Cash in Hand Page 14

  “I said you should get what you want,” Arkady said. “Not do what you want.”

  “Do who I want,” Cash said—apparently he could muster some smartass. “And what, you know better than me what I want?”

  Arkady smiled against Cash’s throat. “It’s my art.”

  Despite the dry sherbet fizz under his skin, Cash had to laugh as his favorite excuse for bad behavior was volleyed back to him. It was as true—and as not-true—of Arkady as it was of Cash. He didn’t pick people’s mental pockets the way Cash did, but if someone let him in, if they took his deal, he could strip-mine their soul.

  “That’s cheating,” Cash said.

  Arkady’s fingers tightened around Cash’s wrists, and then he let go as he pushed himself up onto his knees. The deal Cash had swallowed the other day pulsed in his chest as Arkady tugged on it. Then it faded down to the back of Cash’s mind.

  “I don’t need to,” Arkady said. “Not with you. I can map what makes you whimper on your body with someone else’s hands.”

  Cash propped himself up on one elbow and raked his hair back from his face. The back of his neck was sweaty and sensitive to the touch, and an itch of pleasure skittered down his spine as he imagined Arkady’s fingers there instead. Tomorrow he could remember everything he had to be sensible about—his human life, his kid, his… his pride.

  His brain stuttered over that. He could feel his monster’s amusement as it licked his denial. He’d worry about that tomorrow too.

  “Prove it,” he said with a smirk.

  Arkady sprawled back against the pile of pillows stacked against the headboard. He stretched his arms out over them, muscles pulled tight over his shoulders and across his chest, and tilted his head. The dark, heavy mantle of his aura draped over the bed like a cape, hungry but patient.

  “Undress me,” he said with a lazy wave of his hand in the direction of his groin.

  It wasn’t an order, but it wasn’t a request either. The expectation was obedience. It galled Cash—a part of him had never quite ousted his mom’s early lessons about apple pie, the constitution, and equality—but it also twisted his libido like a wet rag.

  It was a sucker punch of wet, sticky hunger, and his shallow principles didn’t stand a chance in hell against it.

  “What did your last servant die of?” he groused in a halfhearted attempt to preserve his usual attitude.

  Arkady smiled that odd unguarded smile that escaped him sometimes when he wasn’t being his mother’s son or the epitome of a good Prodigium vassal. It wasn’t nice—it was cocky with a tilt of smug bastard—but it was Arkady’s own.

  “Satisfaction,” he drawled out and spread his legs apart.

  “Asshole,” Cash said. Any edge there might have been to the insult was muted by the fact he had already started to crawl up the bed.

  The leather was skintight, thin enough that the slant of Arkady’s hipbones and the crease of his groin were outlined in glove-soft black. It stretched over the thick, interested bulge of his erection, not quite tight enough to see every ridge and vein. That was okay. Cash had a good memory.

  He straddled Arkady’s lap, the hard jut of leather-wrapped cock pressed against his ass, and leaned in to lick the sticky spill of brandy off his chest. The sparse coating of light brown hair tickled his lips as he laved the sweet, heady liquid off Arkady’s skin. He felt Arkady’s chest hitch as he sucked in a ragged breath, the thud of his heart fierce.

  Openmouthed kisses left a damp trail on Arkady’s skin as Cash worked his way down. He flicked his tongue over Arkady’s nipple, the taut, coppery bud of it tight at the attention, and then caught it between his teeth. That got him the groan he’d worked for—a ragged sound that scraped out of Arkady’s chest as he let his head fall back.

  “I know you too,” Cash taunted as he lifted his head. He teased the slick bud between his thumb and fingers, tender flesh hard and hot, until he got another gasp for his efforts. Gold flushed over Arkady’s chest and into his throat as he arched up into Cash’s touch. “In case you’d forgotten.”

  Arkady caught his breath and undraped one arm so he could tangle his fingers through Cash’s hair. He tugged until Cash had to crane his neck awkwardly to look at him. Then he dipped down to kiss the taste of himself off Cash’s mouth. The kiss was spiced with a bite, Cash’s lower lip caught briefly between sharp teeth.

  “The only one who’s forgotten anything,” Arkady murmured, “is you, with how to unfasten my trousers.”

  He shoved Cash away lazily and stretched out under him, the play of muscle and scale under his skin not quite in sync as he waited. The show of laziness would have been more convincing without the unsteady rise and fall of his chest and the cage of his aura as it stirred around them.

  Cash swallowed and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

  “My bad,” he said. “I was looking for your shirt.”

  “You took too long to get back.” Arkady shrugged as he tucked one arm behind his head. “I had to start without you.”

  The lure bobbed in front of Cash’s nose, but for once, he didn’t take it. If Arkady wanted to fight about Yana, he could wait.

  “And look at the mess you made,” he said instead as he trailed his fingers down Arkady’s flat, tight stomach. The long bands of muscle tightened under the not-quite caress, skin pulled tight over them. Cash dipped a finger into Arkady’s navel and licked the last drop of brandy off it. “I guess that’s why you need… help.”

  He swallowed the me that had almost escaped his tongue. It scratched reluctantly on the way down. That would have been….

  Revealing. The thought rolled through his head as he felt that odd moment where his monster and the rest of him were in sync. It was a jibe and realization rolled into one. It wasn’t true in any real sense—Cash was useful right now, he wasn’t necessary—but he’d always wished he were, hadn’t he.

  “I suppose I do,” Arkady agreed with him, his voice guarded. “Why else would you be here?”

  A braver monster would have asked what that meant. A stupider one might have assumed almost anything.

  Unfortunately, Cash was neither. He wasn’t built for bravery—wisps lured their prey to their deaths for a reason—and he was smart enough to know he might not like the answer.

  Coward, his monster reminded him smugly as it slid away from him.

  Cash pushed all that doubt to the back of his mind—let the monster have it for snacks—and focused on what he did know. That Arkady’s cock wasn’t going to free itself.

  “Well, right now,” he said as he picked at the silk laces that crisscrossed over the fly. Monsters knew zippers existed, but they weren’t classy. The less you accommodated the human world, even if it was in stupid, small ways like how to do your pants, the more respected you were. In theory. The knot came loose under Cash’s fingers, and he tugged impatiently at the slick fabric strips. “I’m here to fuck you. I thought we’d cleared that up.”

  Arkady’s laugh was a low, dark sound that belonged at a midnight crossroads as he ran his own hand down lazily over his stomach. “You’re just taking so long,” he teased. “I thought you’d changed your mind.”

  The silk strips tangled around Cash’s knuckles, tight around his fingers, so he gave up and just snapped them. Arkady made a rough sound of approval in his throat. He hitched his hips up off the bed to let Cash drag them down over lean thighs.

  Leather peeled away from Arkady’s cock. It was slick with sweat and precome, thin skin drawn tight over the thick shaft and the foreskin drawn back from the pink, glistening head. It hadn’t changed. Cash wasn’t sure why part of him had thought it might.

  He wrapped his hand around the base and squeezed gently. The pulse of it throbbed against his fingers, fast and eager as Arkady folded his lower lip between his teeth and waited.

  “What do you want?” Cash asked.

  It was an old question, one that cut through rank and ignored the hand Cash wanted around his throat, the one that m
ade sure this was their decision, outside of whatever their nature or nurture poked at.

  What do you want? Do you want this? Do you want me/us?

  Last time Cash asked, his throat tight with hope and resentment, Arkady was about to head to the Hunt. He hadn’t turned around when he said coldly, “For you to stop asking me that.”

  Cash felt stupid for letting the words leave the inside of his head. It was a question for stupid, hungry boys, for stolen moments in dark corners.

  “You,” Arkady said. It felt raw, the honesty of their old ritual too blunt to question. He pushed himself up out of his sprawl and cupped his hand around the back of Cash’s neck to pull him in for a kiss. It was awkward and a bit clumsy, not like Arkady at all. Then he pulled back slightly, just enough to catch his breath, and the low rasp of command was in his voice again. “Now.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  SOME MONSTERS stripped off their humanity to fuck, doing it as the devil intended—in fur, scales, and loops of raw muscle. But that didn’t work for everyone. Cash was too human, his skin too thick to shuck off like a raincoat, and even if he’d been able to, without their human face, a wisp was just swamp gas with evil intentions. That made them hard to fuck unless you were another wisp, and even if you were, or so Cash had heard, it wasn’t that satisfying.

  Others didn’t have enough skin to risk damage. The Worm bought and bargained for his skin—with people who, all evidence to the contrary, thought they’d come out ahead—and they were tailor-fit to him. He squeezed himself out and he’d never squeeze himself back in. Donna’s masks were works of arts, crafted to order, and took three maids and a bath of blood to remove. She wasn’t going to waste all of that on a quick tumble.

  As for Arkady, he’d only ever had what the Prodigium—somehow—had given the pure-bloods like him. The human shell that would do to let him move around human scrutiny and the uncomfortable squint of the sun. It was a one purchase per monster deal, and he needed to care for it. Better than he had, anyhow.

  Besides, if he let his monster crawl out, it would probably end with Cash dead, or at least peeled open to see if he was wisp enough in his gooey center to survive it. He might be, by now. Probably not.

  Cash was monster enough that the idea made him catch his breath with sticky, unhealthy interest. It was like candy. A little was okay, but you wanted a lot, even if it was bad for you.

  The Abascals, taken separately or together, were a lot. It was in their job description.

  “Penny for them,” Arkady asked as he pushed Cash’s hair out of the way and scraped a sharp kiss over the nape of his neck.

  Cash laughed raggedly and leaned back against Arkady’s chest. They’d both lost their trousers, the half-serious game of service abandoned as they ran out of patience and stripped off with clumsy, button-scraping haste and knelt on the bed. He could feel the press of Arkady’s hard, slick cock against the small of his back.

  “One deal with the devil per wedding is my limit,” he said. A bitter laugh he’d have struggled to explain caught in Cash’s throat and then dissolved as Arkady reached around to wrap long fingers around his cock. Pleasure flicked along his nerve endings, a hot pulse of need that staggered through his body and escaped his mouth on a whimper. He wanted this. Almost enough to make himself a liar. He twisted his head around and caught a hasty kiss on the corner of Arkady’s mouth. “After that I’m anybody’s.”

  Arkady caught his jaw in one hand, fingers curled around his chin so he couldn’t slide away.

  “No,” he said, before he slashed a sharp-toothed, possessive kiss over Cash’s lips.

  One of them drew blood from the other—a bloom of copper and salt on their tongues—but Cash wasn’t sure who’d bled and who hadn’t. Arkady’s aura folded tightly around them in bruised shadows that slid over Cash’s leg and faded through his cock. It made Cash shiver, goose bumps on his inner thighs, as if it were tangible. He couldn’t feel it, but his skin knew it would feel like thick, tight-woven silk—smooth and heavy and cold.

  Arkady played with Cash’s dick with one hand, callused fingers tight with impatience, and ran the other hand from Cash’s chin down his chest. His fingers, already slick with lube, grazed over bare skin and pinched the hard bud of a nipple. If Cash had been standing up, his legs would have gone out from under him. As it was, he had to brace himself against Arkady to keep his balance as pleasure snapped through him like a plucked wire. A throaty, hungry whimper escaped him, thinner as it hit the air than it had felt in his throat.

  “What happened to the ring?” he asked. His teeth nipped at the curve of Cash’s ear as he scraped his nail over the tender flesh. “I liked the ring.”

  Cash reached back and curled his hand around the nape of Arkady’s neck. He slid his thumb up into the tender span of soft skin just under his ear. “Maybe that’s what happened,” he said. “If it wasn’t for you, why keep it.”

  It hadn’t been. The truth was that single fatherhood with a grabby toddler was not a lifestyle choice conducive to nipple rings. After one particularly snake-like strike from Ellie, he thought he’d lost his nipple. So it had gone into a box for later, then the box had gone in a drawer, and at some point, he’d lost track of it. Inertia rather than romance.

  That wasn’t the sort of story that set the mood.

  Arkady made a rough, amused sound in his ear and dragged his hand down Cash’s cock, from the head to the base. His palm was slick with precome as it slid along the shaft. Pressure, hot and strung so tight it felt like something had to snap, knotted in Cash’s balls as he whimpered. His skin felt too tight, pulled over bones, muscle, and bubbling, sticky hunger.

  “See, that’s why I thought of you when I needed help,” he said. “You aren’t just a good liar. You know when to lie.”

  He kissed Cash’s throat—without teeth this time—and pushed him down into the pillows. Cash shivered, his back cold as the air kissed it, and then Arkady was sprawled out on top of him again. He ran warm, slick hands up the inside of Cash’s thighs and gripped the taut cheeks of his backside to pull them apart.

  Cash expected the blunt pressure of a finger. Instead he got the wet, slick push of a tongue against his ass. His surprised whine was muffled against the pillows as he pressed his face down into them. A hot tongue probed at his ass, spit-wet and thorough, while long hands stroked his thighs and pinned his hips down to the bed. Silk twisted between Cash’s fingers as he squirmed—or tried to—against the spill of warm, honeyed pleasure that filled him.

  His monster drank it down, drained it into his bones until his whole body hummed with want from his skull to his heels. He could feel his own breath, hot and sticky against his lips as he panted. His cock ached, so stiff it was tender, as every involuntary twitch of his hips rubbed it over the silk sheets. Hunger pulsed with dull, insistent finality in the pit of his stomach, a hollow pressure that tugged at his balls and the clenched muscles in his thighs.

  “Say it,” Arkady said as he finally pulled back. “Or I’ll leave you to finish yourself off.”

  An uneasy combination of surrender and reluctance made Cash’s mouth go dry. He knew what Arkady wanted him to say, but he’d only ever said it twice and only when he could claim it didn’t count, that he’d meant it sarcastically or it had been in reference to a specific, limited moment. Exactly like this one right now, when he’d swallowed a hook that was only for the duration of the weekend.

  He was a good liar, after all. Good enough that, until this moment, with the words right there on his tongue, he’d actually convinced himself to forget about them. And the fact he’d kinda meant it back then.

  But not now, the snide voice in the back of his head said. He could hear it roll its eyes as it drawled, You don’t mean it now, for real.

  Cash usually blamed that voice on his monster, but it just sounded an awful lot like him right then.

  “I’m yours,” he said… admitted. “Happy now?”

  Arkady made a low, pleased sound in his throat a
nd bit Cash on the ass hard enough to make him curse and jerk away. His cock slid over the sheets, the cold stroke of silk almost rough against the hard shaft.

  “I already knew that,” Arkady said. He kissed the bite better with a quick graze of soft lips and then crawled up over Cash’s body. The weight of him on top of Cash felt right, the fit of him perfect even where it wasn’t. “I just wanted to make sure you did.”

  Under normal circumstances Cash would have snorted at that, but in the naked, sweaty moment it sounded… right. Just like Arkady felt. No matter how hard he ran—and not like he’d gone far or fast, just across the bridge to the city—he couldn’t get away from that.

  The blunt pressure of Arkady’s cock against Cash’s slick ass made that train of thought skip the track. He sucked in a breath and pushed back into the pressure as it stretched him open. For a second there was a sharp itch of pain as the warm velvet thickness of Arkady’s cock slowly spread him wide around it. Cash tipped his head down into the cushions, dark curls loose around his face as he waited for the balance to slide back to pleasure.

  Arkady wrapped his hands over Cash’s, fingers interlaced, and trailed kisses over Cash’s braced shoulders and up his neck. His voice was strung tight with control as he promised patience and ruin in one breath, as monster and man got their needs tangled up around each other. Each slow roll of his hips worked his cock deeper inside Cash, stretched him out and filled him in.

  The dark wash of pleasure felt like the taste of brandy—all rich, brewed sweetness with a sharp bite at its core. It settled in his balls like treacle, heavy and restless, and caught in sharp, sugary threads around his cock. The tug of it was… almost. Cash thrust his hips against the bed to chase the peak of that feeling, but it was pointless. The bed was too soft, the sheets too slick. He could feel the sensation from it, but it teased and tempted instead of satisfied.

  Arkady groaned against Cash’s throat, breath hot and sharp with smoke, and tightened his grip.