17. Purple on a Blank Canvas
PURPLE ON A BLANK CANVAS
LEV
T he curtain of disbelief finally fell from Asher’s face. “You feel the same way.”
It wasn’t a question, but Lev nodded anyway. “Yes.”
He should have said no. He should have taken everything back, because claiming Asher was condemning him.
Even if their chemistry never fizzled, if their mutual obsession grew into something more, their ending would never be a happy one. Fifteen years separated them. But the devil Lev knew, the one that lurked inside, was better than whatever devil had left Asher so jaded.
Lev didn’t believe in fate, but he couldn’t deny the cosmic symmetry. In a population of billions, how had they found each other? It was almost as if art was a matchmaker that had brought them together.
So when Asher grabbed him by the lapels and hauled him close enough to kiss, Lev didn’t protest, and when Asher licked the seam of his lips, Lev opened his mouth and submitted.
Asher kissed him with a bruising intensity, punishing him with a nip to his bottom lip before he plunged back in again.
It was a kiss that said I hate that I want you, and I want to hate you, but I like you too much.
It was a kiss that could have been tender, perhaps should have been, but that wasn’t them.
They were an earthquake, a wildfire, a tornado, a tsunami. They were a natural fucking disaster. Doomed from the start. It wasn’t just a kiss. It was a kiss in the face of grim acceptance, the last kiss before battle, the last kiss before the gallows.
Lev raked his fingers through the midnight waves at the base of Asher’s skull, and tilted his head back to break their kiss. God, he was beautiful like this—hazel eyes hidden behind hooded lids, flushed lips curving into a grin.
Asher’s smile slipped. “You’re not going to ask me to tell you to stop, are you?”
“Definitely not,” Lev said, breathless and spellbound. “You kissed me before I could apologize. I’m so sorry for scaring you, for destroying your art, for every wretched thing I’ve done. How can I make this right?”
Asher licked his decadent lips, and yanked the bottom of Lev’s blazer. “Take this off. I hate it. The shirt too.”
Laughing, Lev slipped out of his jacket, and tossed it on an empty pew. “I’ll never wear it again.”
“Good.” Asher backed away, and curled his finger, luring Lev toward the exit, a bold dormouse turning predator to prey. “Come here.”
“Smart thinking. The things I want to do to you are far too sinful for church.” Lev’s cock hardened as he freed the first button from his shirt. “Then again, what better place for me to worship you than here?”
Asher’s Adam’s apple bobbed on a swallow. “Jesus, Lev.”
Lev clicked his tongue twice. “Language, Blakely. Taking the Lord’s name in church?”
“I wouldn’t cast the first stone if I were you. False idolatry is a sin.”
“I could accuse you of the same.” Lev unfastened the second button, and the third, giving Asher a head start. “ Besides, I don’t believe in God, or at least not the one this church was built for.”
He’d choose hell over spending eternity with a deity whose senseless actions indicated he was impotent, or cruel.
“There are some things I believe in, however.” Lev took a single step forward.
“What?” Asher asked, retreating further.
“Art.” He slipped another button free. “Justice.” Another button. “The tide.” Another button. “You.”
“Me?” Asher veered off course, straying from the door.
Lev let him. The church, for all its sins, was one of the few places he could worship Asher properly without Silas interrupting.
“Yes, Blakely. You. I thought I’d made that abundantly clear.”
“It’s just…” Asher nibbled his bottom lip. “I’m no one. You’ve done so much. I don’t deserve?—”
“And you think I do?”
“Yes,” Asher said, nodding fervently.
Oh, to be young and idealistic. “I’m afraid you’re wrong about that.”
Asher opened his mouth to argue.
“I’m nobody’s hero, but perhaps one day, I’ll become the man you think I am.”
Lev ripped the rest of his shirt open, sending the last two buttons skittering across the dusty floor, and surged forward to catch Asher before he bumped into the wall.
“Lost again, little dormouse?”
Asher scowled. “This time doesn’t count. You’re too distracting.” Black lashes fanned his cheeks as he looked Lev’s chest up and down. “You’re so hot.”
Lev started to laugh, but it died in his lungs when Asher touched him just above his trousers. No one had touched him there in five years. Five years.
Fear seized him. What if their chemistry was nothing more than a mirage forged by loneliness? What if their connection dissolved once they fucked? What if Asher was another fixation and Lev broke his heart?
Asher’s hands stilled. “Are you okay?”
Lev forced a smile. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You stopped breathing.”
“I apologize.”
Asher’s eyes narrowed. His hand dropped. “You can’t apologize for not breathing. What’s wrong?”
“Please don’t stop.” Lev returned Asher’s hand to his abs. “I hadn’t realized how much I missed the touch of another until now.”
Asher appraised him, sympathy shadowing his eyes instead of the suspicion Lev feared. “Okay.”
“Thank you.” Lev exhaled a shuddering sigh.
Asher traced the lines of Lev’s six-pack upward, growing bolder as he traveled toward his sternum.
“I can’t believe this is real,” Asher said.
“Nor can I.”
Asher squeezed his pecs and rubbed his thumbs over his nipples. Lev shivered, a good shiver, one that made more room for his heart inside his chest, that had him pressing his heart forward, seeking Asher’s touch.
Without words, Asher understood, flattening his palm over his heart. Lev lost all reservations at the gesture, lost all fear that this wasn’t real, because it had to be. How could another person understand him so uniquely?
Lev gripped Asher’s arse and swept him off his feet, and again, Asher understood, looping his arms around Lev’s neck and hooking his legs around his waist to anchor them together.
Capturing Asher’s mouth in a kiss, Lev pressed him against the wall. Asher grunted, tongue stalled. Lev should have been more careful.
“Sorry. ”
But Asher only entwined his legs tighter, cinching their cocks closer. Then, he rolled his hips and thrusted against the place they were connected, showering Lev’s spine in sparks.
Lev had never been so keyed up, never felt so out of control. Not yesterday. Never with Silas. Not even the day he’d killed him.
Asher was different.
While Lev had loved Silas like the brother he wasn’t and the lover he was, they’d been forced together by circumstance. Lev had never had a choice. But he’d chosen Asher.
He needed to focus on the present, the living, breathing miracle in his hands, the olive skin and rosy cheeks whispering vitality, the hazel eyes of endless depths, not pale blue turned milky, sallow skin lifeless. No, he couldn’t think about that.
Only now. Only Asher.
Lev stroked Asher’s neck, soothed by the pulse fluttering beneath his skin, and kissed a path down to test Asher’s heartbeat with his tongue, but it wasn’t enough.
He needed to leave a mark, one that would blossom, then fade, not linger in death. He nipped a soft bite, and sucked hard, forcing the blood from Asher’s capillaries, and a bruise into his skin. He couldn’t wait to see the first splotch of purple on a blank canvas.
Asher didn’t protest. He didn’t flinch. He went boneless. Fuck me. Asher would make a good little pet.
Leaving his lips there, Lev murmured, “I’m sorry. I’ll kiss it better.”
He released Asher’s neck and pulled back to examine him. His pupils had blown wide, like Silas’s had, but Asher’s wouldn’t remain that way.
Dazed, Asher reached for his neck and traced the indented bite mark encircling flesh flushed burgundy, shining with saliva. He removed his hand and looked at his fingers. Lev watched, enthralled, as Asher lifted his fingers to his mouth and sucked.
It was a wonder Lev didn’t come on sight alone. He snatched Asher’s hand from his mouth and brought it to his own, lapping their mixed saliva from his fingers. Lev needed to taste him everywhere, suck his dick until he came, then feed his cum back to him, fuck it into his hole with his tongue.
“What are you thinking?” Asher asked.
“Depraved things, Blakely. If only you knew.”
“Show me.”
“Get your feet back on the ground,” Lev said. “I’m going to die if you don’t give me your come.”
Asher hastened to comply, sliding down Lev’s front with delicious friction like he was dismounting a horse. Once he was sure Asher was stable on his feet, Lev sank to his knees, and unzipped Asher’s jeans. He was naked underneath.
Lev’s belly swooped. Butterflies. His protégé had given him butterflies.
“Was this for me?” Lev asked.
Asher shrugged one shoulder. His dimples twitched. “Maybe.”
“Such a precious gift you are, and look how I’ve treated you.” Lev sat back on his heels and looked up. “I’m sorry.”
“Show me.”
Lev tugged Asher’s jeans down with impatient fingers. Like his hands and feet, Asher’s cock was big for his already lanky frame, virile bollocks heavy in Lev’s hand.
“My, my, aren’t you perfect?”
Asher inhaled sharply, eyes slamming shut.
“You like to be praised,” Lev said.
“Yes,” Asher breathed.
“Look at me.”
Asher’s eyes flickered open.
“Good lad.”
Asher whimpered.
Lev’s mouth watered as he gave Asher’s cock an exploratory jerk that milked a fat drop of precum from his tip. He swiped it with his tongue, savoring it like the first hit of a drug.
They both moaned.
“You taste even better than I imagined last night,” Lev said.
“Last night when I heard you come, I wanted to ask for a taste.”
Lev groaned. “I wish you would have.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll get your chance soon.” In a sexy antithesis to their age difference, Asher fisted his fingers in Lev’s hair and dragged him onto his cock.
Bloody hell.
Lev tracked each facial expression of ecstasy as he swirled his tongue around Asher’s glans, and toyed with the frenulum under his crown, reaching one hand back to squeeze Asher’s arse cheek, fingertips tracing a line down his crack.
Asher stroked Lev’s head like a beloved pet. “Fuck, Lev. You feel so…” His legs trembled.
Lev moved his hand to Asher’s hips and pushed his top up enough to get it out of the way as he worked Asher’s dick in his fist and sucked.
Asher’s hold on Lev’s hair tightened. The pain ratcheted Lev’s desire. He granted Asher all control, gagging as Asher rutted into his mouth.
Jesus Christ. To be used like that… Fuck.
Filthy sucking sounds filled the church as Asher fucked his way deeper into the tight hold of his throat.
Lev relaxed his throat and did his best attempt to be an empty hole. He lost himself in Asher’s ministrations, eyes glazed with tears, but remaining ever faithful on Asher’s face, showing him how much he wanted him, how much he loved this, how good of a boy he was.
His own cock was a painful rod straining against his slacks. He wanted to touch himself. He wanted relief, but he’d be good. This wasn’t for him, even if he was enjoying it so much it might as well have been .
Asher’s hoodie slipped down, covering Lev’s face, and as much as he relished the objectification, he needed to see Asher’s face, to know he was okay, to know he was safe. He pushed Asher’s hoodie up again. He wanted to inhale all of Asher’s gasps, catalog every facial expression of ecstasy, he?—
Ice dumped into his bloodstream. All the keys smashed down on the piano of his pulse. He choked on the cock in his throat.
A sea serpent snaked around Asher’s navel, scales writhing in cadence with Asher’s fast breaths as it swallowed its tail, a mirror image of the one he’d drawn on Silas.
What the fuck?
Silas’s earlier words echoed inside Lev’s head— He’s perfect for us.
Lev’s gaze raced across what little of Asher’s toned abs was visible. Art marked nearly every inch. Only Lev’s art.
He pushed hard against Asher’s thighs and fell backward onto his tailbone, wincing at the pain and quite sure he’d left Asher with a handful of ginger hair.
“What’s—oh, fuck.” Asher’s frightened face contorted in shame. “Wait. I can explain.”
Lev’s vision tunneled. He scrambled to his feet and staggered backward, nearly tumbling heel over arse when the back of his legs slammed into the charred husk of a pew. He righted himself, legs swaying as if he were aboard a distressed ship about to sink.
“This was a mistake.” Lev fled like the coward he was.