Page 126 of The Villains of Winter

“You’re already laughing at me.”

“I promise, I’m not. I am enamored with the sound of my little artist,” James smirked wider. Perhaps he liked the sound of Elliott too greatly. His cock wanted more, demanded more. His large hands grasped him firmer as he started to thrust harder.

After a few minutes, James didn’t care that someone might overhear him as he grunted when he bit Elliott’s shoulder even deeper, marking him as his own. He didn’t think of the pizza deliverers that were trudging past for the Saturday night sport parties as Elliott brought him near orgasm.

He wanted to fuck him, hard, until all Elliott knew was his name and the roughness of James inside of him. His teeth grazed Elliott’s nape, barely letting Elliott condition himself to his thrusts and instead, letting feel all of him.

Every inch of him.

Elliott couldn’t catch his breath. “Fuck. Please.”

They were a mess of sweat and need, clumsily grasping for each other, holding onto anything they could as though the love making between them was a typhonic sea. A roiling tide crashing them towards climax. A tidal wave thrashing them together in ecstasy.

That was what Dionysian frenzy felt like, James realized. Perhaps it was amorous frenzy gifted from Aphrodítē with sensual, aroused urges so intense, he lost his mind. She’d given him a pure madness, an adrenalized sensation of lust, that was impossible to conceive otherwise.

He was possessed.

“Don’t stop.” James almost shot his seed right then and there when Elliott murmured back, softly, gazing up at him with those intoxicative saccharine eyes. “I want to feel all of you.”

That was when James pinned him down, pressing a firm hand over Elliott’s mouth to stifle the cries of rapture. Elliott was convulsing. Within seconds, something hot, seedy splashed the back of James’s other hand between them.

Elliott was exhausted. He panted as if he did all the work, and James could only quirk his mouth even further. Thoroughly amused.

James opened his mouth, but he decided to remain on his best behavior. For the first time, he’d barely teased him.

As the lust cleared from his eyes, Elliott’s eyes widened. “Sorry, I got myself all over you. I should’ve warned–”

“It’s fine.” James kissed him. He kept a tender hand on the rib cage of Elliott’s abdomen. “Would you mind if I finish?”

Elliott shook his head.

James plunged deeper than he did before, entering him fully, until their skin skimmed against each other, his pelvis to Elliott’s rear end. James rammed him in quick, powerful thrusts. In that moment, none of it was sensual and exploratory, like the afternoons where they learned each other’s bodies, but instead it was devastatingly fierce, driven with strength. He speared into him with might.

His momentum was a propulsive force.

His strokes were a feat of stamina, endurance, and muscle.

Elliott’s breaths were urgent.

Then, all at once, an incomprehensible roar stilled the air. James pulled out and Elliott felt heat splash the back of his thighs. Dripping between his knees.

James pressed his forehead against Elliott’s back, cooling himself as he caught his breath.

By nightfall of the next week, they tumbled into each other’s arms once more, and afterward they took a shower, dressed, and then left to stargaze in the Nixon Forest.

​​ CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

IN EARLY SEPTEMBER, THE CABAL announced Professor Ilaria collapsed due to her arcane, baneful serpents, which were then permanently banned. She had been found unresponsive on the cabal premises and, by the strict protocols, the body was to be removed without exception.

The polemarch and, most importantly, the archon eponymous assumed it was the negligent fault of Séverine Ilaria for her own death.

Perhaps, then, if James had treaded carefully afterward, he would have lived a safe life.

“What were you going to tell me earlier?” Elliott asked James. Above the camping grounds, the broad, open sky was radiant with billions of moon-washed stars. The pair loved stargazing together in the forest since they were young. For years, they had a summer tradition where they went into the Nixon Forest to stargaze the night before the snow fell. That would be the very last time. Then, Æscwulf College was long behind them.

Next week was September seventh, their fresh start at Tiberian College.

That was what James told himself, convinced if he kept reiterating it to himself, it would be true. A fresh start for them.