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“The tool used for gathering the fleur de sel must be delicate yet muscular.”
His hands laid themselves over mine, his arms around my waist again, my back pressed close to the solid wall of his chest. I swayed into him, the bones in my legs softening, relaxing, weakening. He laughed, pulling me closer. “It must have hidden strength, like the expert wielding it.”
I shivered as his fingers left mine to take a meandering path up my bare forearms.
“The harvester must have strong and beautiful arms, like yours, Charles.”
Oh God, his fingers walked higher, up to my shoulders, the tips of them caressing the sensitive ridges of my collar bones. “His skin must be smooth, like satin. The bones it covers must be finely made.”
Like a shy marshland bird calling for its mate, my green sang out to silver and silver answered the call. Oblivious to the raking, to the setting sun, to Florian’s precious fleur de sel, my head fell back onto his shoulder. He nuzzled into the warmth of my neck and as his hot breath ghosted across my skin, I inhaled the long forgotten, musky scent of a man.
“The harvester must be bold, yet patient.” The press of his lips scorched my flesh. “There is no need to pounce on the harvest straight away, he must wait until the sun is low in the sky, until he is alone, until he is sure his prize is willing and ripe. And then slowly, so very, very slowly, he should make a detour, like so.”
Florian’s hands drifted lower, down and across my belly, stopping only a hair’s breadth from where my willingness for him was making itself known. My breath stuttered in my throat. “But he must detour carefully, so as to be sure he is wanted, and so as not to frighten.”
There was a beat during which my heart stopped and then, with an unexpected and deliberate firmness, Florian swung me around in his arms, as if we were dancing. Silver flared, dazzling and triumphant. “And that, mon chéri, is how a determined, horny salt harvester gets what he wants.”
CHAPTER 14
FLORIAN
Charles sank into our kiss with a deep and low hunger, opening wide for me, like a wilting plant starved of water and weeping for rainfall. He pulled me closer, sealing us together. Our ridiculous flirtatious game suddenly became more urgent and I cradled his tired, pale face between my palms, crushing his lips into mine. His choked little moan as his eyes fluttered closed sent a sweet lurch low in my belly.
“You like that, mon chéri?”
I bit down on his bottom lip then licked the sting away as he melted in my arms, folding against me like warm clean laundry, as if he’d never been held this way before. And the sounds he made as he kissed me back, with lips soft and lax and oh, so fucking needy for me? Hearing and seeing his outer layers crumbling? Oh, fucking merde, it was hot as hell.
I walked him backwards until he hit the rear wall of my shack, out of view of late-night cyclists and joggers and any other nosy mec straying beyond the path. I slid my fingers under his shirt, hitching it up to run my hands over the planes of his back, touching the heat of him as I tugged him closer. “Putain, you feel so good under here.” I dipped down over the smooth swell of his arse.
He took a sharp breath. “I haven’t… I’m not experienced with a man,” he said. His cheeks pinked. A light, delicate hue. As if that wasn’t a turn-on.
Nonetheless, I slowed, against my every instinct to push forwards. A dusty wise corner of my brain semaphored this was different, not like my quick lays with tourists. And if Charles was nervous, then maybe I was too, just a little. Although desperate, that he was willing to let me to peel back his layers was both exhilarating and a huge fucking responsibility.
So I ignored the needy throbbing in my jeans and traded soft kisses instead; even then Charles let me take the lead, with patient, teasing laps of my tongue, absorbing his damned sighs until my thoughts wouldn’t line up. And when he started to move, when an exploratory palm slid under the hem of my T-shirt, I resisted the urge to push up into him and instead dropped more gentle kisses onto the fine lines bracketing his mouth and the dark smudges under his eyes.
“Hot night, non?” A low and pleasing hum warmed my blood as his thumb massaged the arc of my hip bone. I dropped my hands to my T-shirt. “We need to take these off.”
He nodded, and I couldn’t interpret what I saw in those grey depths as I unbuttoned his pale linen shirt. Desire for sure; the little sounds he made told me how his body responded to the slightest of touches and the barest of kisses. But pain and heartache were there, too, and as my fingers tangled in the coarse hairs sprinkled across his chest, he caught my wrist in his finger and thumb.
“Your friend Jerome said that you play games with tourists.” He flushed, with an uneasy half smile. “Can I check you’re not…” he searched for the right word, “Sporting with me Florian? I can’t… I don’t… I don’t have the mental capacity right now to play games.”
I shook my head. Fucking Jerome. He wasn’t wrong of course, but I hadn’t looked at anyone else since this sweet, diffident man had let me buy him a drink that first time in L’Escale. I concentrated on the last button then chased his shirt off his smooth, creamy shoulders, pressing my lips against one of them. “No games, I promise.”
His belt came next, the sharp rasp of leather through fabric loops muffled by our quiet sighs and moans as we necked like sex-starved teenagers. With his mounting need, Charles’s confidence grew; heat flared over my skin as his palm pressed against the front of my jeans. Wiggling into it, I grinned around his mouth.
“Like what you feel?”
“Yeah.” He swore in English.
I unzipped him carefully, poised to stop if he wanted me to before easing his trousers down to his hips. Then I stepped back to take a look. Damp seeped through his tented white cotton boxers, and I let out an appreciative whistle, ready for the deep blush stealing across his cheeks.
“Has it been a while?”
“Years.” His voice was a needy shred of a whisper. “And that was with a woman. Christ, please touch me, Florian.”
My knees hit the parched ground so hard I’d have bruises. But merde, they would be worth it. Pressing my nose against him, I groaned; he was like ten of my favourite smells coming all at once—like fresh laundry, clean skin, the sea breeze, a hint of male sweat. And the base note—the best scent of all; pure sex. Mon dieu, one of us was on the cusp of embarrassing himself and it wasn’t Charles, even if I did have my skilful tongue worshipping his cock through the cotton of his underwear.
“Can I carry on?” I asked him, begging for only one answer. Slipping my hand underneath him, I cupped his heavy balls. He muttered something in English.
