He takes a bit of perverse pleasure in the way Stiles blanches at his words. He shouldn't, it's not fair, but it is what it is. He takes no joy from the idea that the young man has been pressured into sex by other clients, that he might have no other recourse but to be an escort, but he can't deny that it makes him feel a little more comfortable, a little more at ease. It makes him feel like they're on more even footing, even if it's an illusion, and anyway, it's not like the kid's hooking on street corners.
For what it's worth, Urbane is the gold standard for escort services – Stiles is more likely playing eye candy for spoiled debutantes than being coerced into bed by some fat forty-something with self-esteem issues.
At least Peter doesn't have to bow to the first just yet - though sometimes he does curse his werewolf physique.
He can feel Stiles' eyes on him, tracing the lines of his body, the definition of bone and muscle, and it takes a lot of doing to suppress a shudder.
Peter knows what he looks like ok? He knows the vibe he gives off. Firm, fit, attractive, with an air of danger and dominance that have men and women alike falling at his feet. The swooners are easy to deal with – those he can just step over like they're beneath his notice – but the others, the ones who get aggressive and insistent and think that he's just playing coy, being a gentleman or a cocktease, those are the ones that send him into a shower so long and hot he comes out pink and raw.
Idly, morbidly, he wonders which of the two Stiles would be, had they met under different circumstances.
A little of both, he believes – brash, cocky, and confident on the outside but a nervous, shaky, insecure mess when it's time to get down to business.
And doesn't that shit sound familiar.
Scowling, grinding teeth so sharp they prickle his gums, Peter practically stomps down the hallway, a petulant child being sent to his room. Stiles follows more quietly, almost hesitant, and that's a little reassuring too.
God Peter hates this, this wibbling uncertainty, this nervousness he can never seem to shake. He's a werewolf for christ's sake, a hunter, a predator. Besides that he's a damned successful defense lawyer, and powerful, respected individual.
He's sleek and suave and proud of who he is, but there's this one stupid thing he just can't pin down, and he fears it will rub him wrong until the day he dies.
He tells himself that it doesn't matter, that being asexual is just a part of who he is that he accepts and isn't bothered by, but he lives in a sexualized world, and every once in a while that world shifts just a little, sending him into a twisted spiral he has to fight to slow down again.
Stepping into his bedroom, Peter flicks the switch that closes the black-out blinds and brings the lights up to fifty percent, for privacy more than anything. He's feeling unbearably vulnerable and will take any comfort he can get as he tears at his belt buckle, shucks his slacks with one defiant shove. He doesn't even glance in Stiles' direction before climbing onto the bed atop the neatly folded sheets, flat out on his stomach with his feet shoulder-width apart, his arms up above his head curling around the pillow he's buried his face in.
He hates this, and he loves it, and he hates that he loves it and hates that he hates it.
He just wants it to be simple, easy.
Just wishes he didn't need it.
Fucking Greenburg splitting on him like that, throwing everything out of order.
Grumbling deep in his chest, Peter punches the pillow in his arms, a small, petty act of aggression that doesn't make him feel any better. He can practically hear Stiles' swallowing his questions but doesn't offer up an answer, uninterested in easing his curiosity. He has to, he knows that, will be spilling his stupid guts to the kid in a few minutes and he fucking hates it, but he'll do it anyways because the alternative is worse.
Suffering through a moon alone.
Suffering through crass physical touch, the heat and tongue and awkward pawing that he can't stand.
With Greenburg it had been easy – Peter didn't initiate anything and the young man followed his lead, never a word spoken between them.
Stiles wouldn't be so easy to placate, to brush off.
He's too smart, too fucking sensitive, and Peter isn't stupid enough to chase off a good thing when he sees it. An escort that's willing to bend to his hours and who already knows werewolves, knows the behaviors and the instincts and the customs...
That's gold in his hands, and he can't risk Stiles thinking that he's doing something wrong or isn't satisfying Peter and doing something stupid about it, like demanding to get into his pants or, possibly even worse, quitting.
The full moon is only days away.
"You got any massage oil?"
He says it softly but it's firmer, calmer than Peter expected. Blinking, he strains his ears, focuses on his senses instead of his thoughts, and he can tell from the way that Stiles moves, speaks, smells, that he's gone into some kind of professional mode.
Fine by him.
The customer's always right after all.
"Bathroom," he says, his own voice harsher and rougher than he was ready for. "Cabinet on the left, top shelf."
As Stiles toddles off Peter forces himself to relax, tries to ease off the tension in his shoulders. He only half succeeds – even if Stiles does suck at this it will be hard to miss the knots in his muscles. It's an unforgivable tell that would ruin him in the courtroom, and the thought only serves to irritate him further. He can feel his fangs threatening to drop and bites them back, breathes out through his nose hard.
He's home, this is his den, his safe place.
This is just discomfort, not a real threat.
He can handle this.
He's still mentally chastising himself when Stiles comes back, putting the bottle on the nightstand. He's changed into a pair of loose basketball shorts and a t-shirt with the Batman symbol emblazoned across the front, and he's kept his socks on.
That, more than anything, the sight of two stupid black ankle socks on his feet, relaxes Peter more than anything else so far.
Good thing too, because the next thing he does is to put one knee on the bed near Peter's thigh and swing the other over him in one smooth, confident sweep, coming to kneel on either side of his hips. Be's standing into it, not resting back on his heels, so there's not that much physical contact between them, but he still tenses up a little, can't help his natural reaction. It's not just the inherent sexuality of the position, it's being underneath someone, the one at the disadvantage, the submissive of the two. It grates on his base nature, goes against who and what he is, and while sometimes he does crave a strong hand, a grounding grip, Stiles has yet to earn that privelege, to prove himself worthy of it.
While Peter is silently fighting down his panic, Stiles has been warming a pool of oil in his hand, and before he can convince himself that he really shouldn't be doing this, the kid spreads it across his shoulders and up over his biceps, back down the sweep of his spine. His hands are warm and firm, strong and rougher than he'd expected, delightfully clinical, and against his better judgment Peter practically melts against the mattress. Above him Stiles huffs, a pleased, amused little sound, and his hands pause between his shoulder blades.
"Gonna bite me if I start with your neck?"
It's a fair question, actually a pretty good one, but Peter snorts anyway. The sound is forced but Stiles takes it for what it's meant to be and starts in, pressing his thumbs into the base of Peter's neck and smoothing them upwards, fingers curling lightly down toward his throat. It makes his breath catch in his chest for all of a minute before the steady pressure and deft touch starts to sink in. It hurts in the best of ways, Stiles' clever fingers following the lines of his muscles, pressing hard at kinks and knots and working them away. By the time he's finished Peter's upper arms and started work on his back, he's nearly forgotten anything but the contact, the pain and the relief and the simple pleasure of skin on skin touch he craves so badly this close to the full moon.
Peter's wolf hovers close to the surface as Stiles works in silence; alert, watchful, and basking in the simplicity of it where he no longer has the mental capacity to chase his worries in circles. He squirms a little, shifts and rumbles low in his chest as he arcs up into the touch as Stiles runs the heels of his palms up either side of Peter's spine, leans his weight into the motion, but the kid takes it all in stride, kneeling up and settling down again, lower this time as he works at Peter's lower back.
He's pleasantly surprised when, a few minutes later, Stiles moves down to his legs, wraps his fingers around Peter's ankles and starts to work his way up. He's skipped his ass entirely, hasn't gone for the casual grope-n-grind, and for a moment Peter's hopeful, hopeful that he won't try anything at all, take what he's asked for at face value and give him a massage and nothing more.
He's disappointed.
As Stiles works his way up Peter's thighs his fingers begin to dip under the edge of his boxers, creep higher than Peter's comfortable with. He shifts again but the kid must take it as encouragement, assume that he's hard and looking for some friction because he goes back to the small of his back, traces the elastic band before squeezing his hips.
"Let's keep this professional, eh Mr. Stilinski?" he suggests, immensely and irrationally proud that his voice stays smooth and calm, even as his shoulders tense.
Stiles pauses and Peter can practically hear his eyebrow cocking, like the click of the barrel of a revolver, but then he scoffs and goes back to his shoulders, having another go at the muscles he's knotted up again.
"I am a professional," he sniffs, pushing at his trapezius. "And what's with you anyway? I mean, you're hot, you're rich... You could have anyone you crooked your finger at."
"Yes, and?"
"And you're hiring hookers."
Now it's Peter's turn to scoff, although, on the outside, he supposes it's a fair point.
"Thought you were an escort," he mumbles, pressing his face into the pillow.
"Tomatoes, potatoes dude," Stiles snorts. "It's the same thing and we both know it. If you're willing to pay for it you ought'a be willing to own it."
"Oh yes, as a lawyer that sounds like an excellent idea," Peter drawls. "Tell the world I've hired a prostitute."
"It's not like you've fucked me. Technically we haven't even done anything illegal yet. This is probably the cleanest massage I've given in ever. So?"
Peter scowls, feels his hackles rise, suddenly defensive of the bitterness in Stiles' tone, like he owes the kid something in addition to the thousands of dollars he'll be dropping on him in the coming months.
"So what?"
"So, what's with you?"
He's sitting back on his heels now, his weight centered over Peter's knees and his hands gone, missing from Peter's skin as he waits for an answer that's not quick or easy coming.
"Come on man," he continues, "I don't know if you're trying to like, ease me into this or... groom me or what, but it's kinda freaking me out. I mean, I can feel the anxiety when I walk in the door and I don't do waiting well. So can we just, you know, make with the sexy times already?"
For a moment Peter is silent, stunned, surprised once again by the intelligence and the insight of this young man. He's clever, maybe too clever, and it's a bit of a world-altering thing. Licking his lips, he focuses on the single thing he can pick out of the mess cleanly, the one thing he's strangely clear on.
"Is that really what you want?"
It's Stiles' turn to be stunned it seems, because he goes utterly still and silent for all of thirty seconds, the first such moment Peter has seen from him.
"You're nicer than a lot of them," he says eventually, quietly, like he feels guilty about the admission. "Not a dick you know? Even though you kind of are. And yeah, you're hot, so it's not like it would be like... a hardship."
Unseen Peter rolls his eyes.
"How kind of you to say," he replies flatly, and then, because it's as good an opening as he's going to get and because he can't imagine fighting against it anymore... "I've got no interest at all in sleeping with you Stiles. And before you get righteously offended," he continues, flinching away from the sudden harsh spike in the young man's scent, "I don't have an interest in sleeping with anyone else either. You're nothing special sweetheart."
Stiles doesn't move, and Peter braces himself for the inevitable.
"So what, you're like, ace, demi..."
"I identify as asexual, yes."
"So... what does that mean?"
Ok, he wasn't expecting that.
Turning his head, Peter cracks an eye and peers at the young man over his shoulder.
"Oh, don't look at me like that asshole," he sniffs, folding his arms over his chest. "I know what Oxford and Webster think it means. I'm asking what it means to you. Jesus, I don't wanna..."
Peter sees the minute it all clicks with him, feels it when he suddenly tenses up and moves to get off, checking himself and freezing with his arms held comically out to his sides, like he's surrounded by glass and doesn't now how to get out of it without breaking something.
Under his breath, Peter snarls.
"Settle down," he snaps, eyes hot and teeth sharp. "This is why I didn't say anything. I'm a werewolf you idiot. I like contact, need it even, especially on the full moon. 'S long as it's not about sex, not meant to be sexual...
"Right," Stiles mumbles, and Peter can tell he's not convinced, but at least the sour-bitter scent of panic-guilt is dissipating. "Ok so... I can get that. I can... I mean I can figure that out, but... what about the full moon. I mean, obviously this is ok right now, right?"
"Yes."
"So what's different? I mean, what do you... need from me?"
Peter lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
Fuck this is a relief, finally beyond the shit part of all this and on to the pragmatic part, the logical part.
"You're at a disadvantage there sweetheart," he laughs, a little mean, a little teasing because he can, because he feels so much fucking better even if there's likely a few more problems to come, a few more issues to resolve. "Never should have told me you know wolves. Not gonna hold back on you. Like to roughhouse, wrestle sometimes... Bite."
Stiles barks a laugh.
"Pup sitting," he says, and it's lashback but Peter doesn't care.
Kid's smart, got some spine, tries to show a little respect.
Didn't panic too badly.
Time would tell how he does with this.
For now he's exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally drained, and he wants nothing more than to roll over and go to sleep.
"Come to bed," he rumbles, closing his eyes and turning onto his side.
Beside him he feels Stiles hesitate, scents his confusion.
"Um... sure. How do you..."
"I don't care."
It's easier this way, to snap and snark and be irritable about it, and he wonders if Stiles knows this game. The kid continues to hesitate, but when Peter doesn't look at him, just snuggles deeper into his pillow, he finally moves and situates himself right side up against the far side of the bed, flat on his back with his hands glued to his sides.
Oh for god's sake.
It's too soon, too fast, still uncomfortable, but he's running out of time and he hates himself for the fear.
Rolling over, he flops nearly half on top of Stiles, blanketing his side and holding him still with one hand wrapped around the curve of his rib cage, fingers sharply tipped. Stiles goes shock-straight and still as Peter tucks his face into the curve of the young man's throat, his pulse hammering against his lips.
"What are you..."
"Shut up."
Breathing in his scent, that increasingly familiar spearmint-leather-talc, Peter sinks into the heat, the sensation of shared space and lets it soothe the needling sensation of his pelt pressing up beneath his skin.
The next thing he knows it's morning and he's waking up wrapped around the kid like some sort of desperate octopus, calm and sated like he hasn't felt in a long time.