A/N: Well, ducks, it's been forever and a day since I last posted on this story. I apologize for its brevity but this particular chapter gave me some serious lip. Impudent thing. Anyway, I am now working on the fourth chapter and am outlining the fifth so there won't be such a long dry spell between the next few chapters. I'd like to thank my readers and especially my amazing beta for helping me with getting things just so. Someoneelsesdream, you know you're invaluable. gives a round of applause

Enough of this babble...without further ado, I give you the third chapter of GunMetalGrey...Enjoy.


The Present

All Murphy could see were the inside of his eyelids, it was all his senses could handle at the moment. He was overwhelmed with sensation, with feeling and a trembling, weakening need.

Hot and wet, Connor's mouth closed over his skin. Murphy stiffened, those deep, lovely, beautifully-forbidden muscles tightening, smooth and delicious, while he sat passive and staunchly silent; still unmoving, still undecided, still stubbornly unforgiving.

All there was, the slick-rough slide of a twin's tongue across vulnerable sensitivity, the sharp scrape of teeth over skin-draped bone. A long pull, swirling, twirling, painting pale flesh with the brilliant reds and violets of passion and possession. He swore violently, feeling the echoes in his head as if Connor was stroking his soul, pulling it up through him with every slippery slide, pulling him fucking apart with lips, teeth, tongue, and breath. A shudder rocked Murph abruptly from his core, rolling up from below, through the bone-caged heart, throbbing, pulsing, like a broken bird. It was unsure, his heart; to stay or to go ….Was it fight… or flight?

All Connor could see was Murphy, it was all his senses wanted to handle. He was flooded with sensation, drenched in desperation that was fueled by a steady, powerful resolve.

Satiny and cool, Murphy tasted of sweet sweat, cheap Dial soap, and musky smoke; Connor could barely stand it (suppresses shiver, smothers gasp against a twin's shoulder). Icy and painful, concrete nipped his knees and Connor felt as if his blood was draining away through the aching holes it left. Swaying drunkenly, hands grasping, folding around the chair back, steadied, and anchored, but uncertain. A silent sob jerked Connor's stuttering heartbeat, but he gathered the regret-strewn pieces, the guilt-ridden whispers, close. Mindful of jagged edges, he wrapped them tightly into actions, words, apologies, and lust. lust, LUST.

Connor pulled back. With eyes sharp as knives he traces the star-burst of love on his twin's flesh, his left hand lifts, slowly, almost timidly, definitely shaking, to stroke the illicit brand A caress as gentle, as soft, as a butterfly's kiss skims over the knob of the spine, lingering on the blood rose he'd created and all five fingertips glide, as easily as steel over ice, down, down, down the valley between the jutting mountains of Murphy's shoulder blades to the delta hidden beneath the frayed fabric clinging damply at his hips. . A slight barrier, an outer wall of denim and a portcullis of zippered teeth blocks continued exploration, prohibits worship, but he is undaunted. Bending close once more, Connor uses the barest brush of his lips to outline the fine geography delineated beneath his brother's skin. Flesh, blood, bone, head, heart, soul all are lovingly adulated between the borders of shoulder and cloth-cloaked hip. He grunts, low, harsh and abrasive. There should be more. There should always be more; this one beneath his fingers deserves more. But should he give it, give in…or walk away?

Frustration. Indecision. With a tiny toss of dusty honey, Connor pauses, pulls back, settles on his heels. His restless hands linger at the threshold, begging for something beyond permission. His grip tightens. Fabric creaks, groans. He feels droplets trickle between his fingers, onto the floor, down his brother's skin.

"Oh, God… Murphy…please…"

Murphy is fearless. As fearless as a man of the Almighty can be. Not in all his years on this earth has he ever feared man or beast. There is but one thing, one thing in the entire universe which can make him quiver in terror. Connor. Only his twin has that power. A power all the residents of Heaven or Hell can never hope to lay claim to. Plus, he would never admit to it, out loud, anyway.

He can feel the room around them. The creak of footsteps above them. Step, shuffle, step, shuffle. The rain is a steady thunder against stout walls. He can hear it dripping, seeping in from a secret crack; slither, trickle, plop onto concrete already so riddled with moldy puddles another doesn't matter. The gun still sits on the table, a dull reminder of what could've been, and a sharp one of what is. Jeans are cutting into his belly, knuckles digging deep into the hollow of his spine. If he were to lie in the rain right now, face down against musty tarmac, it would collect there, a shallow pool forever warmed by flesh and chilled by Heaven's tears. Murphy swallows deliberately, balancing the metallic bite of fear and the smoky nip of anticipation against the roof of his mouth and down his throat. Connor is panting; humid gusts of desire condense on his skin and the air is cooler as it brushes moistened skin. Connor's hands are pulling his jeans and his desire is a battering ram at the door of Murphy's anger. He shifts minutely. Connor freezes. He can hear him hold his breath.

Chills racing, pimpling flesh as the sweet warmth recedes. He could say no. Or he could say nothing at all. Just walk away. Out the door. Down the street. He could pull away and curse his brother, his twin, his other half. Call him fiend, sinner, damned. He could hit him, again and again and again, until there was nothing left but the gun on the table and the blood on his fists. Again.

But he won't. He can't. He doesn't. He just slides his left hand back behind him, down by his hip where the denim sags dangerously low, and buries it into Connor's soft, prickly, slick golden-boy hair.

"Connor…I…"


Oi, readers, what say you? Now, I know I've said this before but reiteration is not always a bad thing and when my readers tell me what they want to hear more of and what they don't I'm more inclined to work faster and better to appease my audience. So be like a tree, loves, and review. wink, wink