AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And I had a cooperative to rescue.
Selco’s strategy followed a well-worn path. Attract venture capitalist funding with a bold campaign to be a market leader, make an offer a small outfit like Florian’s couldn’t refuse, repeat across similar small companies over a short space of time, and voila, become the biggest player on the stage. Then use that clout to sell the product on an even bigger stage at the most competitive price, all the while squeezing the profit margins of the small suppliers you’ve swallowed up and squashing them like bugs. Not the best choice of metaphor given my current precarious mental state, but apt.
I lost myself doing what I did best, settling into the black and white rhythm of numbers and paperwork superimposed on a navy blue undercurrent. Every now and then I stopped to replay our sex of the night before. Since my arty days, men had been reserved for admiring in the abstract and from a distance. At most, I’d envisaged something quick, scratching a nagging itch with one perhaps, but never taking it any further. But, as I browsed soothing columns of figures, for the first time in my life, I found myself contemplating what a relationship with a man might look like.
A relationship. My mind had always assumed a woman fulfilling that role, if I ever laid aside the time and effort to find one. Probably because I liked the idea of being a father someday, although lately, I was of the opinion that my shonky genetic makeup should end with me. Yet now, my errant mind, which I struggled to trust these days, wondered if the person with whom I shared a future might not be female after all. It wouldn’t be Florian, of course, because he had his life here on the island and I had mine. We were a stop gap for each other, nothing more. And as wonderful as he was, I couldn’t afford to have my emotions running out of control just because an extraordinarily attractive man had taken a shine to me.
Marcus phoned with details of his arrival. Flickers of orange interrupted the monochrome number party and my concentration lapsed. Glasses chinked in the background as he read out the wine list at the fancy restaurant where he dined, and then moaned about the quality of the staff at the villa he’d rented, the whole purpose being to impress the folk earwigging at his end of the conversation.
That Marcus was an utter tit was a universally accepted truth. The kind of man who could be an absolute riot on a night out but with whom one would never do business. Hence, he’d recruited a steady pair of hands like me and stayed loyal, even after my existential breakdown. He’d visited me in the psych hospital too. Every week, without fail. Not a lot of people had done that. No one else, in fact.
Florian sauntered back after he finished work, fresh from the salt marsh, smelling of summer heat and tasting of silvery, sparkling youth. He came upon me in the garden, making a pig’s ear of sketching a clump of hollyhocks basking against the crumbling stone wall. “I should stick to painting you, not flowers,” I said in greeting. “I’m much better at it. And you’re a prettier subject.”
He grinned, accepting the praise like it was his due. “I can’t stay, unfortunately. I promised Papi I’d drive him over to Saint-Martin to visit some old friends.”
Hauling me up from the bench, he pulled me into his arms, as if I belonged there. “But I needed to check that my favourite artist was okay, first.”
With his lips on mine, delivering a punishing kiss, and his hands wandering down my spine and massaging my behind, I was much more than okay. After he’d gone was a different story.
“I’ve finished my review of Selco’s financial strategy,” I informed him romantically.
He laughed and his lips moved to my neck. “Putain, if you’re going to keep that dirty talk up, then Papi and his friends will have to wait.”
“We can go through it together—I think you’ll have a very convincing argument.”
“I have a very convincing argument right here.” He rolled his hips into me to illustrate his point. His gaze searched over my shoulder. “And this garden isn’t overlooked.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind was a nagging sensation that already, this thing with Florian was growing into more than a summer fling. What he saw in me was a mystery, but we’d clicked, from that first drink together. He knew my past, the sad sequence of events that had brought me here and thought no less of me. And in return, he’d shown me what hid behind his dimpled charm; his worries about his grandfather, his future challenge with the cooperative.
But for now, with quick fingers undoing my belt, a smart mouth whispering naughty words in my ear and silver dancing around Florian’s shoulders, it was easier to believe what we had was only lust. Nothing more.
Legs akimbo amongst the flower beds with my trousers flapping around my knees had not been on this afternoon’s agenda, not that I was complaining. Over the last few days, my body had become a cocktail composed of three parts; daydreaming about Florian’s mouth, imagining Florian doing things to me I’d never contemplated with another man, and filling the gaps when Florian wasn’t around with wondering when he’d next appear.
Chuckling softly, he swiped a pearl of pre-cum from my tip. “You’re pretty silvery yourself this morning.”
My neediness had me blushing and I pressed my mouth to his to hide it. “I told you, I’m green.”
I breathed into him as he began a slow, steady stroke up and down the length of my shaft, as if he’d been pleasuring me forever. “Always have been. A flat, forest green.”
He smiled around our kiss, though he didn’t falter. “I like that you’re green.” I let out a whimper; I swear that voice did illegal things to me. “It suits you.”
His other hand cupped my balls, and an inquisitive finger, slick from my pre-cum, slipped behind, where no man’s finger had ventured before. More wetness pulsed out of me as he teased my hole. “You like that, don’t you Charles? You want more?”
I gasped, as with a firmer press, Florian breached my virginal tight ring. He let out a kind of growl, turned on himself and thrusting up against my hip, his own dick trying to punch its way out of his jeans. His finger pushed a little deeper, teasing another desperate sound from me. I spread my legs as wide as my trousers would allow, grabbing for the bench to steady myself, craving more of that intruding finger, the feel of it rubbing up inside, his palm suffocating my balls as he pushed higher still.
Florian’s lips pulled away from mine. “Your face is so pretty right now, Charles. So pretty. Mon dieu, if you could see what I’m seeing.”
His voice rumbled down my spine as if it was opening me up further. And it was; he was setting a fire under parts of my being I hadn’t known. Hidden wants, hidden needs, hidden desires. An uptight businessman was coming apart, just like he’d known I could, right here in the garden, where the sun beat down and cyclists chattered from the other side of the wall, and the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on was pleasuring me so precisely I could do nothing except lose myself to his silvery magic.
“Can you take one more, mon ami?” His other hand remained curled in a heavenly cloak around my dick.
Oh fuck, yes. I could take everything this man offered.
A second finger pushed at my entrance, stretching me, filling me, hitting that hidden spot over and over. My legs threatened to fold; Florian, plastering me between the bench and his taut body, was the only thing holding me up. The sensation of his hard shaft rubbing up and down my hip in time to his hand around my dick and his fingers up my arse was…well… yes.
And after that, my vision pretty much whited out and it was all over embarrassingly quickly.
Afterwards, we cuddled on the sofa, with my arm slung around Florian’s shoulder and his head resting on my chest. Out on the garden bench after I’d recovered my faculties, I’d reciprocated the hand job, minus the added extras and with much less finesse, even if it did reach the same speedy conclusion.
