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“Just to make sure I’ve got this right,” Stede says, his eyes fastened on Ed’s face—not in the way that means he’s unsure, or even baffled. Just curious. Intrigued. Interested. They don’t even try to stray to Ed’s lap and the point in question—namely, Ed’s rapidly hardening dick. That absolute focus is so much like Stede that it makes Ed want to laugh, giddy and alive with the joy of him. “You specifically want me not to touch you.”
The question’s fair enough, Ed supposes, and it’s also so very much like Stede to want to be sure. After all, Ed loves it when Stede gets a hand on his cock, is in fact plenty fucking loud about just how much he loves it and has never cared a whit about who has to live with that knowledge ringing in their ears across the whole length of the sea. When Stede’s buried inside him hot and tight, it’s never long before Ed’s begging for fingers warm and firm around him, Stede’s touch inside and out making him fall apart in a million perfect ways all at once.
Putting him back together again at the very same time, the pieces fitting right, like they hadn’t for ages, before Stede.
“Y’know, just for tonight,” Ed says with a shrug, pulling off one boot and setting it on the floor with a thump. He wiggles his toes in freedom, then shoots a look at where Stede’s sitting next to him on the bed and waggles his eyebrows as well, because that shrug had maybe been just a bit too determinedly casual. “Just to see what it’s like. To see—fuck. Just to see if I can.” Ed’s hot all over just at the thought of it, to be honest, and he always tries to be honest when it comes to Stede these days. It’s all shivery and tight and eager in the pit of his stomach, the thought of Stede drawing it out, refusing to give his cock the familiar pressure that will steer him over the edge.
The thought of Stede’s dick pressed up all thick and perfect inside him, fucking him just right, until he’s so overwhelmed he can do nothing but come from it anyway.
It might be a challenge, but Ed likes those. He wants to know how this will pull him apart, to have Stede make him really reach for it. To have Stede hold his pleasure in those capable hands of his in a very different way.
“What if you ask me to?” Stede asks. There’s a brief flash of white as his teeth bite worriedly into his bottom lip, his fingers still and quiet on the knot of his cravat. “Should I touch you then?”
“Especially not then,” Ed says firmly, and pulls off his other boot to drop it on the floor in emphasis. They both know he’ll be “asking” within minutes, to put it in the politest way possible.
Not that Ed has any particular desire whatsoever to be polite about it.
Stede’s fingers resume their task, pulling the knot free with a few deft twists, which is exactly as hot as you’d expect it to be, in Ed’s opinion. Stede’s got great fingers, the best, rough in all the right places from learning to work ropes and oars and swordplay, but somehow still so fucking soft and elegant.
“You’ll tell me to stop if it’s too much?” Stede wants to know, pulling the cravat loose so he can fold it aside, and Ed’s mouth goes dry as scorched sand from want.
“Whatever you want,” Ed promises hurriedly, surging to his feet to unfasten his trousers and start working them off, just to give himself something to focus on. It’s more difficult than it needs to be, really, given that he’s already so hard just from talking about it that he’s straining against the leather. It’s possible, he thinks, that he should have waited to suggest this until a time he hasn’t spent the whole day working himself up thinking about it, but Stede’s pulling his shirt over his head and standing to join him with a light in his eyes, and Christ. Ed’s so fucking hard he could pound nails, and—
—and yeah, no, this is exactly what Ed wants, exactly when and how he wants it.
“You’ll tell me to stop if it’s too much,” Stede says again, not a question this time. He helps Ed shove his trousers down over his thighs, fingers of one hand coming up to splay open against the bare skin of Ed’s side, rough, perfectly tapered thumb just brushing the edge of dark wiry hair. It’s so close to where Ed’s cock arcs up aching towards his stomach that Ed can barely get a reply past his lips.
God in fucking Heaven, forget minutes. He’s going to be begging in seconds.
“Yeah,” he manages.
Stede smiles and pulls his hand away to pat Ed’s hip, and Ed gives a small huff of protest at the withdrawal, his skin too cold, too bereft without the warmth of Stede’s fingers.
Stede raises one eyebrow. “Good. Now, naked and on the bed!” he says cheerfully, like he has a plan, and Ed can only stare for a moment as Stede turns to deal with his own trousers and search for a bottle of oil that isn’t empty.
Fuck, Ed thinks, because he knows that look, knows that tone, and it’s possible that he’s bitten off more than he can chew. Stede’s a force of nature when he gets that note of command in his voice.
Ed can’t fucking wait, which—well, which might make certain things difficult, given the circumstances.
“Look at you,” Stede breathes when he turns to find Ed stretched out on their bed, legs angled in a way that best supports his left knee. Ed feels the skin of his face and neck go hot beneath the day’s stubble, feels that heat flare down the slope of his chest, and Stede perches on the side of the bed as if drawn in by it. “Perhaps I should just sit here all night and tell you how perfect you are.”
“Fuck that,” Ed says, but his voice feels hoarse around the words, like he’s been shouting orders into a crosswind for hours. The thought makes him want to squirm against the soft, silky sheets. It makes him want to drink in every word that leaves Stede’s mouth. It makes his skin feel even hotter and his dick ache even harder, smearing sticky and wet against his stomach. He wonders, for a moment, if he should reach up to dig his fingers into the pillows above his head, anything to keep them occupied, anything to distract himself from the way Stede’s eyes are taking him in.
What the hell, he thinks, and does it. The fabric is sleek and familiar and warms quickly beneath his fingers, and the faint rub of texture as his grip tightens is nice. Grounding.
Unfortunately, nothing can really distract from the heat of Stede’s eyes, or the ache of his own cock, though really, Ed supposes he’d never truly call either of those things unfortunate. Not here, not like this.
Stede smiles and gets his knees beneath him on the mattress so he can straddle Ed’s thighs, careful not to so much as accidentally bush against Ed’s dick as he does so, and fucking fuck, but Stede’s apparently taking this no touching thing seriously. “I do believe I’ll remember that idea for later,” Stede tells him, but Ed has no time to do anything but groan deep in his throat before Stede’s hands are pressing into the mattress for balance and he’s leaning over to flick a tongue over one of Ed’s nipples.
For a brief, endless moment as Stede leans up to kiss him and then ducks back down to close his mouth around first one nipple and then the other, a light, sucking pressure that goes straight to Ed’s poor (neglected, untouched) dick, Ed fancies that Stede’s cock is about to slide against his own. Ed almost holds his breath waiting for it, a little lightheaded in anticipation as he waits for the blinding heat and sensation, Stede’s cock hard and hanging between his thighs.
Ed wonders if maybe he can convince Stede to get a hand around the both of them, if he can convince Stede that touching them instead of just him still plays to the spirit of this whole idea.
But that wet, sticky, soft hard slide never comes, and before he can even think to begin stringing the words together, Stede shifts, kisses his way down Ed’s chest, and all Ed’s dick gets is the musky heat of Stede’s body hovering just inches away.
Jesus fucking Christ.
When Stede reaches his stomach, mouth trailing kisses so close to the flushed head of his dick that Ed can feel the warmth of breath stir against it, Stede shifts lower again, mouths a narrow margin around, nips kisses down into the crease of Ed’s thigh and then levers himself up to sit back over Ed’s calves. Stede’s face is stained pink with pleasure, as if this—kissing his way down Ed’s body, ignoring Ed’s cock, listening to the soft sounds falling from Ed’s mouth—is enough to bring out that colour high on his cheeks.
Ed licks his lips, parched with want, and flexes his fingers above his head. He thinks about releasing his grip, about sitting up to burrow his hands into the silk of Stede’s hair instead, of tugging Stede down to feel the weight of his body.
Of letting his cock press trapped beneath their stomachs.
Almost before the muscles in Ed’s stomach begin coiling to sit up, Stede shifts up a little higher on his knees and plants a hand firmly on Ed’s chest.
Too much to hope Stede wouldn’t expect that right now, he supposes, but then, that was exactly what Ed had wanted.
“...maybe you should give me just a couple strokes to start with, yeah?” He tries again, with words this time. “Help relieve the tension a bit before we get down to business.”
“Oh, I think we’d both agree that we’ve already started,” Stede says with a wicked little grin, his voice a soft reprimand, and fuck, has Ed ever been harder in his life? “Haven’t we, darling?”
Ed squeezes his eyes closed on a sound of agreement, just for a moment, then opens them again because he wants to see Stede, flushed and smiling above him.
Stede eyes him contemplatively for a moment, but Ed’s pretty sure it’s just to make him wait.
Just because Stede’s perfect doesn’t mean he can’t be a bit of a dick sometimes.
“Over, I think,” Stede finally says, and then his hands are on Ed’s skin, helping him flip over, and for one glorious moment Ed’s cock is pinned between his belly and the mattress. It’s nowhere near as good as the feel of Stede’s fingers, of course, the tightness of Stede’s fist around him. It’s not the weight of Stede’s body against him, or Stede’s cock against his.
Still, it’s nice, the soft silky sheets a torture against the shaft and head and his balls. He goes to thrust against them, just once, just to relieve the ache a little and clear his head a touch, except Stede’s fingers are suddenly digging into Ed’s hips and tugging him up to his knees. It’s so quick that Ed might almost think the memory of pressure against his dick to be a fantasy.
“I didn’t say nothing could touch me,” Ed groans in protest.
One of Stede’s hands smooths along the slant of his back, over the curve of his ass. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Fuck, no.”
Stede’s fingers brush down his left thigh, stop to press lightly against his knee. “Tell me if you need to move,” he says in a voice that brooks absolutely no argument, and then there’s the sound of a stopper pulling free and Stede’s fingers are reaching to circle wet around his entrance. Ed presses his temple into the sheets, digs his hands and his forearms against the mattress as if he can somehow brace himself against flying apart from the want of it all, but really, it’s okay that he knows he can’t.
It’s not like he has to, with Stede.
Stede wastes little time in pressing one finger inside, rubbing the pad back and forth a few times to let Ed adjust to the sensation before sinking in to the first knuckle and then to the flare of the second and further. Ed groans just at the pressure of it inside, at the way Stede twists his finger to let that second knuckle catch just right against his entrance as it goes in, and then—
Then he’s groaning more, uttering curses and pleas into the sheets, little moans against own hands as they twist into the fabric, because if Stede is entirely neglecting Ed’s dick as requested, it makes him even more plentiful, here. He unerringly finds that spot that makes Ed’s limbs tense and go loose with pleasure at once, that makes Ed’s stream of curses choke off into a panting, straining gasp, and he doesn’t let up. He presses, rubs, sinks in with a second finger and then a third so that he’s spreading Ed wide open, until Ed’s legs begin to shake and his cock is dripping onto the sheets beneath him.
“You’re perfect, darling,” Stede is saying—has been saying, Ed realizes, a steady stream of praise that winds into his head and through his veins and to his bones—and Ed makes a small sound of denial as Stede pulls his fingers free with a wet sound. They smear against Ed’s hip as Stede steadies himself for a moment. His clean hand, a little damp with sweat, goes again to Ed’s knee as if to check, soothes up Ed’s trembling thigh, and then Stede slowly, carefully helps him turn to his back in a jerk and sprawl of limbs made awkward by sheer desperation.
“I can’t,” Ed chokes out once Stede has slicked himself up and begun to sink inside, the head of his dick nudging blunt and thick against that spot, “Stede, I can’t,” all the while hoping that Stede will never stop because it’s fucking perfect.
It’s perfect.
“You can, my darling,” Stede tells him, his voice coming in short gasps, and Ed wants to let out a sob of relief at that, so he does, because why not.
He can, with Stede.
“Stede,” he says, his voice breaking on it as the pressure mounts impossibly within him, unable to say anything else, but that’s okay. Stede’s name is all he’d wanted to say anyway. The sweaty, sticky glide of Stede’s shoulders against his legs, the clutch of Stede’s fingers on his hips, so near to Ed’s dick but refusing to close the distance—they only wind him higher. Each perfect shove of Stede’s hips makes Ed’s cock smear against his own stomach, and the feel of it after nothing but the hot, humid air of their quarters is too much and not enough all at once.
“Darling, you can,” Stede says again, and that’s it. Stede’s dick hits that spot within him again, those words sweet and convincing and perfect in Ed’s ear, and he doesn’t think anything in the world could stop the pressure from edging him over the brink.
He comes in long, messy waves, Stede’s name hoarse in the air, and that’s enough, apparently, to have Stede coming too with a stuttered gasp.
It’s forever and an instant and something in between before Stede’s letting Ed’s legs lower shakily to the mattress, sprawling against his side in a press of limbs and heaving chests.
“Was that okay?” Stede asks, fingers brushing lightly over Ed’s balls, skating very gently over his sensitive, spent cock.
Ed leans into the contact with a contented, breathless hum. “Fuck yes,” he murmurs, the words rough in his throat.. “Was it—was it for you?”
Stede tucks his face against Ed’s shoulder, presses a smile against warm skin. “Very much so.”
“Good,” Ed sighs, his limbs heavy with pleasure and encroaching sleep. “Good.”
He shifts a little, turning onto his side. It dislodges Stede’s hand, which is a pity, but it also lets Ed hook an arm around Stede’s waist to pull their bodies close and allows Stede to do the same. “Let’s clean up later.”
Stede makes a noise of agreement against Ed’s temple. “After we hold each other a while,” he agrees happily, and Ed sinks into sleep and Stede’s embrace.