“Oh?” I clear my throat, trying to dispel the gravel. Pressing a hand to my sternum, I push hard and rub. I willnotcry. Today is a good-fucking-day, and I will not let this turn me into an emotional whirlpool. That will be for tomorrow when I’m back in my cottage and alone in the dark.
“I know you said you didn’t want me to see your work, but you told me that just a couple weeks ago. I didn’t know it would be a problem when I bought this.”
He takes a tentative step toward me, and I realize he’smisreading whatever expression is on my face as a negative reaction. I almost laugh. Instead, I look back up at the wall and the first piece of artwork I ever sold as a professional artist. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever done, but it’s probably my favorite. I like the little errors and blemishes that my experienced eye can see that would have been invisible to my younger self. I like how the strokes and the colors are bold and free, like twenty-year-old me was finally able to express the things he couldn’t manage to say out loud. It’s a depression painting. Or perhaps a healing one, since it was painted after I finally started getting the help I’d needed for years.
“I can’t believe you bought this, Shi,” I say softly, thinking about the money that was deposited into my bank account and how I’d panicked when I saw it. It had been the most money I’d ever had at one time. “I would have just given it to you.”
He looks surprised by the offer. “No, I wanted to support you. You can’t just give away priceless works of art, Ewan.”
“Priceless?” I laugh quietly, looking away from the painting and back at Shiloh. “I seem to remember a pretty hefty price tag.”
“Yeah, well…priceless to me.” He clears his throat and glances over his shoulder at the wall. Running a hand across the short beard covering his jaw, he adds, “They wouldn’t deliver it all the way out here. I had to drive to the city to pick it up from a gallery there. I thought they were going to shit themselves when I strapped the crate down in my truck bed with bungee cords.”
Stepping forward, I touch my hand to his stomach as I pass. Leaning against the side of the bed, I angle myself closer. I feela little sick, knowing he was the one who bought the first piece of art I’d ever sold, knowing he hung it up above his bed and has seen it every single day. I put so much work—so much of myself—into this piece, and when it had sold, I’d cried tears I wasn’t sure were happy or sad.
“You didn’t say you’d bought it in any of your emails,” I whisper, more to myself than anything. Shiloh responds anyway.
“I figured you already knew. My name was on the invoice, and my parents’ house was the address they wouldn’t deliver to.”
Sighing, I turn back around and move until I bump up against him. His arms come around me automatically, like hugging is something we do all the time and this is nothing more than muscle memory. Hands on either side of his face, I kiss him the way someone might kiss the person they’ve loved their whole life. I kiss him like I’m saying thank you for being the first person to buy a painting of mine that was good enough to sell. He groans and kisses me back like he understands, circling my wrists with his fingers and slowing things down until our lips are barely moving against one another. How silly of me to ever worry that Shiloh and I could be incompatible in anything, even this.
“Thanks,” I whisper against his mouth. He squeezes my wrists.
“Can we have a conversation about this later?” he requests, giving me enough of a push that I take a step backward toward the bed. I grin and arch my back into him, pressing as much of myself against him as I can.
“Sure, I suppose,” I reply, trying for flippant but onlymanaging a sort of breathless need. “What shall we do in the meantime?”
Shiloh can’t answer because his mouth is suddenly busy doing beautiful things to my neck. Eyes practically rolling backward into my skull, I tip my head back and try to free my hands from where they are still caught in his. He sucks on the delicate skin hard enough to leave a mark, and I moan.
“Can we take this off?” he asks, finally freeing my wrists and reaching for my clothes.
“Fucking obviously.”
He grins, and the pair of us fumble through a messy, awkward undressing—hands bumping, clothes tangling, and lips colliding with chins instead of mouths. Shiloh’s foot gets stuck in his pants, and whatever he sees when my shirt is tugged off over my head makes him laugh. His eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them, a deep, lovely blue. His hair, too, looks darker inside than it is in the sun, a color closer to brown than blond. I push my fingers through that hair, marveling at the fact that I’m even allowed. He watches me, hands resting on the bare skin of my hips, expression softening as I look at him and he looks back.
“I love you,” I tell him. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah. I know.” His rough hands slide up my sides, my nerve endings singing with pleasure. Before he can say it back, I tug him forward with a handful of that deliciously thick hair and kiss him. I don’t want him to say it back. I haven’t earned those words yet.
Shiloh is heavy and solid and soft when I find myself pressedto the bed beneath him. The slide of his hairy chest against my own meticulously groomed body is heady. I’m gasping and arching up into him, desperate for more; he’s groaning and forcing me deeper into the mattress with every firm rock of his body against mine. I’m barely aware of what we’re doing, floating along on a burning wave of pleasure. I should be focusing. I should be cataloguing every single way Shiloh touches me, every noise he makes. I should be mindfully touching him instead of the unconscious, frantic way my hands are moving over him. But I can’t, because the past has collided with the present, and muscle memory is the only thing keeping me moving as my universe realigns to center.
There is absolutely no finesse as we grind together, sweat dotting my skin as the temperature in the room climbs parallel to the heat in my stomach. The way Shiloh is kissing me feels like he’s trying to steal the air directly from my lungs, the pair of us panting and groping. When he moans, I can feel it against my teeth.
“Shiloh,” I warn, gasping a breath that’s immediately smothered when Shiloh sweeps his tongue deep into my mouth. I suck on it, earning another moan from him that sends my already heated blood to boil. I’m going to come.
Any remaining thread of consciousness I’ve retained snaps when I do, relief instant and the pleasure so intense it borders on pain. My dick aches where it’s trapped between Shiloh’s body and mine, the continued friction on sensitive skin too much and just right all at the same time. I’m practically whimpering, body heavy and skin raw as Shiloh grinds down and I arch up,unable to stop. He comes with a groan, hips stuttering and teeth scraping down my neck as he pulls his mouth away from my kiss-swollen lips.
Closing my eyes, I link my arms around his neck and relax back into the bed, doing my best to gather up my scattered wits. I feel a little bit like I’ve been electrocuted and set on fire and drowned all at once, sensation pummeling me from every corner and Shiloh holding me down like an anchor. He stills in increments, breaths panted against my overheated skin. When he tries to pull away, I don’t let him.
“Stay here,” I admonish him, putting a hand to his head and giving a sharp tug of his hair. He laughs, a breathless, exhausted sort of sound that nonetheless kicks my cooling blood back up a notch. If he gives me fifteen minutes, I’ll be ready to go again. Maybe this time, I’ll be able to manage something more impressive.
“I’ll hurt you,” he replies. Sighing, I let him go because yeah, it’s already hard enough to breathe right now without him on top of me. Goddamnit.
He doesn’t go far, though. He barely rolls to the side, tugging me along so we’re facing one another and further intertwined in sheets that are mangled. I slip a leg between his, pushing my hips forward and making sure to brush my thigh across his balls. I smile at the inarticulate grumble this earns me.
“Oops,” he mutters, and I look down at my chest as he brushes his fingers down from my collarbone and across a nipple, trailing down slowly. Beard burn and cum, the first of which stings a bit as Shiloh’s fingers pass on their way to collect thesecond. He puts a finger in his mouth to taste me, and I knock my earlier time estimate down to five. If he continues doing shit like that, I’m going to be a medical miracle of refractory periods.
“You can rub some lotion into me later,” I offer as though he would be the one winning in that scenario and not me. He smiles.
