Page 23 of Silver & Gold

Raider’s hands fell to his sides and he lay there looking up at Seth. His cock tented the silk so fiercely that the flared head was visible against the material. Seth let himself focus on that delicious sight for a moment, then his gaze roamed over Raider’s athletic body. He was such a perfect balance of strength and litheness. So utterly beautiful.

“Seth.” Raider’s muscled belly contracted with his heavy breathing.

“Sorry.” Seth bent to unlace his boots. “You distract me. And I haven’t gotten to really look at you in a long time.”

“Two days.”

“Forever.”

Seth got his boots off and shoved down his pants. His cock bobbed heavily as he stepped out of them. Watching, Raider sucked in a breath and arched. His hands fisted at his sides. He wanted to touch and be touched, but he waited for Seth.

Seth knelt and tugged at Raider’s sash. Raider lifted to let him pull it away. Then Seth untied Raider’s drawstring and slid his pants down, taking Raider’s cock in his mouth as he did.

Raider bowed up with a cry. Sucking him deep, Seth pulled his pants down further and managed to strip them away while Raider pumped into his mouth. Seth couldn’t take all of him, so he wrapped his hand around the base of Raider’s cock and used his fingers to massage Raider’s swollen balls. His own cock wept and pulsed with the pleasure of the act.

Over the past twenty-four hours, they had both been desperate for this reconnection, touching at every opportunity, both constantly getting hard even though they’d known there would be no relief. They needed this too much to draw it out. Raider was close and so was Seth.

Seth pulled his mouth free of Raider’s cock and crawled his way up Raider’s body. Lying over top of him, Seth took both their cocks in his hand and started to stroke.

“Oh, fuck, Seth,” Raider moaned, arching into Seth’s grip. “That’s going to make me come.”

“I know. Me too.”

Seth nibbled at Raider’s lip and captured his gasping breaths, his needful sounds, his slight quivering. Seth’s lower back tightened and his cock ached and throbbed at the stroking of his hand, slick with precum. He lost himself in the erotic sound and sensation of Raider’s cock gliding against his own.

“Seth, I—”

Seth swept his thumb over the crown of Raider’s dick. Raider cried out as his hips jacked upward. At the first spurt of Raider’s orgasm, Seth’s body responded, seizing hard as his own release tore through him. They rocked against each other through the heavy, straining pulses. Seth’s slick hand stroked every drop of cum from them both until they were gasping and spent.

When Raider relaxed under him, Seth kissed his lips. Raider murmured against him, “You were s’posed to fuck me.”

“I know, baby. Just sleep.”

Seth could tell that Raider was trying to stay awake, but it wasn’t going to last. Raider was too exhausted. There was no way Seth would have fucked him when he was that tired. The wound in his shoulder from the quicksilver usage hadn’t even healed yet. So Seth stroked his face until he fell asleep.

Seth stayed with him for a minute, pleased to see him resting, then he withdrew to get a towel and some water to clean them both up. After he’d finished that, he meant to lie back down with Raider, but when he was putting the water back, the open pack caught his eye.

The book caught his eye.

He pulled it out and flipped open to its title page, where The Masterwork of Kahzir was inked with such arrogance. Seth’s heart beat heavily. He had wanted the truth from Raider since he’d first seen his quicksilver in the dusty, desert-edge town of Shalaa.

And here it was in his hands. The truth.

Raider, he was sure, wouldn’t tell him. Maybe he couldn’t. But Seth needed to know.

He needed to replace his wrong-headed assumptions with facts. He needed to see just how much of an asshole he’d actually been.

Turning the lamp down to its lowest setting, Seth sat on the floor beside Raider. Seth put his back to him, using his body to block the light and hopefully not wake him. Seth closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he started to read.

Kahzir began with a brief gloss of earlier work. He alluded to other subjects, other … victims of his experiments.

Seth frowned at Kahzir’s references to “neural intrusion” and “induced impressionability.” What the hell did that mean?

Kahzir dismissed his earlier subjects as possessing “insufficient physical and mental fortitude.” But S, he wrote, demonstrated remarkable resilience. S? That must be Raider, but what did the S stand for? Kahzir took this as a sign of divine approval of his task, a perfect alchemical juncture of time, place, and purpose—

“Seth.”

Seth jolted.