“I can’t believe you…” He bit his lower lip while reading the dedication I’d inked on the title page. “This is the best present I’ve ever been given.” He stood and embraced me with exuberance. I held him close and whispered in his ear that I loved him. He responded in kind.
“I’m clearing my calendar,” he said, settling on the couch again.
“What about afternoon blowjobs?” It wasn’t a scheduled event, but we often fell into the habit.
“Cancelled.” He turned another page while licking his lips in anticipation. He did the same thing before sex and cigarettes.
“Can you at least read it naked?” I asked.
“If you make me some tea. Now, no more talking.”
I left Arden to it, returning a few minutes later with a cup of Earl Gray. Arden was naked, and it must have fulfilled some teenaged fantasy to see such a handsome man reading my very own book in the buff. If I were a painter, I’d surely attempt to recreate it.
I set the mug on the coffee table and ran a hand along Arden’s tanned inner thigh. He opened his legs absently, as though it were a trained response, and offered me a glimpse of his balls and half-hard cock. He made no motion to put the book down.
“I hope you’ve given Daphne and Nathan their happy ending,” he warned, not looking up from his page.
“And what if I haven’t?”
His eyes flashed up at me briefly, utterly annoyed. “They’ve been through so much, Michael. Having Nathan believe she was a murderer, sending her to jail only to exonerate her, the car accident inSnow Blind, and her abduction inVanishing Point. You were cruel to her, and Nathan had to endure it all.”
“I had to maintain tension.”
“You were a meanie.”
I chuckled at Arden’s inability to say anything more cutting than that. He went back to reading, and I gently caressed him until he was fully erect. I could still squeeze in an afternoon blowjob.
“She’d better not fall ill,” Arden said a few minutes later. He was chewing on his thumbnail.
“She does have a heart condition.”
Arden marked the page with his fingers and glowered at me. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I’m not going to ruin it for you.”
“Then I’ll have to skip to the end and read the final pages.”
“You’d better not.”
“Watch me.” He made a motion to do just that, so I laid my full weight on top of him, crushing the book between us.
“You’re an author’s worst nightmare.” I kissed the tip of his nose before retreating.
Arden smirked and opened the book again. “They’ve earned their happy ending.”
I agreed, which was why I’d given it to them, though I certainly wasn’t going to tell him that. I went back to petting Arden, and he shifted to give me a better angle.
“Let me suck you while you read,” I said.
“All right.” He spread his legs wider with one knee resting against the back of the couch and the other leg bent with the sole of his foot flush against the hardwood floor. I didn’t give nearly enough attention to his feet and calves, which were just as well-made as the rest of him. There simply wasn’t enough time in the day.
His positioning allowed me unencumbered access, and I took my time with it. He smelled of springtime and rain, like new green buds pushing through the damp earth in pursuit of the sun. I loved rousing him from milky white softness to a hard, blushing red. With Arden’s attentions divided, there wasn’t any urgency to my task, and I was able to lick and probe until my heart’s content. Between my smoking habit and thumb sucking long before that, I definitely had an oral fixation. And there were so many erogenous textures for my mouth to explore—the pebbled skin of his sac, his smooth, hairless taint, the curve of his glans, the bridge of his frenulum where I flicked my tongue relentlessly until Arden moaned aloud.
“You’re making it impossible for me to concentrate. I keep reading the same paragraph over and over,” he fussed.
“Read it aloud.”
Arden obliged. It was the bit where Nathan gets recalled by the local police force because there’s been another strangulation, but he doesn’t want to leave Daphne, still convalescing from her recent abduction, so he arranges for a meeting with the police at the lodge.
