Vision Quest (10 page)

Arik drew away, releasing Blaze's body with both hand and mouth; a wet smack of lips the preface to Arik's command: "Bed."

Blaze caught Arik's gaze with his own, his expression bewildered and wide-eyed, as though Blaze had somehow forgotten translation. Arik rose, slid one arm around Blaze's hip, and leaned to press his lips against Blaze's ear. "Go. To. The bed."

The delight Arik got from watching Blaze's eyes dart around the room in confusion was self-serving and cruel, so he turned it off. Fine line, he told himself. Don't cross it.

With a nudge of his chin, Arik directed Blaze's line of sight towards the tousled sheets and misplaced pillows that covered the bed. Then Arik tightened the hold he had on Blaze's midsection and pulled Blaze away from the cart. He walked backwards, drawing Blaze along with him, their bodies so close that they had to shorten their steps to make it work. Not that Arik minded one bit. Blaze's cock danced between them, smearing wet, clinging fluid on Arik's hoodie—fluid that seemed to insist that even if they had to be apart, it was going to string them together in one way or another. It was reasoning that made Arik's own hard body throb inside his pyjama pants.

Arik stopped when his calves met the bed frame. Arik turned, a slow dance of repositioning, foot over foot, Blaze's arms around Arik's shoulders, Blaze's fingers digging into muscle, and Arik couldn't keep his lips from searching out Blaze's in a long kiss. It was a kiss that Blaze followed, with his mouth still moving and his breath still panting, when Arik drew away from it.

"On the bed," Arik murmured.

"Don't go," Blaze said suddenly, his fingers clamping and his expression hardening. As if, somehow, for some reason, letting go meant parting. As if, somehow, for some reason, the fall onto the mattress would mean disappearing altogether. Like it waited to swallow him away. Like that moment had been the one written in as the pinnacle of their rendezvous. Like it was already over.

"Not even one step," Arik promised.

Blaze sat, and Arik smiled. "Not like that." Arik lowered his hand to Blaze's shoulder, directing him with a light touch. "Lay on the mattress, face down."

"Lube ..." Blaze suggested, starting to rise.

Arik shook his head. "Don't need it." He waited for Blaze's head tilt to pass, for Blaze to resettle as directed, and then guided one of Blaze's legs into a crook on the mattress. Blaze's other leg was off the bed, foot on the floor, so that he seemed to crouch over the end of it. Arik placed both hands on Blaze's ass, and massaged the two muscles to expose the heated hole between them. "I'm not done tasting you yet."

A low groan sounded from Blaze's throat, and Blaze buried his face into the mess of tangled cotton underneath him. Blaze's hips tilted, his fingers found pointless holds, and even his balls twitched and tightened under Arik's visual adoration.

And I haven't even touched him yet.
Another thought that had Arik's cock dancing for consideration. All the gods in heaven could not have held Arik back any longer, he was sure of it. Arik dropped to his knees, fell forward, and swiped his tongue over Blaze's asshole. Blaze's breathy verbalizations didn't need to be recognizable as they were huffed through the sheets. Inflection and tone were enough to identify them as praise. Arik teased with feathery flicks of his tongue; wetting, coating, enticing. When Blaze began to whimper, Arik began to run his tongue up and down Blaze's cleft, Arik's right hand massaging slow circles into Blaze's lower back. Such a beautiful physique. Perfect structure. Awesome taste.

"Arik ..." Blaze's spine seemed fluid; Blaze's body a slither of form into mattress. He jerked his head to the left, looked over his shoulder and groaned. "Please ..."

If Blaze had any more of an idea what he was asking for than Arik did, Blaze wasn't saying. So Arik took his direction from imagination, located Blaze's tight hole with his tongue again, and began to wriggle the muscle into Blaze's body. The sound Blaze made wasn't human. But it was fucking beautiful to hear. Almost as gorgeous as the way that Blaze's hips began to hump the mattress, his back muscles tensing and trembling. Blaze's other leg slipped to find a way to hold himself open wider. If the sensation coursing through Blaze's blood was even a fraction of what Arik felt when Blaze touched him ... the man had to be losing his mind.

Arik watched it all, drinking in Blaze's reactions, piercing Blaze's asshole with his tongue in a drive that was too deep for Arik's jaw to maintain comfortably. Discomfort was not, however, any reason for Arik to stop. Not this time. Hell no. The only thing that mattered was the giving—making the pleasure stream off Blaze's body.

This was Blaze's turn, a moment of unadulterated satisfaction without duty or function. Because try as he might, Arik couldn't shake the idea of Blaze's quests, be they truth or fiction of mind, as some kind of purgatorial existence. For the few, the thousands (God could only know the true numbers), Arik hadn't gotten the impression there'd been a lot of enjoyment sent Blaze's way. "If it's just a comfort thing, that's fine too," Blaze had told him, the nonchalance behind the words suggesting familiarity with the concept. So what then? Go where I tell you, do what I want you to do, offer yourself up wherever, whenever, however you are directed. The Universe's Whore. A puppet on strings. Obey or pay.

What a crock of bullshit. Worse if it was true. Not that Arik had ever had to find another reason to hate the mystical.

Arik's grip tightened on Blaze's ass, and he sought for deeper drive and sweeter sensitivity. He searched out every dangling tendril of those spark-infused, manipulative, bastard strings, collected them up in his head, and used them as a whole to stroke Blaze's mental and physical everything.

Blaze whispered, whimpered, and begged while his body squirmed, contorted, and fucked the bed. Arik gave up on holding flesh apart and let his left hand seek out the path his right was already on, finding and caressing the rolling muscles of Blaze's back.

"That ..." Blaze panted. "You ... Make ... Ah, fuck!" Blaze's knee finally caught a hold on the edge of the bed and the center of his being split wide and willing. Arik leaned closer still, worked Blaze's spit-soaked hole furiously, and groaned at the way Blaze's walls tried to both grip and pull his tongue deeper. Sparks danced between fingertips and torso, Arik's mouth felt alive with electricity, and he had no choice but to drop his right hand to his pants, release his own cock and start stroking it mercilessly—lest he lose his mind.

"Make me ..." Blaze's voice dropped to a mewl of need. "You're going to make me ..."

Arik trailed his fingertips down Blaze's spine, shoulder to lower back, and down the slick path his tongue had worked up. Then it was both tongue and finger. Both tongue and a couple of fingers. It was sputtered curses and ragged breaths. It was fucking
and
kissing, of the most erotic nature possible, and it was the hottest damn moment of Arik's life. Twice he had to still the hand on his own cock, twice he was forced to swallow back the waves of orgasm that threatened him, and when everything began to culminate in a greedy, heady fuck-everything-else-I-need-to-come-NOW rush, Arik finally gave up the scintillating penetration his fingers kept insisting on, to shove his hand underneath Blaze's hips and squeeze Blaze's cock.

That was all it took. One squeeze. Blaze hollered, screwed his eyes closed, and thrust into the grip. Blaze's body shuddered from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, and warm fluid pumped over Arik's fingers, soaking the sheets.

Without even bothering to remove his grip, Arik kissed the small of Blaze's back, straightened his spine, and shot his own load over the spread core of Blaze's ass. It was more than a mere release of pressure—the spatters that painted Blaze's body were nothing less than bliss liquefied into a tangible mess of body fluid. It seemed as if it was Arik's core, sputtering out of the end of his cock, to mark Blaze as his own. If only for that moment.

Arik rested his heaving chest and sweat-slicked forehead on  Blaze's back, bit back the words of endearment his tongue tried to voice, and instead, Arik chuckled. "The chambermaids are going to hate us."

"My, God," Blaze gasped under Arik's weight. "If we keep up this pace,
I'm
going to hate us."

Arik shook his head, "Not I. Not for a single moment. That was fan-fucking-tastic."

"It was," Blaze murmured. "But can we eat for real now?"

"Ayup," Arik laughed. "We certainly can."

Blaze woke up, and for a moment, he forgot who he was. Gone was history. Vanished were hurts, trials, miseries, deaths ... His name eluded him. His location didn't matter. The day of the week was a petty detail.

There was only the sheer drapes fluttering over the silent air conditioner. Sunlight peeked through the crack in the heavy curtains, highlighting expensive wall paper and paintings of peaceful pastoral scenery. He could smell soap, food, and sleep-warmed sheets. He was sprawled on his side, naked, comfortable, warm, and lazy; more satisfied than he was sure he'd ever been.

A sigh, a rustle of covers, and a body pressed against Blaze from shoulders to ass. Electricity sparked between them, and Blaze sleepily moaned without bothering to check the noise. It was Arik behind him. Arik around him. Arik tracing his arm, rubbing his chest, stroking his belly, wrapping a hand around his ..."Oh," Blaze breathily whispered.

"Morning." Arik kissed behind Blaze's ear.

Blaze heard his own whimper, and he was at a loss to control the pump of his hips into Arik's hold on Blaze's hardening cock. He could barely keep his eyes open, so unwilling was he to come up from under the sea of tranquility. He gasped for the man sharing his bed. He arched. He clutched at the pillow, at a hip, on a thigh.

"Payback," Arik murmured. "I owe you. For earlier ..."

"Mm?" Blaze couldn't remember, and Jesus-spirit-God-all, the sizzling esoteric tingles on his flesh felt too good to think. He tried, anyway, wanting to know what he'd done to earn this so he could do it over and over, and then it came back to him ...

... four a.m., a sleeping Arik ... beautiful ... serene ... and Blaze had gotten water, watched Arik on his back, the rise and fall of his chest ... and couldn't resist climbing into bed and sliding down Arik's body. Couldn't stop himself from taking Arik into his mouth. And Arik had been entirely silent, holding Blaze. Arik had tossed, writhed, jerked, clenched, and hissed breath ... He'd come, hard and fast. He'd rolled over. He'd tucked himself against Blaze, and they had gone back to sleep ...

Two days. For two days, it'd been them in the hotel room. After the initial chat about Quests and Visions and Arik's potential gifts, they'd not spoken of any of it again. They'd eaten off room service trays. They'd left their sanctuary only to allow the maid to change the bedding and the towels. They'd gone to the indoor pool on the ground level and had swum in heated waters. They'd rented movies, charged them to the room, and to date, they'd not seen the ending of a single one of the films. They'd gotten lost in making out, in trying out ways to intensify the buzzing that crackled between them. They'd showered together, fallen asleep wrapped around one another ... resting, recovering ... existing.

"Ahn ... ah ..." Blaze gasped, rippling in Arik's hold.

"Can you?" Arik asked, because at some point after the millionth orgasm, it'd stopped being about performance and started being about pleasure. Arik seemed obsessed with it, actually: making Blaze feel good. Paying Blaze back, for whatever the hell it was he thought Blaze had done. Blaze didn't argue. Couldn't, in fact, argue most of the time, as his mouth was occupied in some way, shape, or form. And Arik was so damned hot and weirdly gentle, yet ferocious, and what man in his right mind would say no to that kind of affection?

Blaze nodded, because he could feel the burn building. His lower back, his ass, and his groin were already tightening. But it was ... almost peaceful. Undemanding. Like the sensation was going to happen, was destined, and Blaze could simply ride it out and enjoy.

"Good," Arik whispered, and he licked Blaze's ear in precisely the way that made Blaze shiver. "I love seeing you get off."

Blaze bit his lip, snaked a hand back and up and into Arik's hair. He rocked, he called out, softly but audible, and soon it was cresting, rising—inevitable—and then spilling, overflowing ... And Blaze opened his eyes, trying to catch his breath and eagerly sucking his own cum off Arik's hand when Arik held it up for Blaze to taste.

For an instant, Blaze felt safe, and he hugged Arik's arm to his chest, willing the moment to last.

"I have a surprise for you," Arik announced, nuzzling Blaze's neck and planting little kisses along the tendon.

Blaze arched an eyebrow over his shoulder at Arik. "I know it may not seem like it, but my dick does have limits."

Arik laughed and kissed Blaze. He tasted like sex-flavored toothpaste. "I'll believe it when I run into them."

"Mmhm."

"But I actually had something else in mind." Arik slid off the bed, snagging a pair of pants out of a chair, and Blaze sat up. The room was clean, Arik's bag was packed, and Arik was putting on clothes almost as fast as he could take them off, when properly motivated.

"We going somewhere?" Blaze asked, rubbing his eyes and stumbling out of bed.

"We are!" Arik grinned, so proud of himself that he was bursting at the seams.

Blaze snorted. "Okay, okay," he muttered, good-naturedly. He went to the bathroom, hurried through his business, and snagged all the tiny bottles of shampoo, mouthwash, lotion, and conditioner that were left. He got the body wash and the bars of soap, too, and was prepared to explain to Arik that, yes, he was a mooch, but at least he was a clean mooch.

When Blaze came out of the bathroom, however, Arik was dumping an entire basket of freebies into his own bag. "Oh." A blush rose on Arik's cheeks when he was caught in the act. "I, ah, had them bring up some extra? In case you ... I just thought I'd ..." The blush darkened.

"Cool. Thanks." Blaze hurried to his own bag, unzipping it and shoving his prizes inside. His blood felt thick in his veins, and too warm, like he might burst out of his own skin. He was in a dream he couldn't shake. And such a small gesture shouldn't have meant so much, but it did. Arik was sweet. Entirely too sweet for the likes of—