10. Cleaning House #5
Miles froze, the muscles in his thigh snapping tight, but he didn’t recoil.
He cast a frantic, scandalized glance toward the swinging door before looking back, his expression a mix of panic and want.
“Gabriel,” he breathed, the protest trembling with a nervous laugh.
“We are in a kitchen with a crowd on the other side of a swinging door.”
“And the chef is gone,” Gabriel whispered, sliding out of his chair. He didn’t stand up. Instead, he sank to his knees on the flagstones under the table.
The floor was cold, smelling of lye soap and stone, but the space between Miles’s spread knees was warm. Gabriel shimmied forward.
“Gabriel,” Miles hissed, the sound strangled. His hands landed on Gabriel’s shoulders, fingers digging in. “Someone could come in.”
“Trata is busy.” Gabriel’s hands were already at Miles’s waist, deft fingers working the leather belt. “And no one else has permission to be here.”
“This is public indecency,” Miles whispered, though his hips betrayed him, shifting forward, tilting into Gabriel’s touch.
“It’s only public if you’re loud, darling.” The buckle gave way. Gabriel popped the buttons of the trousers, the sound harsh in the quiet kitchen. He peeled the fly open, revealing the white cotton of Miles’s underclothes. “So don’t be loud.”
He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of Miles’s underclothes and trousers together, and Miles’s hips rose to help.
He dragged them halfway down his thighs.
Miles’s cock sprang free, already half-hard, twitching with interest. It was a beautiful thing, thick and heavy, flushing red and damp at the tip.
Gabriel paused. He rested his cheek against Miles’s thigh, looking up. The angle made Miles look massive. His head was thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, hands carding into Gabriel’s hair, not pulling, but holding on for dear life.
The survivor in Gabriel needed to be sure. The silence stretched a beat too long .
“Miles,” Gabriel said, his voice dropping the playful affect. “Really no, or only play no?”
Miles opened his eyes. He looked down, his gaze hazy, landing on Gabriel’s face, then drifting to his own exposed lap, then to the door. He took a ragged breath. The rule-follower warred with the lover, and the lover won.
“Yes,” Miles breathed, a broken exhale. He scooted the chair back to give Gabriel more room. “Yes, dammit.”
Gabriel smiled, a flash of teeth in the dim light. “Good boy.”
He didn’t wait. He leaned forward and dragged his tongue up the underside of him, from the heavy sac to the weeping head. Miles’s hips bucked, his knees knocking against Gabriel’s shoulders as he groaned.
“Quiet,” Gabriel teased against the skin, swirling his tongue around the sensitive ridge of the glans. He took the head into his mouth, just the tip, sucking hard while his hand wrapped around the root of his cock.
He loved this control. He loved the way Miles unraveled. Miles, who could calculate Aetheric trajectories and dismantle magical constructs, was reduced to a shaking mess by the wet heat of Gabriel’s mouth.
Gabriel took him deeper, relaxing his throat, sliding down until his nose brushed the curls of hair at the base. He hummed, the vibration travelling straight through Miles’s cock.
Above him, Miles made a joyous, desperate sound, biting his own lip to stifle a moan. His fingers tightened in Gabriel’s hair, tugging just enough to make Gabriel moan in response.
Gabriel pulled back, gasping for air, leaving Miles’s cock slick and glistening.
He didn’t stop. He lowered his head, flicking his tongue against the frenulum and then dipping into the slit, treating it like a specialized lock he was picking.
With his free hand, he reached underneath, knuckles pressing firmly up into the taint, while his other hand tugged gently on Miles’s balls.
The triple assault was too much. Miles’s legs went rigid. He slammed a hand over his mouth, his back arching off the chair.
He sucked Miles down again, swirling his tongue, milking the shaft with his hand. He wanted everything Miles had: the stress, the fear, the magic, the pleasure.
Miles cried out—a muffled, broken noise behind his hand—and poured himself into Gabriel’s mouth .
Gabriel swallowed it all, drinking him, holding him through the aftershocks until the bucking hips stilled and Miles collapsed back into the chair, a panting wreckage.
For a long moment, the only sound was Miles’s ragged breathing and the distant, jaunty fiddle from the other room.
Gabriel pulled back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He smirked up at Miles, who looked thoroughly debauched, his hair falling out of its tie, his face flushed, eyes blown wide.
“Better?” Gabriel asked.
Miles blinked, slowly reassembling his reality. He looked at the door, then down at his pants around his knees, then at Gabriel. A slow, incredulous laugh bubbled up in his chest.
“You are a menace,” Miles whispered, though he lifted his hips obediently so Gabriel could pull his clothes back up.
Gabriel fastened the buttons and buckled the belt, smoothing the fabric down with a proprietary pat. “I am a dutiful partner providing stress relief.”
He slid out from under the table and got to his feet. His knees cracked, but he felt lighter.
“Besides,” Gabriel murmured, “I told you that first night here... I promised I’d make you feel so good you’d forget everything else exists.”
Miles let out a shaky exhale and stood. “I forgot the crowd on the other side of that door for a second there. I believe you have made good on that promise, my love.”
Gabriel leaned back with a theatrical stretch, rolling his shoulders like a cat who’d just consumed the canary, the cream, and possibly the entire dairy. “I believe,” he collected their empty plates with a flourish, “that was some of my finest work.”
Miles snorted, still glowing with soft, unraveled satisfaction as he gathered the wine glasses. “Your modesty continues to astound.”
“Modesty is for people who haven’t earned the right to brag.” Gabriel set the dishes in the sink. “I made you forget we were in a public kitchen. I made you forget your own name, judging by that delightful little whimper at the end.”
“I did not whimper.”
“You absolutely whimpered.” Gabriel turned, hip cocked against the sink.
He shifted his erection to be less conspicuous in his trousers while Miles banked the fire in the stove.
The ember light painted his profile in warm gold and shadow.
“It was adorable. Like a puppy, if the puppy was experiencing transcendent pleasure.”
Miles shot him a look that promised retribution, but the effect was somewhat undermined by the flush still high on his cheekbones and the loose, sated quality of his movements. He closed the damper on the stove, reducing the flames to a safe glow.
“Come here,” Gabriel said, crooking a finger. “You’ve made a disaster of my hair. Fix it.”
Miles approached and reached up to tidy Gabriel’s waves.
“Your lips look obscene.” Miles adjusted Gabriel’s collar, which had gone askew at some point.
“They’re always like that. It’s part of my considerable good looks.” Gabriel knew what Miles meant, though. He could feel the swollen heat of them, could imagine how red and used they must look. Anyone with eyes would know exactly what he’d been doing.
Gabriel smoothed down Miles’s waistcoat and helped him pull on his coat. Miles still glowed with post-orgasm satisfaction, heavy-lidded eyes, relaxed mouth, a certain liquid ease to his posture that anyone who knew him would recognize.
He didn’t care. Let the whole Bent know what they had.
His gaze fell on the remaining wine bottle, the red, the good Sunmere vintage he’d liberated from the cellar. It sat on the counter, unopened.
“We’re not leaving that behind,” Gabriel grabbed the bottle, holding it out to Miles. “Hide this under your coat. You’re bulkier.”
Miles stared at the bottle, then at Gabriel, his expression caught between exasperation and reluctant amusement. “You’re making a criminal of me.”
“I’m expanding your horizons.”
“My horizons don’t need expanding.” But Miles took the bottle anyway, tucking it into a large inner pocket of his caster’s coat, where it created an obvious bulge. “This is ridiculous. I’m paying for it regardless.”
“Then it’s not really theft, is it?” Gabriel watched Miles pull a handful of coins from his pocket—more than enough to cover dinner, the wine, and probably a generous tip besides—and leave them in a small pile on the counter.
“I was right the first time: menace,” Miles said, but he was smiling .
They pushed through the swinging door into the wall of noise and heat that was the common room.
The fiddle had given way to someone attempting a bawdy ballad, the lyrics filthy enough to make Gabriel raise an appreciative eyebrow.
The crowd had swelled since they’d retreated to the kitchen; every table was packed, and patrons lined three deep at the bar.
Heavy gazes tracked them as they wove through the throng. A woman at the bar tracked Miles’s progress with undisguised appreciation, her eyes lingering on his broad shoulders.
Gabriel’s hand found Miles’s waist, fingers curling possessively into the fabric of his coat.
Then Gabriel caught her eye, his smile sharp enough to cut glass.
He didn’t just let her look; he invited it.
With deliberate, languid precision, he flicked the tip of his tongue out to swipe the corner of his mouth, drawing her gaze straight to the swollen, bitten-red ruin of his lips.
He tightened his grip on Miles’s waist, hauling the oblivious mage flush against his side.
Mine. The woman raised a brow and lifted her tankard in a lazy shrug of concession.
Miles glanced down at him, one eyebrow raised, but he didn’t pull away. If anything, he leaned into the contact, his own arm coming up to drape across Gabriel’s shoulders.
They reached the stairs and started to climb, leaving the noise behind. The landing was empty, the upper floors quiet. Gabriel made it three steps before Miles’s hand tightened on his shoulder, spinning him around.
The kiss caught him off guard. Miles’s mouth was hot and demanding, and he pressed Gabriel back against the wall. Gabriel made a sound that was definitely not a whimper, his hands fisting in Miles’s coat.
“That,” Miles murmured against his lips, “was for calling me a puppy.”
“Worth it,” Gabriel gasped.
They staggered up another few steps, mouths still connected.
Gabriel’s shoulder blade connected with the wall; Miles’s hip knocked against the banister.
Neither of them cared as they half-staggered, half-danced up the two flights and down the hall to their room, stifling laughter like drunken youths.
Gabriel fumbled in his pocket for the key, his fingers clumsy and uncooperative. Miles wasn’t helping, his lips tracing a path down Gabriel’s throat, teeth grazing the tender skin over his pulse.
“Key,” Gabriel managed. “I need—stop that—I need to concentrate.”
“You broke into a wine cellar in under a minute,” Miles reminded him, breath warm against Gabriel’s ear. “Surely you can manage a door with a key.”
The lock clicked. The door swung inward, and they tumbled through. Miles kicked it shut behind them. Gabriel’s hand found the lock by memory, throwing the bolt.
He pushed Miles’s coat from his shoulders and let it hit the floor. The wine bottle inside gave a heavy thunk. It popped free of its pocket and rolled somewhere under the bed, but Gabriel was too distracted to care.
Miles pulled him close, backing them toward the bed, his hands working at the buttons of Gabriel’s coat. They fell onto the mattress in a tangle of limbs and half-removed clothing, mouths seeking each other in the darkness.