“I didn’t want to take the credit when you came up with it.” Archer sounded defensive, as if he knew he’d messed up somehow.
“He thinks you’re doing it to please me rather than him. His reaction to that doesn’t sound like someone who hates you.” It sounded like someone who was desperate to know his brother still loved him, but there was no way I could say those words to him.
He rubbed his hands over his face again, then looked at me. “Flying?”
We flew over the Court, and I stuck close to Archer. At one point, I looked back at the house and saw Mia at the window, watching us. I raised a wing in salute, and promptly plummeted towards the lake, off-balance. Thankfully, I had the height torecover before I embarrassed myself completely in front of Archer.
He took me to the folly and allowed me to perch there beside him and survey the grounds. A vixen with young cubs tumbling after her ventured out of the woods, and the donkeys were grouped together in the field, fast asleep. Even the dovecote with its antisocial inhabitants looked peaceful.
My heart was overflowing at how perfect this was.
Chapter Twenty-four
OLLIE
Eventually, we returned to earth and shifted in the dark gardens. When Archer would have pulled his t-shirt and jumper on, I stopped him.
“No point in putting them on when they’re just going to come off again,” I told him, and before he could protest the temperature of the night air, I reached up and kissed him, my hand winding in his hair to hold him still as I explored his mouth thoroughly.
I had a plan. No way was I going to let him sink back into the depression and self-blame of earlier. I’d distract him and exhaust him so he’d go straight to sleep when we were done.
Once in his room, the door was barely closed before we reached for one another. His hands were on my arse, pulling me against him, and he shuddered when I licked into his mouth. I loved how quickly I could get him going.
He had exactly the same effect on me, the merest touch of his fingers against my skin enough to stir arousal deep in my gut. His big hands moved over my back, tracing down my shoulder blades, fingers trailing light lines in the small of my back until I shivered. This was new to me, so different from all my past experiences. With Archer, sex didn’t feel like a race to get off. Neither did his teasing feel as if he wanted me to beg so he had the upper hand, unlike a few guys I’d slept with.
I broke our kiss so I could concentrate on unfastening the button of his jeans and sliding the zip down, very slowly, each snick of the metal teeth a counterpoint to our uneven breathing.
His cock was a hard line against the cotton of his briefs, and I couldn’t wait an instant longer. I sank down onto my knees andtugged his jeans down around his thighs before carefully easing his briefs down. God, his cock was beautiful and my mouth was watering with need.
But my plan to distract him stopped me from pushing my mouth down on it the way I wanted. I was going to make him come so hard he had no brains left. And that meant teasing.
I licked lightly up his cock using the very tip of my tongue, small licks tracing sinuous patterns but never reaching the head, where precum was beginning to well.
“Ollie.” It was almost a plea, a tone I hadn’t heard from him before.
I glanced up at him through my eyelashes, and his breath stuttered as he watched me, his lips parted and his eyes dark.
I wrapped my hand around the smooth skin of his cock and swirled my tongue over the head. He tasted sogood that I almost lost the will to keep teasing.Almost.This was for him, not for me.
I slid my mouth down on him very slowly, using just a hint of teeth, and his hands tightened in my hair. I glanced up again, my mouth full of delicious, hard, hot cock, and his chest was rising and falling so damn fast.
“Ollie,” he said again, his voice a croak.
I set to sucking him in earnest, and as I cupped his balls in my hand, he spread his legs to give me access. Another time, maybe I’d play with his arse, but I’d been with tops before who didn’t like that, and I wasn’t going to risk anything interrupting this. I knew him well enough by now to know he’d feel guilty and be apologetic if he asked me to stop, which made no sense when he was so decisive and commanding in everything else. His insistence on me articulating my full and freely given consent last night had been eye-opening.
But now wasnotthe time for thinking. Now was the time to work him in a rhythm that had him pushing into my mouth and gasping.
He wasn’t far off when I pulled off him, pressing a swift kiss against that gorgeous cock, wet with my spit, and looked up at him. “Mouth or arse?” I asked him.
To my amazement—and delight—Archer’s cheeks darkened. My God, after how thoroughly he’d fucked me last night, he was embarrassed by talking about sex?
He placed his hands on my shoulders, urging me to stand. “I don’t think you have any idea how you look, down on your knees like that, and I want you to suck me off very, very soon, but right now, I want to be touching you as you come.”
“So, arse?” I interpreted.
He punished my cheekiness with a kiss that left me panting and convinced I was going to come in my jeans before he even touched my cock.
After that, my brief reign of being the one in control was over. Archer laid me out on the bed and stripped me, though I managed to stop him long enough to retrieve a condom from my jeans. He took it from me, placing it on the nightstand and grabbing the bottle of lube instead.
