Hush (12 page)

Then we’ll start slow
, Wren responds. Cam puzzles over that.
Cherrie’s. Nine, tonight. Assuming diner food is ok. Can you?

Cam squints at the phone. Just what does that mean?

Still, he doesn’t hesitate.
Absolutely
.

Wren is waiting for him
at a table all the way at the back of the restaurant. The place is dim, and a little ragged in a broken-in way. Cam’s never been here. It’s late. Are they supposed to be eating? Not that it matters; he’s been too excited to eat, and still is.

“Hey.” Cam stands awkwardly by the booth and smiles at Wren, conscious of how foolish he must look. Wren props his chin on his hand and examines Cam carefully. He does the same. Wren’s hair is different again, the lighter tips he’d sported last week are now green. He’s wearing what looks like a cowl-neck scarf, with a hood that rests against his neck. It’s midnight blue and overwhelms his face. He looks younger.

“Sit.” Wren gestures gracefully, with a small, secret smile on his face. Cam works his way into the deep red, cracked faux leather booth. The table wobbles; he thinks of Maggie.

“How are you?” Cam starts politely.

“Hmm.” Wren leans forward, crossing his arms on the table. “I think we should talk about
you
.”

Cam bites his lip and looks into Wren’s eyes. They’re such a star­tling deep jade, and the connection he feels momentarily unset­tles him.

“I’m hoping to be really well soon,” he surprises himself by say­ing. Wren makes him feel like someone new: more daring, more open; ready for things he can’t even name.

“Is that an explicit yes?” Wren asks.

“Yes,” Cam responds unequivocally.

“Excellent,” Wren says. He fixes that stare on Cam again; sud­denly Cam feels rooted to his seat and can’t take his eyes away from Wren, can’t imagine wanting to. Feeling exceptionally exposed, Cam struggles against the sudden increase in his breath rate. Wren’s stare renders him useless and naked.

“Go outside, to the left, behind the building. Wait for me,” Wren commands. Cam obeys without a second thought.

Cam waits for what feels
like forever. The sky is clouded over, so he doesn’t even have the few city stars to contemplate. Instead, he focuses on the muffled noises of the city around him. Breathing slowly and steadily, he looks around. Behind the restaurant is a small parking lot with an “Employee Only” sign at each space. It’s dark; the streetlight is out, and with every breath he feels the frigid February air freezing in his nostrils. Whether he’s shivering from anticipation or the cold is irrelevant.

Finally he feels it, something tight curling inside him. Wren comes around the corner.

“Good,” Wren says. He runs his hand through the hair over Cam’s ear; shockwaves pulse through Cam at the touch. He leans in and makes a small noise of pleasure.

“Tell me what you like,” Wren says. His finger trails down the tendons of Cam’s neck to the hollow between his collarbones.

“That,” Cam says softly. “You touching me, god, it’s—”

“I know that,” Wren’s voice is laced with amusement. “I mean before this. With whomever else you’ve been with.”

Cam hesitates—telling Wren these things feels more like expo­sure than anything physical.

“Tell me,” Wren sings softly, placing his open hand on Cam’s chest, over his heart.

Cam has to reply, now. It’s a little uncomfortable, recall­ing moments with Maggie in this context, but he does it. “My neck, my hips. And the obvious places. I fantasize about feeling out of control. Not having to think about it too much—letting it be instinctual. Making the person I’m with come.”

“Ohhh.” Wren leans in and starts on Cam’s neck. “That’s gonna be a hard one.”

“What?” Cam’s got a fistful of Wren’s shirt in his hand. His eyes close as he sways into the pleasure. “I don’t get to—”

“When you earn it,” Wren breathes against his ear.

“
Oh shit
.” Perfect, perfect words to settle who is steering this.

Wren reaches up and tugs Cam’s head down for a kiss, and then another, fierce and wet and overpowering.

“I can feel it, god, it’s like setting you on fire when I say that,” Wren says, a little wonder in his voice. “It’s so easy to read you.”

“That’s n–not,” Cam shudders in a breath as Wren guides Cam’s hands under the hem of his shirt. Wren’s skin feels incredibly soft under Cam’s fingers; his belly is flat and smooth. “Usual?”

“Not this easy.
Fuck,
you’re so open to this.” Wren pushes him against the wall, and a strong sense of déjà vu comes over Cam.

“Yes,
yes, yes
,” he chants in a whisper, aware of the possibility of being discovered. His hands move up to expose more of Wren; his index fingers glide over Wren’s hard nipples.

“
Ah, ah, ah
,” Wren says, pulling away. Cam swallows his dis­appointment.

“Please let me touch you,” he begs.

“Oh, I like that.” Wren tugs on his ear playfully. “Get on your knees.”

Cam does, without a thought.

“You may touch me gently,” Wren says quietly. When Cam’s shaking fingers go to the button of his jeans, Wren moves his hands away gently. “Not like that, over my clothes.”

Cam exhales, and then begins to touch. He starts where he wants to most, cupping his hand around Wren’s erection, held tight in his pants. The pants are thin, made of some sort of synthetic mate­rial. Wren feels
right
in the palm of Cam’s hand; feeling this—a man so hard and so perfectly shaped for the cupped give of his palm—is some­thing he’s been imagining. Things hadn’t progressed quite this far with Jason, but he’d wanted it. Cam moans a little and then puts his face against Wren’s hard-on, rubbing his lips over it as if he could taste it, greed filling his mouth. His hands span Wren’s hips and move down, his thumbs following the path of Wren’s groin and down the insides of Wren’s thighs. He applies a lit­tle pressure and Wren steps apart and spins so that he’s lean­ing against the wall he’d had Cam pushed up against.

“
Oh
.”

Wren’s sighed satisfaction is faint. Somewhere he registers that his knees hurt, but it’s nothing compared to the plea­sure of feeling the curve of Wren’s body under his hands. Heat seeps through Wren and slowly into Cam. He brings his hands up and rubs his thumbs up the length of Wren’s cock with con­fident pressure.

“
God
,” Wren says, a little louder. Cam’s body feels like a hum­ming live wire, barely held in check. “All right,” Wren says, pulling him up. “That’s enough of that.”

“But—” Cam tries to kiss him, to touch him anywhere he can, and Wren stops him with a look.

“I’m going to make you come now,” Wren informs him matter-of-factly. “You’re gonna come in your pants and I’ll make you walk home wet and knowing it was me that did it and that I can make you do it anytime.”

“You can’t—I’m—” Cam feels the spiral of heat inside him spike; he’s overcome and owned, and it’s delectable.

Wren puts his hand on Cam’s cheek and focuses his eyes on Cam’s. When Wren’s hand travels, it does so slowly. He pulls up Cam’s shirt and digs the crescent of his thumbnail into one of his nipples; not too hard, but hard enough for Cam to feel a tiny, pleasurable pain that makes him cry out. He bites his lip and tries to keep quiet.

“No, no,” Wren says, smiling, “I want you to make noise. I want you to know that anyone could come and see this.”

Cam groans loudly, helplessly, and then Wren’s hand is there, holding his dick and squeezing hard through his pants and when Cam’s eyes flutter shut, Wren tells him to open them. Obedient and pliant, he does. He manages to focus on Wren’s eyes, and the pleasure peaks so quickly, so explosively, that Cam cries out and shudders and has to hold on to Wren to keep himself upright.

“Feel good?” Wren asks smugly, an intense focus lacing his smile. Cam manages to nod weakly. “Excellent.”

And then it’s so fast: Cam’s head is still spinning inside out when Wren kisses his cheek lightly and then turns and leaves.

“What—?” Cam has to lean against the wall to try to find his bal­ance. The sensations of pleasure and helplessness Wren implanted in him ebb slowly; a keener awareness of where he is and what he just did comes over him.

He should be ashamed or embarrassed to have done something so public, to have enjoyed feeling used and com­manded. But instead Cam feels elated and expansive, electric and hungry for more.

All it takes is one
look.
“What happened?” Nate asks.

“How…” Cam responds vaguely.

“To your pants?”

Cam looks down and sees that he has stains on his knees. He’s grateful he took the time to wipe himself sort of clean before com­ing in. It was one thing to walk home feeling the wet reminder of what had happened, and another to face Nate. He hadn’t thought about evidence of his having been on his knees, though.

“I dropped my wallet,” he says stupidly.

“Seriously?” Nate seems a little annoyed. “If you’re gonna lie, at least do it well.”

Cam knows he doesn’t even remotely have the energy for this, so he just shrugs and starts getting ready for sleep. He needs the dark; he needs to sleep off the weight of this before he can start the next day with a semi-clear head.

* * *

The weeks following that night
are erratic, to say the least. Cam never knows when Wren will call him. He never knows where they will meet until Wren tells him. Wren seems to know endless deserted spots in the library; sometimes all he does is text Cam call numbers and times. And unless something incredibly urgent is happening, Cam obeys. Wren doesn’t have to compel him to come, because he is a burning bright flame and Cam is a helpless mess of hunger, a moth incapable of resisting the light.

It’s not until their third encounter that Wren touches him the way Cam fantasizes he would, reenacting that moment in the club. Only this time, it’s in the dead quiet of the library. The sound of his zipper, drawn down agonizingly slowly, seems to Cam like the powerful bang of a gunshot, and he has to grunt with the effort of not coming.

Wren does that. He has the power to magnify every touch, to draw so much from Cam that, every time, it’s a compli­cated balancing act of nearing and coming down. Sometimes Cam man­ages to control himself; at other times, Wren has to hold him care­fully with his eyes and command him to breathe through it.

Every time this happens, Cam has to push down his sense of embarrassment about being so quick to come. This time, Wren laughs and bites the hinge of his jaw, slowly pulling Cam’s dick out of his boxers, barely pushing the flaps of his jeans open and down until his dick is all that’s exposed.

“Don’t worry. I fucking love it,” Wren says. His fingers dance over Cam in the lightest tease. “I love how much you want it—”

“You,” Cam breathes out on a moan. “I want
you
.”

Wren’s hand pauses for the slightest moment. He blinks and something flickers inside Cam. Wren shakes his head and then looks back at Cam; he grips him with a sure, searing hot hand; his thumb presses almost painfully against Cam’s slit. Wren smiles wickedly, brightly, licks the smear of pre-come off of his fingers and kisses it back into Cam’s mouth. The slightest tang touches Cam’s tongue—this is something he’s never tasted before. Wren exhales, runs one finger down the shaft of Cam’s suffering erec­tion and breathes against his lips.

“Come
.”

And Cam does.

* * *

“Tell me,” Peyton says
without
preamble. Cam sighs. He’s look­ing for a pen, and the homework for his Urban Structure course mocks him from his desk. He’s behind in several classes; he’s even skipped a few. Wren’s siren call is so much more potent than any of Cam’s concerns about school.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Shut up, your voice is totally transparent,” she says.

“I said
hello,
Peyton.” He tosses his bag down on his desk. How could all of his pens have magically disappeared?

“Okay, so I’m guessing a little. But you’ve been quiet. What was the point of yelling at me and having me create a special
Cam only
email address if you’re not even using it anymore?”

Cam swallows. Guilt pops up in his stomach. “You have a point.”

“Aha!” she crows, “I knew it!”

Cam starts rooting through Nate’s desk drawers, which are hap­hazardly packed with random crap.

“So tell me,” she presses.

“Peyton.” He takes a breath. “I can’t. I really can’t right now.”

He hears her humming, and then a heavy silence.

“Are you in trouble?” she says finally.

“No, I promise,” he says. “I’ve just also promised I wouldn’t talk about it. For now.” He has no idea why he’s tacked on that last sentence; as far as he knows, the command has not been lifted, and he can’t bear the idea of a time when this will be over and he’ll be able to speak about it. That wouldn’t feel like any sort of freedom.

“Pey,” he says softly.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

There’s a long silence after that. He doesn’t know the last time they said it. It’s just known.

“I love you too,” she responds softly. He exhales and they both hang up.

* * *

He begs for it several
times.
With kisses pressed to the corners of Wren’s mouth, with fingers slipping under the waist of Wren’s pants, with one leg between Wren’s, grinding hard while he pants against Wren’s skin.

“Let me touch you,
let me
,” he says over and over. “Let me see you. Let me make you come.”

But Wren just smiles and twists away or pushes him back with his power. “In time.”

* * *

“Nate is going home
for
the weekend,” Cam says as soon as he sees Wren. He wants to say it before Wren can reach into him.

“Good for him,” Wren says with a laugh.

“Can you come over?” Cam stays a few feet back, as if it will help. “Please. I want to take time.”

“You want me to work you over longer?” Wren is defi­nitely amused.

“Maybe if I have you long enough, you’ll let me—”

“Oh, Cam,” Wren says, shaking his head. “I have you, you know that, right?”

Cam’s mind blanks a little, and he’s drawn into Wren’s arms like a magnet.

“Yes,” he says finally. Wren holds his hands in a tight grip, holds his eyes in an unblinking stare.

* * *

“I saw Jason yesterday,”
Maggie
says out of nowhere as they are shop­ping for clothes. Cam puts the T-shirt he’d been con­templating back on the pile on the table. Above them, a song currently in heavy rotation on the radio blares, swear words and all. Chicago is so foreign sometimes.

“Oh?” he manages. He tries not to flush. He spots a table of slim-fit plaid button-downs; the mannequins next to them wear wide-necked sweaters in jewel tones. Cam starts sorting through the shirts. He’s tired of dressing in plain, nondescript clothes. He finds that he
wants
to be noticed. A pattern is developing in what Wren has let slip about what he appreciates on Cam. It’s rare to get him to say anything like that. He’s always manipulating Cam so deftly, he doesn’t often talk about what he wants or likes, much less let Cam touch or give him pleasure.

Cam’s pretty sure that Wren gets off on that, though. He’s as much as admitted it whenever Cam has really pressed for reciprocity.

Still, Cam aches to touch him when they’re not together. There are so many ways in which Cam has not yet been with someone; despite the intimate nature of his relationship with Maggie—even moments he’d had with Jason—what Wren brings to him in comparison is so much sharper. As if the pleasure of being with Maggie was muffled under a layer of snow. Wren, though… letting Wren have him is like turning on the sun.

Wren’s touch rolls through him like electricity charging in roil­ing clouds, comes over him like pounding sheets of rain during a fast-moving storm. He drowns in it gratefully; he lights up and comes and comes, as if Wren is drawing him completely inside out. He walks home stumbling through the residual charge, ions and atoms dizzily bumping into each other, in a leftover high.

He wants very badly to return some of that pleasure to Wren. The thought leaves him dizzy and desperate. Cam can’t com­pel Wren, though he knows very well that Wren manipulates
him
into sex in places he’d never normally have it. Makes him louder, more shameless. Gets him on his knees, or propped on the edge of a sink in a bathroom. Leaves him helpless in dirty stalls and dark halls. And there are times when Wren touches him, especially right before orgasm, that fill him with so much desire and pleasure it seems he’ll simply combust.

Cam wants to give, to experience everything he fantasizes about. He loves being used and made, but he also craves something else. Closeness. That draw he’s felt from the start. Since that first look in the classroom he’s wanted to feed the part of this connection that is more than just sex.

“Cam!” Maggie snaps her fingers in front of his face.

“Sorry—” he clears his throat and looks around, trying to push down his thoughts of Wren.

“Jason?”

“Oh yeah,” Cam says lamely.

“He told me you just dropped off the face of the earth,” Maggie says. She’s a little irked; her arms are crossed and her eyes are doing a
thing
.

“Have I told you, you look adorable today?” he says, apropos of nothing. She does. Her hair is tamed into soft curls, and she’s wearing a sweater in a lovely coral that accentuates her curves.

“Don’t change the subject, Cam,” she sniffs.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to,” he says. He really doesn’t. “I’m just everywhere right now.”

“Cam, I’m gonna be honest, okay?” she says. He sets down the shirts he’s picked out to buy. “I thought you’d been acting unusual and sneaking around with Jason this whole time.”

“Why would I sneak around with Jason?” Cam asks in wonder.

“I don’t know. Are you embarrassed about us seeing you with a guy?”

Cam laughs, incredulous. “You’ve seen me with him already. Why would I be shy? Besides, that’s not quite what I meant.”

“What
did
you mean, then?” Maggie asks. Cam sighs.

“I don’t know. Why assume I’m with Jason? Have you seen me with him recently?”

Maggie’s eyes narrow just a bit. She’s lined them with dark pur­ple that makes them look a deeper brown. “You’ve been sneaking around. We’ve noticed it. What else are we going to assume?”

Cam looks around; the store is starting to fill up. “Do we have to do this here?”

Maggie rolls her eyes and swishes away. She stands in line for the register with the basket of clothes she’s picked out digging into her forearm. Cam takes a few breaths, picks up the clothes he’s chosen and joins her.

“Please don’t be angry,” he says quietly. “Let’s go to coffee, and we can talk.”

“You won’t lie, change the subject or evade?” she says testily.

“No.” He feels a pang when he realizes that continuing to keep a secret might technically be evading. He’ll be up front with her about the fact that there are some things he can’t tell her. There’s no way he’s going to test Wren’s rules and risk ending this.

From their usual table,
Cam
gets a coffee sleeve to stick under one of the legs so it won’t wobble, then watches Maggie order coffee. The sun is just breaking through an oppressive blanket of clouds. It’s been a depressingly dark day, with the hush of impend­ing snow muting even the rattle of bare branches. The glow of sun darting through, a warm fin­ger of light briefly touching the asphalt of the busy road, lifts his spirits.

“Thanks for taking care of the table,” Maggie says. She sets his coffee in front of him carefully.

“I know how it goes,” he smiles at her. It’s nice to have a
thing
, some­thing routine and steady. Cam’s been surprised to learn how much he values the extremes of controlled, predictable and safe moments, and the crashing highs of unpredictability and reck­lessness. For the first time in a long time, he recognizes the twin half of himself—so like Peyton—that he locked up years ago.

“Jason has no idea what’s up. He said you stopped contacting him.” Maggie cuts to the chase.

“I didn’t know how to—” Cam starts.

“No one does; it sucks, but it sucks more to not do it and leave someone hanging,” Maggie chastises. Cam looks down guiltily and picks at the edge of the paper sleeve around his coffee cup. He takes a sip and winces when it scalds his tongue.

“Point taken. I’ll message him.”

“And now you’ll tell me what is going on,” she prompts. “Because it’s clear as day that something is.”

“Maggie,” Cam starts and then sighs. “I can’t tell you.”

“You promised not to evade,” Maggie hisses. An older couple has just taken up residence at the table next to them. Cam rolls his eyes. Of course. A whole empty coffee shop and they choose
that
table.

“I’m not evading. I’m being honest. I promised… someone. That I would keep a secret.”

Maggie looks at him for a long time, and he tries to maintain eye contact.

“Are you okay? Are you safe?”

“I—” He looks at her like she’s a little crazy. “Of course. What does that even mean?”

“Cam, you have no idea what you’re doing half the time,” she points out. He feels a spear of anger flash through him.

“Don’t treat me like I’m dumb,” he says.

“I’m not,” she says wearily. “At least, I’m not trying to. But you came here just… totally clueless. About what you were doing, about you. It’s a process to figure yourself out, you know. For all of us. I just feel like with you…”

“With me?” he snaps.

“You were so closed up. So detached. And suddenly it’s like… realizing things about yourself opened these doors. I want to be sure that you aren’t doing anything that’s risking or compromis­ing your safety just because it’s new and—”

“Maggie,” he interrupts. He’s so pissed he has to clench his fin­gers together. “I don’t want to be an asshole, but I am really close to telling you to shut up.”

“Cam,” Maggie tries to take his hand. “I’m saying this because I love you. I
love
you, and sometimes when you love someone it means telling the truth to protect or care for someone, even when it’s hard. Or you risk making them mad.”

Cam takes a deep breath. The sleeve around his coffee is nearly shredded. He’s pulled the cardboard until it ripped, leaving the ribbed inside exposed and ragged. His leg bounces at triple speed.