Hush (22 page)

“Isn’t it always?”

“Don’t throw clichés at me right now,” he says, laughing.

“What’s the complication? What are the complications, I mean?”

Cam thinks this over. The room is mostly dark now, which feels good, feels close and safe and anonymous.

“I don’t think I can tell you some stuff yet. But I can tell you that he’s scared. I don’t know the details—”

“Cam—”

“I know it’s probably something obvious, like having his heart broken. But I want him to tell me and I want him to trust me with it. The problem is finding him, getting him to talk to me.”

“I gather that’s not simple. You don’t know where he lives?”

“I think I figured it out. Um…” he bites his lip, “I followed his roommate home. Is that awful?”

“Well,” she’s laughing, “it might qualify as desperate.”

“I feel desperate,” he says earnestly, and she stops laughing.

“So what next?”

“Knock on his door when I think he’s home alone? I don’t know, it’s going too far, isn’t it?”

“Honey, I don’t know that you’re asking the right person. You know me. I’m the queen of risk and following your gut. If it’s love, the question might not be
what will I do
but
what won’t I do
.”

Cam is quiet for a long moment. The jangle of keys and a door slamming in the hall, indistinct conversations, muffled through walls and doors, sound loud in the presence of his silence.

“I love him,” he states plainly.

“Yes,” she replies immediately, and they both know what that means.

Cam isn’t sure what to
wear
that will sway Wren, mostly because Wren has taken him regardless of his attire. He has a slight idea of what Wren might like, but everything has to be per­fect this time, just right. Maggie has told him he looks good in jewel tones; he picks out a shirt she said is ultramarine. He’d laughed so hard, imagining her closely investigating the names of colors; she’d rolled her eyes and forced him to buy the shirt, a simple boatneck T-shirt.

He ties a linen gray scarf around his neck in a slipknot and pulls on the darkest-wash jeans he has. He’s still pretty unpracticed at figuring out how his hair looks best, but he flat-irons the ends and creates a far part, a compromise between neat and messy.

In the mirror, he sees something smaller than his tall frame. He sees a boy, scared and nervous, not a man willing to take risks. Squaring his shoulders with a deep breath, he closes his eyes, counts to three and lets the reality of what he is going to do settle in his bones. Wren is worth fighting for, he’s worth risking for, and doing anything less would be the real wrong.

He has to collect himself again outside Wren’s door, between thought and action. But when he does finally knock, it’s with confidence.

It’s loud, his knock. Or perhaps it sounds loud, echoing over the mad thump of his nervous heart. Beyond the door is silence, but Cam knows as soon as Wren approaches the door because his body calls Cam’s immediately.

“Wren,” he says as loudly as is needed for his voice to travel through the door. He puts his open palm on the door. “Please.”

Wren is surprised that he
didn’t know
who it was until he’d almost opened the door. He’s been in a haze, closed in and confused. But it’s not his gift pulling Cam’s energy through. That energy just is. It exists beyond his will. Wren puts his forehead against the door, reeling and bewildered and aching. His palm connects with the door, and crackling energy like lightning exits through his skin from his marrow. He’s so close to Cam through this thin piece of wood.

“Just let me talk.” Cam’s voice filters through the door. “Just this once, and if you tell me to go afterwards I will. But I can’t let go like this.”

Everything inside him is compelled by its own imperative, a call wound so deep it’s a song he can’t ignore.

He opens the door.

Cam doesn’t step in, not immediately. It’s early afternoon, but the hallway window is on the far end, so Cam is cast in shadow. He looks like everything Wren wants to touch, so different from when Wren first saw him. He’s defined himself. It’s not just style—which is a part of it. He seems so
true
.

“You want to say something?” Wren manages through numb lips. He curls his hands into fists at his sides.

“I—” Cam says, and stops. He steps in lightly, shutting the door behind him with an almost inaudible click. Fascinated, Wren observes the acceleration of Cam’s breathing and the staining of his collarbone, which flushes in a way his cheeks rarely do. It’s not quite the hectic red he gets when Wren has taken him apart with pleasure, but definitely an indication of something strong surging in him.

Wren understands that all too well.

He closes his eyes because Cam’s are so bright on his, but he can’t dam the undercurrent he feels washing through him; it slips through him like quicksilver, and the more he tries, the stronger it flows.

“Cam, I—” he swallows because his mouth is so dry. When he opens his eyes, Cam is closer.

“I know I said talking,” Cam whispers, and it sounds like an afterthought because his hand is already wrapping around Wren’s neck and pulling him closer. Wren gasps into the kiss, he has to push forward and up onto his toes to meet Cam. Cam kisses him as if Wren is air, as if he is sustaining himself on the sweet, wet press of Wren’s lips. His palm is wide and commanding against the back of Wren’s head.

“Oh god,” Wren says faintly when Cam pulls away, then shivers into Cam’s mouth as it works down Wren’s neck. He comes to the awareness that he’s clutching Cam’s shirt at his shoulders so hard his fingers ache. He unfurls them with difficulty and forces himself back a bit, with a palm against Cam’s chest.

“Don’t, don’t,” Cam says, chasing Wren’s mouth.

“No, not that.” Wren wraps his arms over Cam’s shoulders and bites his chin lightly. “Take me to bed,
god
, now.” Wren’s tongue traces Cam’s ear and the cord of his neck and he smells Cam’s hair, clean and sharp and
Cam
. Cam shakes with laughter.

“Where?” Cam’s fingers dig hard into Wren’s waist. Wren points vaguely down the hall to their left.

“Second room,” he presses himself closer, then lets out a shocked huff of air when Cam picks him up easily, hands under his thighs. Wren wraps them around Cam’s waist and that fire inside flashes so hot and bright he’s tempted to take Cam down right here. “
Fuck
,” he groans, “don’t hurt yourself.”

Cam laughs and staggers toward the hall. “You’re so small.”

“Jesus,” Wren pants, his lips barely on Cam’s, biting and licking softly and trying his best to coax Cam into another kiss. “I can’t believe you—”

“Stop talking,” Cam commands. He lays Wren on the bed, then lies on top of him. Wren does get his kiss then, many of them, frantic and biting; their bodies writhing in a desperate race.

Cam manhandles Wren quickly out of his clothes, manipulating the unfettered weight of Wren’s body as he tugs and pulls, and it’s perfect, it’s all so good, heat curls deliciously in Wren’s belly and brings his cock up so achingly hard and wanting.

“Stay,” Cam says. He puts his hand on Wren’s chest and strips efficiently, tossing his scarf carelessly on the floor. His hair flies wildly where taking his shirt off has ruffled it.

“Hurry.” Wren’s fingers are clumsy at Cam’s belt, and they both laugh because Cam has to struggle out of his tight jeans. It’s sweltering between their bodies, too hot and too fast, and a free fall when Cam takes Wren back into his arms. He bites down on Wren’s neck and uses one hand to pull Wren’s knee up and out, fitting Wren’s cock snugly between the crease of Wren’s groin and his own dick.

“What do you want?” Cam asks, his mouth gently brushing Wren’s nipple. He speaks so faintly Wren almost misses it.

“I—” Wren whimpers weakly. Cam’s fingers are in his hair now, tugging it, pulling Wren’s head back to expose his neck. Cam pins him down; it’s a most desired weight when everything is skittering out of his control. Cam keeps him centered with only the heat of his skin and the heft of his muscle and bone.

“No,
nonono
, don’t ask that,” Wren says, shaking his head as if to clear it. This isn’t right, it’s not how he does this. This thing, it’s bigger than he can shape with his hands, it’s the breaking of a promise he made himself. He gasps and pulls away from Cam’s lips, which are feasting on his own, and tries to center himself. He pushes himself into Cam’s energy and tugs.

“
No
.” Cam says. He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t stop the drive of his hips against Wren’s. “Can’t you feel it?”

Wren closes his eyes and turns his face. He can, because there’s such a strong
no
pulsing from Cam, an impenetrable wall rejecting his ability.

“Like this, without it.” Cam stills and Wren cries out softly, his teeth digging against Cam’s lower lip.

“I can’t.” Wren feels something collapsing inside and shakes his head hard.

“You can,” Cam chants with his mouth against Wren’s cheek. “You can, you can, just be here with me.”

Wren pulls further inside, withdraws what he was compelling Cam to feel and closes it inside himself, and then pulls himself in too, putting up walls.

“No.” Cam traces Wren’s cheek with a soft finger. “Please don’t.” He nudges Wren’s nose with his own, and when Wren opens his eyes Cam’s are on his, steady and wide open and ready. They’re always dark, a lovely deep chocolate brown, but right now his pupils are so wide they almost swallow all the color. “Let me in, please let me in.”

Wren exhales. Exhales and wants and listens to the clamor of his skin, so desperate for Cam’s touch.
It’s only fucking,
he tells himself.
It’s only fucking.
He opens his legs further, and keeps chanting even when his body betrays that it’s not, even when his heart feels as if it will burst because Cam’s hands are all over him, his lips too, his whispered praise and affirmation making a tender wreck of Wren’s heart.

Cam slithers up Wren’s body from the deep red mark on his hipbone where Cam’s mouth has been busy, inhaling as he goes as if he’s taking in every part of Wren. He tucks his face into Wren’s damp neck and pulls his hips away a bit.

“Tell me what you want,” Cam asks again.

“I—I don’t…” Wren stops when his voice breaks.

“What do you need? What haven’t you gotten that you want?”

“A million dollars?” Wren jokes weakly, trying to divert him.

“Who doesn’t?” Cam pulls back. His face is bright with amuse­ment, but his eyes are dark and focused. “You always give. You take sometimes, but not like that. I want that. I want to give too.”

Wren forces his whole body to still. Forces his mind to quiet, to pause before he lets Cam gather him into this storm. He asks himself if this is what he wants, to be pushed into fierce winds.

“Fuck me,” Wren whispers with trembling lips, before his mind has come to a conscious decision. Before he means to speak. Before he can reason himself out of it. “I want you inside.”

Cam’s eyes close and he groans. “
Wren
,” he whispers, lips wet against Wren’s. He licks them slowly, then frantically, his mouth opening and accepting Wren’s tongue and harsh breath and swal­lowing the soft moans his kiss elicits.

“Make it so I can’t think,” Wren begs. “Fuck me until I don’t know my own name.”

Cam pulls away, one hand cupping Wren’s balls and then drift­ing lower. “That’s a tall order for a virgin of this sort.”

Wren covers his eyes as Cam’s finger explores. He wants this, he feels empty, but he can’t look at Cam while he lets him do this. Cam notices, stills his hand and softly kisses the inside of Wren’s thigh.

“Do you have lube and condoms?”

“Yeah.” Wren sits up halfway, grateful for the distraction, and pulls them out. When he moves to lie back down, Cam stops him with a firm hand on his shoulder.

“No, let’s try this. Roll over, maybe?” Cam says.

“Hands and knees?” Wren asks as he does, uncertainty creeping in.

“No.” Cam guides him until he’s on his side, facing away. The day is so bright outside Wren’s window it almost hurts his eyes. Cam takes a breath; Wren is calmed enough that he can open himself a little now, feel the edges of Cam’s feelings. It’s a beautiful chaos there, lust and sweetness that hurt when Wren touches Cam with his gift. It’s a stilling of nerves with an inhalation and then a cool wash of confidence Cam must know Wren needs. He needs to be close but not too exposed. He’s afraid that being really open might fracture everything.

Cam pulls one of Wren’s legs up so his knee is bent, and then strokes between Wren’s legs with his fingers, balls to sacrum, barely touch­ing him. For years Wren has ignored pleasure his body has wanted, intimacy he’s longed for, and now, on the cusp of resig­nation, that’s all he can feel, as if all the desire in his body has coalesced in one spot.

“Touch me, touch me,” Wren whispers, turning his face into the pillow. “You don’t have to be gentle.”

Cam groans against Wren’s neck and shuffles around a bit before push­ing Wren farther into the bed, hitching his leg up and out even farther. One hand grips one buttock hard, spreading Wren as wide as the position will allow, until the cool slide of one finger connects. Wren closes his eyes and gasps, biting the pillow under his face, moaning when Cam’s finger pushes in. He concentrates on that, on the sparking of nerves all around his asshole, on the indescribable rush of his body opening and begging for more.

“Fuck,” Cam breathes from too far away. “I can’t believe—you just…” Wren presses back against Cam’s finger, unable to speak but hoping his meaning is clear. “Okay,” Cam says. He clears his throat. “Okay,” he says more confidently as the second fin­ger slides in.

It’s so easy, so simple even after years with­out. Wren’s whole body feels as if it’s melting; the edges of Cam’s plea­sure and desire to please Wren are so bright he can’t not feel them even when he tries. As the feelings spike and the build of
yesyesyes
cascades from his mouth, Wren doesn’t want to try.

It’s a bit of a fumble by the time he’s ready, with Cam positioning him­self and Wren for an unfamiliar act.

“How?” Cam kisses the knob of Wren’s shoulder. His whole body is shaking. “I don’t want to hurt you—“

“It’s okay, you won’t. Just go slow, I’ll tell you if it’s too much.” Wren tilts his hips and presents himself a little more. It takes a few tries, but Cam does manage, pressing until something comes loose and he slides so easily into Wren that the sensation wrests a bro­ken groan from Wren and a shocked gasp from Cam.

“
Oh my god
,” Cam moans, and bends forward to kiss the spot between Wren’s shoulder blades. It’s that kiss that’s too much, though. It’s as intimate as looking into Cam’s eyes would be.

“Fuck me,” Wren urges, more loudly than he meant to. “Come on.”

“Wren…” Cam moves slowly inside him, covering Wren with his body. Too close. Too slow, too much.

“Fuck me,
fuck me
,” Wren tries to demand.

“No,” Cam whispers against his back, and then slides into him, against him, with care and deliberation, and Wren feels a pressure build against his eyes, the threat of tears. Cam knots their fingers together and kisses Wren’s ear until Wren turns his face down and into the pillow.

Wren tries to keep it in, keep the wracking shudder of pleasure spiraling from the epicenter of Cam inside him, but he can’t. The slow slide of their bodies and the relentless movement of Cam’s body feel so
good
. A shocked little moan slips out when Cam presses down with his hips.