Page 43 of The Wild Charge

“Shit,” Tenny murmured, panting, hand gripping tight on Reese’s hip as he rutted against him. “Shit…shit…I wanted…next time. Later.”

Dense or not, idiot or not, there was no mistakingnext time. Reese thought of Tenny beneath him, head thrown back, mouth open, the tight, hot, unrelenting grip of his body, and pleasure spiked white-hot through him when he thought of their positions swapped. Of him down on the cool sheets, and Tenny over him, glassy-eyed and red-cheeked with pleasure, sweaty and thrusting like he had so many times, with one of the girls. The thought of taking him inside his body left Reese reeling and overwarm – desperate, suddenly.

He shifted so he was balanced on one elbow and reached beneath himself so he could work his own cock with hard, fast strokes.

Tenny swore again, and his next thrust rocked Reese forward across the bedspread.

The whole thing was a graceless, uncoordinated affair, chasing bright pleasure, too starved to do anything but let it happen. Reese came first, all down the edge of the bed and the bedspread. When he was still limp and pulsing, Tenny turned him over, pushed his tank top up to his armpits, and came all over his heaving chest, and stomach, and softening cock.

He braced a hand on the mattress, after, beside Reese’s hip, head hanging as he gasped for breath.

Reese hooked two fingers in the neck of his t-shirt, and it was no effort at all to pull him down so they lay stacked on top of one another, ribs interlocked and the hot, sticky mess pressing between them. Reese felt pleasantly crushed, the heat of a strong body squashing him down into the mattress a comfort rather than a burden.

“Ugh,” Tenny finally said, after long moments spent catching their breath. “You got jizz all over my shirt.”

Reese petted his hair, working the last crusty bits of gel out with his fingers. “You helped.”

Tenny huffed a quiet laugh, and he sounded easier, so much less wound up, when he murmured, “Shit. Well. So much for self-control.”

“Why do you need self-control?” Reese asked, genuinely curious. “It’s just us.”

Tenny held still a moment, not breathing, then lifted his head and propped his chin on Reese’s chest, so they were face-to-face. All the sneering and grimacing had given way to a post-coital softness – one tinged with some other emotion Reese couldn’t place.

“Just us,” he said, after a moment. His pupils were large, his expression – something. Wondering? Hopeful? “You almost make that sound safe.”

Reese blinked at him. “Isn’t it?”

Tenny chewed at a kiss-plump lip and considered a moment. Then sighed and laid his head back down, chest swelling against Tenny’s stomach as he took a deep breath. “I don’t know,” he whispered. And then, so soft Reese thought he might have misheard: “I want it to be.”

Eleven

“Congrats, you’re on the news,” Eden said on the other end of the line.

“Hm.” Fox picked the remote up off the nightstand and switched on the TV. He hadn’t heard anything in particular through the wall he shared with the boys – just a few muffled thumps that could have been anything, really – but he appreciated the chance to crank the volume up and drown out anything suspicious that might be forthcoming. “Hope the cameras caught my good side.”

Eden snorted. “They don’t have footage.”

“Obviously, since I nabbed all the files.”

“Obviously.” He couldhearher eyeroll.

A little channel surfing found the local news, and its after-midnight repeat of the day’s main headlines. The screen filled with a dark parking lot, flashing lights, and scantily-clad young people huddling on the sidewalk, talking to police behind the yellow tape.

“Here we are,” he said, and bumped the volume another notch for good measure.

“…police investigating the assault ofeightbouncers at local nightclub Nine. According to eyewitness accounts, two men started a brawl on the dance floor that quickly devolved into something sinister,” the grave on-scene reporter said to the camera, her chin tucked for effect.

Fox snorted. “They’re calling itsinister. Ten would love that.”

The footage cut to a kid in a backwards cap with a glazed, half-drunk expression: one of the oh-so-reliable eyewitnesses. “Dude,” he said into the microphone, shaking his head, “these were not, like, regular dudes. They were like, like, [beep] ninjas or something! They were all” – he mimed several clumsy karate chops – “kicking, and throwing guys around. It was insane!”

A girl who’d cried her mascara into dark streaks sniffled into the mic and said, “I thought someone was gonna die. It was so awful.”

Her friend, much more composed – and sober – leaned in to add, “I’ve never seen those guys before in my life. There’s no way they were students.”

Back to the reporter. “It seems the cameras inside the club were down at the time of the assault, but witnesses were able to describe the assailants.”

Fox choked back a laugh when the two sketch artist renderings flashed up on the screen.

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