"Two," Phuwin repeats, and the word comes out wrong — thin, airless, like he's trying it in a language he doesn't speak.

Pond's hand stays fisted in his hair. Not pulling. Just there, a weight at the back of his skull that says *stay*, and Phuwin stays, because his legs have gone to water and the wall behind him is the only thing holding the rest of him up. His jeans are cold and tacky against his thighs, the wet gone gluey, and every small shift of his hips makes the fabric drag across skin that is still raw with wanting.

Pond doesn't step back. That's the first thing Phuwin notices. He should — there's a whole apartment behind him, air, distance, the decent three feet a person gives a stranger they've just made come against their own wall. Instead Pond leans in, chest crowding Phuwin's shoulder, and the entryway gets smaller. The sandalwood rolls off him in a slow wave, cedar under it, that hot-stone edge, and Phuwin's body answers before his brain can veto it — his knees soften, his chin tips up, his throat bares itself like an offering he didn't authorize.

"Pond—"

"Walk."

He's already walking. Pond's palm finds the small of his back and steers him, and Phuwin's feet move backward, heel, heel, heel, over the cool tile of the entryway into the deeper dark of the living room. Somewhere behind them Pond toes off his sweats — a soft thump of fabric hitting the floor, left where it falls, and Phuwin's brain files it away with a small helpless click: *he's not planning to need those again soon.*

The apartment is dark except for a lamp somewhere to the left, throwing a low amber wedge across a worn velvet sofa. Phuwin catches a glimpse of the entry light behind Pond's shoulder, the scuffed leather of an abandoned guitar case propped against the wall, and then Pond's hand is on his sternum and he stops thinking about the guitar case.

The backs of his knees hit the edge of the couch.

"Sit."

Phuwin doesn't move fast enough. He isn't sure he moves at all — his body is doing that thing again, the thing where it hears an instruction and forgets the wiring between the order and the limb. Pond's palm flattens on his chest, broad and warm through the thin cotton of his hoodie, and pushes. Not hard. Just enough. Phuwin goes down onto the cushions with a soft oof of breath, hands catching himself on the velvet, and the couch smells like Pond — clove and sweat and alpha, sunk into the fabric so deep it'll never wash out.

Pond drops to his knees on the floor between Phuwin's thighs.

The sight of it does something to Phuwin's chest that he has no name for. Pond Naravit — the country's most photographed face, the man whose fancams trend in four languages, the Alpha every girl on the lot screams for — on the floor of his own apartment, blunt bangs falling into his eyes, looking up at Phuwin from between his knees like Phuwin is the only thing in the room worth looking at.

"Wait," Phuwin says. It comes out as a question.

Pond's fingers hook into the waistband of his ruined jeans. "For what."

"I—" Phuwin's hands come up, hover, land on Pond's shoulders. He can feel the muscle under the shirt, the heat of him, the ridge of a collarbone. "You don't have to—"

"I know." Pond tugs. The denim drags down over Phuwin's hips, and the slick has gone tacky enough that it strings — thin wet threads stretching between the fabric and his skin, snapping one by one as Pond works the jeans down his thighs, and the sound of it is obscene in the quiet room, small wet pops, and Phuwin's face burns. Pond's eyes flick down. Then up. He doesn't smirk. Somehow that's worse. "Second meal," he says, and his voice has dropped an octave, rough at the edges. "You're going to let me have it."

Phuwin's mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

Pond gets the jeans past his knees, past his ankles, and tosses them somewhere behind him without looking. Phuwin is left in his hoodie and nothing else, thighs pressed together on the velvet, and the air of the apartment is cool on skin that has been sealed up in denim all day. He should close his legs. He knows he should close his legs. His knees stay exactly where Pond's shoulders want them.

Pond's hands come to rest on the inside of his thighs. Warm. Dry. The calluses on his palms catch on the fine hair there, drag, and Phuwin shivers all the way up his spine and into his teeth.

"How long," Pond says.

"How long what."

"How long since it started." His thumbs press, slow, spreading Phuwin's thighs an inch wider. "The heat. You've been running on fumes since the lot, haven't you. Since the street."

Phuwin swallows. "Since I smelled you."

Pond goes still. Just for a second — a half-beat where his hands stop moving on Phuwin's thighs and his breath catches, and Phuwin watches the beauty mark by his eye shift as his face does something complicated and quickly hidden. Then he leans in, and the heat of his mouth lands on the inside of Phuwin's thigh, open, wet, and Phuwin's whole body jerks like he's been touched with a live wire.

"Second meal," Pond says again, against his skin. His breath is hot and damp and Phuwin can feel every syllable. "Don't hold back on me."

And then his mouth closes over him.

Phuwin's hands fly to the back of the couch and grip. The velvet bunches under his fingers. Pond's tongue is flat and hot and it drags up the whole length of him, root to clit, slow, deliberate, like he's tasting something he's been thinking about all day — and Phuwin's hips come off the cushion before he can stop them, a sharp helpless roll, and Pond's palm slams down flat on his belly and pins him there.

"Stay," Pond says into him. The vibration of the word goes straight through Phuwin's spine and out the top of his head.

"I'm—" Phuwin gasps. "I'm trying—"

Pond's tongue curls. Flicks. Finds the small swollen bundle of nerves and circles it, once, twice, and then his lips close around it and he sucks, and Phuwin's vision whites at the edges. His thighs clamp around Pond's head. Pond makes a low sound against him — approval, hunger, something with teeth in it — and doesn't stop. He works Phuwin with his mouth like he's got all night and nowhere to be, tongue flat then pointed then flat again, lips sealed, suction pulling a broken noise out of Phuwin's throat that he's never made before in his life.

The slick is running now. Phuwin can feel it, a slow hot slide down into the crease of his ass, and Pond's chin is wet with it, and when Pond pulls back an inch to breathe the air hits Phuwin's skin cold and he whimpers — actually whimpers, a small high sound, and claps a hand over his own mouth.

Pond's eyes come up. Dark. Amused. Feral.

"Don't," he says. "I want to hear it."

He puts his mouth back. And this time he adds his fingers — two of them, sliding up through the slick, pressing at Phuwin's entrance without pushing in, just circling, just there, and Phuwin's whole body arches off the couch and Pond's other hand comes up to press flat on his sternum again, holding him down against the cushions, and the pressure of it, the weight of it, the *no* in it, does something to Phuwin's chest that has nothing to do with his cunt and everything to do with the way his brain goes quiet and warm and obedient.

"Please," Phuwin says. He doesn't know what he's asking for.

"Please what."

"I don't—" His hips are rolling now, small circles against Pond's mouth, and Pond is letting him, tongue working him through it, fingers still circling, still not pushing in. "Pond—"

"Say it."

"Inside," Phuwin gasps. "Please, inside, I need—"

Pond pushes two fingers into him.

The stretch is nothing — he's slick enough that they slide in to the second knuckle with no resistance at all, and Pond makes a rough sound against him like the ease of it is a personal insult, and curls his fingers up and finds the spot inside him that makes Phuwin's whole body lock. His heels dig into the couch. His hands tear at the velvet. Pond's mouth is still on his clit, tongue flat and fast now, and his fingers are working him slow and deep, in, curl, out, in, curl, out, and the rhythm is wrong — the mouth is too fast for the fingers, and the mismatch is exactly right, and Phuwin's brain has stopped producing language entirely.

"Pond—"

A third finger. Phuwin's cunt clenches around them and Pond groans, low, and the vibration rolls up through Phuwin's spine and he's close, he's so close, the pressure is building low and tight and his thighs are shaking around Pond's ears.

"Look at me," Pond says, mouth still on him, and Phuwin drags his eyes down and finds Pond watching him — chin wet, bangs in his eyes, three fingers buried in him, and the beauty mark by his eye dark against flushed skin — and Pond holds his gaze and curls his fingers hard and sucks, and Phuwin comes.

It rolls through him in waves, his cunt clenching down on Pond's fingers, his thighs clamping around Pond's head, his hands fisted white in the velvet, and Pond doesn't stop — keeps his mouth on him through the whole thing, tongue gentle now, fingers still buried, working him through the aftershocks until Phuwin's hips twitch away from the overstimulation and he has to push at Pond's forehead with a shaking hand.

"Okay," Phuwin gasps. "Okay, okay—"

Pond pulls his fingers out slow. Phuwin feels every inch of it. Pond lifts his head, and his mouth is wet and his eyes are black, and he swallows — Phuwin watches his throat work, watches him swallow, and something in Phuwin's chest flips over and lands wrong.

Pond sits back on his heels. Wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist. Looks up at Phuwin, sprawled on his couch, hoodie rucked up to his ribs, thighs still spread, slick drying on the velvet under him.

"That's two," Pond says.

Phuwin's breath is still coming in ragged pieces. His legs won't close. He can feel his own pulse in his cunt, a slow heavy throb, and the air of the apartment is cool on all the wet skin Pond has left behind.

"Two," he manages.

Pond's mouth curves. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and his face comes close to Phuwin's — close enough that Phuwin can smell himself on Pond's breath, honey and cinnamon and something saltier underneath, and his stomach drops.

"Which means," Pond says quietly, "you're all paid up."

Phuwin stares at him.

"And I still," Pond says, and his hand comes up and his thumb drags slow across Phuwin's lower lip, "haven't decided what I want from you next."