Um. No.

There was no doubt in his mind that he'd made the right choice when he squinted through his eyes at the glow reflecting through the water and off the gla.s.s lid of the tank, shimmery and ephemeral in the otherwise pitch dark. Darkness made welcome and comforting by the weight of Cal's arms around him, their fingers laced together.

BOTTOMS UP.

Yeah, that was it. Maybe blunt, but he was done with oblique. Didn't want to leave anything open to interpretation.

"Do you mean it?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Good." That might just have been a growl in Cal's voice. Ian wondered if he should be afraid.

He was feeling no pain now, though, nuzzled into Cal's shoulder, lower legs wound together under the sheets, and he couldn't have been less afraid if he tried. "Sorry, I didn't wait up for you," he whispered.

"Don't be." Cal's hand drifted up Ian's stomach to the s.p.a.ce over his sternum. Soft brush of fingertips on sweat-damp skin, over the most ticklish places along his obliques and in the intercostal s.p.a.ces. Ian barely twitched, still loose and heavy with sleep. "How do you feel now?"

"Fine... mmm." His hips gave a little hitch as Cal's thigh slid over his, and his stomach didn't protest, no cramps or surges of nausea. It was almost like he'd never been sick. "Better than fine, actually. Must be your magic touch." He was too tired to waggle his eyebrows, but inside, they were waggling like whoa, 'cause that magic touch was... awesome.

"Was hoping you'd say that." Cal hummed and slid closer until his hips met Ian's, dip and roll, dip and roll, more stroke than grind. He kissed along Ian's jaw bone to his mouth, inching along in tiny, p.r.i.c.kling increments. His chin tipped low, each follicle of stubble like the first pinp.r.i.c.ks of sensation in a sleep-deadened limb, would-be caresses ahead of teasing tongue and stinging teeth. He licked over Ian's lips until Ian opened to him and rocked up against the thick muscle of Cal's leg with a ragged moan.

The kiss was slow and sleepy, but deep, and getting deeper. Cal slid over him, taking most of his weight on his arms, head dipped down between his shoulder blades so as not to break the connection. They ground together, a slow rhythm building. Ian slipped his hands over rippling back muscles, up over shoulders, and then down into the deep hollow where Cal arched against 41 him, pressing closer. Their c.o.c.ks thickened in the s.p.a.ce between slick, rolling stomachs.

"Is this okay?" Cal tipped down just enough to ask, breathing heavily. His forehead grazed the bridge of Ian's nose, eyes just slow-blinking lashes, lips parted against Ian's chin.

There was only a short moment when Ian wondered if it really was okay before he stopped thinking altogether and nodded, arching back and gasping into Cal's hair as their mouths joined together He was only slightly aware of Cal's underwear shimmying down lower and lower on his legs.

As the kiss slipped apart, Cal lifted his hips and licked down Ian's neck until his nose b.u.mped shoulder. A few seconds to suck and bite along the collarbone while Ian's fingers spasmed to claws, his breathing fast as he dug into Cal's hip bones. But Cal wouldn't be hurried, took a long breath in like he was testing the scent of Ian's flushed skin and his spit simmering together like a fine sauce, the way they wafted together even when he was very still, then whispered, "Turn over. I wanna see."

Uh... Ian was well aware how this worked, but for some reason, he'd always imagined it happening with closed eyes, like that made it easier to pretend it was... well, something else. He never really imagined anyone wanting to see... that. But so far, his attempts to take the upper hand in this whole business had been made of fail. Maybe it was time he left it up to the one with experience. He could play blushing virgin, just this once.

"I'll make it good. Don't worry."

Ian's hips shifted up of their own accord, seeking Cal's, and he was half over without even trying, Cal's thigh tucking up under his a.s.s to help him roll. He heaved over, mouth open. Cal's teeth raked over his collar bone, along the tendon in his neck, and then Cal slid and rolled, pushing Ian onto his stomach, Ian's hips pressing into the mattress as Cal traced down his backbone one vertebra at a time. Cal's arms wrapped around Ian's chest, Cal's fingers between Ian's fingers, and smoothed the folds of sheet clenched between those fingers until their palms flattened against Ian's pecs. Deft thumbs sought out Ian's nipples, circling and teasing as kisses laved the small of his back. He bent like a bow from jaw to knee feet scrambling in the sheets.

"Cal..."

"Shhhhhh, shh, shhh." The tingle of rapidly cooling breath over sweat and spit. Stutter of breath.

Slowly, Cal dragged their hands up, up, and under the pillow. His fingers untwined, and Ian's head dropped down onto the cradle of pillow and forearms. Cal sank lower down Ian's back until his teeth teased at the waistband of Ian's boxers. Kisses and licks along the elastic coaxed Ian's hips up, with fingertips along hipbones before the underwear slid off, Cal laughing at the way Ian's feet worked against him, constantly churning the mattress in an attempt to get his hips back down. Cal tongued down into the divot over Ian's tailbone and slid his fingers up, spreading Ian apart while spit trickled along the widening gap and into the tight pucker where it all melted together. Ian felt himself clenching and unclenching, prodded and soothed from the draft of hot breath and slick of cooling spit.

42 Cal's head ducked lower, hands forcing Ian's hips higher, sucking one, then the other t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e into his mouth, barely-there pressure. His tongue undulated, press release, press, release, rolling and ma.s.saging Ian's b.a.l.l.s against the ridges in his palate. G.o.d, that was... "Nngh, f.u.c.k."

Ian grunted and jerked a hand free of the pillow. He tried to grasp himself, but Cal batted him away. Ian flailed and grasped into the sheet, faltered and strained, finally snaked around and knotting into Cal's hair. Cal responded by sucking harder, switching one side of the s.c.r.o.t.u.m and the other in a random pattern that left Ian panting and shaking, thighs spreading apart in an attempt to get some friction. His b.a.l.l.s came free with a slurp, and Cal moved up to his a.s.s, alternately kneading and nipping whatever he could get hold of, then kissing away the burn.

Ian didn't even know he was sensitive in the cleft of his thigh, high up where his leg tied in with his groin, but when Cal's arm hairs brushed against the soft skin there, his whole leg twitched and vibrated of its own accord. Ian pressed back, bracing with his arms to steady himself and biting into the sheets.

By the time Cal licked up his perineum, Ian felt like he was yawning open, aching to be touched in the one place he hadn't been yet. Cal stabbed in, his tongue thick and wet, and Ian couldn't keep his head down on the pillow anymore, bucking up off the bed and arching back. It was nothing like the tentative finger Cal had used the last time. This was wet, and slippery, and hot. It wiggled and bent, stretching him loose from the inside out.

The quaking in his legs migrated upward until he quivered behind his navel and lurched upward, nearly hitting his head on the headboard. Cal circled one arm around Ian's hips to hold him up, pinning Ian's c.o.c.k against his own stomach. He whimpered with the little bit of friction, went from arched to bowed in the span of a breath as he tried to get more. He wasn't going to make it much longer, feeling something start to unwind deep in his gut, and Cal moved away, went back to nipping at the swell of Ian's a.s.s. Every now and again hot breath ghosted over his hole, followed immediately by the cool, slide of saliva off Cal's tongue and down.

Ian trembled all over, panting and gasping, when the first finger slid in. It didn't hurt, but it was foreign enough to rein in the headlong rush for the finish line. He caught his breath, relaxed into it while the finger continued where the tongue had left off.

"That's it. Just relax. I got you." Cal soothed his other hand over Ian's trembling stomach muscles until they relaxed as well. A second later, the sharp pinch of Cal's teeth at the apex of one of Ian's a.s.s cheeks distracted him from the sudden burn of a second finger pressing in beside the first.

"Ungh." Ian grunted without meaning to, but didn't jerk away. Both Cal's fingers withdrew simultaneously, and Cal chuckled softly when Ian pressed back, following their retreat.

A few more seconds to slick things up again, a little more tongue to soothe the way, and then the fingers pressed in again, farther this time. Ian was just getting into the slow in and out stretch of penetration when Cal bent a knuckle.

43 The dolphin/sea monkey squeal had nothing on the noise Ian made then, his whole body stretching and snapping like an elastic band. "f.u.c.k!"

"Getting there," Cal whispered, crooking his fingers again while sliding in a third.

And that was it. There was no possible way Ian could take any more. Fumbling with shaking fingers, he slipped the lube and condom out of the drawer and into Cal's hand. He hissed and froze when Cal clamped down on his hand, the grip just this side of painful, then slid the lube out, kissing into Ian's palm and along each finger.

"Ian... G.o.d, I've... I've wanted this... you have no idea." The lube opened, snick and slurp. Cal coated himself first, so it was already warm when he worked it into Ian, one finger, then more, Cal's mouth sliding up his back the way it came, a vertebra at a time, until his tongue tickled Ian's ear lobe. Ian could tell by the way his Adam's apple was jumping against Ian's neck that he was trying to say something. Thrumming and impatient, Ian pressed back against Cal's c.o.c.k, then froze when it breached the outermost ring.

There was no dignified way to be that needy. He didn't even try to keep his head from falling back onto Cal's shoulder, begging. "Go ahead. Now. I wanna feel you." Everything froze but their breath and pounding blood. "Please."

Ian's chest shook, a long exhale shuddering the forearm Cal had flexed around him, holding him upright, Ian's own arms pinned down against his sides so the pounding of their hearts reverberated through every limb. He and Cal were slick and wrapped up in each other, hyper-aware of the static crackling between them, the only thing that could fit. Cal nodded and pressed in.

Ian was sure he left bruises in Cal's thigh muscles when his hands clenched along with everything else, arching away without meaning to. Cal paused, and Ian had never felt anything like the wave after wave of pleasure-pain-ache that radiated through every nerve ending. He couldn't help biting his lip, holding his breath despite Cal's soothing whispers in his ear.

"Don't..." A panting breath. "Don't stop. Please."

Cal kissed him once, just a touch of lips to Ian's ear lobe, then slid in just as slowly as he'd done everything else so far, one long thrust all the way.

Ian felt like Cal went on forever, but once they were flush against each other, the pain radiating upward started to slide back down, a warm, ma.s.saging flow His breath went out along with it, and on the inhale he rolled his hips, just a little. He couldn't believe how good it felt to be all wrapped up, blown away that he could feel safe and protected but wide open and vulnerable in the same instant. If there was ever any doubt... "Do it."

Ian didn't know what to expect, braced for something rough, a punishing rhythm to make him grateful he'd never hung anything on the wall behind his headboard. Instead, Cal folded inward, one arm around Ian's chest, the other down across his stomach, fingers curling around Ian's c.o.c.k.

He set a rhythm more like the ebb of waves along a beach than s.e.x. Long strokes, power and 44 intensity, achingly slow, tender without being soft, aware without being cautious. Harder, longer, deeper, higher. Cal's voice in Ian's ear, lips at his throat. The tide came in, building on the crest of every rolling wave, higher and higher until Cal's stubbled jaw pushed into the crook of Ian's neck on the leading edge of a m.u.f.fled grunt. "G.o.d!" Lightning struck and both their heads snapped back, gasping together toward the ceiling. "G.o.d, nhgh, nghhh, uh, aaaaaahgh."

Exhausted and loose, with every nerve in his body trying to zing out through the ends of his hair, Ian collapsed into Cal and they fell back, Cal below and Ian above, just a mess of limbs and sheets and sticky.

In his head, Ian was floating, Cal's heartbeat the only thing thrumming and solid. He had to hum to himself for a second or two just to make sure he could still make words, and when he spoke he wasn't sure what would come out. "I think we traumatized the fish."

"Nah, I have it on good authority that Sc.r.a.ppy's got a voyeur kink."

"How so?"

"Well, when I came in to check on them last night and saw your little glow-in-the-dark message, he made kissy lips at me and then turned around and shook his tail in my face. I'm pretty sure that was fish semaph.o.r.e for 'let's get it on.'" Cal nuzzled tighter against Ian's neck as he slowly pulled out, finishing with a kiss to the side of his jaw. "You know, you could've just sent me a text message."

"And what would you have texted back?"

Cal's hand slipped down again through the slick, huffing a laugh. "Go fish."

"How romantic."

"Like 'bottom's up' was poetry."

"I'll have you know it took me a good hour to decide what to say. I've never seduced a guy before."

"Then it's a good thing I have." Cal grinned.

"You're telling me," Ian yawned, already sliding into sleep. "I was starting to think I needed to buy fish for your room so I'd have an excuse to 'go check on them.'"

"And I was thinking I'd have to accidentally walk in here naked before you'd notice."

"I wouldn't stop you."

"Like to see you try."

45 Ian wasn't up to trying anything more than a happy smirk as he slid into sleep. He'd said it once, and he'd say it again. This was a hobby he could really get into.

The End.