Page 53 of Holding the Line

In their suite, the door clicked shut behind them with a gentle finality, sealing off the rest of the world.The lights were low, golden and warm, casting soft glows against the wooden floors and whitewashed walls.It smelled like home.Like cedar, soap, and Eli.Marsh leaned against their closed bedroom door for a moment, staring at Eli as if seeing him for the first time.His breath hitched.

Eli.

Alive.

His.

Eli turned slowly, smile soft, eyes full of something raw and deep.“You okay?”

Marsh stepped forward and buried his fingers in Eli’s hair, pulling him into a kiss that had none of the restraint he’d been clinging to all week.Eli melted into it, arms sliding around Marsh’s waist.

Their mouths moved with the ease of familiarity, but the heat behind it was anything but gentle.This was reclamation.This was need.

Marsh’s hands roamed—over shoulders, down back, fingers mapping his shape, something he’d nearly lost forever.Eli’s moan vibrated against his lips, and Marsh swallowed it, hungry.

Clothes fell away like water.They laughed when Marsh tripped over his jeans.Laughed harder when Eli lost his balance pulling off a sock and landed on the bed with a bounce.

“Smooth,” Marsh said, climbing after him.

“You’re one to talk,” Eli shot back, dragging Marsh down.

The sheets twisted around them as they kissed, explored, laughed, whispered.Marsh traced every inch of Eli’s skin like a cartographer rediscovering sacred territory.The bruises made him pause.He kissed each one like an apology.

With a soft grunt, Marsh sat back on the edge of the bed and removed his prosthetic, placing it gently on the floor beside them.Eli reached out and traced the scar at the join of his thigh, reverent, no pity in his touch—only love.Marsh caught his wrist and kissed the inside of it.

“Still the hottest man in the room,” Eli murmured.

Marsh grinned, tension bleeding from his shoulders, as he moved to take Eli down to the mattress.“That can’t be true because you’re here with me.”

Eli arched beneath him, gasping when Marsh’s mouth found the spot just below his ribs.“You keep doing that, and I’m not gonna last.”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to keep doing it longer,” Marsh said, voice gravel-thick.

Eli shivered.“You’re such a damn tease.”

“Says the man who just told me to take him upstairs for explicit details.”

Eli flipped them suddenly, straddling Marsh’s hips, smug.“Yeah, well.I’m an overachiever.”

They moved together, hips grinding in a rhythm that quickly lost all sense of restraint.Marsh guided Eli back against the pillows, his mouth trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses along the line of Eli’s throat, down his chest, and lower still.Eli gasped, fingers curling into the sheets as Marsh took him into his mouth with a slow, deliberate intensity.

“Fuck, Marsh—” Eli’s voice broke around the word, hips arching involuntarily.

Marsh looked up through his lashes, one hand pinning Eli’s hip.“Patience, love.Let me take my time.”

He did.

He made Eli unravel slowly, hands and mouth exploring, stretching, coaxing responses that were desperate, breathless, aching.Eli returned the favor with teeth grazing sensitive skin, his hands guiding, worshipping, claiming every inch.The taste, the heat, the sounds—they were everything.

When Marsh finally pushed inside, taking Eli’s cock in his hand slow and sure, matching the movements of his hips with his hand, Eli clung to him like a lifeline.Their movements were frantic, then slow, then frantic again—each trying to memorize the other in case the world ever dared to pull them apart again.

“Look at me,” Marsh growled against Eli’s mouth.

Eli obeyed, eyes locked with his as they moved in tandem, as the pleasure crested and broke in waves that left them shuddering, gasping, overwhelmed.

Their climax hit almost in sync—bodies tight, cries swallowed by kisses, and the space between them obliterated by sensation and love and pure, unfiltered need.

It was raw.It was real.It was perfect.