9. Through a Painting #2
Lev shook his head and sighed. “I’m sorry. The truth is, you’re far too easy to fancy, and I don’t want to fancy you.”
Lightning flashed. Lev let the thunder pass before continuing.
“I wish I could say that if I’d known how tempting you’d be, I wouldn’t have invited you, but that’s not true.
I’m a selfish arsehole, a wretched wraith of a man.
Every moment I spend away from your canvas pains me, and even though I have no right to you, I can’t bear the thought of Theo touching you. ”
Asher shivered as goosebumps sparked across his skin. “You fancy me?”
“I said you’re easy to fancy.” Lev’s swift hand lifted toward Asher’s head.
Asher flinched, shoulders cinching to his ears. But Lev didn’t hit him. He tested Asher’s temperature with the back of his hand and examined him head to foot with a growing frown. “No fever, yet you tremble so.”
“I’m fine.”
But that wasn’t true. He’d skipped the lamb Luna had served for dinner.
The next flash of lightning gave little warning of the thunder that followed. Asher jumped and teetered on tired legs.
“Easy there, lad.” Lev rushed forward and gripped his hips.
The urge to press his nose into the center of Lev’s chest and inhale the jasmine and pepper in his cologne was as terrifying as it was compelling.
“I’ve got you,” Lev said in a soothing hush.
Asher’s gaze dipped to where Lev still touched him before rising to sincere cerulean eyes emanating concern.
“Are you sure you’re alright? I couldn’t help but notice how little you ate at dinner.”
“You’re tracking my eating habits?” He hated how petulant he sounded.
“I fret.”
“Do you fret about the other artists?”
“The other artists eat their food.”
Asher’s family had never noticed how little he ate when stressed, but they’d noticed when he’d stopped eating beef on slaughter day, then stopped eating beef at all.
Thunder cracked. Again, Asher flinched.
Lev clicked his tongue twice in a sympathetic tone. “What am I going to do with you?”
“I…”
“Hm?” Lev prodded, stroking the sharp ridge of Asher’s iliac crest with his thumb, shunting Asher’s blood southward with each pass and extinguishing what little remained of his common sense.
Leviathan Marks was touching him. Not to steady him. Not to seduce him. No. He was touching him with the casual intimacy of absentmindedness.
He wanted Lev to kiss him, to edge his thumb down inside his pants instead of over them.
Scratch that. He wanted Lev to pop the button of his pants and shove his hand inside his boxer briefs.
He wanted Lev to palm his cock, weigh the heft of his balls, jerk him until he came in only a few pumps because he was so keyed up.
Asher raked his teeth over his bottom lip, a futile attempt at self-flagellation forgotten as Lev’s eyes dipped to his mouth .
“Please,” Asher said.
“Such manners, Blakely. But for what do you wish?”
“I don’t know.” He wanted everything Lev would give him as much as he wanted to sever the magnetic connection between them.
Lev released him. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
“Good. I’d hate to throw you over my shoulder and cart you back to your room.”
The image that scenario projected was far more tantalizing than it should have been; his front hanging down Lev’s strong back, Lev locking Asher’s legs against his chest and rubbing his ass, promising to reward him if he behaved.
“Why did you run from me tonight?” Lev asked, drawing him from his fantasy.
Asher opened his mouth?—
“I’m not asking about Ben,” Lev interrupted. “I’m asking why you ran .”
“I get panic attacks.”
As if Lev had summoned the truth with a spell, the confession escaped Asher’s lips before he could catch it, and for some inexplicable reason, he didn’t regret it.
He trusted Lev not to judge him, even when every other man in his life had.
Even when men were supposed to bottle their fears until they exploded, because men could be angry, as long as they were brave.
“I see,” Lev said.
Asher looked at his feet and begged the ocean to swallow him. I see ? Benign apathy was only slightly better than if he’d laughed at his vulnerability.
Lev pinched Asher’s chin gently and forced his gaze up. “Listen to me. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. We’re all mere mortals subject to the scars of circumstance and the whims of brain chemistry. Understood?”
Asher tried to look away, but Lev trapped his chin. The empathy in his eyes was too much. Asher wanted to smash his eyes shut.
“I asked you a question,” Lev said. “Do you understand?”
What? Oh. “Yes, sir.”
“Good lad.”
Asher swallowed, the soft muscles of his lower jaw pushing against the fingers Lev still perched beneath his chin.
Lev’s gaze fell to Asher’s neck, then settled on his mouth. Asher wet his bottom lip. Did Lev want to taste him?
Electricity thrummed in Asher’s chest as the silence stretched.
Lightning forked through the sky in the window over Lev’s shoulder. Thunder cracked right overhead, rattling the tower and rumbling through them.
Again, Asher jumped, too hopped up on adrenaline and Lev’s attention.
Lev tightened his grip on Asher’s hip and inclined his mouth toward his ear. “Are you afraid of thunderstorms?”
They were so close that when Asher shook his head, his cheek met Lev’s lips. Asher froze on the precipice of a cliff, ready to leap into the depths of Lev’s soul, waiting for Lev to take his hand, to drag him back from the edge or jump with him.
“We can’t do this,” Lev said.
“I know.”
“Tell me to stop.” Lev pulled back and leaned his forehead against Asher’s. “Please, tell me to stop.”
“I don’t want to. Do you ?”
Lev shook his head, brushing their lips together, a silent no, a kiss that wasn’t. “We’re breaking my rule.”
“Mine too.”
“We shouldn’t,” Lev said, lungs filling until their chests connected.
Lev was just playing the role of a gentleman torn between his morals and lust. But Asher didn’t care when they were so close he tasted the scotch on his breath and felt his heart beating against his chest.
“We won’t,” Asher agreed.
Lev pressed his thumb against Asher’s lower lip, peeled it down, and licked the length of it.
Fuck .
Seizing the opportunity to suck whatever part of Lev he had access to, Asher curled his tongue around his thumb, and sucked.
Lev’s moan rippled through him. “Don’t tempt me, Blakely.”
“What would you do if I tempted you?” Asher said, then swirled his tongue around Lev’s thumb again, and flicked the underside with the tip of his tongue like it was a cock.
“I’d turn you over and lick and scissor you open until you were ready to take me.”
Asher’s stomach swooped. “ Oh my God. ”
Lev laughed roguishly and kissed the corner of his mouth like it didn’t count if it wasn’t on his lips.
Lightning flashed. Lev’s lips lowered to Asher’s jaw, and lower still, to his neck, beard sandpapering sensitive skin as he descended.
Thunder followed several neck kisses later. Lev looked up, scanning Asher’s face as if to check that he wasn’t afraid, and Asher felt something very dangerous then.
He felt safe.
Lev bowed his head, returning his attention to Asher’s neck. Asher tilted his head back until it touched the stone wall, granting him more access. But it wasn’t enough for Lev. He hooked his fingers inside Asher’s shirt and tugged it aside to kiss the hollow above his clavicle.
Asher tensed. He couldn’t risk Lev seeing the tattoo inked over his heart. Vicing Lev’s face between his hands, he pulled him toward his mouth. They met in the middle, tongue against tongue, and that wasn’t a kiss, was it ?
No, they were studying each other’s anatomy so they could paint each other later. That’s what Asher told himself as his fingers found Lev’s blazing skin and roamed the ridges of his abs.
Lev hid his face in Asher’s neck. “Do you think it’s possible to fall in love through a painting?”
Asher nodded, tongue tangled with emotion, words too difficult to express. How could he explain that he’d loved Lev like that for years? Maybe that type of love was limerence, a crush more than a connection, but it was still real.
“Good lad. I knew you’d understand.”
His praise was a drug, one hit and he was addicted to the point of recklessness, hauling Lev closer and gyrating his hips, grinding against an erection as intimidating as the rest of him.
“Christ. You make me feral,” Lev buried a moan in Asher’s neck, rocking his hips in tandem.
Tingling ecstasy sparked at the base of his spine. His eyes fell shut. He was so close. If they came like this with clothes between them, that didn’t count either, right?
Lev’s hand slipped beneath Asher’s shirt. A rough thumb grazed his nipple. His balls lifted.
“What’s this?”
Asher froze, eyes opening to find Lev lifting his shirt.
The threat of discovery was like diving into frigid water. “No.”
Lev dropped his hands and stepped backward, cleaving them apart.
“Asher, I’m sorry.” Lev reached out and stopped, then backed away, putting more distance between them. “I shouldn’t have… Fuck. Are you all right?”
The tower spun. Reality set in.
What had he done?
This was Ben all over again. But worse.
Asher darted to the right and rushed past Lev, their shoulders not quite touching, just the shudder of displaced atoms.