“You mean in general or from specific individuals?”
“Specific individuals, of course.”
“I am not opposed to the concept of a dick pic, no.”
Three seconds later, an image came through, lighting up Ryan’s phone screen. Art had pushed his trousers and pants down around his thighs and taken an exquisitely lit picture of his hard dick. His hand was scooped under his balls so they were very visible as well.
Ryan caught his breath and froze for a moment to gawp at the pic. Art was perfectly manscaped, and though he was about average size, he had an appealing mushroom head that glistened with precum, like he’d been playing with himself before snapping the pic.
In short, he was gorgeous. Ryan wanted to get his hands, mouth, and hole around that dick.
“Return the favor?”
Art’s next text bumped Ryan out of his moment of drooling lust and made him laugh.
He held his phone up, then reversed the camera so it was pointing at him. He held up his middle finger and smirked as he took the pic, then sent it back to Art.
As he walked on, Art replied with a row of laughing emojis.
And that was the problem. For a university professor and archeologist, Art was irreverent and rude, but he made Ryan laugh like no one else. He was full of joy and excitement about life and sex. He’d probably never been faced with the choice between sucking an old man’s dick or his career.
That thought nearly made Ryan stumble as he walked around the corner into the garden space where Graeme was working. It wasn’t the fact of what had happened to him with Giorgio that had slapped him hard out of nowhere, it was the panic and the shame. It was the way he’d watched everything dissolve and disappear, all because he’d held his ground and stood up for himself.
Graeme saw him coming and stopped what he was doing. He smiled and waved at Ryan. Considering the fact that he was shirtless and drenched in sweat from digging up what would become garden beds in the walking garden, Ryan should have melted with lust at the sight of him.
Instead, he had to hold himself back from running up to Graeme, throwing his arms around him, and siphoning off all the sweetness and affection that Graeme had naturally within him.
“Working hard, I see,” he said, stuffing his phone back into his pocket and mentally pushing aside the cloud of uneasy emotions that had tried to follow him from the house.
“Yeah,” Graeme said, stabbing his shovel into the ground and leaning on it like he usually did. Ryan thought he looked like a sexy farmer when he did that. “Art helped me redraw theborders of the walking garden to avoid the ruins,” he went on. “It’ll change the shape slightly, but that’s fine. Anything to make excavating the gamekeeper’s cottage easier.”
“I’m surprised Art isn’t here working on the whole thing right now.”And ogling your amazing body the way I am, Ryan added for himself.
“He had faculty stuff to take care of at the university,” Graeme said.
“Yeah, he just texted me.” Ryan’s face flushed. He could practically feel that text pushing against his arse. It was best if he changed the subject. “Do you need any help?” he asked. “You look a little tired.”
It was supposed to just be banter. He didn’t expect Graeme to get that tense, vulnerable look on his face and say, “I’ve been really worried about the wedding this weekend.”
Ryan felt like a heel for completely forgetting Mavis’s wedding, but also like a potential savior who might be able to kiss Graeme and make it all better.
“Have you heard anything more about it?” he asked. “From your family, maybe?”
Graeme shook his head. “Nothing. I’m not entirely sure Mavis has told them I’m invited.”
That hit Ryan entirely wrong. “You can’t walk into an ambush like that. It’s not fair.”
“I was kind of thinking the same thing,” Graeme said quietly.
Everything about the man tugged at Ryan’s heartstrings. He was so pure and artless. If Mavis really was setting him up for some sort of punishment that she and others thought he deserved for the horrific crime of being true to himself and letting her go, then there was no way Ryan could let him go into the wedding alone.
“Do you want me to go to Cornwall with you?” he asked, crossing his arms to stop himself from throwing them around Graeme and hugging him close.
Graeme glanced up at him with a look of pure hopefulness. “You’d do that for me?”
“Of course I’d do that for you,” Ryan said. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to cup the side of Graeme’s face. “I care about you, Graeme.”
Everything felt heavier and charged for a moment. The spark in Graeme’s eyes wasn’t weakness or pleading, it was wanton and hot.
