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Dimly, he was aware of Ragnar settling; of his weight on his hips, and the fact that he was sheathed completely. Ragnar was panting, audible shudders of breath that hitched and shivered. But his hum was pleased, and his touch proprietary and soothing both, as he stroked over Leif’s stomach, his ribs, his chest.

“Be easy, alpha. Shh. I have you.”

And gods, he did, didn’t he? Leif was completely at his mercy…which was the only place he could think of being at the moment.

Ragnar stroked him up and back, slow sweeps of his palms, massaging at tense places and sore spots, the soft sound of skin rasping over skin nearly as loud in this quiet place as their competing, stressed breathing.

Slowly, that initial, panic-stricken need to come faded, and Ragnar’s too-tight grip eased as well, to a pressure that was stirring and pleasurable instead. Ragnar began to rock, slowly, slight back and forth twitches of his hips each time he reached up to stroke across Leif’s chest, and Leif let out a deep breath and tried to lift into the touch, seeking it now, able to enjoy the teasing, and the promise of more.

He allowed himself a moment to wonder at the situation: being inside a man for the first time, being inside Ragnar. He’d never expected such a thing, and even if he had, he’d never have imagined that if he’d gone for a tumble for a man, that man would have been Ragnar. Out of context, it was absurd…but given context, it felt both inevitable, and right, somehow. He waited for regret and panic to slam into him, but neither came. There was only skin, and heat, and breath, and that tight grip on his cock, Ragnar’s hands petting through his chest hair, and his breath warm and quick on his face.

Then Ragnar pinched his nipples. And pinched them again.

Leif squeezed his thighs in warning and cracked his eyes open, finally, to find Ragnar grinning down at him.

“Do you like that, alpha?” Another pinch, and Leif swatted him on the backside, which left Ragnar grunting and clenching, which of course Leif felt.

He cursed. “No.”

But that didn’t stop Ragnar, once he’d recovered, from swooping down to take a nipple into his mouth. The way he shifted tugged at Leif’s cock in a delightful way, and so Leif held still, and accepted the wet heat of Ragnar’s mouth on his chest, the clasp of his lips, and the flicker of his tongue. He’d never thought of his chest as sensitive in that way, but it was as if there was a direct line from his nipple to his cock, and he knew Ragnar felt the stirring inside him when his lips curved upward against the meat of Leif’s pectoral.

“Oh, he likes it.”

“No, I don’t.” Leif smacked him again, and Ragnar grunted, face tensed as he sat up once more. He was a picture: hair streaming wild over his shoulders, cheeks flushed, lower lip wet and shining. His abs were taut, throwing deep shadows where the muscles stood stark like carved marble.

He was beautiful in that moment, as desirable as any bedmate Leif had ever laid eyes on – more so. He shifted beneath him, restless, hungry. His voice was gruff with want. “Get on with it.”

No more teasing, now. “Yes, alpha,” Ragnar murmured, and lifted, and then lowered. Slow, at first. Flex of his thighs as he pushed up on his knees, and then eased back down. Up, and down. Up, and down. Up, and down. He worked himself on Leif’s cock until the way grew easier, quicker, slicker. Leif got to watch Ragnar start to lose himself to it, as he built up a rhythm, growing bolder, and more enthusiastic as he fucked down onto him, again and again. The arch and flex of his body was hypnotizing, from the tensing of his abdominals, to the backward bend of his spine; the flush on his chest, and the hard peaks of his nipples. The shiver and shift of thick muscle under supple, scarred skin, the twitches when pleasure gripped him in unexpected places and left him exhaling in a quivering rush. His body was a work of art, the sort painted on the ceilings of manors like the one they’d walked from, which might as well have been continents away, for all of Leif’s awareness. He had eyes only for Ragnar, and for his face most of all, rapturous and pleasure-twisted. And the clean, bright glimmer of the torq in the last of the fading light, Leif’s mark upon him, unbreakable and shackling.

It was transportive, this coming together, thismating. An unsought revelation from which Leif knew he would never recover.

Ragnar had begun to whine, softly, on every drop. At the base of each, their skin met with a quiet smack of skin on damp skin. Sweat sheened his face, his collared throat, his chest. He braced a hand on Leif’s stomach for leverage, working quicker, more frantically, and reached with his other hand to stroke his own chest, raking across it with his nails and tugging at his own nipples, his whines getting higher, louder. Needy. He needed his alpha; Leif felt the tug of his whines behind his breastbone.

Leif sat up – burst of pain easily ignored, in the moment – and wrapped an arm around Ragnar’s waist. With his other hand, he captured a fistful of hair.

Ragnar’s eyes flew wide, and his mouth fell open on a startled, “Alpha?”

Leif dragged his head down and kissed him.

It was savage. Rough and uncoordinated, sloppy with too much spit. Leif thrust his tongue boldly into his mouth, fucking him the way he wanted to flip him over and fuck him truly. But that was beyond him at the moment, and he knew it even through the haze of lust that surrounded them.

When they broke apart, Leif murmured, “Don’t stop,” and reached down to take Ragnar’s cock in his hand.

Ragnar cried out, a rough bark of a shout, and kicked in Leif’s grip.

Leif stroked him firmly, root to tip, twisting on the head, and murmured, soothingly, “Hush. And don’t stop.”

“Yes, alpha, thank you, alpha – oh, gods.” It was a frenetic, sloppy pace that Ragnar set after that, uncoordinated as he tried to fuck into Leif’s hand at the same time, his claw tips biting into Leif’s shoulders as he held on for dear life and his thighs doubtless began to cramp from the strain.

Leif held him as he could. Held him tight around the waist and boosted him a little on each lift, shifting his own hips upward as well as he was able on each drop. It was a marvel to feel Ragnar winding tighter and tighter above him, then tension streaking through him, choking him, making him clumsy, and desperate, and whiny.

He was whining a constant stream of “alpha.” “Alpha…alpha…alpha…” He tensed, and cried out again, and came. Hot jets striping over both their stomachs, and an expression like he’d been run through.

He had, in a way. He clenched on Leif so tight that Leif saw stars; he took Ragnar by both hips, and, gritted his teeth through the effort and pain, worked him up and down on his cock until he too came – with a growl for his part. It was an orgasm that began, and crested – and then seemed to keep coming. Wave after wave of it, crashing through him, turning his body numb with exquisite pleasure, until his mind was empty save the need to claim.Mine, mine, mine.

His last conscious thought was of warm, familiar skin beneath his mouth, and the taste of salt sweat on his tongue, and then of blood, as he sank his fangs deep.

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