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Bar’in snickered. “Yeah, I think we all know that tent you’re pitching isn’t for me.”
Chapter Five
Patrick’s heart jumped into his throat. The wonderful control he’d been basking in evaporated, and his whole body tensed.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
But how could he not look?
Patrick opened his eyes and fought them every inch of the way down from the canvas ceiling. He got to Fal’ran’s face first, his heated burnt orange eyes and his brash smile coiled around his sharp tusks. His gut clenched and his balls pulled up at the intensity of Fal’ran’s stare. No klah’eel—no man at all—had ever looked at Patrick like that.
“Shut the fuck up, Bar’in,” Fal’ran growled, but his eyes stayed on Patrick’s face. They flicked down and Patrick realized they were on his mouth. He licked his lips thoughtlessly and sucked a breath in when Fal’ran’s eyes tracked the movement.
Fal’ran probably kissed like he fought. Aggressively, intensely, settling for nothing but complete domination.
No, no, no. Patrick dug his fingertips into the ground and clenched every muscle in his body to keep his hips from twitching up to chase the phantom friction of Fal’ran’s imagined body against his. Patrick shouldn’t be thinking about how Fal’ran kissed.
And he shouldn’t be crawling his persistent gaze down Fal’ran’s defined chest and flat stomach and down to his…
Patrick flushed hot and his mouth dried. His tongue got as parched as the fucking desert on Klah’s southern end, where Patrick had been stationed for a few miserable years in the sand with his skin and his lips cracking and forgetting what water tasted like.
God damn, the outline pressing against the front of Fal’ran uniform pants looked as impressive as it had felt grinding against Patrick weeks ago on the floor of that sparring room.
Patrick’s face throbbed with heat, and he swallowed to wet his mouth. He couldn’t take his eyes off Fal’ran’s covered—the tips of his ears burned just thinking the word to himself—cock. He had to swallow again before he could speak. “Other side.”
That wasn’t for him.
Patrick repeated that to himself as Fal’ran helped him switch legs, digging his thumbs into Patrick’s hamstring like Patrick had done for him. Fal’ran’s impressive arousal and the excitement in his eyes weren’t for Patrick. They were for competition and domination, and hell, because Fal’ran was half Patrick’s age, if that, and probably still got hard if the wind blew against him the wrong way.
But fuck, it was at least kind of for him and Patrick’s own body wasn’t that concerned about the details. His cock twitched and plumped up against his pants zipper, making him want to bury himself under the tent.
Patrick groaned as Fal’ran urged him into a deeper stretch. The shock sharpened his awareness down to his own body, the strain in his leg, the press of Fal’ran’s hands, the warmth in his own belly, and away from the rational thought and reasonable shame that battled for the forefront of his mind.
Bar’in sniffed pointedly and whined, “Seriously, Fal’ran, could you—”
Fal’ran interrupted with a growl in the back of his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was almost as low as Tar’s and sounded like he’d rubbed it with sandpaper. “Seriously, Bar’in, keep your nose to yourself.”
Patrick opened his mouth to tell him to switch stretches—halfway through, home stretch, all that—when Fal’ran forced his leg up closer to his head and his words disappeared in a grunt of pain. Good pain though. The satisfying pain of a tough stretch with a ribbon of something else even sweeter that Patrick didn’t want to think about. He closed his eyes and relaxed himself into it. His muscle released on the exhale, and he sank back against Fal’ran’s firm, guiding hands.
After a few long moments, Fal’ran released the pressure and murmured in a husky voice. “Next stretch.”
As Fal’ran lowered his leg to the ground, Patrick recognized the opportunity to extract himself from the situation.
He could stop this before it went any farther and fucked up his team’s dynamic. He should end this, and not only for his own sake, but for Fal’ran’s, too. The young man had such potential and he needed Patrick as a mentor and a guide. Patrick couldn’t be that to him if he diminished himself in Fal’ran’s eyes by being just a successful conquest.
Patrick’s throat tightened with regret and disappointment as he planted his hands to push himself up. But Fal’ran grabbed his hips, and Patrick’s heart froze in his chest. Before it started beating again, Fal’ran rolled him over and Patrick let him guide him onto his belly.
God, he was so weak. He squeezed his eyes shut and laid his forehead down over his crossed forearms. If you can’t control your men, you don’t deserve the stripes. Hell, if Patrick couldn’t control his own body, he deserved even less than his stripes. And still, he sighed when Fal’ran lifted his knee and pulled the stretch along the front of his leg.
When he turned his head to the side to lay his cheek down, he saw Tar and Bar’in and remembered he was supposed to be instructing. He propped himself up on his elbows to get a better view of them. “Lower your hand farther on his back, Tar. You need to hold down his hips.”
This time, the discrepancy in their expressions was obvious enough—and embarrassing enough—that Patrick recognized it. Bar’in had his nose all scrunched up and buried in the crook of his elbow, to escape the humiliating scents Patrick and Fal’ran pumped into the tent. But Tar’s face was blank, his nose smooth. Did he not care or…could he not smell?
Fal’ran braced his hand on Patrick’s lower back and lifted Patrick’s knee, and Patrick dropped his head back to the ground with a guttural groan.
“Fuck, that’s good,” he muttered against the tarp, his own hot breath bouncing back into his face. He never hit his quads as well as he’d like on his own. And he hadn’t partner stretched with anyone since his and Mal’ik’s last workout before the Turner ship had arrived in northern Tava and everything had changed forever. That’s how long it had been since he’d had anyone’s hands on him but his own and his skin ached with the loneliness. “Deeper.”
