another since five minutes after we met, and this suddenly seemed a lot like giving in.
Before I could put the breaks on that particular crazy train, we came crashing together. I was holding onto the illusion that I could save him in this, and he was holding onto the illusion that he finally got to see me give in. We weren’t kissing like we meant it to hurt, we were kissing like we were devouring one another. There were hands at my sides, and then at my hips, and finally there were fingers working between us to unbuckle, unbutton, and, with a quick flick of the wrist, unzip. I felt the chilly air reach through my boxers and I burrowed closer.
“Not going to get your pants off if you keep that up,” his voice said in my ear before he worried at the lobe with his teeth and palmed my dick.
I let out a moan that was in no way soft and reedy and in all ways girly, so it must have been some other poor bastard whose voice I could hear begging, “Oh, Stars. Please, John. Please.”
I squirmed and begged as he skinned me out of my jeans. He managed some really colorful phrases when he had to take time to unlace my boots. I could hear the first hit the wall in the distance. Then the other hit, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass.
My boxers and socks had come off in the tussle, and as I lay there, some part of my brain that wasn’t drooling with pleasure registered that I was naked and he was not. His eyes ranged over me with naked avarice.
It was my turn to jerk his t-shirt over his head, and then fumble at his belt, which went pretty well. Fumbling at his pants didn’t go quite as well. Stupid things had inner buttons, and button flies, and too damn many buttons. Finally, in a fit of irritation, I zapped the remaining two buttons away, keeping the magic strictly under my control so as not to burn certain sensitive areas and destroy the mood for good.
He noticed. Oh, boy did he notice if the noise that tore itself free of his throat and the unguarded grind against me was anything to go on. I scraped my teeth against his throat and he made another soft noise, but this time he didn’t retreat. Just for that, I gave him a hickey somewhere that his collar would cover up. Because I’m a gentleman, and unlike some guys I don’t even need it in my name.
I managed to shove his pants and boxers out of the way, but I couldn’t figure out how to do anything more. Between the magic and the sheer physical joy of full-frontal contact my brain was pretty much shot.
He pulled back to rid himself of the pants, and for a second we looked at each other. The brief glimpse I’d gotten was only a small extent of the scars running all over his body. I felt like I’d gotten off light, if that was what this life did to a vanilla mortal. That ragged ear of his was only the tip of an iceberg that stretched from his neck to his feet.
Although most of my scars tend to vanish after a few years I acquire enough in that time to look pretty banged up. My hand was a continued source of embarrassment, since it was nothing but a mass of scar tissue. He zeroed right in on it, lifted it and regarded the damage. I like to wear gloves, not only to cover how bad it looked, but also because the scar tissue could get sensitive on some days, so that any cold or heat or pressure was felt acutely. I didn’t know what that meant, but figured it had to be some byproduct of the wizardly growing-back thing. I hadn’t thought to put them on that day, since I was supposed to be sitting on my couch with a beer and relaxing. Now I just felt weird and exposed.
Then he slipped the first two fingers of that hand into his mouth and started sucking and I found a good side to having my hand burned to a crisp. Maybe blowing was back on the menu.
His eyes slitted, vivid green and intent on my face. I was gasping like I’d run a mile, and he started to get back a little of his cool.
I wasn’t about to let that happen while I was still a dribbling moron, so I reached down and wrapped my fingers around his dick. John fell forward, losing his grip on my hand in that rare moment of graceless sprawl. I rolled us sideways, following him, not giving him time to think. Thinking was bad at this point. It only led to better walls.
So I stroked at him, a little clumsy. I always hated masturbation, and I wasn’t in great practice. He didn’t seem to mind when I licked at one flat nipple. It was going out on a limb, hoping that what worked for girls would work for him too, but from the urgent sound he made, and since he didn’t elbow me in the throat, I was pretty certain that was a winner.
He hauled me back up, chest heaving and his eyes unfocused. I kissed him again, rubbing against him and planting my hands on either side of his head. We were making noises that got so mixed up in one another’s mouths I couldn’t tell who was making what. I felt him start to tense up and dragged myself away. That growl of protest was definitely him.
We stared at one another. Not at the scars, or at that body, but right into one another’s eyes. For the first time since I’d met him, I was really happy we’d gotten that soulgaze out of the way.
“What do you want?” he asked.
In that moment I realized that I did want something from him: an indelible memory. Something that got under his skin and stuck there. And, yes, it was stupid, and yes, I did remember that all the affection was pretend and that I wasn’t going to save him. None of that mattered, because, Stars, I wanted to save him. I wanted to be the hero and I wanted reality to go fuck itself. Barring that impossible dream, I wanted to give him one thing he’d never experienced before. I could guess, in what had to be a more storied sexual repertoire than mine, what he would have never let anyone do.
But approaching it was something else entirely.
In the end I couldn’t think of another way to put it aside from really bluntly. What can I say? Words have never been my strong point. “I want to fuck you,” I said.
He sucked in a breath and his eyes went wide.
“Please,” I said. I didn’t moan it. This wasn’t a show. I knew exactly what I was saying to him, and somehow that seemed to catch him even deeper. “I mean it. Please.”
“Jesus fuck, Harry,” he said, all his newscaster perfect English stripped away in that bare moment.
“Please.”
He closed his eyes, turning his head to press against the cold stone floor, then reached out, grabbed the bottle of oil and slapped it into my hand. “Fucking well do it before I change my mind,” he said, harsh and demanding and scared shitless.
I admired him more than a little in that moment. Of course, most of my gray matter was occupied with the ‘how’ of this whole thing. In theory I knew how to go about this, sure. I did spend over a year with an incubus sleeping on my couch. But in practice that seemed suddenly like a really little hole for a not so small thing. I had no idea how to convince slot A that tab B was a workable proposition.
He was glowering at me. Shit. Well, my motto is: when in doubt, do something big and stupid. I went down on him. It definitely stopped the glower in an explosion of fervently Catholic swearing and hands firmly planted in my hair.
I can say now that it wasn’t awful. It wasn’t great, and I’m pretty certain I wasn’t great either, but it wasn’t awful. I knew that I had to keep my teeth out of the picture, and suck and lick and do all those things that I enjoyed the one and only time I’d been on the receiving end of one of these.
I oiled up my fingers while I was busy trying not to choke myself, and tried to think of the best way to approach this without fumbling horribly and convincing Marcone that the last thing he wanted to do was risk his ass in my inexperienced hands.
I was tentative as all hell when I stroked at him, just trying to gauge a reaction and figure out if he’d really let me do this. There was a sligh jump in the muscle under my fingers, which, yeah, weird. I tried again, and there was less of a jump. And even better, he hadn’t knocked me back on my ass yet, so I was pretty sure that was a go. Or as much of a go as he would ever give me for something like this.
One finger ventured where no man had gone before, and then I just tried to focus on blowing him, which seemed like a hell of a lot less of a trespass when put into perspective. I just sort of let my fingers figure things out. They tended to do better without my brain, anyway.
Somehow I managed two fingers, and they apparently got sort of curious, because they found some sort of bump up there that got me another torrent of Catholic swearing. Wow, John. Way to go for the blasphemy.
“Dresden,” he gritted out, “if you intend to do this, I suggest you do it now.”
I pulled off him with a popping noise that made me blush all over, and clambered up his body. We were nose to nose, and I could see that his money green eyes had gone the color of grass, vibrant and alive. He was panting, his expression halfway between desire and terror.
“Right there with you,” I muttered, or at least I got about half those words out before he slicked me up in the most efficient hand job I’d ever received.
And then, yeah, it was time. I shuffled forward so that my knees were spooned up under his lower back and after a second I felt his legs wrap around me. Moment of truth. I had to follow through on what I’d said I wanted, but now that I was there I was wondering exactly how long a guy like this was going to let the guy who took him up the ass during the Apocalypse survive after we saved the world.
“Dresden-” he started to say, and I pressed forward. I’m a reckless bastard.
His hands were at my sides, gripping hard enough that I knew I was going to be sporting some interesting bruises in the morning. Our eyes were locked, and I didn’t dare look away. My head was spinning, my breath was ragged, and he was so amazingly tight around me. One of my hands stroked at the blaze of gray at his temple, while the other was keeping my upper body from squashing him.
The initial reaction was a jerk of pain on his end, and I froze in place. Both of us were gasping, and I could feel his fingernails bite into my flanks. I thought about telling him to breathe through it, but decided I’d rather not get gutted like a fish.
After a few minutes of harsh breathing and trying not to be soothing or caring or any of the things that the chivalrous part of me was pretty much demanding at that point, Marcone gave me a nod. I started easing forward again, and after a second’s resistance I slid all the way home.
“Oh, Stars,” I whispered, pressing my face against his neck and trying to get enough of my own control back that I wouldn’t embarrass myself. Carefully, I pulled back, and then pushed forward with even greater care. He squirmed under me, and I pressed a kiss to his temple.
I kept the pace slow and gentle. I wanted this to be good. I wanted-
“I’m not going to break, Dresden,” he said, and the raggedness in his voice me draw back to look at him. His expression was teetering on the edge of something. “And I’m not your girlfriend. Put your back into it.”
I snapped my hips forward and he met me. “Do you always have to be in charge?” I asked.
His grin was sharp. “I don’t have to Harry, but I always am.” I moved hard against him, and he hissed. “No one ever quite seems to step up to the challenge.”
Oh, it was on. We were moving against one another for a few breathtaking minutes, fingers scrabbling and clawing, and then somehow were we moving together, like every damn fight we’d ever had, that always ended with us on the same side against the things that go bump in the night. John’s hand was between my shoulder blades, and his other scratched at my chest. The electric zing of pleasure drove me nuts and I was fucking him harder than I’d ever dared with any woman. The hand propping me up grated against the yoga mat, and the other hand was wrapped around his dick, jerking.
I could feel the magic binding around us. It was like ropes tying us together, running through us and around us until I could almost feel what he felt. He gasped hard, and twisted his head to one side, his eyes closed tightly and his body gone rigid in my arms before jerking hard against me. Then I was shouting, shoving myself as deeply as I could in sharp, powerful thrusts as I felt the rush of orgasm from my toes all the way to the top of my head, and then back down, building to an unbearable intensity in my groin. The explosion, when it came, burned out every fuse I had.
And it blew out all the street lamps in my block, but I wouldn’t find that out until a few hours later.
My ears were ringing when my brain decided to power itself back on, and the first thing I noticed was that I was sticky. The next thing I noticed was that we were tangled up in a human pretzel of arms and legs. My natural inclination to cling in the aftermath had taken over while my mind was taking a break from the world. The air still tingled around us, the whole circle was super-charged with sex and sympathetic magic.
My knees had gone out from under me, and I managed to get them back in something like working order so I could pull out. I went slow, but there was a definite wince under me. I glanced down, and Marcone had slipped back into neutral. His expression was unreadable, even though he was totally naked, just as sticky as I was, his lips were swollen and his hair was a mess. I rolled over, muttering the incantation and tapping at the nearest crystal. The flare of power and light made me arch, almost an aftershock of orgasm in itself. I fell back, blissed out and drained. The silence above our heads was louder than the explosions, and the emptiness of the circle was like an ocean separating us from anything else.
“Dresden?” I heard after a while. I flopped my head in Marcone’s direction. Any second now I was going to recover my senses and get really embarrassed about all of this, but exhaustion had trumped modesty. “I take it from that vacant look of self-satisfaction that we have succeeded in saving the city.”
“John, no shop talk,” I mumbled, closing my eyes and indulging in some well-earned basking. Saved the world and got laid. Go me. “Just get your ass over here. I’m cold.”
After a second, I felt my duster draped over me. I cracked my eye open to see him moving to retrieve his clothing. “Really not what I was thinking.”
He glanced at me, and oh boy was that mask back in place. I rolled to my feet and let the duster fall off. His eyes scanned me carefully, but I couldn’t tell if it was appreciation or if he was assessing a threat. I set my jaw. I’d known this was coming, but, dammit, I wanted more than him walking out like a guilty one-night stand. Even if that was exactly what this had been. An emotional appeal was going to get me nowhere, not with him closed up as tight as he was. I had to come at him sideways again, and use logic.
“Leaving?” I asked.
“There will be a great many matters that demand my attention in the wake of this disaster,” Marcone said.
I nodded, then I said, “Stay for an hour. That spell took it out of us. You’re going to be no good without food, and I might be crazy, but a shower would be a good idea too.” I gave him my best cheeky grin. “You look like you spent the last half hour having mind-blowing sex, John.”
“Are you telling me the truth, or are you being sentimental?” He gave me a look that was definitely assessment.
“The great thing is, I can be both at once. I’m cool like that.” I stepped in close to him again. “Stay, John. Just for a while.”
He lifted his chin. “Come with me,” he countered. “I could use some help keeping the supernatural elements of the city in check at this point. Many of them may be tempted to take advantage.”
I didn't even consider it before I shook my head. Yeah, dealing with supernatural shit was my job, but if I was seen in the company of the Freeholding Lord, that was me taking a side. More sides than I was already roped into. And it was dangerously close to working for him.
He dressed himself carefully, the suit slipping on like it had never been off. The shirt, without buttons, and the pants, with only about half the buttons, were more complicated. He glanced down at the tails of his dress shirt and shook his head. “Even in this you manage to destroy my property.”
I dragged on my boxers, jeans, and duster. I left the shirt in the corner. Fair was fair. “All those tiny buttons? That shirt asked for it.” He glanced my way, and I swear I saw his lips quirk just a little. After a second, he left the shirt unbuttoned and untucked over his t-shirt and under his suit jacket. Dammit, he even made it look fashionable. If I’d done that I would look homeless.
“You won’t come with me, will you?” he asked, doing up his cufflinks with that crazy precision I was never going to manage.
“I would if I didn’t think it was about business.”
“Everything is about business.”
I wanted to press him on that. I wanted a straight answer about whether the last half hour had meant anything to him. But Marcone doesn’t do straight answers, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be handing me ammunition I could use against him.
I leaned against the lab table. “What about a beer after the cleanup? Would a beer have to be about business?”
He opened his mouth, and then shook his head. “Yes it would. The alternative is unimaginable, given the realities of our lives.” He smoothed his hair down and glanced in my direction. For a second, I thought I saw something soften in his expression, but then he iced over. “The impasse, Harry, was never crumbled. We just managed to ignore it for a time.”
He made his way over to the ladder out of the lab. I watched him go. It wasn’t that I wanted him to stay, but I didn’t want to be alone. And he was there, and I could remember what he looked like when he wasn’t so guarded. I wasn’t in love with him. He was still an asshole mobster. He was still an embodiment of human suffering. But he was warm, and this place was cold and empty after everything we’d done.
I wasn’t going to beg, or even ask him to stay. I’m not the brightest axe in the monkey barrel, but even I know better than to appeal to John Marcone’s softer side. But I was still good at irritation. I started whistling ‘Who Wants to Live Forever.’
He half-turned. “Queen, Mr. Dresden?”
“Highlander, Johnnie. There can be only one.”
He looked at me again, and for a second he laughed. Really, honestly laughed. “You are a preposterous man.” He climbed up and away from me, and called over his shoulder, “I’m sure I’ll see you when next some megalomaniac with delusions of godhood decides to destroy my city. Until then, Mr. Dresden, it’s been as much a pleasure as anything else.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to blow me, but that sounded really awkward after I, you know, had. “See you around,” I murmured instead. Marcone vanished up the ladder, and left me alone in a stone room, not wearing nearly enough.
I leaned against my lab table with a huff. My consolation in the middle of this craziness was that no one knew. Hendricks and Gard were blissfully unaware that Harry had hot man sex with the Freeholding Lord for the city, because if they had guessed, I’d already be perforated.
And then from the shelf I heard a little, awed voice. “Hot damn, Boss. You keep doing that, and I’ll work for you gratis.”
Shit.