Page 40 of The Scent of the Ideal

Rafi did, tightening his hold first and exhaling shakily at the feel of it, the push and glide against his palm, the hot, heavy weight and the crush of Viau’s clothing that limited his motions. He inched closer and looked up to ask for kiss this time, which Viau gave him, sweet and then mean, doling them out as if they were rewards. But he was flushed and smiling, and his cock was in Rafi’s hand, so Rafi took each kiss and slowly grew damp between his thighs.

He made an embarrassingly petulant sound when Viau slid to his feet, but went quiet with equally embarrassing eagerness when Viau set about removing the rest of his clothes so that Rafi could now see and not just touch his naked body. Rafi stared at first, the sight and now the feel making his blood pound, but raised his head when Viau swept his curls from his face, probably trying to help Rafi see better.

For all that he was breathing harder and red in a surprisingly splotchy way around his neck and shoulders, Viau smiled at Rafi as though they were in their courtyard, covered in grass stains and Rafi had done well.

Rafi licked his lips. “You don’t need to be gentle.” Despite everything, he heard himself and worried he’d been rude. “Unless you want to,” he added foolishly. “I mean to say I remember what we did and how I liked it.”

Viau lightly held Rafi by the jaw and swept his thumb over Rafi’s cheek. “I know that you liked it,” he informed Rafi in a tone that put a deep, low shiver all through him, perhaps even through his aer, because Viau’s smile sharpened, more than pleased, more than smug. He continued to pet Rafi, as he seemed fond of doing. “Do you want that again? All of it? All of me?” Rafi was too heated to dissect that somewhat too mannerly language and stared blankly at Viau until Viau crooned something soft at him and nodded. “Who am I talking to?” he asked, apparently of himself. “You want it all. Everything. So greedy and so strong.”

Rafi shook himself from some of his lustful daze. “Greedy?”

Viau took the worry from him, pressing their foreheads together to whisper, “Greedy, the pair of us,” before issuing another politely firm order. “Lie down and I will give you what you want.”

Rafi’s shirt caught beneath him as he obeyed, riding up above his thighs once he was on his back—a problem Rafi abandoned when Viau settled on top of him. The light had faded. The candlelight was behind Viau. His face was shadowed as he leaned over Rafi, but his words nearly sparkled.

“Imagine, please: you have chased Cambray out of your room because you’ve brought someone back with you.”

Playing. It took Rafi too long to understand, but when he did, he reached up and Viau came down to him to be kissed. For the first moments, it still seemed playing.

That did not last long.

Kissing alone could get Rafi heated, it seemed. It never had before. Not like this, and he didn’t think the difference was the bed, although he liked that softness beneath him with Viau atop him, as if Rafi could not get away but also would never want to.

He was too hot in his shirt, which twisted more and more tightly around him. He growled for that but didn’t slow his wandering hands, enjoying the prickle of hair and the flex of muscle under his fingers when he grabbed and squeezed to hold Viau to him.

Perhaps too tight, Rafi thought, but didn’t slow or even try to gentle. Viau could wear his bruises, and if he wanted Rafi to stop, he would say so. Instead, he leaned down over Rafi to take charge of their kisses while Rafi groped his backside and the taut heat of his thighs, and when Rafi again found Viau’s cock, Viau bit Rafi’s lower lip and purred with all of miné’s pleasure.

There was no catching of breath. The bite hurt. Rafi didn’t care about either of those things. Viau shifted between his legs and not even the small trickle of wet that created could slow Rafi now. Viau’s stubble rubbed along his jaw, rough as a cat’s tongue. He parted Rafi’s thighs with deliberate slowness and then did nothing more than continue to grind down.

Rafi tangled Viau’s curls, gripped his shoulders, then bruised the skin over his ribs to encourage harder presses. Viau’s cock slid against his, then was gone. Deliberate as well; Viau kissed him through his growls and shivered when Rafi’s hold must have hurt but did not stop his teasing.

“I’m no storm cloud now,” Rafi finally told him, panting, arching from the bed and scowling when his own shirt wouldn’t let him. “There is nothing to wait for.”

“Something else you wanted, cat?” The change in pet name also felt calculated, Viau tossing it out while sucking and kissing Rafi’s collarbone. His aer was so hot and silky that Rafi nearly purred too to feel it rub against him as Viau himself did.

Cat, he thought, dizzy with the idea of being such a thing, this bed a cushion, Viau a gentle master.

“Will you…?” Rafi began, then caught himself. “You don’t wish to fuck me?” he asked instead of sillier questions, and startled at how quickly Viau raised his head. There was too much heat between them for Rafi to blush, but Rafi swallowed several more foolish realizations before trying again. “Fuck me.” Better to surprise, to take, to knock Viau off his feet. “I do not get especially wet outside of aedis. You’ll have to have my ass.” He couldn’t see the expression in Viau’s eyes but Viau’s stillness was loud. “Which is also what I want.”

Viau’s voice rasped. “There are….” He left that unfinished. “With perforis, I will do nearly anything to come, including stimulation there, although I am generally….” He left that unfinished as well, moving back onto his knees and then away from Rafi entirely.

He crossed the room to go to his desk, body there to be viewed as far as Rafi was concerned. Rafi didn’t even think to take the moment to remove his shirt, lying there with spring on his mind as he watched Viau in flickering candlelight. Maybe that was what kept him still and quiet when Viau returned. Viau pulled Rafi down the bed by his ankles and spread his legs, and Rafi shivered with it and didn’t once think to object.

He was instructed to grab a pillow and blindly reached for one, his shivers growing stronger when it was placed beneath him to put him in a position where his hips were tilted up. But Viau enjoyed staring at him, so Rafi kept his hands on his waist, slowly pushing the shirt up to bare more of himself, or perhaps simply to touch something when Viau’s slickened, warmly oiled fingers teased, then pressed.

No aedis. Rafi had to shudder through it, aware of everything and what an eager, starving tart he felt, writhing on Viau’s fingertips and pushing down when those fingertips were not enough. He breathed unevenly, finding he had to remind himself to, his senses focused on the intrusion.

Viau was deliberate there, too, but Rafi didn’t think it was caution as much as his joy in petting Rafi. Pets within him, intimate, deep strokes, a slight curl of his fingers, the brush of knuckles. He drew it out because he liked it, and Rafi, back arched, hands over his nipples, stared back at him and allowed it, and would swear the press was so good that his aer tingled.

Aedis could not offer that.

“Viau,” he said many times, low at first, and then louder. Then, just “Vi,” his teeth catching in his lip on the rest, a small, trapped moan instead of the name, but Viau shuddered and withdrew his fingers to push Rafi’s legs up. His hands were slick over Rafi’s, slapping them to Rafi’s thighs to tell him to keep them parted, and then he watched as he pushed his cock inside and Rafi shut his eyes to accept it.

Better than aedis, even with the strange shock of it. Rafi took it, took him, to the hilt, and then swallowed before opening his eyes. He suspected that in the light, Viau’s eyes would have been all black and focused on him, that his splotchy blush would be down his chest and barely hidden by the hair now a mess from Rafi’s hands.

Rafi opened and closed his hands, gasping silently as he accepted the beat of Viau’s heart inside of him, and then shifted to arch his back as much he could. Offering, asking—or daring, as the game went.

“Come on.” Rafi was so eager that the taunt was breathless.