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Thrawn lets his hand drift lower, cupping the seam at the front of Eli's pants, feeling the warmth at the apex of his hips. He readjusts, slipping his fingers beneath the seam and a small smirk tilts the left corner of his lip upward when Eli whines and bucks into it, starving for the intimate attention Thrawn seeks to bestow.
He makes quiet sounds between grunts and whimpers, desperate already, seeking sensation.
His enthusiasm for it, his neediness and desire for Thrawn's touch is what stokes the flames of his own need. Thrawn has never much cared for intimate encounters, has not liked the implications of bearing oneself to another mentally or physically. He has no desire for offspring, so intercourse had always been a biological function for which he had no need and little desire to simulate.
But this… he feels himself stir, feels the answer to Eli's ragged breath and animal rutting in his core. His muscles flex, his body reacting more to the hazed interest in Eli's eyes than to the anticipation of what is to come.
Eli finds that more pleasant than physical attraction; To him, Thrawn's mind is more attractive than muscle and sinew and sex. Thrawn cataloging his reactions and seeking to control, possess, coax, admire, all of it makes him burn with arousal.
He keens when Thrawn sets his teeth to the delicate skin near his leaping pulse, sways into Thrawn's hands and lets his body go taught like a readied bow when Thrawn sucks a dark bloom into his neck, and another, then another, lower still.
When he pulls back and admires them with a press of his thumb, purple-black on tawny skin, Eli whimpers again and ducks his head. He pushes into the touch, welcomes that little bit of pain.
Pain is a valuable tool. In a situation like this, in the correct quantity, it can be centering. It can be stimulating, too. He does not enjoy doing lasting damage to Eli, nor does Eli enjoy it himself, but this is not that. This is Eli so desperate for his touch, yet so desperate for something to ground him, to prevent him from becoming so lost in his pleasure that he spills before Thrawn welcomes him inside the heat of his body, that he seeks out something sharper instead of withdrawing to collect himself.
Things like this make Eli Vanto even more interesting.
"Sit," Thrawn murmurs, pushing Eli back toward the bed. He lets his voice thicken with that little bit of heat, the dark velvet curl that remains of his natural accent. Normally Eli would not listen. Normally there would be the arch of an eyebrow, a glitter of playful eyes, some semblance of challenge, though it would hardly be serious.
But right now Eli is too deeply wound, too desperate, too wanting to play. He obeys, chest thrust upwards, subconsciously chasing the feeling of Thrawn's questing fingers as he undoes the sealing strips of Eli’s tunic. He reaches for Thrawn, but his hands do not attempt to remove his tunic or unseal his trousers. He takes hold of Thrawn's hips, holding on, guiding him to the space between his splayed legs.
Thrawn is not an expressive man, but Eli shudders when his eyes refocus on his face, his head falling back, his own eyes half lidded and dark with lust and anticipation. His lips curve into a smile that is too soft to be seen out there, in the common areas of the ship. It is one Thrawn is never entirely certain he’s earned, but one he is honored to be permitted to experience all the same.
He isn’t talkative either, but he whispers his plans against the line of Eli’s jaw, his cheek scraping against the day’s stubble on Eli’s face. Eli is nodding before Thrawn can finish the thought, hands sliding up, clawing at Thrawn’s back with blunt nails.
“Yes,” he says, voice strained and thin. “Yes, please.” Thrawn doubts he has even heard the words, his want ratcheted to a place where all he needs is for Thrawn to be here, in this moment, with him. This is the rare place where Thrawn’s quiet amusement wars with a singular feeling of fondness.
Despite his general lack of interest, Thrawn has lain with others before. He has taken and been taken, however rarely, to bed, orchestrated encounters for sake of curiosity and understanding. His partners have never suffered for it. He has always known how to anticipate needs, to create a strategy and execute it to its necessary end.
Except now, he wants to provide. Thrawn is motivated by the look in Eli’s eyes, the desire that lurks on the surface, but more importantly the perfect trust that lays dark and unwavering beneath it. He does not have a word for what they are. He speaks many languages, and none have a suitable word for this connection that they share or the way it can coax such responses from his own mind and body.
Eli desires him: the person, the imperfect, abrasive shape of him. He does not begrudge Thrawn if he does not wish to participate, or if he wants no pleasure for himself. There are times where Thrawn will work Eli to this point and sink to his knees beside the bed to watch, cataloging reactions and responses, his eyes blazing with curiosity and interest that is more academic than amorous.
And there are times, like now, when Thrawn will rear back and twist his fingers in his tunic to pull it off and throw it aside, when he will lean down to drag his nose and lips from Eli’s chest to the place beneath his ear where the pressure of Thrawn’s face and the whisper of his breath will make him writhe and slip his hands beneath Thrawn’s undertunic to drag over the musculature of his back until Thrawn pulls back and Eli knows he can pull it up and over Thrawn’s head and off entirely.
“Thrawn,” Eli says, their faces close enough that their noses touch.
Thrawn hums an acknowledgement and presses their lips together. He does not care much for lengthy kisses or the oddness that is one person’s tongue in another’s mouth, but he allows and even initiates it on occasion. He accomplishes more by nipping at Eli’s lower lip, pulling gently at it, tipping Eli’s head back and sucking a short-lived mark into his throat that will be gone by morning.
Eli’s knees are bent over the edge of the bed, and while this look of him, laid out where Thrawn has placed him, is pleasant, it is not appropriate for what Thrawn has planned. He lowers himself to Eli anyway, presses their hips together, and Eli throws his head back a little further, his back arching off the bed.
At this point, they are both aroused, both seeking each others’ touch.
But Thrawn has control, and so he allows himself to rut against the apex of Eli’s thighs only a few times before he pulls away. “The rest of it: off,” he says to the look of brooding outrage that begins to cloud over the arousal in Eli’s eyes, but Thrawn’s timing is perfect and Eli continues to obey.
When Thrawn removes the rest of his clothing, Eli watches. He scrutinizes each mark, each scar carefully. He memorizes the lines of Thrawn’s body, the shape of his sex in an increased state of arousal, licks his lips in a subconscious gesture of anticipation.
“Kneel,” he tells Eli, gesturing towards the bed, and Eli’s eyes shift enticingly. He goes as ordered, knees parted slightly.
When Thrawn joins him, he looks up into Thrawn’s eyes and sucks his lower lip into his mouth, his mind already following the proceedings to their logical conclusion. He has already handled the task of preparation, and so now he looms over Eli as if he is in control.
To a degree, he is.
To a degree, he is not.
He sinks down, and Eli bites his right pectoral. Fire licks down Thrawn’s spine, unbidden. His gasp is quiet, his hips shifting forward, his erection curving up and rubbing against Eli’s abdomen in a way that is familiar and pleasing.
Eli tilts his head, palms his glutes, and shifts forward, experimentally. He watches Thrawn’s face with an intensity that Thrawn has never experienced with another, a perfect twin to the way Thrawn watches his reactions and adapts to his in preparation for these kinds of intimate liaisons.
The sex is quick. Eli is a charitable partner, knowing just how Thrawn prefers to rut into the slightly soft, subtly firm expense of his abdomen. He grips Thrawn’s hips in a way that encourages that friction with the aid of sweat and his body’s natural lubricant. In return, he lets Eli groan and whine against his chest, the two of them moving towards a mutual goal with the practiced ease of beings who spend a great deal of time together.
Thrawn’s release, if it is to be had, typically comes first. This is always a surprise to him, though not unpleasant. Eli’s desires hinge upon his partner’s satisfaction. Thrawn’s release is the pinnacle of arousal, and more often than not triggers Eli’s own, leaving him breathless and panting into Thrawn’s collarbone.
What comes after is not particularly pleasant, but it is decidedly both the most awkward portion of their intimate encounters and also the least awkward of all such situations across all partners Thrawn has had. Intimacy with Eli does not feel like a concession or a grandiose gesture.
His naked body does not feel out of place, nor does the unpleasantness of cleanup, though they often allow each other a moment’s privacy before reconvening at the door to the refresher.
“Good?” Eli asks him.
His fingers swipe along the bottom of Thrawn’s bicep, his eyes warm and dark and kind in a way that says he wants this moment to last a little longer, even though he knows there is work to do and an entire city’s worth of people beyond their quarters aboard the ship.
And yet, his smile is still that quiet one that only Thrawn knows.
“Very,” Thrawn answers, following him into the refresher. He catches his own reflection in the mirror and discovers that he too is smiling.