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His lips brushed mine, washing over me in a wave of warmth. I took his face in my hands, hardly able to breathe. “I love you so much, Charles, you know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes. I do. And I love you too. I never stopped.”
A choked sigh and a need for more pulsed through me. Chasing the heat of his mouth I backed him into the sink and plastered myself against him, sealing the tiny space between us. As he deepened the kiss, tendrils of pleasure unfurled in my chest, his hands dug into my hair, his tongue tangled with mine. Time stood still, as his smell, his taste, and the way he fucking melted against me hurled every other sensation from my mind.
I slid my hand down to his slim hip, then lower still to his thigh, gathering it up, as if I could climb inside him. Putain, I wanted to climb inside him, if he’d have me. My insistent grinding was rewarded with a sweet hitch in his breath.
“Will you stay? After Papi’s gone to bed?”
He huffed a laugh. “Christ, I’m not sure I could leave.”
I dragged his fingers over my groin, rubbing them along the iron rod trying to escape. “I’d like to… aah… pick up where we left off.”
I didn’t need to spell it out, the widening of Charles’s dark eyes and another cute moan told me he understood.
“I’d… yes. So would I.”
He nibbled on my lips, achingly soft kisses, relearning, promising, torturing me with their delicacy as a ninety-minute football match drew to a painstaking close. As if now we’d laid out our desires, we were saving ourselves for the moment we were behind a closed door. But his kisses only increased my thirst, like drinking deep from a pool of salted water. If the football match ran into extra time, every scrap of clothing Charles wore would join the rubber gloves on the floor, and Papi be damned.
A century later, the TV turned off and we pulled apart. A flush crept across Charles’s face as he smoothed down his shirt and straightened his collar. His kiss-smudged lips parted as he caught his breath.
“I love you,” I said again, because my heart overflowed with it. And my man was looking anxious. I snatched another quick kiss as Papi shuffled about, gathering his things, heading for bed. As much as I hated letting go, I had an old man to supervise and a night light to turn on so his midnight wanderings didn’t find him nosediving down the stairs in the dark.
“Two seconds, mon chèri. Hold that thought. I’ll be back.”
CHAPTER 35
CHARLES
Florian’s lips were two perfect curves, created for kissing, the man himself more perfect than my heart could hold. I loitered in the kitchen whilst he cared for his grandfather—because that was what it was—however he tried to shrug it off, occupying myself with drying crockery, wiping the table, and straightening cushions.
Florian loved me. He’d seen me covered in snot and sweat, talking gibberish and cowering in a bathroom, and he loved me.
And now I was going to bottom for the first time and, yes, a little flush of orange seeped into the corners of my mind.
Before I knew it, his arms swooped around my waist; those perfect lips moved against my skin and orange receded. Nimble fingers unbuttoned my shirt in time to each damp kiss imprinted on my neck. My bare shoulders came next, lightened of every burden, and he caressed those too, wordlessly, as if his whole being depended on it. Then my belt, and I shivered at the clicking of the metal clasp sliding from its loops before dropping to the floor with a clank. Florian crouched at my feet next, helping me out of my shoes, peeling away my socks with utmost care, like he was unwrapping priceless treasures and not just my milky-white, ordinary feet. Finally, when nothing but my trousers remained, sagging around my hips, he knelt back and spoke, trapping my gaze with those brilliant sea glass eyes.
“Come to bed, Charles.”
Four simple words, silver and smoky. Undressing my heart and unzipping my mind. Surrounded by a trail of shed clothing, he took my hand and kissed the palm. Papi wasn’t the only person he knew how to care for. I tried to answer, to say something seductive or witty, or even hint at my nerves, but want, need, and desire rendered me mute. And paralysed, while a blurred kaleidoscope, stuffed with all the broken facets of me, whirled through my head. I shook it, as if it would help settle them into a coherent pattern.
Florian’s voice was tender and soft at my ear and his wiry arms looped around my waist, ready to catch my fall. Now and always. “You’re overwhelmed, yes? Don’t be. We’ll take it slow. Tell me which colours you’re feeling, Charles.”
The truth spilled from me. “Every colour of the rainbow.”
I shook my head again, with a half laugh and leaned into him. “I’m feeling every single one. The good and the bad. It’s a… a little too much.”
“Ssshh,” he soothed. “Come to bed, Charles. Let me take you to bed and love you and kiss you and stroke you. Let me love the colours out of you. Until there’s only us. Until only silver and green remain.”
I remember nothing about the climb upstairs except the feel of Florian’s warm hand in mine. I didn’t see his room either, blinded with every touch of his mouth, drunk on every inhale of Florian’s ocean spray scent and his essence bleeding from the simple pieces of furniture. From his plain and narrow bed.
Nor did I feel the touch of his hands making light work of my trousers and underwear, then lifting the covers and slipping under, inviting me to follow. His mouth pressed hard against my forehead, burning a kiss into my soul, setting fire to every nerve ending. Little by little, I came back to myself.
He lay alongside me, fingers weaving through the scant hair of my chest. With the tip of his thumb, he traced a line down from my chin to my stomach before scratching a path around first one nipple then the other. I shivered, already arching my spine up and into him.
“You remembered what I like,” I breathed, as he repeated the scratching, this time with the edge of his teeth.
“Of course. I thought of it every day after you left. I lay here at night imagining you were with me. Imagining your face when I did this and how this look would be multiplied with me inside you.”
