Page 73 of The Company We Keep

"You're serious, boss?"

"I hate how much I love you," Carrow said without missing a beat, rolling his hips against Dust, meaning every word of it. "I hate how scared I am every time I put you on the street for a job."

He’d held the words back so long. What did it mean to say “I love you” to someone you couldn’t fully protect? What use was it to state the obvious when he couldn’t give Dust the guarantee of a happy future? He didn’t want to pledge himself to Dust — but only because he didn’t want the younger man to pledge himself to Carrow.

He’d always prepared for his life to be lonely with a nasty end. Just because he was no longer lonely didn’t mean that the trajectory of a villain’s life got any more promising.

But once the words were out, he couldn’t hold back the rest. It felt good to say them out loud. Dust deserved to hear the reality of what was between them. He made his way, planting hot kisses down the center of Dust's body.

"I hate that I worry about you, that I think about you when you're not in front of my face."

Carrow stopped to tease a perfect nipple between his lips and Dust raked his hands through his hair.

"I hate that I want you to be happy more than anyone else, that I choose you over people who have been loyal to me foryearsof their lives."

He moved to position himself between Dust's thighs, dragging his hands over his hips, over his groin, tracing Dust's cock where it lay, half-hard and pinned by his briefs.

"I hate and I love everything that you bring out of me, and there's more of it every day," Carrow said, coming to the end of his confessions. "So yes, Dust. I love you. I think I might leave this all, if it was the only way to have you in my life."

He was ready to go to work there between Dust's thighs, to drag moans out of him with his mouth — but instead, Dust caught him by the back of his neck, guiding him back up the bed until they met in a deep kiss. Carrow was hard, didn't know when it had happened or whether it had been Dust's admission or the contact of their bodies, but he rolledhis hips down against Dust's and let their cocks find purchase.

Dust moaned into his mouth, the sound almost a question — a request for more.

And Carrow, damning himself all the while, could not bring himself to say anything but, "yes."

Dust's mindwas a thicket of contradictions and fears.

He didn't know.Carrow didn't know if he'd leave it all for Dust — for his own safety — but goddamn every rotten piece of their lives, Carrow at least hadn't said no.

They could have this. They could have something.

Dust had never wanted someone as desperately as he wanted Carrow in that moment. Worse than their first meeting, worse than the way they'd crashed together in that dim safehouse. He pulled the larger man against him, erasing everything from his mind other than his need in that moment. There was no AIIB, no Company, no heist, no truth to come between them. The only reality that mattered was their bodies in Carrow's cool bedroom and the weak sliver of hope Dust had just gained for a future.

Theirfuture, maybe.

He hipped up to roll Carrow, scooting out from underneath him. Carrow accepted the change in position, falling to his back and watching the younger man drag the fine patterned boxers off of Carrow's wide hips.

He didn't protest or try to change the trajectory, moving to prop himself on his elbows instead, wanting the best vantage point to watch Dust worship his cock.

It took a moment to get his desperation in check. Something burning hot in the base of his stomach told Dust to take them both to the limit right then and there — toswallow down Carrow's dick until he was choking on it, until his eyes watered and his lungs burned for breath, just because he knew the reaction it would elicit from his boss, the way that Carrow's hands would curl hard at his scalp until he was pulling Dust's hair, fucking his throat helplessly.

It took true dedication not to follow the instinct and to, instead, go slow: lavishing attention first with kisses up and down Carrow's length and then with unhurried laps of his tongue. It took all Dust had not to give in to his first impulse and bury Carrow's cock. They both wanted more than this, he knew, but impatience would have them giving into whatever release seemed closest.

No. He needed to feel Carrow. He needed Carrow's body to make the half-promise his words had just made — needed the man to claim him and fill him so that Dust could give up to it, could forget what he was and hope that together they would make something better out of this stolen life.

Carrow's dry moan brought him back to the real world, back to the plush bed. He held Carrow hard by the hips, pressing him down into the mattress to keep him from hipping up, from thrusting deeper into Dust's throat — instead teasing with shallow bobs around his cock's swollen head.

The conversation had apparently moved Carrow, too, because after a moment he was pawing at Dust's shoulder, trying to slow him down.

"Please, if you keep going, I'm going to..." he started. "Can I fuck you?Please."

Dust didn't respond with words. He kept a hand on Carrow, pumping his length, while his other hand fumbled to drag off his own boxer briefs and find the bottle of lube he knew would be in his bedside table. He didn't want to wait — could prep himself while he continued to worship Carrow'scock — but the other man intercepted the lube and started to guide him.

"What?" Dust said, momentarily annoyed that the other man didn't trust him to guide the action in a way that would benefit them both.

"Come here," Carrow said softly. He was guiding Dust to stay on top but to spin, to change his position.

After a moment he understood, and with an awed little "oh," Dust moved so that his face was back over Carrow's groin and his knees were on either side of the man's chest.

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