Under most circumstances, Pocket would prefer to drink alone, if at all. But the whole impending Ritual to change the world thing has their fellow mystics insistent upon team-building quality time, which leaves them standing outside Jezebel’s on a Tuesday evening, trying to will themself to go inside.
Going anywhere with the chance of being surrounded by too many people always feels like a mistake; tonight their misgivings come true before they even cross the threshold.
“Oh, thank God,” they hear behind them. They turn on a heel to discover Jacob Lash, egotistical local celebrity, professional pain in the ass, and unfortunately, their teammate for the forthcoming Ritual. “Just who I was looking for,” Lash announces in a tone that suggests this is a gift Pocket should be grateful for.
“Lash,” they say as neutrally as they can.
Reaching a hand toward them, he steps under the awning. Pocket prefers their personal space, but Lash loves to touch other people. A slap on the back here, an elbow to the ribs there, a constant barrage of touch that only someone audacious and unburdened by the comfort of others could get away with.
The way Lash touches them now is nothing like those. His fingers are clammy as they close around Pocket’s wrist, some desperation there that they can’t wrap their head around. On closer examination, he is sweaty and flushed, overheating despite the threadbare tank top he thinks is appropriate public attire.
Pocket tries to pull back, but Lash is as strong as he looks. That meaty grasp isn’t letting them go anywhere. “You know about a bunch of freaky shit, right?” His hand lingers at their wrist, adding to the weight of the case they take everywhere.
“I know some things about a very specific type of magic.”
“Somebody did something.”
“That’s informative. Thanks.”
Lash rubs at his face, looking forlorn and childlike in that way only drunk people can. “The Lash does not ask for help very often.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“Somebody did something to me,” he says as if that is any more specific.
He does sound worried, though, and his grip is strong, keeping Pocket close to him. They don’t expect they’re getting out of this soon. They look him over with intent now, cataloging his tacky skin and flushed face and dilated pupils. Despite themself, they lean in closer, and Lash sucks in a sudden breath, massive chest expanding and straining the limits of that tank top. This is the longest they’ve been so close to Lash, which is doing unexpected things to the tempo of their pulse and the warmth in their face. They conclude, “You look like you have a fever.”
“You look like you have a boner,” Lash answers.
“That’s” — they bite down. It would be a perfectly normal physiological response to a muscular, sweaty man suddenly pressed against them, if it were true — “not convincing me to help you. I don’t even know how I would. Do you feel like you have a fever?”
“Kinda.”
“When did it start?”
“Some loser put a… something-or-other in my gym bag.”
“Something that made you sick?”
“I wouldn’t say sick.”
Lash is many things, but subtle is not usually one of them. It takes some time to read between the lines, but the sweatiness, his sudden closeness, and what he accused Pocket of all add up to them asking, “Do you have a hard-on?”
Lash groans, rubbing at his face again. “I’ve been walking around at half mast for, like, an hour now.”
“Oh my God.”
“And if I touch it myself, I feel sick. Like ‘I’m gonna spew like a fire hose’ sick. Then I stop and it goes away. The pukey feeling, not the boner.”
“If this is some roundabout way of hitting on me…”
“The Lash is way too charming to need a gimmick.”
Pocket looks him over again. If any of this is true, Lash has probably done something to deserve it. But they find that they believe him, and worse, they care. If nothing else, Lash is their teammate who they’ll need in fighting form for the Ritual. More than that, he does indeed look like he’s suffering. “So what do you think happened to you?”
“I don’t know, but it’s weird, right?” Now that he has their full attention, he finally lets Pocket go, slinging his duffel off his shoulder and unzipping it to reveal a pile of sweat-soaked clothes and a small, pitted stone figurine of a man with a phallus as long as his thigh.
Pocket should not laugh. Even the Lash deserves the dignity of being taken seriously when he’s in distress. “Did you touch it?” they ask once they’ve gotten their face under control.
“I don’t normally check for booby traps in my gym bag, so yeah, obviously,” Lash says. The rancor in his tone is diminished by the genuine anxiety on his face.
“I’m not an expert on magical artifacts, but I’d guess the little statue with the ludicrous erection probably has something to do with your dilemma.” Lash’s hand is back, this time creeping onto Pocket’s hip. “Are you sure this isn’t self-inflicted? I mean, I’d bet a lot of people might look to this guy to help with problems maintaining.”
“That is not a problem the Lash has ever struggled with.” The defensive response might be more peevish if he weren’t also breathing the words against their ear. When did he get this close? Whatever the truth, erectile dysfunction is far from the problem he’s currently having; the proof is brushing against Pocket’s side.
They zip the bag closed and, through sheer force of will, put some space between them again. “Come on,” they say. “Let’s go see the person you should have asked first.”
Paige’s bright, reflexive smile falters once Pocket explains the situation. “Can I see the object?” she asks.
“Before I show you—”
“I know who Priapus is. I’m an adult. I can handle it.”
Careful not to touch with bare skin, Pocket wraps the ithyphallic god in Lash’s sweaty gym shirt and passes it over. Paige tugs on a pair of white archival gloves, the likes of which might be used to handle art or very old books or, in this case, a tiny stone man with a huge penis.
She giggles then clears her throat. “Adult,” she reminds them, or maybe herself. She turns it this way and that under a magnifying glass. “I was hoping the material would tell us something about it, but other than saying it’s pretty old, I’m not sure what this is supposed to be for. An archeologist might be able to say more about it. Is this all you can tell me?”
While Paige does the actual work, Lash has migrated toward Pocket again. He did it the whole walk here, as if some magnet kept pulling him toward them, but now that they’ve stopped, it’s worse. He rests a hand on the side of Pocket’s neck, fingers hot against their skin. They can feel him breathing against them, he’s so close. They shrug him away. “I can sense some magic, but that’s probably obvious.”
“Any idea what kind?”
Pocket focuses on the thing, but they weren’t lying when they told Lash their expertise begins and ends with their coat and briefcase, which, in their defense, did suck up a lot of research time over the past few years. “Something not very nice,” is all they can say. “Sorry.”
“That helps more than you think. It’s what I’m getting too. And if it’s a curse of some kind, this” — she waves at Lash — “is probably the intent, not an accident or some side effect of trying to solve a medical issue, you know?”
“The Lash has never had that kind of medical problem!”
She sighs. “I’m sure the only problem you’ve ever had down there is that it’s just too big, right?”
“Obviously! Anything else has been easily cured by antibiotics.” Having been shrugged off once more, he reaches for Pocket again like it’s some reflex.
Paige blinks rapidly. “I guess if he’s honest about that, he’s probably not lying about how this happened.”
Pocket tries to steer them back on track. “So he’s cursed?”
“Something like that. Probably,” she says.
“Why would someone want to curse you?” Pocket asks him, which might be the stupidest question they’ve asked all year. Paige looks at them like she agrees but she’s too nice to say it.
“No idea. Everyone loves the Lash,” he says, but he sounds surly.
It’s Lash. There are a million reasons someone might want him to suffer, especially to bring him down a peg. Whatever else this might be, it’s definitely humiliating. The man is locked in a reading room at the public library, sporting a visible erection and sweating all over, and seems unaware that he won’t stop touching Pocket. Even now, he paws at them, nose brushing at the side of their neck.
They almost jump when Paige touches their other arm. “Did you hear me?” she asks.
“Um,” they answer, flushing hotter than they ever thought possible.
“I said I need to get some books. I won’t be long. I know where to look, but, well, someone should stay with him.”
“Got it,” Pocket says through their teeth. The last word comes out higher than it ought to, because Lash’s mouth is on their neck. The mustache tickles, but this is much worse than that. They’d push him away, but their hands feel suddenly too weak, unaccountably latched onto his shirt instead.
“I’ll be quick,” she promises, apology written in every line of her body before she darts out the door.
As soon as the door swings shut, Lash’s grip tightens, and what was a dry brush of lips across their skin becomes a full on wet kiss to their neck. For a moment, Pocket forgets how unbearable this man usually is, and all they can think about is how good it feels.
It’s been too long since they last took a bad idea to bed, which must be the only reason any of this is tempting. Their eyes try to shut, but then he grabs their jaw, turning their face toward him, and they remember that he may be sexy, but he’s also Jacob Lash.
Pocket jerks away from him, gut churning with equal parts nausea and desire. “Stop that. Paige will be back any minute.”
Lash makes a sound that yanks at the pressure between their thighs. “Listen, if you want Ginger to participate, I’m game, but I need you to help me out here.”
“I am trying to help you, and you’re repaying me by feeling me up.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m not the solution to your problem.”
“You don’t know that,” Lash says, making an obnoxious amount of sense for the current circumstances.
“We don’t know anything.”
“I know it feels better when I’m close to you.”
It’s oddly romantic for Lash, so Pocket asks, “Literally?”
“What else would it be? I have the world’s most stubborn stiffy, like at this point my whole body hurts, and then I’m close to you or copping a feel and it’s not as painful. It’s like the curse wants me to.”
“The curse wants you touching me?”
“Yeah. I’m not, like, trying to do it.”
“But it hurts if you don’t.”
“I mean, the Lash can handle it.”
Another pang of guilt stabs through Pocket at the thought that they almost enjoyed it. Lash seems no more willing a participant than they are. “So we know what the curse wants. What do you want?”
Lash’s tongue flicks over his bottom lip. “What I want is to bend you over that table and plow you into next week.”
“I regret asking,” they say.
“Sure you do.”
Of all the things he’s said, that one makes their face heat up the most. “Why don’t you sit over there?” They point at the seat across the massive table, then take the one farthest from him, trying not to concern themself with the sweat beading across his brow or the strain in his face.
He lasts less than five minutes before he says, “Come on, baby, you’re all I can think about. Don’t you want to let the Lash—”
“I do not want to let the Lash do anything, thanks,” Pocket lies. They have to get out of this room. It’s hot in here and getting hotter by the second. Pocket tugs at the collar of their shirt, and Lash makes a sound like he might cry, eyes fixed right at their neck. For one horrible, tempting moment, it occurs to them that they could walk across the room, sit in his lap, and do anything they wanted.
“Okay!”
Pocket nearly jumps out of their skin as Paige knocks open the door again, carrying a teetering pile of books. “So these are what I’ve got on Priapus and fertility gods, and these are what I’ve got on Greek hexes, and then I found three on ‘curses, erotic,’ which is a pretty promising lead if you ask me. So you take these, and I’ll take these.” She pauses. “Lash, can you read?”
“Contrary to popular belief, the Lash is literate.”
“Great. Here.” She leans over the table, either unaware or unbothered that her short skirt rises to expose the press of her thighs together and nearly gives a glimpse of her underwear, which Pocket takes notice of in a way they simply would not under normal circumstances.
This is Lash’s fault somehow. He’s got sex rattling around their brain, and it’s turning them into a pervert like him. Mentally they apologize to Paige then scowl at Lash, who meets it with a challenging stare of his own. If they thought glancing briefly at Paige’s ass was troubling, they are wholly unprepared for the way their body hums when they look at his enormous muscles again: the huge arms, the bigger pecs, the tree trunk thighs spread wide in his chair, and the sizable erection straining inside his tight pants.
“I’m not going to do all the reading myself,” Paige warns, and Pocket blinks rapidly, trying to work moisture back into their suddenly dry mouth.
“Sorry,” they mumble, tearing their gaze from Lash.
Focusing on words is harder than it’s ever been, probably because all the blood they need to make their mind function is presently flowing far away from their brain. They close their legs, then spread them wider, unsure what to do about their growing problem.
Reading about the lascivious ways people have put magic to work over the years is not helping. Sure, the aphrodisiacs are obvious, as well as the charms to turn objects into a variety of sex toys, and the summoning spells require little imagination, but there are others they wouldn’t have considered. There are curses that cause a body to expand like a balloon, one that causes any clothing on the target’s body to constrict, one that locks a person’s jaw open — and all of these, the book takes care to note, have been used for consensual play more often than true curses.
Pocket rubs at their brow, which has grown sweaty in this claustrophobic room. They can feel it prickling along the back of their neck too, and that’s before they acknowledge the growing pressure between their legs. Worst of all, with every new idea they encounter, their mind’s eye helpfully supplies a visual of Lash in the relevant scenario.
His gaze bores into them even when they won’t look at him, and they shift in their seat, restlessness slithering under their skin. Fresh air might help, but they can’t abandon Paige to this. They smear their palms along their thighs, trying to rub the sweat away.
“This looks right, doesn’t it?” Paige asks, shoving a book in front of them. They have to blink more than once to focus.
The image in front of them is a stone figurine much like the one from Lash’s gym bag, absurdly overendowed and all. “I think so,” they say with too much effort. The words swim in their vision, so it takes a moment to realize it’s not in English anyway.
She hunches over the book. “I’m not an expert or anything, but I’m pretty sure it says if he doesn’t act on it, he’ll…” She grows paler. “Well, he can’t just sit around like that. He needs someone else to help him. Someone specific,” she adds, the weight of it making her meaning clear.
“No way,” Pocket mutters, even as the prospect clings in their mind, far more appealing than it has any right to be. They swallow around a lump in their throat.
“Are you okay?” she asks. They finally look up to find her wide-eyed, a blush creeping across her face that somehow she managed to avoid the entire time they’ve been talking about Lash’s permanent erection. Whatever she sees there has to be worse somehow. “Oh, no.”
“What?” Pocket asks stupidly like they don’t know exactly what her hunch is. It’s the same one they’ve been avoiding the whole time.
Red streaking all the way to her ears, she turns back to the book, then shoves it under their nose. “So it’s, um, spreading, isn’t it? That’s what the book says.”
“I didn’t touch anything.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s… there’s an aura, I guess. I mean, good news, I’m immune! But, um. You’re not.”
“Wait, how are you immune?”
The red in her face might be a medical concern at this point. “Look at the statue,” she says.
Lash guffaws from across the room, distracted momentarily from leering at Pocket. Pocket stares at the bulge in Lash’s pants, stares at the impossible erection on the little stone statue, then makes some assumptions about what they might have in common with both that they don’t have in common with Paige. “Oh, God.”
“Right. So now that we know more about each other than we needed to, you should know the same applies to you. You have to resolve the problem. With a partner.”
Pocket carefully does not look at Lash. Not even a little bit. “I can’t just, I don’t know, ride it out?”
“You absolutely cannot. Both of you could…” Her eyes begin to water.
“Can you just say it so we can get to the porking?” Lash says.
“You could die,” she answers.
“Maybe that would be preferable,” Pocket says, even as the idea of touching Lash burns itself into their brain and sends blood pounding straight to their dick. None of this feels fair. They wouldn’t look at Lash twice any other time, except of course for that first time they saw him when their eyes kind of got stuck on his cleavage, and then again the other day when they realized his arms were as big as their waist. Other than those times and when he bent over to grab something just yesterday— the point is they don’t want to fuck Lash. It’s embarrassing. He’s awful. He says atrocious things and he’s an asshole, and no amount of sculpted muscle changes that.
“I really don’t want you to die,” Paige says. “I don’t think he deserves to either.”
“You’re not gonna volunteer to help?” Lash asks, still leering.
“Am I the one you want to help?” Paige asks.
“You’ll do, I guess.”
“I’m going to blame that one on the priapism, but I’m starting to understand why someone would curse you.” She stands, brushing imaginary lint off her skirt, then looks squarely at Pocket despite how obvious it is she’d rather not. “I’m going to do you one last favor. Lash came to you for help, not me, not any of the other mystics we’re working with. And you’ve been staring at him this whole time, so. Not exactly impenetrable subtext.”
Even with their brain fogging over, Pocket knows better than to bring up their singular glance at her ass. That is neither the point nor especially helpful. They don’t think they can argue with the rest either. Paige doesn’t want this, and she’s right they’re not all that interested in her, so trying to talk her into it would be wrong in more ways than even the obvious.
They also don’t want to die, and despite every word out of his mouth being infuriating, they don’t wish it on Lash either. “Goddamn it,” they mutter.
Half a block from the library is a hotel that Paige says will let them in even under these extenuating circumstances. Pocket’s coat hides enough of their problem; Lash resorts to carefully positioning his gym bag, now absent the figurine, which sits in a specialized case in the library, ready to be disposed of when she tracks down the responsible agency.
The Baroness looks way too expensive for their wallet, but they’re hoping Lash can cover it. The redheaded doorman who lets them in smiles too widely at their request for a room, but they don’t have time to be creeped out when they have to think instead about how to keep Lash at arm’s length until they get to their room.
The only thing preventing them from starting in the elevator is the dead-eyed attendant who seems unimpressed to meet the Lash, especially a Lash who is sweaty and red in the face and won’t stop trying to grope Pocket. They have to elbow him three times in the thirty seconds it takes to make it to their floor. Once they’ve vacated the elevator, Lash clasps their waist and steps in close.
They fumble at the door, key scraping uselessly against the lock, because Lash’s hands slide down their hips and his mouth brushes the back of their neck, and they can feel how impossibly hard he is against them.
“Can you—” they try, but his lips close around their earlobe and they have to pause. The key finally slips into the lock, the sound of it echoing in Pocket’s slowly emptying brain.
The moment they’re inside, Lash wastes no time. He pushes the door closed and Pocket back against it in one motion, then his mouth is on theirs, hungry and messy. One hand cups their face and the other slithers immediately into their trousers. His cock juts into their hip, and they thrust into his hand, and that is all it takes. Lash bites their lip and shudders as he comes in his pants, and his clumsy hand pulls them right along with him.
Ears ringing, they think, very stupidly, that all that buildup was for nothing. Then their cock twitches, still hard inside their sticky underwear. “Oh,” they breathe. “I’m still—”
“Shut up and take your clothes off,” Lash growls, then proceeds to make that as difficult as possible, because he won’t give them space to move. His stubble rubs their neck raw while he sucks at the skin, and his hands tear at their clothing, getting in the way more than they help.
Somehow their pants come off before their shirt does. Then his lips find theirs again and his tongue slides into their mouth like it owns the place. He lifts and their instincts tell them to simply let him. His elbows hook under their knees and his weight smashes them against the door. One hand paws at their ass, and his cock slides a wet line up the crack.
They have to break the kiss on a moment of clarity, muttering, “Wait, we don’t have—”
But Lash’s fingers are slippery when they press against Pocket’s rim, and they don’t question it more than that. They breathe harshly into his mouth when one finger pushes inward, then they can barely breathe at all. He twists that finger, pushes and pries them open with a second, just enough to make sure they’re slick and ready for him.
Then his cock nudges at their hole, and this time he holds it steady and pushes in. They groan against him when the head finally pops in. The sound turns into a sob as gravity helps things along.
Before, they only saw it pressing against his pants, and maybe it seemed big enough then, but they weren’t prepared for exactly how big. It sure explains the ego, but that’s a lesson Pocket wishes they’d learned before that monster started splitting them open.
Now it’s all they can do to breathe as their hole throbs around him. His cock sinks deeper, brushes against their prostate, and their next orgasm takes them by surprise, burning through their whole body. At least it distracts them from him bullying that huge cock in the rest of the way, where he too comes without doing much else. He shudders, smashing them against the door, rests his forehead against theirs, and with increasing horror, they realize they’re still hard and so is he.
Maybe Paige was right that this curse could kill them.
They barely have time to process the thought before he’s moving, fucking up into them. Their limbs feel weak and their head swims, and they cling to him and hope three times is enough. The denim of his jeans and metal of his zipper bite into the skin of their ass on every thrust. Their hole clings, sucking at him on every thrust, as pain and discomfort melt into bliss. The third time they come, it’s with Lash’s cock so far inside them they think they might choke on it, and he’s dragged along with them, grunting as he shoves their hips down, digging up into them like he’d climb inside if he could.
When it’s over, they’re still hard. So is he.
“I can’t,” they murmur against his mouth. Their mind feels scrambled, thoughts flighty as they try to find the words for what it is they can’t do.
He seems to understand the gist, at least. His cock slides free, and they’re left achingly empty. Somehow they make it to the bed, where Lash pushes them down and climbs on top. He folds them in half again, and their ass aches but also feels relieved when he slides home.
It’s better on their back, but his weight is heavy atop them. They squirm on his cock, spine burning, abs and thighs aching with the strain, but it’s so unbelievably perfect. They shudder beneath him, groping anywhere they can — his neck, his shoulders, his arms, his chest — fingers denting into the muscle so hard they might be bruising him, and they don’t care. They only care about the feeling of his cock bottoming out inside them over and over again.
This time when they come, they seize up all around him. That’s painful enough, but their cock can’t do much either, balls drawn up painfully with little left to give. They sob into his mouth, feeling him follow them through the same.
He stills above them, panting and trying not to lower his weight on top of them. “Fuck,” he says. “It’s not—”
“I know,” they say. They’re still hard, but their body is getting stiff in this position. “I need to move.” At least they’re verbal again. Slightly clearer headed, they think, but no telling if that’s a momentary reprieve or if it means this thing is loosening its hold.
Lash pulls off of them, and their joints groan in appreciation. He’s huge and heavy and— the thought sends a frisson up their spine, accompanied by the visual of being crushed under him again, maybe lying on their stomach this time as he fucks them slow and lazy.
Lash stares at their cock and then at his own. They’ve never seen someone look so dejected by the sight of an erection — certainly not one that is about to be put to use, anyway — but the feeling is mutual. He sniffs and they pretend not to hear it.
A pitcher of water sits on the nightstand, along with a tray full of multiple lubricants and a note declaring that should they need anything more adventurous, they can contact the staff. Pocket immediately banishes that thought, thinking again about the creepy doorman with the blue eyes.
“What if we need to do it… differently?” they ask. Not like they really discussed it before. Lash just yanked them off their feet and shoved his cock in, which was incredibly rude but also incredibly sexy and maybe worth revisiting sometime when they’re not about to die if they don’t get off. But if Lash had asked, they might have spared at least three seconds to think about it, because it’s not like they haven’t noticed the curve of his ass… and then they probably would have let him do exactly what he did, but it’s the principle of the thing.
Now, though, sore and uncomfortable and trying not to think about dripping anywhere, they’re more than happy to go back to thinking about their own cock rather than his.
“You want a piece of the Lash’s ass?”
“You’re surprised?”
Lash pretends to look overwhelmed by emotion. The act appears to be a cover for how overwhelmed by emotion he actually is. It is not very convincing. “I’m touched. Usually people just assume.”
“You just assumed earlier.”
“Yeah, ’cause of all those other people. Duh. And because I’ve wanted to bend you in half like that since the day we met, and that creepy door guy handed me lube and told me good luck, so I just figured. But mostly you can blame society.” Well, that explains some things, they suppose. Not Lash’s preferences, but why he seemed perfectly prepared to fuck them earlier. Though they shudder when they realize their judgment was so clouded by lust that they didn’t bother to protest before they knew he had lube. “The people at this hotel definitely know why we’re here, by the way. I think they’re rooting for us. They might be watching.”
“I sincerely doubt they’re watching.” They hope not, anyway. They refuse to entertain the thought long enough for it to turn into paranoia.
It occurs to them they’ve been talking, not fucking, for a whole minute now. Maybe that means the curse is loosening its grip. The pressure between their legs suggests otherwise.
“Roll over,” they say, surprised when he does so without complaining or saying much of anything.
Lash gets on all fours with an arch in his spine that says he knows exactly what he looks like. Pocket’s cock throbs and they have to stare for a moment at the broad, muscular thighs and round ass before they reach for the lube. Some other time they might have the wherewithal to take this slow, but here and now they can only think about how they might die, very literally, if they don’t get their dick inside him as efficiently as possible.
It doesn’t take much effort before they’re sliding one finger in to the knuckle, then a second. They try to make it good, at least. He puts his forehead on one arm and moans, and that’s about all they can bear.
They ease their fingers free, slick a generous amount of lube down their cock, then line it up against his hole. He’s more reluctant to open up here, like maybe he forgot two fingers aren’t exactly a replacement for dick, but they go as slow as they possibly can.
They can feel the curse gnawing at them again and their mind fuzzing over as their cock is enveloped in tight, slippery heat. If this were the first time, they might have already come; unfortunately for them both, this is probably going to take more work than that.
Lash groans long and low when they finally slide their cock in to the hilt, hips coming to rest against his ass. With a sigh, they pet both hands along the firm globes of his ass. They try to go easy, but they can only take so much before they’re carving in and in again, body quaking with every ripple of muscle. He’s feverishly hot inside, squeezing around them until they feel it in their toes. Their hands slide through the sweat on his back and scrabble for a good grip before they finally latch on at his hips.
Lash rocks back against them like he was born to do this, and it doesn’t take long before the curse seizes them by the balls and wrings another orgasm out of them. They grind their hips in, pleasure and pain mixing in equal parts when they come dry like that.
They rest against him a moment, hips still twitching in the aftermath, until they realize they’re still hard. With a broken sob, they claw a hand into his short hair and start again.
It takes three more orgasms before they both finally go soft. By the time it’s over Pocket’s ass is aching, their whole body hurts, and their cock feels like it’s been rubbed with sandpaper. They want nothing more than to take a bath and then sleep for four days. Instead they settle for the sleeping part, eventually passing out on top of Lash.
When they wake again, they’re groggy, blinking their crusty eyes open and trying to work moisture back into their desperately dry mouth. It takes a moment to realize that what’s beneath them isn’t a mattress, and there are fingers petting down their spine.
When they dare to move, they first have to peel their cheek off Lash’s bare chest, stuck on with sweat. The hair there barely does anything to hinder the adhesion. They blink and look at him, and he blinks right back. His hand is gone in an instant.
“Looks like we broke the curse,” Lash says. His voice sounds wrecked, as dried out as they feel.
“Thank God. I don’t think I ever want to have sex again.”
Lash grunts in response, as if he didn’t also suffer the most humiliating and painful hours of his life trying and failing to make his erection finally flag. Coming his brains out surely felt as terrible as it did for Pocket in the end. As if to confirm, he says, “My dick feels like it went through a wood chipper.” Then he snickers. “Wood chipper.”
“You’re an idiot,” they mutter. They shove off the arm he has looped around their waist, even if it feels heavier than it should, a lead weight across their body. But when they try to get up, they wince and settle right back onto the bed, body weak and aching. “Shit.”
“The Lash will not be moving until absolutely necessary,” he says, probably wisely.
They groan their agreement and resign themself to lying facedown for a while. They feel disgusting and sweaty and sore, and the only solution requires walking to the bathroom, which is a task they simply are not equipped to handle at the moment. Against their better judgment, they ask, “Why me?” When Lash doesn’t answer right away, they turn their face so they’re not muffled by the bedding, then they try again. “Why did you come to me for help instead of someone else?”
Lash doesn’t speak right away, and when he does, it’s only after he clears his throat. “You were the first person I thought of.”
“Right. Because you thought I knew things about magic,” they say with some skepticism.
“You did, kind of. I wasn’t wrong.”
“But you thought of me first and not Paige or Grey Talon or that OSIC agent. Any of them might have known something helpful.”
Lash grunts, which they suppose is a sort of answer.
“So you thought of me first, because?”
“Uh, because I was cursed by the perpetual boner god. I obviously thought of the most fuckable person I’ve been spending time with. You’re hot, I’m hot. It should’ve happened before now.” He says it so nonchalantly, but there’s something quavering in his voice that makes Pocket push up onto their elbows to look at him.
“How long have you been thinking about this?” Pocket asks.
Lash will not look at them. “Oh my God, kid. You want a chance to go again, you’re gonna have to learn to take a compliment and quit fishing for more.”
Pocket flushes. “I do not want to go again.”
“I don’t mean right now. Now I need a nap and a long bath. I mean later when you look back on this and feel like jerking off, you’ll wish you had other options.”
Pocket blinks at him, trying to piece together what he’s actually saying. “You’re already thinking about next time? After all that?”
Lash doesn’t answer right away. Then he says, “The Lash generously selected you for sex. You could at least try to be grateful.”
Pocket politely does not mention the part where this could have killed both of them. A next time feels more consequential than this. This was a bad situation they had to get out of, and one that could eventually be written off as mere circumstance. But if they were to do it again, that’s a choice.
Their eyes trail down his body, over the curve of each muscle, powerful even now when he’s relaxed. The hair on his chest is still slightly damp from sweat, sticking enticingly to the muscle there. Below it the dark curls thin out, trailing toward his cock, which drapes against his thigh, thick and long even now that it’s no longer hard. His powerful thighs are dusted with more of that hair. His strong calves too.
For a moment they’re right back there, pinned against the door while he fucks relentlessly into them, and their body tightens reflexively, a bolt of heat with nothing to follow it up. That thick cock was inside of them, and even as sore as they are, their body sort of misses it.
They could dismiss this as more of the curse, some lingering effects, but it seems silly to do so when the alternative is that they could fuck him again.
“Maybe next time we could try it without the threat to our lives,” they suggest, and they watch his lips curve into a smile half hidden beneath the mustache.
“Probably for the best. The Lash does like a thrill, but he also likes when sex doesn’t hurt.”
Pocket snorts. “If you keep calling yourself the Lash in bed, I don’t think there will be a next time.”
“You like it,” he insists. He coaxes and pulls until they’re lying against him. The hand that strokes down their back is soothing, even if it does come to rest right on their ass.
“Maybe,” they say, which earns them an amused huff.
“Let’s find out when we can walk again, huh?” They’re not sure why it surprises them when he kisses them, but they’re somehow less surprised when they kiss back.