Chapter 17 Crimson Snow #2
I kissed him back like I was dying. Like he was the only air left in the world. Pressed him against the bathroom wall and felt his hands fist in my shirt and made a sound I didn't recognise as my own voice.
“Not here.” Art gasped against my mouth. “Not... there's a bed. My room has a bed.”
“Yeah?” I couldn't stop kissing him long enough to form proper sentences. His jaw. His neck. The soft skin behind his ear that made him whimper. “That an invitation?”
“It's a statement of fact that happens to be relevant to our current situation.”
I laughed. Actually laughed, chest light in a way it hadn't been in years. “Lead the way, then.”
We stumbled out of the bathroom together, hands not quite letting go, sneaking through corridors we both knew by heart. Past the library. Past Finch's office, dark and empty. Up the narrow stairs to Art's attic room where snow was already piling on the skylight.
He fumbled with the door. I pressed up behind him, mouth on his neck, and felt him shudder.
“That's not helping,” he managed.
“Wasn't trying to help.”
The door finally gave. We tumbled through together, and Art kicked it shut behind us, and then there was nothing but the two of us and the quiet and the snow falling soft against the glass above.
He looked at me in the dim light. Uncertain now that we'd stopped moving. “I should warn you. I've never... this isn't something I've...”
“I know.” I cradled his face in my hands. “We'll figure it out together.”
“What if I do it wrong? What if I'm too much or not enough or—”
I kissed him quiet. Gentle this time. Patient.
“You're exactly right,” I said against his mouth. “You're bona. And I want you. All of you. Even the parts you think are too much.”
His breath caught. Something in his expression shifted, wonder replacing fear.
“Then have me,” he whispered. “Please. Have all of me.”
So I did.
He clung to me, glasses askew, mouth hungry and wet beneath mine.
I kissed him until he made that desperate sound again—the one I wanted to memorize, the one I’d chase through hell just to hear once more.
My hands slid into his hair, dragging him closer, fingers carding through the soft strands, palms cradling the shape of his skull.
“God, Art,” I breathed against his lips, my voice rough with want. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
“Show me,” he whispered, voice trembling. “Please. I want—I need—”
I pressed my body to his, letting him feel exactly what he did to me. My cock throbbed, straining uselessly against wool, every inch of me desperate to get closer. I rocked against him, slow and filthy, grinding him back against the door, swallowing every gasp, every whimper.
His hands skated over my back, frantic and searching, sliding beneath my coat and jacket, bunching my shirt in his fists. His touch burned through the fabric, lighting me up from the inside. I wanted more—more contact, more skin, more of him everywhere.
I pulled back just enough to see him. His cheeks were flushed, lips swollen, eyes glassy with want. I wanted to tell him he was beautiful, wanted to worship him with every filthy word and reverent touch, but all that came out was his name, ragged and raw.
He pulled me down into another kiss, deep and messy, teeth clashing, tongues tangling. He tasted like longing, like every secret I’d never dared say out loud. I pressed kisses to his jaw, his cheekbones, the hollow beneath his ear, loving the way he shivered every time my mouth found new territory.
I let my hands wander, tracing his collar, the line of his throat, thumbs pressing gently over the flutter of his pulse. I tugged his scarf loose and mouthed along the exposed skin, leaving damp trails, biting down just hard enough to make him gasp and arch into me.
His hips never stopped moving, rolling against mine, chasing friction.
My hand found his waist, sliding up under his cardigan, heat radiating through thin cotton.
I flattened my palm against his belly, feeling it jump beneath my touch, then drifted higher, mapping his ribs, learning the shape of him.
He grabbed at me with greedy hands, tracing every muscle, fingers digging into my sides, my back, everywhere he could reach. I wanted to let him take, to let him own me, but I couldn’t stop touching, couldn’t stop devouring. I wanted him ruined, undone, a trembling mess in my arms.
We stumbled to the bed, collapsing in a tangle of limbs, still half-dressed, every movement slow and hungry and desperate. I rolled him beneath me, hips pinning him, grinding down so he could feel the weight, the promise in every flex of muscle, every throb of need.
His hands slid under my shirt, fingers icy at first, then blazing hot as they traced the scars on my back, my ribs. The sensation was almost too much—too intimate, too real—but I let him touch, let him learn, let him see the map of old wounds and want that made me.
He tugged me down, mouths crashing together again, our bodies rutting slow and filthy through layers, every movement stoking the fire higher. My breath shuddered against his lips, my hands finding every place he trembled and lingering there, savoring every soft, broken sound.
“Tell me you want this,” I rasped, voice shaking as I held myself just above him, searching his eyes for any flicker of doubt.
“I want you,” he said, fierce and certain, his hands fisting in my shirt to pull me down. “I want all of it—all of you. Please, Tom.”
That undid me. I kissed him like I’d die if I stopped, mapped his body with greedy hands, pressed my palm between his legs and felt him buck into me, desperate and unashamed.
“Let me make you feel good,” I whispered into his hair, mouth pressed to his temple, voice cracking with how much I meant it. “Let me take care of you. Let me be yours, just for tonight.”
His answer was a strangled, “Yes. Please. God, yes,” and it broke something open inside me.
So I let go. Let myself want. Let myself worship.
Hands wandering, mouth greedy, hips grinding. Breathless confessions pressed to skin, filthy promises groaned into the hollow of his throat. I wanted him wrecked and safe, cherished and claimed, my name on his lips and my mark on his skin.
Art lay beneath me, flushed and trembling, and for a long moment he just stared — like he couldn’t believe I was real, like he was afraid I’d disappear if he moved too fast.
Then he reached for me.
Slowly. Hesitantly. As if requesting permission with every inch of his hand’s ascent.
“Let me…” he whispered, voice barely a breath.
I nodded, swallowed hard, and sat back onto my knees so he could touch me.
His fingers brushed my collar, tentative at first, then growing bolder when I didn’t flinch away.
He smoothed the fabric of my shirt where it had twisted, then slid both hands up to my shoulders, palms warm even through the fabric.
He tugged gently, drawing me closer until I bent over him again, our foreheads almost touching.
“Let me see you,” he murmured.
My throat went tight.
No one had asked that of me in years. Not like this. Not with reverence instead of curiosity. Not with hunger softened by awe.
I nodded again.
His hands moved carefully, almost shakily, pushing my suspenders off my shoulders.
The elastic snapped lightly against my sides, and he sucked in a breath as if the small sound affected him.
Then he reached for the first button of my shirt, undoing it with painful slowness — his fingertips brushing skin each time the fabric shifted.
I watched him. Because I couldn’t not. His concentration was devastating — brows drawn, lips parted, pupils huge behind fogged lenses. He handled each button like it was something precious. Like undressing me was a privilege.
By the time he reached the last button, my hands were shaking.
He slid the shirt open, fingers ghosting down my sternum, over the ridges of muscle, the dusting of hair. His breath hitched when the fabric fell away from my shoulders entirely. Cold air rushed over my skin — then his hands followed, warm, grounding, reverent.
“Oh,” he whispered, eyes going dark and soft all at once. “Tom…”
He touched me like I was a poem he’d only ever read in fragments. Like he’d spent months imagining the rest.
His fingertips traced my scars first — the thin ones, the jagged ones, the places where I still felt phantom burns or phantom pain. He didn’t ask about any of them. Didn’t need to. He just followed them like a map, breathing slowly, reverently.
“Does it hurt?” he asked quietly, his finger brushing one that carved faintly along my ribs.
“Not anymore.”
He nodded, eyes glassy with something tender and fierce. “You survived,” he murmured. “All of this — and you survived.”
My heart clenched.
His hands slid upward, palms smoothing over my chest. His thumbs brushed my nipples — a soft, accidental pass — and my breath punched out of me. He froze, eyes darting up to mine.
“Is that…” His voice trembled. “Is it all right?”
“Do it again.”
He did.
Hell, I nearly came undone right there.
His thumb circled, slow, experimental, and I groaned — low, involuntary, sinful. Heat shot through me. My cock throbbed against my trousers. Art looked stunned by the reaction, like he’d unlocked something sacred.
He leaned in, breath brushing my chest, and kissed the place just beside my nipple — gentle at first, then firmer when he felt the way I shuddered.
“Christ, Art…”
He made a small, desperate sound and kept going — lips tracing the ridge of my pec, tongue flicking lightly over one nipple before his mouth closed around it, careful but eager.
My hand flew to the back of his head, not to push, but to anchor myself.
He moaned at the contact — the vibration rippling through me so sharply I gasped.
He dragged his mouth lower, then back up, then across to the other side, lavishing the same slow, aching attention on the other nipple until my thighs trembled with the effort not to grind down on him.