Page 104 of Setting the Break

Indrie's face is on fire. He is certain he is the color of raw meat. He is also certain he has never wanted anything more in his entire life than to see Eskil on his back underneath him.

"I want to ride you," Indrie manages to say, and his voice shakes on it but his eyes do not waver.

Eskil exhales. It comes out ragged and involuntary, and he leans forward and presses his forehead against Indrie's and breathes against his mouth. Indrie can feel the tension in his body, the coiled restraint, the heat rolling off him, and the hard press of him against Indrie's stomach through his trousers. He is already hard. Indrie said two sentences and he is already hard, and the knowledge of that is dizzying.

"I'll have you however you let me," Eskil says against his mouth. He kisses him once, slow and deliberate, his tongue sliding into Indrie's mouth in a way that makes Indrie's knees go soft. He pulls back only far enough to speak. "However you want me. I'm yours."

Indrie's hands are trembling when he reaches for the laces of Eskil's shirt. His fingers fumble and Eskil does not help him. Eskil stands still and lets him work, his hands at his sides now, watching Indrie's fingers with those dark eyes, and the patience is the same patience from the ship but the power balance has shifted and they both know it. Indrie is the one undressing him. Indrie is the one setting the pace, and the pace is slow because his hands will not cooperate.

He gets the shirt open. Underneath is the body he has mapped with his hands a hundred times and still not memorized, broad and hard and worked over, the ridged scar tissue at his ribs, the muscle shifting under Indrie's palms when he slides the shirt off Eskil's shoulders and lets it fall to the floor. Eskil's breathing is slow and counted, which is how he breathes when he is holding himself in check, and Indrie can feel his heartbeat under his palm when he presses his hand flat against Eskil's chest. It is faster than his breathing suggests.

Indrie pushes him toward the bed.

Eskil goes. He goes willingly, walking backward with Indrie's hands flat on his chest, and when the backs of his knees hit the mattress he sits. Indrie stands between his spread knees and looks down at him and the vertigo of the view is immense. He is never the one looking down. Eskil is always the one who stands above, who leans down, who bends to reach him. From here, with Eskil seated on the edge of the bed and Indrie standing before him, they are nearly the same height, and Indrie can see his face without craning and can reach his mouth without stretching and the intimacy of that evenness makes his breath catch.

He takes Eskil's face in his hands and kisses him. He means it to be slow and it is, for a moment, and then Eskil's hands come up to his waist and grip and pull him forward into the space between his thighs and the kiss goes deep and hungry, Eskil's tongue fucking into his mouth, and Indrie hears himself make a sound against Eskil's mouth that he would be embarrassed about if he had any room left for embarrassment. He does not. He used all of it asking for what he wanted and now there is nothing left except the wanting itself, huge and urgent.

Indrie pulls back and takes his own shirt over his head in one motion and drops it. Eskil's eyes track down his body, his throat, his chest, the dark line of hair below his navel that Eskil traces with his mouth on the nights when he is being thorough. The look on Eskil's face is hunger and worship and something ragged and blown open that makes Indrie feel like the most powerful person in the room.

"Lie back," Indrie says.

Eskil holds his gaze for a long beat. Then he moves up the bed, settling on his back against the pillows, long and broad and taking up most of the mattress. Indrie stands at the foot of the bed and looks at him. His husband, spread out before him, the firelight catching his hair and the ink on his skin and the scar across his eye, watching Indrie with those dark blown eyes and his chest rising and falling with the effort of not reaching for him.

Indrie's hands go to his own trousers. He undoes the laces and pushes them down and steps out of them and he is bare and he is hard and the cool air on his skin makes him shiver. His cock is hard between his thighs, already wet at the tip, and Eskil's gaze drops and his jaw tightens and his hands grip the sheets at his sides and the visible restraint in him is extraordinary and beautiful.

Indrie climbs onto the bed. He crawls up the length of Eskil's body, knees bracketing his hips, and settles his weight across his thighs. Eskil is still in his trousers and the rough fabric presses against the bare skin of Indrie's inner thighs and the contrast makes him shudder. He can feel Eskil underneath him, the hard line of him straining against the laces, pressing up between Indrie's legs, and Indrie rolls his hips once, experimentally, dragging his bare ass along that ridge of heat, and Eskil's head drops back against the pillow and he makes a sound Indrie has heard before but never from this angle. From above. Looking down at the long column of his throat and the cords of muscle standing out in his neck and the way his hands have gone white-knuckled in the sheets.

"Indrie," Eskil says, and his voice is wrecked. "You're killing me."

Indrie leans forward and puts both hands flat on Eskil's chest. He can feel his heartbeat hammering under his palms, rapid and hard. He bends his head and presses his mouth to the center of Eskil's chest, over his heart, and kisses him there, slow and open-mouthed, and feels the stutter in his breathing.

He works his way down. He kisses along the ridge of Eskil's collarbone, traces the ink on his shoulder with his tongue, finds the scar tissue below his ribs and mouths along the edge of it. Eskil's stomach tightens under his lips and his breathing goes shallow and fast and his hands have left the sheets and are hovering at his sides, wanting to touch, not touching, letting Indrie lead.

Indrie reaches the waistband of his trousers. He looks up the length of Eskil's body and meets his eyes and the eye contact at this angle is overwhelming. Eskil is looking down at him with his jaw set and his chest heaving and his eyes so dark they are almost black, and Indrie holds his gaze and undoes the laces.

He pulls the trousers down over Eskil's hips and Eskil lifts for him and Indrie gets them off and drops them over the side of the bed. Eskil's cock is hard and heavy and lying up against his stomach. Indrie has had this inside him more times than he can count and the sight of it still makes his mouth go dry and his hole clench with empty, greedy anticipation. He wraps his hand around it. His fingers do not meet. Eskil hisses through his teeth, his hips jerking up into the contact. Indrie strokes him once, slow, and watches a thick bead gather at the slit and spill over.

He bends his head and licks it off.

The taste of him is salt and heat. Eskil curses. Loudly, explicitly, a word that Indrie would never say and that sounds devastating in Eskil's voice, rough and broken. Indrie takes him into his mouth, just the head, and sucks, hollowing his cheeks. Eskil's hand flies to the back of his head and then stops, hovering, not gripping, not pushing, letting Indrie take what he wants.

Indrie takes more. He slides down, opening his jaw wide, and Eskil is too big for him to take all of and he knows this and it does not stop him from trying. He gets as far as he can, his lips stretched around the girth of him, the weight of him heavy and hot on his tongue, the head pressing into the back of his throat, and he holds there and swallows around him and Eskil makes a noise that is torn out of him. Spit runs down Indrie's chin. He pulls back just enough to breathe and then sinks down again, sucking hard on the way up, his tongue working the underside, and the muscle in Eskil's thighs jumps under his hands.

"Fuck," Eskil says, barely a word, more a vibration in his chest. "Fuck, Indrie. Your mouth⁠—"

Indrie pulls off with a wet sound and his lips are swollen and his chin is wet and he has never wanted anything the way he wants this. A string of spit still connects his lower lip to the head of Eskil's cock. He crawls back up Eskil's body and settles in his lap and Eskil's cock slides against his own, wet from his mouth, and they both shudder at the drag of it.

"Oil," Indrie says, because his reach is substantially shorter.

Eskil reaches for the bedside table without looking, his eyes locked on Indrie's face, and finds the bottle by touch and presses it into Indrie's hand. Indrie takes it and uncorks it and pours some into his palm. The oil is warm from sitting near the fire. He reaches behind himself and presses two oiled fingers against his own entrance and his breath hitches at the contact, cool and slippery against the tight furl of him, and he watches Eskil watch him do it.

Eskil's expression goes feral. His hands come to Indrie's thighs and grip, hard, his fingers digging into the muscle. Eskil's eyes are locked on the movement of Indrie's arm behind his back and the slight cant of his hips as he works himself open. Indrie pushes both fingers inside and gasps at the stretch, familiar and good, the oil easing the way, and his hips rock forward and his cock drags against Eskil's stomach, smearing across the taut muscle there. He works them in and out, scissoring, opening himself, and the slick of it is loud in the quiet room.

Eskil's grip on his thighs tightens until it hurts, beautifully.

"Indrie." Eskil's voice is low and frayed, scraped down to something almost careful. His eyes lift from Indrie's arm to his face, and whatever he sees there makes his throat work. "Let me. Can I open you up?"

The question goes through Indrie's gut. Heat floods his face so hard it makes his eyes water. He had meant to do this himself. That was the point. His hands, his pace, his body preparing itself to take Eskil. But Eskil is looking at him, and the asking is plainly costing him something, and he wants it badly enough to put it in Indrie's hands and wait, and Indrie's fingers falter inside himself.