Page 49 of Lovesick Gods (Lovesick #1)

“You were holding me down ,” Mal spat, still hunched over, staring through his arms at his jeans trapped around his thighs. He wanted to pull them up but he couldn’t move. His voice shook when he spoke. “You c-can’t…do that.” Fuck .

Danny’s voice came softer. “Okay.”

“I couldn’t see you .”

“ Okay . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…I wasn’t trying to—”

“I know, Danny.” Mal did. Of course he did. That wasn’t like Danny. He wasn’t harsh and brutal. Dark and angry sometimes, alluringly rough in all the right ways, but he hadn’t meant to scare Mal.

Now Danny knew Mal could be scared. Knew he was broken too, when no one outside of Lucy and Dom was ever supposed to know that the right combination of events or words or touch could spiral Mal right back to being twelve years old. Even with his father long dead.

Focusing on slowing his breathing, Mal kept his eyes open but stared at the pattern of his jeans. The varying shades of blue stripes in his underwear. The hairs on his legs. Breathe . Just breathe . Stop shaking .

Slowly, the ice started to recede down his arms. When it was just his hands that remained coated, he sat back, weight on his hip, and willed the frost to dissipate completely.

Unfortunately, that wouldn’t save his bed.

It misted behind him, completely covered.

Danny was lucky he hadn’t suffered the same fate.

Shoulders sagging, easing out of their tension, Mal looked forward at his bathroom door. He was fine, he was fine, he was fine .

Several minutes passed before Danny’s tentative voice called out, “Should I go?”

If it had been anyone else, Mal would have thrown them out by now, turned his panic into rage and directed it at them. But when he saw Danny shift on his feet out of the corner of his eye, he knew that the last thing he wanted was to be alone.

Mal peered up at Danny standing there uncertain and small. The black mask was in his hands, cowl hair sticking up every which direction, mouth turned into a frown as he stared at the floor and then started to head for the stairs.

“No.” Mal grasped his wrist. “Come here. Let me get that suit off you. Then you can make this up to me.”

The mask was in the hand Mal had caught, and it fell from Danny’s fingers as he turned back to him. Their eyes met. Mal was thankful his own were dry, but Danny’s looked watery and racked with guilt for more than what had happened tonight.

This was Danny . Mal had nothing to be afraid of, but he still feared something at the edge of whatever this was between them.

He didn’t fear Danny the way he sometimes feared his past, the way he’d feared his father’s fists and ice cutting into his skin; he feared wanting something he didn’t deserve.

Why did Danny insist on showing him something beautiful that could never be his, something that for once, he couldn’t steal?

But maybe he could borrow it. Maybe he could hold this—hold Danny—for just a little longer and pretend.

“Come here,” Mal said again and tugged Danny down.

Sitting back, he opened his legs to encourage Danny to climb on.

Even in the black suit, seeing Danny fully didn’t rekindle any of that panic.

Mal needed control to feel safe and sane again, but he had it.

He had it even beneath Danny’s weight straddling his hips and settling onto his lap on the floor.

Unzipping the suit from neck to navel, Mal pushed the edge of fabric from Danny’s left shoulder and felt that warm, smooth skin. Danny shivered in his grasp.

They reached for each other, and the kiss was desperate, for different reasons for both of them. Mal didn’t know Danny’s reasons, but he could feel the gnawing hunger in the way Danny clung to him with strong fingers curled in his shirt.

They hungered for each other when they were most damaged.

That was new to Mal, something he’d never experienced with anyone else.

When he was damaged, he wanted no one around to see it.

But now, he wanted Danny to remain right where he was, and he knew that against all odds, Danny sought out him instead of his friends.

Something must have happened again. Something always happened to send Danny running here.

Without a catalyst, would Danny still want him?

Mal doubted it. He doubted anyone could want him without getting something in return.

But quid pro quo —that’s how the world worked.

That’s how Mal’s world always worked. And that was okay if he got to have Danny.

Mal pushed the suit from Danny’s other shoulder, trapping his arms until he fought to pull them free from the sleeves and returned to wrap bare limbs around Mal’s neck.

His chest and back were burning hot from the suit.

It felt invigorating against Mal’s skin, still chilled from releasing his ice.

He needed a sense of control back, and he had it here with Danny’s raw power under his palms.

Spinning them, Mal sent Danny tumbling to the floor and shifted until they were laid out with Danny spread beneath him, bare-chested with the suit on only from the waist down.

Mal wedged a knee between Danny’s legs to wriggle closer, but for all the want and wildness in Danny’s eyes, there was a deep sorrow Mal found there that stung him.

He paused. He didn’t want to command Danny. Not anymore than he wanted to be commanded. Danny could have overpowered him. He wasn’t harsh and brutal, no, but he could be. He could be a nightmare so easily. But there he lay, just wanting to be touched and adored and lo…

Mal was getting lost in Danny, dangerously lost, caught in the labyrinth, no way out. And that should have bothered him. It should have terrified him.

“Something happened,” Mal said, reaching for Danny’s face.

A hand came up to grasp his wrist as if Danny might push him away, but he just held Mal’s fingers there, gently, unsure. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Danny—”

“Not this time. Okay? I just want you to touch me.” Pulling Mal’s hand down, Danny trailed it along his neck and down the center of his chest. “I want to forget. Please. Help me forget for a little while.”

Mal stared at his hand being dragged lower and lower down Danny’s stomach. “Forget what?”

“ Everything . Just for a while. Please. You always take care of me.” He grinned, and it was half forced, half honest with fond amusement. “They might even revoke your villain card if you’re not careful.”

“Never,” Mal smiled back at him as Danny brought his hand to the edge of the suit. “I’ve racked up quite a few points over the years to hold my position indefinitely.” Splaying his fingers low on Danny’s belly, he turned his hand so that it slid within the strange black fabric.

Danny bucked up as if to will Mal to reach in further, so Mal let his fingers sink deeper inside the suit. “ Wait ,” Danny said, even as his neck arched at Mal’s fingertips grazing him. “Wait, I…I want you to touch me, I do…but maybe it should be my turn to take care of you.”

“Oh? And what would you do for me, Sparky?” Mal whispered.

Grasping Mal around the shoulders, Danny rolled them, reversing their positions and dislodging Mal’s hand almost at lightning speed. Mal took a moment to blink up at him and get his bearings, and his pause caused the grin on Danny’s face to falter.

He pulled up. “I’m not trying to hold you down.”

Mal’s own smile grew strained. He was fine now. He didn’t mind Danny being rough when he was ready for it. “Just need to know what I’m in for. What do you want, Danny? What do you want to do for me?”

Planting his knees on either side of Mal’s hips, Danny scooted down so he could pull the tangled jeans the rest of the way off.

He returned for the T-shirt, and old anxiety coiled in Mal’s gut, but he pushed it aside.

Danny knew, he’d seen, it was okay. So even though Mal was tense, he let Danny remove him of his shirt, leaving him in just his underwear.

The worst of the scars were on his chest and back, where it was easiest to hide them from curious teachers or neighbors. A few were from things other than his father, but most… Most were his handiwork.

Danny tugged only lightly on Mal’s shorts, just enough to reveal his hips. There was a particularly jagged scar on the left side in the dip of the bone. Danny kissed it. Licked it. Sucked …

Moaning, Mal bucked up, feeling the edge of his ice stir to the surface again, but not like it had when he froze the bed. This version was different.

His scar tissue had almost no feeling, but the skin around it was hypersensitive. Usually, Mal hated that about his scars because he didn’t want to remember they were there. He kept them covered, hidden, untouched. But Danny …he went right for them like he treasured every inch of puckered skin.

“They’re not ugly,” Danny said, licking one on Mal’s stomach, before moving to a smaller scar on his ribs. “You don’t have to hide them. Not from me. I want to kiss and tease them until they’re your favorite thing for me to touch.”

Mal snorted but then gasped when Danny moved from sucking on one scar to his nipple, then to another scar that he grazed with his teeth. “I doubt they would ever be my favorite thing,” he said as he ground his hips up.

Danny’s giggle was devious but still somehow sweet, not menacing. “I’ll show you, Ice Man. I want you to soak your shorts before I take them off of you.”

As Danny licked lightly around the scar along his clavicle, Mal moaned.

Soaking his underwear would not be a problem.

Only this kid could have him chasing pleasure after running from a panic attack.

He wondered briefly why he’d never let anyone else adore his scars like this, but he knew the answer. No one had ever wanted to.