Andy fought the urge to collapse at the sound those two words rolling off Leonidas’s tongue like honey. He released Leonidas’s hand and stepped backward.
“Get us something to drink and a snack. Then go and wait.”
“Yes,” Leonidas agreed again. He brushed his hand over the front of his pants, the thickening cock behind the fly of his jeans apparent to Andy’s eye. Andy tried not to stare, pushing his focus back to Leonidas’s flushed cheeks and throat.
“Yes,” Leonidas said again. Then, with a quick nod of his head, he turned around walked off.
Once he was around the corner, Andy fell to the side, bracing himself against the table they’d been sitting at. He wasn’t sure any breath he took was giving him enough air, but he gasped and gasped until he saw stars when he closed his eyes. He eased back down to the bench and took a long drink of his coffee, now far from ice cold.
He figured it would probably take Leonidas an hour at the most to procure food and wine, which gave Andy enough time to come up with a plan for the night. He didn’t know how long he wanted to make Leonidas wait, but it would be long enough. Andy waited until his knees stopped shaking, then he took the walk back to the lodge and gave himself time to think.
Being in Cherry Creek was new to him, and having Leonidas with him, newer still. It was a foreign thing, to have this man he feared he might be falling in love with, and was most assuredly already in lust over, in the same space as his brothers, as his friends. Not that he was close to anyone in Cherry Creek, and he’d admittedly been an asshole to almost everyone since he’d gotten back, but he didn’t think poorly of anyone he’d met, besides that shameless flirt Kyle Charlie and Brad had hired to work the front desk.
He wanted to find a way to seize the moment, and he groaned inwardly at his own use of that word which he hated so profoundly when Leonidas said it. The best way he knew how was to recapture some of the magic of France, which would be difficult because, even on its best day, Cherry Creek was nothing like Paris or Bordeaux.
But they both had wine, they both had art, and they both had each other, so Andy would find a way.
26
Leonidas
Leonidas’s cockhurt almost as much as his knees.
He’d been kneeling—waiting—for going on three hours if the clock on the wall was right, and he turned his attention to the wine and charcuterie on the studio table on the back wall. He’d assembled the best plate he could manage after a quick stop at the small store in town, but it was lacking, only basic meats and two kinds of cheese, jarred olives, small crackers, and some prosciutto. He picked up a bag of cherries, too, because they were in season and smelled like heaven and he was cautiously optimistic that if he were very good, he’d be able to lick the cherry juice from the pale column of Andy’s throat.
Leonidas closed his eyes and took a deep breath, counting to four before exhaling for seven. Sometimes, when he waited like this, he tried to trace back in his memories to figure out why he was this way, why he liked to kneel and serve, and be told what to do. At first, he’d always assumed it came from being the baby of the family, that he was so used to doing whatever his sisters ordered him, that desire to please had grown into something bigger than he understood.
But that didn’t seem right.
That had been Leonidas as a child, trying to please the two girls who adored him more than anything on the planet, and that might make sense if he’d been straight, but Leonidas had been kissing boys, and boys alone, since he was thirteen years old. He did remember the first time a partner had taken a firm hand with him, the first time words had sounded sharp and abrasive, and he’d leaked precum in his pants like he’d been given a front seat to the best porn on the planet.
He asked for more, and that was what he’d been given.
And since then, things had never been the same.
The street side door opened, and Leonidas went rigid. His spine, straight and tense, his mind, regretful that he’d faced himself toward the back window and not the door. He’d meant to watch the sun coast across the sky while he waited, but he hadn’t thought about how he was setting himself up for viewing.
Instinctively, he knew he could look over his shoulder, but he didn’t dare. His breaths came quickly, and he focused his eyes on the small slit between the dropcloths he’d managed to hang to cover the window. Through the tarp, he could see the outline of the mountains, their shadows cast by the sun, and between the gaping fabric, he could see a bright orange and blue sky.
“You’re a sight,” Andy said from behind him.
Leonidas hadn’t heard him come through the studio, but at the sound of his voice, Leonidas let out his breath and waited.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
He listened for the quiet footfalls as Andy approached him, but still jumped when Andy’s warm fingers dragged against the base of his neck and into his hair. Andy’s fingers gripped the leather tie that kept his hair off his face and he pulled. Leonidas’s hair tumbled free, the ends grazing his shoulders and strands falling into his eyes.
Andy tossed the leather strip over Leonidas’s shoulder onto the ground and walked around to the front of him.
“I like your hair down. You look like the lion you are.”
“For you,” Leonidas mused.
“So, what did you have in mind for tonight?” Andy asked. He walked over to the far table and pulled the cork out of the bottle of merlot, raising it to his nose and taking a sniff.
“I’m pretty sure you’re the one in charge.”
Leonidas traced the bulging veins of Andy’s forearm as they snaked up and over in elbow, disappearing into the sleeve of his shirt. Andy raised the bottle to his mouth and took a drink.
