Page 47

“So good,” Will said through a shaky breath. “But you can’t stay here. You have to get strong enough to leave.”

One of Itori’s hands slid down the back of Will’s nape, a caress that made him melt.

“What is required for you to leave this place?” Itori asked in his ear. “Can you walk across land to somewhere else?”

“I can walk, but it’s not that simple.” He took a breath, then another. He could feel the next question on Itori’s lips. He didn’t want to get into it. It was so heavy that if he started to speak it, he might just sink down into the muck and water and never resurface. “Can we–can we talk about something else?”

“Okay,” Itori said gently. “What do you want to talk about?”

But that was just it. Will didn’t want to talk anymore. He wanted–

A sigh escaped. “We shouldn’t waste time. We should be making you stronger,” Will said.

He felt Itori’s hesitation in the pause of his claws at the nape of Will’s neck. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Will said. There were things he couldn’t have, things he couldn’t change. But right now, right here, he could have this. He could give himself over to the feeling of Itori’s hands on him. To the heat that sat low in his belly. He could have this one thing, briefly, before it was gone.

Itori pulled back just enough to turn Will’s head and meet his eyes.

“Please,” Will said. He didn’t want to linger on impending loss and loneliness.

Itori kissed him.

The taste of oranges filled Will’s mouth. In the back of his mind, he wondered if that sweetness would go with Itori when he left. If the land here would be forever ruined.

Viciously, he shoved that thought away. He kissed Itori harder, hands grasping at his scales.

Itori crooned as he pulled back. “Let me undress you,” he said.

“Okay.”

He took Will’s hand, but then started to lead him farther down the road.

“Where are we going?”

“A place I can keep you more dry,” Itori said.

The moon was a shrinking crescent in the sky, bathing Itori in grey light. Will followed, eyes stuck on him, trying to memorize the silhouette he made. He wanted to press the image into the back of his eyelids so he could always have it with him–Itori’s tall, broad shape moving silently through the water.

Itori took him past the construction to an area of water still untouched by all the clear cutting and digging. There was a young tree there, just off the paved road.

Itori coaxed him under it, pressing him close to its trunk. He let go of Will’s hand and reached for the hem of his shirt. Will raised his arms, and Itori pulled it up and off. Instead of dropping the fabric into the water, he draped it carefully over one of the low-lying branches.

“I do not like sending you home in cold, wet clothing,” Itori explained.

Will’s heart thumped louder. “It’s okay, it’s not a long walk.”

“Still,” Itori said, and reached next for the button on his jeans. “I want to take care of you as you take care of me.”

Will’s jeans were wet up to the knees, but Itori still took them off carefully, keeping as much as he could above the waterline. When Will stepped out of them, he wrung his clothing out and hung it on the tree branch. He did the same with Will’s underwear.

Will tried to push down the compulsion to cover himself. It was different, being this naked and standing.

Did that go away with time? In another world, where they were allowed to be together and there was no ticking clock, would Will stop feeling the sparking nerves at being bared like this? Would it become something so old and so normal that he no longer even thought about it?

An ache cracked open inside him. To have a lover so well-worn that their body was as familiar to him as Will’s own. A love worn down with age as to be unremarkable.

It was almost too big, too impossible to fathom.