Port in a Storm Read online

  "—we've had flash flood warnings since around two p.m. today, after sunny skies." With an outright laugh, bright and sudden. "Prone to temper tantrums, is he?"

  "Very. He's not getting me back."

  "No, of course not. You got out fair and square." David gazed at him, not laughing anymore, curious, dismayed. "Were you thinking—even if you were still collared I would have helped you. I wouldn't let him take you back. Not to that."

  Colin, surprised, couldn't think of words. "Oh," he said finally, "thank you," and looked down at his cocoa mug, ears going hot. He didn't have that problem when he was a cat. He never used to have that problem when human and flirting with half a dozen witches at once. David Stanton could evidently knock him off-balance with straightforward earnest commitment.

  He threw in, aiming for flip surface-level deflection, hiding newfound deeper emotion, "Don't tell me I needed to learn a lesson, I deserved what I got, everything other people'll say. I know."

  "I won't," David said, calm with steel inside, "because you didn't deserve it."

  "Oh," Colin said again, disarmed by sincerity. "Um. Thanks. Again."

  "This house has good protection. It needs to, for some clients who come over. Even if he comes after you, we can keep you safe."

  Colin, genuinely astounded by this offer, opened his mouth, closed it, discovered babbling words. "David, that—thank you, but you can't just open up your house for any random person—for me—I know you're fucking brilliant at wards and protections, I can feel that, I know. But he won't come after me. I'm almost sure. Like you said, I got out fairly; no magical contract or covenant, just the collar, and when he let it slip, that ended any obligation. He can't make me come back. I'm resistant to compulsion without a collar anyway; that's the only way that works on us. So I don't think he'll try."

  "He's angry enough to try to drown Los Angeles."

  "He survived without me before, and he will again. He just tends to throw fits when things don't go his way."

  "Charming. Why'd you even—"

  "Me, bad decisions, alcohol, and handsome people, remember? He put a hand on my arm and told me I had beautiful eyes and got me to sit on his lap while he petted me everywhere and gave me sips of raspberry vodka out of his glass, and I turned into a puddle at his feet. I'd trust your defenses, especially with my support, but I really don't think it'll be a problem."

  "With your support? You'd let me—" David shook his head, smothered bafflement in cocoa. Fireglow painted his face, his eyelashes, in gold. "I don't understand you."

  "Moral compass of a cat in heat?" He knew he was pushing David away. He told himself he also knew why: to uncomplicate life for that kind hazel gaze. He didn't say that he'd get on his knees at David's feet in a heartbeat. He didn't say that he knew David should be disgusted with him.

  "Stop pushing me away," David said. "You're not even good at it. You tell me why I shouldn't want you, you tell me that like you think I'm going to kick you out, and then you turn around and cure my headache and compliment my warding skill and say you'd trust me to pull power from you, after what you've been through—you'd trust me. What I can't figure out is why."

  "You said I was a good person," Colin said to the dancing fronds of fire, at home in their place. "I think you meant you."

  Silence landed, not uncomfortably. Snaps and crackles of flame, showers of sparks, the rhythmic tapping of omnipresent rain on windowpane glass, collectively sidled in to fill up the room.

  "Would it have worked," David murmured, almost to himself, "if I'd ever been the one to come up to you, any of those coven parties, and put a hand on your arm, and ask you, maybe, if you wanted to come home with me…?"

  Colin turned to look back at him. Heat poured from the hearth, tracing sofa-cushions and bare toes and the sides of faces. "Yes. I would've been curious. You're not like anyone else. If you'd asked, yes."

  David took a deep breath. "What if I'm asking now?"

  "Yes," Colin said. "Yes."

  "I don't mean I'm going to ask you for sex. Or to give me any of your magic. Not when you've just, um, well, you know what you've just." David waved a hand, belatedly remembered the presence of a cocoa-mug in it, hastily put the mug on the table. "But I think you're amazing, I always did, and I want—I'm scared you're going to decide again that you want to leave and I'll never see you again and I don't want to never see you again and I keep thinking about how much I want to kiss you—oh fuck I'm sorry I shouldn't ask you to—"

  "David," Colin interjected, amused, heart positively glowing, some kind of emotion he didn't recognize that was full of laughter and fondness and profound lightness of existence, "I said yes." To prove the point, he whipped off blankets, and stretched—David definitely and visibly appreciated this sight—and then slithered over and swung a leg over David's hips and got himself back into David's lap.

  Not a kitten this time. And wearing only David's soft long-sleeved shirt and cloud-grey underwear.

  "Hi," he said again, nose to nose. "Just tell me what you want."

  "No." David reached up, hand excruciatingly tender as it cupped his cheek. "I don't want you to do this because I asked. Because you think you owe me. I don't want to tell you to do anything you don't want to do."

  Colin raised eyebrows. "I'm a cat, David. I don't see a collar anywhere in this room. So tell me, what makes you think I'm doing anyone I don't want to do?"

  David stared at him for a second, and then began laughing, head thrown back, whole body shaking with merriment, hands clutching at him for support. "I suppose I deserved that. You're fucking perfect, how're you real, how'd I end up with you under my car?"

  "It was a very friendly-feeling car." He rocked his hips. Felt matching arousal; felt their bodies rub together even through jeans and underwear. "I like your… car."

  "Friendly, huh?" David was still chuckling, but the heat was back, smoldering in that gaze, in the intent, in the way his hands slid up under Colin's borrowed shirt. "You still cold, or can I take this off?"

  "Keep me warm," Colin said, lifting arms.

  "Oh, I can do that." David trailed fingers along his collarbone, over his chest. David remained nearly fully clothed; Colin was nearly naked. This contrast made him whimper, made him squirm on David's lap.

  "Huh," David said. "You like this? Me takin' clothes off you?"

  "Yes, please. Oh." David's fingers found a nipple. Colin's nipples were sensitive even when he'd not recently shifted shapes. David pinched lightly, testing; Colin moaned, back arching. David grinned more. Flexed fingers. A tiny flare of magic iridesced into life.

  "What—" Colin's entire body snapped into one taut bowstring of ecstasy. "What the fuck, David—"

  "Magic hands," David said smugly, holding them up; and Colin punched him weakly in the shoulder and demanded, "More, come on, everywhere," and ended up clinging to him, shuddering through wave after wave of bliss, centered in the glorious ache of both nipples being toyed with but washing through him head to toe.

  David held him while he quivered, limp and wrung out and feeling like he'd just come ten times even though he hadn't even once yet, what the actual fuck, David was still playing with him, stroking his back and skimming a fingertip over the white-hot peak of his left nipple, and his cock was rock-hard and leaking copiously through borrowed underwear and he couldn't even think…

  "So pretty," David observed, "nice to pet…you like being petted, you said? You like being in my lap?" and ran a hand along his thigh, right up to but not touching his cock, and Colin wailed, unsure whether to beg for those fingers wrapped around his shaft or for this coruscating torture to never end.

  "I like making you feel good," David whispered, eyes unexpectedly serious, full of matching light but solemn as an oath when they met and held his. "I want you to feel good doing this, okay?"

  "That," Colin managed dazedly, "won't be a problem, I think I love your hands, wait, I'm supposed to be the magical one at sex here, what even."

  David started
laughing again, answering. "Trust me, you are. Watching you, like this…I can't even believe this is happening. Wow."

  "So you like watching," Colin panted, getting revenge, and palmed his cock with his own hand, stroking leisurely through boxer-briefs, darker grey now from all the wet. "You want to watch me get myself off? In your lap, you said? In your borrowed underwear?"

  David let out a noise that was very nearly almost a growl, and flipped him to his back on the couch. Those sturdy muscles at play, and Colin let himself be tossed backward, secure in the knowledge of safety. "Hands off. Mine. My hands on you."

  "Yes, sir."

  "God, you are a brat, aren't you? Are you trying to make me do something about it, kitten?" David bent down, looming over him. "You want me to spank you for that? Over my knee, with these hands, power in every hit? Electricity, maybe?"

  Colin's mouth fell open. He might've come on the spot, lying on his back with his arms above his head, with David Stanton's weight pinning him down, if David suggested one more thing.

  "Yeah, thought so." David kissed him, then: deliciously soft and slow, taking charge but undemanding about it, firm and deep. David's lips were warm, beard-scratchy, and they claimed his with kindness. David tasted like hot chocolate; Colin moaned into the kiss and tried to yield more, to open up further, yes yes yes, fuck.

  David kissed his throat, right where he'd once worn a collar, not lingering but assertive. Colin closed his eyes, the shiver rippling down his spine: this was David, and he was safe, and his neck would bear David's mark for a little while now, the imprint of a mouth and desire. Because they were choosing this, because it felt good.

  David paused to pull off his own shirt, to unzip his jeans, though not more. His body was artwork limned by flame: broad muscle and ribbons of tattoo-ink, magical symbols, personal shields, mementos. The decorations wreathed powerful arms, torso, back; Colin wanted to kiss him everywhere. To learn all his stories.

  To cover up the sudden inexplicable lump of emotion in his throat, he said, "Why the fuck did I never sleep with you before, look at you, I should've just jumped into your lap at that first coven meeting."

  "Because then we wouldn't be here." David kissed him once more, happy and swift. "You and me. Here and now."

  "Here and now would be a whole lot better with your magic hands on my dick?" It popped out as a question, albeit a sarcastic frustrated one.

  "Impatient little kitten," David admonished, "just wait," and trailed a finger along the inside of Colin's elbow, along his forearm, and he'd never known that could explode with light. His body turned liquid, molten, completely David's to shape and mold and play in whatever key those hands desired. He forgot how to talk when David slipped the finger into his mouth.

  David tugged his underwear down with the other hand. Colin's body strained upward, yearning for the touch.

  David murmured, "Ready?" Colin swore at him frantically, and ended up practically sobbing from denial as the hand kept on hovering without touching.

  "Poor sweet kitten," David told him, "needing it so much, needing me. When you said you were feeling sensitive earlier, like an orgasm, you had no idea what I was thinking. Maybe you do now, it looked a lot like this, the way you'd come apart for me if I touched you."

  "Please," Colin was begging, "please, please, David, please," and it wasn't an act, not a practiced seduction, not his provocative teasing from before: it just was. Him and David.

  "I can help you," David promised. "I just want to help, if you'll let me, I want to help take care of you."

  Colin cried, "Yes," cried it over and over, trembling, flying apart at the seams; and David's fingertips stroked the slick ready length of his cock, just once.

  The world collapsed into rainbows. Fractured, bursting, refracted impossible colors. Iridescence along his spine, behind his eyes, flooding outward from his cock, orgasm infinite and billowing.

  He tumbled into pure feeling, endless oscillating bliss. But he was magic, too, even while being swept away. And David was a witch.

  The feeling, everything he was feeling, rushed outward. Overflowed and raced down into the channel he'd provided it earlier. The channel between them: reopened. Wide.

  Amid stars, he vaguely saw David gasp and fumble jeans open and pull out his own cock, thick and long, and jerk himself off: rapid desperate strokes, until he came groaning over Colin's shaking body.

  He wobbled in the aftermath, balancing on knees on the couch; Colin clumsily reached up and coaxed him down. David attempted halfhearted protests about stickiness and heaviness and crushing him; Colin just said, "Mmm, no," and luxuriated in delicious welcome weight atop him.

  David lifted his head. Peeked at Colin's face. They were both breathless. "You…that was…you did that, for me…I've never felt…oh, wow."

  "Seemed only fair."

  "I didn't even mean to! I was thinking I'd, I don't know, get myself off in the shower later, this was for you…"

  "Martyr," Colin announced, and poked him in the ribs. "Didn't I tell you I was magical at sex? I wanted to…what was your line…make you feel good. Shower. Yes. Good."

  "Together?"

  "Fuck yes."

  David took a sort of proprietary charge of the shower and washed his hair, not letting him pick up the shampoo, which Colin was decidedly not used to. He could use the assistance, though. Legs shaky. Magical. Very much magical. Oh yes.

  He leaned back into David's strength, surrounded by soap and water. Slid to his knees and grabbed the soap and washed David's legs: muscular thighs, tempting knees, the curves of those calves. Stopped to loop an arm around David's right leg, to press his lips to the half-moon ink-swirl—he thought this one had something to do with traversing boundaries, but didn't know enough about witch-marks to be certain—above David's knee. He wasn't sure what he was doing or why it felt right, but David's hand came down to rest on his hair, and that felt even more right, so he stayed there for a minute, until the tile grew hard under his knees, and then he got up, drowning his flushed face in hot water.

  After, as they lay naked and entwined in David's navy-plaid sheets, in the bed surrounded by books and stray socks and scribbles of draft artwork and a blooming starflower vine for peaceful sleep lining the window, he commented drowsily, "I don't think you have any clean pants."

  David bumped his nose sleepily into the nearest shoulder. "In the dryer."

  "Oh, of course, that's where normal people keep clothes."

  "I like you wearing my clothes."

  "I like neither of us wearing your clothes. David?"

  "Yeah?" David propped himself up on an elbow, stroked hair out of Colin's face. "What do you need, kitten? You okay?"

  To the night, to the quiet, to David's kindness and the tempting contentment thrumming through his bones, he confessed, "I don't know what I'm going to do now."

  "You can stay here." Of course David knew exactly what he meant. Of course. "As long as you want." One protective arm cuddled him more closely. "About what you can do, though. I don't know, what do you like to do? What did you like? Before?"

  "I…don't know." Parties, vodka, sex, hallucinatory fireflower drops, decadence, lack of consequences, the knowledge that his magic would always refill and he could somehow live forever in each moment. But this—

  He wanted this. He was too newly shy to say so, when he'd never been shy before. But he did want this: David, David's beautiful messy compassionate artist's house, David's wonderful hands, David smiling and happy and saved from all headaches always.

  That was the answer he didn't have earlier, he understood.

  "I think… I like to read. I mean, I do like to read. Which nobody'd ever guess, probably, seeing me at those parties…"

  "That's good," David encouraged. "You want to borrow anything, go ahead."

  "I used to like to write. When I was younger. Short stories. Science fiction. Romance. I started a novel once."

  "Bet you were awesome at that too. Can I read one of your stories?"


  "They're all at my mother's house. She never throws anything away. I doubt they're any good."

  "I'd still read them."

  "What, you think I should be a sorcerer's assistant and write novels in my spare time?" He tipped his head up for maximum impact of skepticism. "Or the other way around? Which would be kind of a waste of innate magical ability."

  "I think it's your magic." David touched his cheek, his lips, under shadowy night. A caress. Sweetness. "I think you were born with it, and I think you get to decide how to live your life. I sound like a self-help book. Fuck. But it's true, though."

  Colin shut his eyes, kissed David's palm, opened his eyes. "I want to go home. I want to see my mother—she knows I'm okay, but I want to see her—and I want to go take a long nap somewhere in sunshine, and I want at least three chocolate cream-cheese pies. And I don't want to leave you."

  He waited. Heart pounding. World teetering on the brink.

  "I think," David said, words coming gradual and unguarded, like he was working it all out as he answered, like he was imagining a future laid out and humming with possibility, "you should go home. For a few days. A week. However long you need. But then I'll be here. I'm here. And I want you to come back. To—I know I shouldn't ask you this, I don't have the right, you just got out of—but I want you to stay. If you want. I want you to come back to stay. I want—I want to get to know you more. I want to see you smile. I want to sit with you in sunshine. I'll, um, find the best pie place in Los Angeles and buy you three of everything. I want to try."

  "David," Colin said. "You remember when I said yes? Before?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh my god," David said.

  "Also… if it's you… yes again. About earlier, my being your power source. You can do more. Help more people. With me. And that's worth doing. While I figure everything else out. Even after. So, yes."

  "Are you sure? I mean—"

  "Yes, witch."

  "Colin?"