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He closed the distance between them, and laid his hand on Ragnar’s nape, fingers following the curve of his neck, palm pressing warmly, skin to skin.

He felt the touch send a shockwave through Ragnar, from the place where they were connected, down to his toes, and back up. A reverberation of feelings manifested physically.

Leif said, “I promise that–”

Ragnar surged upright, and forward, and slammed their mouths together.

There had been no whiff of threat, no hum of violence, crackle of betrayal in the air to precede the sudden rush of motion, and so Leif had not braced himself, nor thrown up an arm to block the assault. And it very muchwasan assault. Their teeth clacked, and Leif felt his lips bruise straight away, and he staggered backward against the crash of Ragnar’s strong chest against his own. It was even violent, too, but not in the way it might have been. Ragnar hadn’t set his teeth in his throat. Instead, he angled his head, and huffed a hot breath through his nose, and slanted his mouth against Leif’s, begging in every action for Leif to kiss him back.

In the first dizzy, disorienting moments of it, Leif was stunned to stillness.

On reflection, he should have expected something like this to happen. It was a natural progression. After all, how could one be surprised by a kiss after a man had already had your cock in his mouth? But he was surprised all the same, because in some ways, this was more intimate than anything that had passed between them thus far. Ragnar smirking up at him, gathering his hair out of the way, lips stretching around him as he found a head-bobbing rhythm had been about pleasuring Leif; about turning him to jelly, and unmaking him; had left him shaking, and vulnerable, and at the mercy of Ragnar’s mouth, lips tucked carefully over his fangs. It had been about getting off; it had been, in a way, a show of power on Ragnar’s part.

But a kiss was nothing but affection, and sweetness – though perhaps not the biting way that Ragnar kissed. It was nothing but vulnerability, first on Ragnar’s part, and then on Leif’s, if he gave in to it.

But it was a chance to take back some control, too. Ragnar was asking, and Leif could answer. If he chose. If he wanted this as badly as Ragnar did.

Ragnar whined against his mouth, and pressed in even closer, his heart thudding against Leif’s still-tender chest. It hurt, that touch, pushed at all his sore spots – but it sent a hot coil of desire unraveling through him as well.

Leif still held his nape, and he closed his fingers on a fistful of hair, and yanked his head back. Their lips parted with a wet noise, as of a seal breaking, and Ragnar whined again, his eyes huge, his irises the barest of blue rings around blown pupils. His face was flushed, and his mouth was damp, and he was gone already, given over to base instinct and wild lust. The sight of him like that stoked the heat in Leif’s belly, and he let his wolf loose to revel in it; allowed himself a moment of selfish desire and nothing else. Nothing but his dutiful wolf offering himself, pleading with a gaze, and with claw-tipped fingers gripping Leif’s arms.

“Do you want me?” Leif asked, his voice low and growling.

“Yes,” Ragnar panted, right away, without hesitation.

The word, the way it was said, rippled pleasantly down Leif’s spine, and the heat became a concentrated throb down low in his belly; his cock began to stir.

He held Ragnar fast by the hair with one hand, and with the other, he tore at the half-down laces of Ragnar’s tunic, until the halves of it parted and hung open. He dragged his hand down his front, then, over the swell of his chest, nails scratching through the hair, and down his stomach, which sucked in and leaped beneath his touch. He teased him there, tickling his fingertips just below his navel, where he knew his own skin was hyper-sensitive.

Ragnar’s head tipped back, so he was pressing into Leif’s knuckles at the back of his skull, and his hips kicked forward, little twitches that flexed all the well-defined muscles of his torso. Leif could see his cock fattening, the growing bulge at the front of his trousers.

“Do you want me to touch you?” Leif asked, continuing to do so.

The torq leaped as he swallowed. “Yes, alpha.”

Leif shifted in closer, so his breath fell across Ragnar’s upturned face, and he let his hand glide lower a moment, to stroke and squeeze him through his trousers. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

Ragnar’s eyes closed a moment, glimmer of wetness visible at the corners. Leif felt his cock swell and fill in real time, with startling quickness, as he traced its shape over the fabric. He could hear and feel the quickness of his breath, of his pulse.

Ragnar whined. “Please. Alpha,please.”

Leif used the grip on his hair to angle his head to his liking, tipped his own, and slanted his mouth across Ragnar’s parted lips.

He’d not kissed many people. The whores didn’t allow it, and the time he’d tumbled with a farmer’s daughter, a girl older than him, and already a widow, seeking a little cold comfort in a barn, his attempts had been juvenile, and clumsy, and she’d laughed at him sweetly and wanted to get to the main event besides. The knowledge of his own inexperience slammed into him, nearly as powerful as the blasting heat in his gut, and so he moved his lips tentatively, uncertain what to do with his tongue. They kissed like that a moment, some of the immediate desperation dying back, his head clearing a fraction, so that there was room for unpleasant, wriggling doubt.

He felt Ragnar smile against his mouth, and then their lips parted just far enough for Ragnar to breathe a low, airy laugh, and murmur. “Poor lad. Has no one ever taught you how to do it properly?”

Leif huffed, and raked his nails over Ragnar’s chest punishingly, catching a nipple on purpose.

“Ooh,” Ragnar said, and laughed again. “No. Lucky me, then.” He pressed up, and kissed him again, bolder, pushier than Leif had been, and then whispered, “It’s not hard, alpha. Think of what you want to do to me, and go for it.” Kiss. Nibble of teeth at his bottom lip. “Kiss me ‘til I’m too stupid to make jokes. And fuck my mouth with your tongue.”

Another electric shiver went down Leif’s back.

“Yeah?” Kiss. “Sound good?”

“Stop talking. Fucking brat.” Leif yanked his hair again, adjusting the angle once more, and had a blurry, up-close glimpse of Ragnar’s twinkling eyes, his delighted smile, before he bent to the business of kissing again, determined to get it right this time.

Ragnar settled, and softened right away, going pliant and giving, opening to the first press of Leif’s tongue.Be bold, he encouraged himself, and let the thrill of Ragnar’s words –fuck my mouth with your tongue, gods – spur him on. Dipping in, again and again, stroking the inside of his mouth, mapping its contours…until he realized he was savoring it, urging his lips wider with his own, pressing, and sucking as though he was trying to crawl inside Ragnar’s mouth – and he wanted to. He wanted more. He wanted all of him.