An; Mature chapter.

"Higher."

Matt adjusted his hips to the hands that leveraged them, knees sliding against the sheets. At the feel of Bailey's mouth, he dropped his jaw and stifled whatever pathetic sort of sound was clawing at his teeth. Quiet was his goal. Quiet meant that if it did hurt beyond his expectations, Bailey wouldn't know. Wouldn't stop. But Matt was expecting to bite back sounds of pain, not pleasure.

He didn't know it'd feel so fucking good.

He snuffed his breath into the sheets, face hot and prickling. Bailey's fingers digging into his cheeks so hard, he expected bruises by morning. He'd spoken once or twice in the last ten minutes—things like "You've got a cute ass, Cowboy," and "Keep your hips up." But for the most part, Bailey communicated with his tongue and his hands, jerking Matt back by the waist when he'd lean too far away. Pressing him down against the mattress when he'd forget to keep his spine arched low. It was the worst kind of pleasure to Matt—the kind he couldn't bear quietly to himself. The kind that embarrassed him to the core.

"Can we—" he huffed out a breath and curled against the sheets. "Can we skip this?"

Bailey pulled back and Matt let the relief fill his lungs.

"This is your first time," he said. "Do you want it to hurt?"

Matt breathed into the sheets at the sound of ripping foil. A cold, wet feeling slicked against him. "No."

"I can make it feel good," Bailey said, "if you let me."

The finger that stroked against his skin pressed forward with fresh motive and Matt shivered out a breath as it slid in slow and knuckle-deep. It felt strange and invasive, but it didn't hurt. Not the way he expected. Not the way men moaned about it on the internet. It slid out and in again and Matt eased out an uncomfortable breath. He couldn't imagine something bigger feeling any better. "How long before it feels good?"

"Beg and I'll make it happen."

"I'm not gonna—"

A second finger. Matt scrunched his nose and let out gruff, choked sound. The air of Bailey's laugh scuffed his back. "I told you."

Heat crawled up Matt's neck and he pressed his face to the cool sheets to alleviate it. "I'm fine."

"You have no right to be so impatient," Bailey said, fingers destroying him one slow curl at a time. "You have any idea how you look right now?"

"Like an idiot?" Matt guessed. Those fingers slid in sudden and deep, and he managed to compress all the sounds down to a single trembling exhale.

"Like art."

The fire on his face licked high and wild and Matt pulled a pillow close to hide his shame. The discomfort was ebbing—that strange feeling coming and going, but the pinch receding a little more every time. "All the guys you brought to the barn were better looking than me."

"They weren't my type," Bailey said.

"Tall and muscular—" he jumped a little at the cold touch of added gel, "—ain't your type?"

"I guess not." Bailey's warm breath hit his shoulder and Matt turned his head from the pillow to see him. His fingers retracted, and he ran his palm up the curve of Matt's side, refusing his eyes. "You're a lot of firsts for me."

His heart reared—at the way he said it, at the way he looked as he did. At all the possible implications. And then Matt whispered, "Me too."

Bailey craned his head down against Matt's, an anxious exhale drafting hot against his cheek. The kind of hot that made Matt reach over his shoulder, brush his face with the tips of his fingers. Bailey was on fire, too.

Those burning hands reached between them and parted his sore cheeks. "You're my type, Cowboy," Bailey said against his ear.

Then Matt felt him—a hard, sheer heat ground against him. Bailey nudged his knees apart, pressing a palm against his lower back—forcing his spine down while his hips stayed high. His breath hitched and he gripped at the sheets—squeezed his eyes shut and waited. Waited for that terrible feeling to come.

And it did. Slowly, and easily, Bailey pushed into him.

Matt's jaw fell and the struggled sound that escaped him was far more embarrassing than the feel of Bailey's tongue. He buried them in the blankets, that overwhelming sensation growing, sliding deep, cracking him apart. Then he heard Bailey breathe—a single tight exhale. Felt his body overlap against his own—felt him fill all the curves and edges like they were made to stack together.

The feeling grew, prickling down every finger, curling at his toes—and Bailey stayed there like that, breathing against the back of his neck. There was a quake to his voice, a hard grip in his fingers that begged more of Matt. Pulled him back by the sides until the heat of Bailey's skin pressed flush and hungry against him. Matt let out a rush of startled breath.

"Relax," Bailey's whispered. Matt wasn't expecting the fingers that slid over his blanket-bunched fist, curled over his white knuckles to lace between his own. Wasn't expecting the way it felt when he moved.

His sharp breath beat against the sheets, all the sounds in him strangled together, tight and choked in the back of his throat. It was hurt and want. A terrible medicine. He wanted Bailey. God, he wanted Bailey, in every way he could think of to want a person—but fuck, he hated this feeling. 

Bailey's thumb swept his knuckles, and in his ear, he said, "Breathe." So Matt did. He shut his eyes and he breathed for every moment Bailey moved inside him. It didn't stop aching, but in time, it stopped feeling so...wrong. In time, Bailey's breath grew laced with sounds that brought chills to Matt's skin. In time, he moved faster, and Matt couldn't keep his sounds stuffed in the sheets any longer. They hit the air every time he met the force of Bailey's hips—the raw emotions caged deep in his bones.

He was a thing broken free from its cage, fasted and angry—and something in Matt knew now why he wanted this so badly. Why he endured it, despite the nerves it evoked, how vulnerable it made him feel. How every muscle in his body resisted the pulse, the power of Bailey Walters. How his breath shook and how he moved against the sheets in ways he couldn't control. He couldn't control himself, and that was what Matt hated most—but he wanted this. He wanted this because Bailey needed it.

So he hushed himself, his silent cries suffocating into the sheets, fist squeezing at Bailey's fingers. And then they were only breath—breath and bodies, moving against each other. Loud, sudden breath, but breath still. Then Bailey moved a certain way—forced a sound from Matt that he couldn't stamp down.

Those hard, relenting hips slowed suddenly. The beast back behind bars.

"Don't," Matt said. Though it felt nothing like he imagined. Though it brought tears to his eyes, made his body want to lunge away, Matt whispered, "Harder."

Bailey let out a breath, like he'd been waiting for the word. He took a fistful of Matt's hair and pressed him down against the bed, knees slipping and hips collapsing into the sheets. His flesh stung against the vigor of Bailey's hips, his jaw gnashed, nowhere to hide his sounds with the hand that tugged his hair. 

He let Bailey fuck him into the sheets, and when he'd had enough, he twisted Matt around by the hips. His back hit the mattress and cold air bristled his skin. Bailey was a statue above him—wet and glinting in the moonlight. Sweat beaded his heaving chest, dew on the heat of his face. A dark ecstasy narrowed his wet-black eyes—which widened suddenly at the sight of Matt. He didn't know what the strange look was for until Bailey brushed a tear from his cheek, and then the other.

"I'm sorry—"

"It's okay." Matt reached for him—curled a palm around the side of his neck, thumb on his jawline. Nothing hurt when he felt the hard heartbeat beneath his palm. "It's alright."

And Bailey leaned in, his fingers tracing up Matt's lower thigh, his lips against the edge of his mouth. "I don't want to hurt you."

Matt felt the words on his skin, searched for them until lips brushed lips. He kissed the soft skin, welcoming the way they moved against him. The way they brushed hungry to his cheek, his jaw, his neck. Bailey brought his legs up, and Matt gnashed his jaw when he felt him push back inside. But he moved differently after that, slowly, slowly, slowly—but hard enough to finally strike something inside him. Something that made him groan, made Bailey laugh against his neck and whisper, "There it is."

And he moved that way again and again, and Matt's jaw fell, and his body rose and fell and writhed to the rhythm. "Touch yourself," Bailey whispered in his ear and brought his hand down to the slight space between them. And Matt did as he was told, finding Bailey's eyes in the few inches of distance he held. His fingers hooking into the back of his hair, while he stroked himself to the edge of the world. While Bailey moved that way, again and again, grinning when Matt made a weak, desperate sound against his lips. Moving harder when his breath shuttered and his stomach tightened and his chest collapsed with breath. And when Matt couldn't hold it in anymore, he curled his head back against the sheets, Bailey's breath on his jaw, hot words against his ear and stars in his eyes.

Everything he'd been holding inside imploded within him, spilled fire-hot against his stomach. And that fasted beast in Bailey came out again—possessing his rhythmic hips, beating against him with teeth on his neck and claws in his thighs. And after he came too, they laid there, breathing against flared, flushed skin, Bailey's face in his neck, Matt's fingers in his hair.

"Don't do that," Bailey told him.

"Do what?"

"Anything you don't want to do."

Matt turned his head to look at him, too close to see much but his lashes, the glistening black of his eyes. "I'd do anything for you."

It was quiet for a moment after that. Bailey touched him between the collarbones, traced his fingers ever-light down his sternum. Matt felt his own heart thunder beneath them. "Let's get out of here," Bailey said.

"Now? It's late. Don't think I could even walk right now."

"Out of this place," Bailey said. "Out of this town, this state. We could go to Idaho."

"I can't," Matt whispered. He found Bailey's fingers, traced lightly up the back of them. "My dad wouldn't survive on his own."

Bailey swallowed and his dark, elegant eyes flitted over Matt's face. There was something behind them. Something he wanted to say. Something he didn't.

That night, nothing changed. Bailey slept away, with his arms crossed and his hand on his broken rib, and Matt stayed awake wondering why. Why for hours Bailey had laid there curled in the side of his neck. Why eventually, he fell asleep with his head on Matt's bicep and his arm splayed over his chest. Why at some point, in the middle of the night, he'd found his way to an entirely different world. Why Matt wasn't allowed to follow him there.

Then he spotted the plate, balanced on the ledge of the open window—the steak stale and untouched in the light of a cloudless moon.

Quentin's voice rolled in his ear like an echo. Eventually, I felt like I wasn't any better than the rogues, keeping him in a place he didn't want to be.

You could run away, the ghost of Bailey whispered. Get away from this place.

And Matt's heart, so full as it had been a moment ago, broke clean in two. All this time he thought he could fix all the rough seams—twist all the screws back in place. All this time, he thought he could kiss Bailey's wounds and make him right. But no matter how safe Matt tried to make him feel—no matter how many nights they spent like this, sprawled against one another, sweaty in the cool breath of night. No matter how many games they played or steaks they ate, or forest trails they hiked through, Bailey was a boy in a cage. Fed and loved, but caged still.

Matt touched the spot on his chest where Bailey had walked his fingers hours before, the flesh suddenly tender. Everything within him breaking apart, floating adrift.

He loved Bailey. He loved Bailey. He loved Bailey.

But Bailey Walters was not the boy from those photos. And he was never gonna be happy here.

An: Ughhh sorry this took ages. It's not even a long chapter, I just hate writing smut, it's exhausting.