Page 31 of The Scent of the Ideal

“I am not the one worrying.” Viau tutted at him as he pushed up his shirt to wash under his armpits and down his chest and stomach, then slowed his movements when he realized Rafi was watching. The last of the sunlight was showing through the windows, but not for much longer. Which was probably why Viau paused his bathing to go light a candle on his desk. “Too much?” he finally addressed Rafi’s concern. “Rafi, this is the sort of thing certain miné dream about—that, and a nice, tight hole.”

Rafi jumped, then felt the first trickle of wet between his legs. Viau might have done that on purpose. Rafi inched his hips forward, then back, trying to be comfortable but also scratch that internal itch.

He watched Viau cross to the windows, opening the panels at the bottom of each to welcome more of the night breezes. Viau stopped at his desk too, pulling out a pot of ink and a pen to make notations in an open book, and then to sort through a pile of letters that must have accumulated while he was gone.

He sat in the chair to read one of them, looking distinctly annoyed at whatever it said, then reached for the ink again, only to stop and turn to Rafi. He stilled when he found Rafi watching him, his lips parting as he noticed the tiny hitching motions Rafi couldn’t help.

His voice was rough when he spoke.

“Did you want me to undress you now, or did you want to wait? If you can blush, then I assume you want to remain clothed,” Viau added, eyes dark and expression serious. “Though how you can blush with your skin so hot, I don’t know. I would burst into flames.”

“Perforis,” Rafi argued, or hoped he argued, trying to defend himself.

Viau nodded as he considered that. “We do grow feverish. But I couldn’t tell you if I blush. I doubt it. I definitely don’t worry as you do. I might if there was someone to worry for, but perforis is not something I would go through with an innocent. And by myself, it’s unpleasant but not unlivable. A scowl for that, storm cloud? At the idea of me going through that alone, or are you irked I mentioned your blushes? I’m not complaining about them. I like them, very much, even though I also like when you’re shameless.” He dropped his gaze to Rafi’s restless hips and stared for several moments. He cleared his throat. “Maybe I should wait to undress you and let you undress yourself,” he said, sitting there in a loose shirt and nothing else as he watched Rafi grow hotter. His legs were bare and open with how he sat in the chair and Rafi thought he’d fit nicely between them, but that would involve walking on his shaky legs… unless he crawled. If he did, he’d stay that way, down on his knees. He was aware enough at the moment to know his efforts at cocksucking might be awkward, but also heated enough to want to try. But Viau was watching him, so Rafi dragged his gaze up to Viau’s face.

Viau seemed to know what Rafi had been thinking. “Or maybe I should undress you now and enjoy the sight of you while we wait. You’re already alight with it, even though I can see you hesitating, so I know you’re also not lost to it. Should we play a little this time? Would you like that?”

Rafi stared at him until his eyes burned. “Would you?” he asked incredulously, voice husky. He imagined himself naked on top of Viau’s bed, his mind not yet taken by aedis, and held in a moan, though he couldn’t control the messy, devastating pulse that followed.

Rafi put a hand over his cock as if that would hide how it stiffened, then Viau was back at the bed in a blink to loom over him and devour Rafi with his gaze alone.

“Oh.” Rafi realized the answer to his question in a faint voice, then stopped moving. “But your letters?”

Viau put a knee on the bed, and then his hands were on Rafi, cool against Rafi’s overheated skin as he tugged Rafi’s shirt up and tossed it away. Rafi let him, clinging to the back of Viau’s thighs at first, then putting his hands behind him on the bed to hold himself up when Viau shifted his attention to the rest of Rafi’s clothes.

He briefly left Rafi to bend down to deal with Rafi’s boots and socks, then popped back up to see to the swift removal of Rafi’s pants. Rafi had a feeling he blushed hotter than the midday sun, that his freckles were stark on his feverish face, but Viau smiled as he leaned over him to consider his handiwork.

Rafi’s body responded with a pulse and then a flutter, his cock jumping, the rest of him swollen and probably visibly wet.

Viau’s smile was sharp, hungry, and mean. He took a breath, wiped the smile away, and pushed on Rafi’s chest until Rafi was on his back. Then he settled on top of him, straddling Rafi’s thighs to look his fill.

Rafi didn’t know where to turn, not that he could. He moved his arms, then put them down. He tried to glance away but ended up glancing back, his gaze skittering over Viau’s face while Viau stared at his naked, aroused body. It took him far too long to realize Viau was aroused too. Despite that, Viau didn’t put a hand on him.

“Didn’t you look last time?” Rafi finally wondered breathlessly, then grunted in confused embarrassment when Viau slid backwards to free Rafi’s legs. But before Rafi could complain about that, Viau pushed Rafi’s legs up to put Rafi further on display, wide open with his knees bent.

“Not even the healers do that,” Rafi panted from behind his hands, covering his face.

Viau was rough and quiet.

“If you want, while you’re like this, I can answer your need to have something inside you. Not my cock yet,” he added when Rafi dropped his hands from his face in question. “You’ll want that later, and I’m only human. I meant fingers. Perhaps even all of them.” Viau still had not touched Rafi beyond arranging him so he could stare without shame at Rafi’s straining cock and glistening slick. “Help you peak a few times with my fist in you to leave you wrung out while you drift farther into aedis.”

Rafi’s thighs had gone heavy again. “In where?” It seemed a relevant question. He remembered taking Viau’s fingers before, but not all of them.

Viau forced his attention up to Rafi’s face. “Wherever you like.”

Rafi’s whining was quiet and persistent, strengthened by the creak of the mattress as his hips came up.

“Keep asking questions,” Rafi complained. The idea of Viau’s fist in him, anywhere, created a whole new ache. Aedis was heat, need, and emptiness, not thoughts. Viau was asking him to think. “I like when you take me from behind,” he said despite his whining and how he was blushing enough to burst into flame. “My ass,” he added, dripping with sweat and wet and wanting to squirm over it. Then he did squirm, because he could. “Makes me feel like a miné.”

Viau put a hand over Rafi’s hip to gently hold him down. “Do you want to be a miné?”

Rafi shook his head. “It’s different that way. Harder. You… you weren’t worried about the little nex.”

“You aren’t little,” Viau told him, smug about getting to say it. “And I didn’t know you then. Now, I do. Or, I know you better, and I can take you as hard as you like, however you like.” Rafi’s growl clearly pleased him. “Then I am going to get up to grab some oil to help with that, and you are going to lie here and be greedy.”

“All of your fingers?” Rafi panted, sliding his limbs over Viau’s soft bedding and curling in on himself when another pulse came, stronger and faster than before.

Viau returned to the bed to manhandle Rafi and uncurl his body, his shirt still on, his hair loose, a rumble in his chest he didn’t try to hide. “My whole fist, for you to feel each time your body flexes like that and makes you that much wilder. All of this,” he held up one hand, “or at least as many as you can comfortably take right now.”