26. The Huntress and the Trap
THE HUNTRESS AND THE TRAP
ASHER
F or someone who’d just hooked up with another guy for the first time in five years, Lev didn’t look very satisfied.
“What’s wrong?” Asher pushed off the table and turned around.
“I hurt you here.” Lev traced light fingertips over Asher’s right flank. “I should have been more gentle with you.”
Asher bit his lip to stifle the hiss of pain that threatened to escape, but he couldn’t hide his flinch.
“You didn’t hurt me. That happened in Theo’s room.”
Lev’s glacier eyes turned murderous.
“I don’t need to be avenged,” Asher rushed to add. “I bumped into the bathroom counter.”
Lev’s eyes narrowed. His fingers trailed lower. “This is going to bruise.”
“I swear. The towel rack in Theo’s bathroom broke off in my hand, and I fell back.”
Lev pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled. “I should have kept you with me. I could have bathed you.”
Asher snorted. “Yeah, and I would have asked you to wash my back…” He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Lev.”
“Where else are you hurt?” He scanned Asher head to foot and frowned at the abrasions on his knees. “What happened here?”
“I fell on the path, remember?”
“I wish you’d told me you were hurt. I wouldn’t have manhandled you.” Lev sifted through the debris on the floor and shook out his sweater, then tugged it over Asher’s head before he could protest.
Asher fished his arms through the sleeves. “It’s a scraped knee, not a mortal wound.” Mm. Lev’s clothes were still warm and smelled like his cologne. “Besides, I love a good manhandle.”
Lev grimaced. Wait. Did he regret this? Was he looking for a way out, some excuse for them being doomed because Asher got a scratch?
“Post-nut clarity hit you over the head like a sledgehammer, didn’t it?” Asher asked.
“I beg your pardon? Post-nut what?”
Asher crossed his arms. “The regret and disgust that creeps in after you come.”
“Blakely, no. That was…” He palmed Asher’s cheek.
Asher wanted to lean into his touch, but if Lev rejected him after he’d bared the rest of his body and soul to him, Asher was going to?—
“What we did was art. It was beautiful, and perfect. I don’t have post-coital clarity, or whatever you call it.
I haven’t felt pleasure like that since…
” His brow wrinkled. “Well, I can’t quite remember anything better.
Perhaps never.” He smiled, smoothing the lines on his forehead.
“I want to do it again, hopefully soon.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh.” Lev massaged Asher’s tight jaw with his fingertips; he hadn’t realized he’d been clenching.
“The only thing I regret is hurting you.” Lev kissed Asher’s forehead and pulled back. “Understood?”
Asher nodded.
“Good.” Lev stooped to the ground, pulled on tight boxer briefs that hugged his package in a way that made Asher jealous of an inanimate object. “Hold onto me.”
Asher yelped as Lev hoisted him off his feet. “What are you doing?” Asher linked his hands behind Lev’s neck and locked his legs around his waist.
“I’m taking you to the kitchen. You need to eat, and the lighting is better there.”
“I can walk.”
“I think not.” Lev held Asher tighter and nudged aside a fork with his toe. “We made a bit of a mess, and I won’t have you cutting your feet.”
A bit of a mess was an understatement.
Glass shards glittered in the firelight. A bottle of merlot lay overturned on the floor, its contents bleeding into the grout. A bread basket had tumbled across the rug, spilling rolls and breadcrumbs.
“We can’t leave this for Luna,” Asher said.
Lev sidestepped over a plate. “We won’t. I’ll take care of it after you’re in bed.”
“I can help.”
“I know you can, but you need to eat, and rest.”
Lev backed against the door and into the butler’s pantry connecting the dining room to the kitchen. He released Asher onto his feet, touch lingering on his hips until Asher proved his legs were seaworthy, or whatever the opposite of that was. Landworthy?
“After you,” Lev said.
Asher led the way into the kitchen, grateful the oversized sweater covered his ass. Behind him, Lev flicked the switch, and near-daylight exploded from the overhead lamps.
“Jesus,” Asher hissed and shielded his eyes with the back of his hand. “Do you do surgery here?” On Asher’s other visits to the kitchen, the lighting had never been so stark.
“Bright light helps my mood during the dark winter months.” Lev gripped Asher’s hips and guided him toward the kitchen island. He patted the butcher-block counter. “Hop on up. Let’s make sure you aren’t hurt anywhere else.”
“I’m not.”
Ignoring him, Lev boosted him onto the smooth wood. “There’s a good lad.”
Asher’s irritation ebbed at the praise. American men had no idea what they were missing. Good boy was overrated. Good lad purred in Lev’s posh accent made Asher want to behave, an idea as foreign to him as being cared for by another man.
“What happened here?” Lev squatted, flaring his muscular thighs like a butterfly. His ginger lashes dipped downward as he cradled Asher’s left foot and examined his battered toes.
“I stubbed them when I tripped.” He tried to pull his knee to his chest, but Lev held onto his foot.
Lev clicked his tongue. “They’re already so swollen. Can you move them?”
Asher wiggled them, clenching his teeth at the pain.
Frowning, Lev stood. “Let’s see your hands.”
Asher turned them over. They were pink, a little scratched, but otherwise unharmed.
Lev’s frown deepened. “Does anywhere else hurt?”
Asher shook his head.
Everything hurt. After fainting, he’d woken on his back, but his right hip and shoulder ached like he’d landed there first. He wouldn’t tell Lev he’d fainted, though. Not when Lev was already raking himself over the coals.
Lev stroked his beard and swept his gaze over Asher again, as if assessing for a mortal wound Asher had hidden somewhere. Apparently satisfied, he crossed to the old copper sink and held a fresh towel under the water. “You’re so cute in my clothes.”
Asher’s cheeks heated. He felt cute swimming in Lev’s cozy sweater. The other men he’d been with were around his height or shorter.
Lev returned with the damp rag and a dry towel and asked Asher to lift his sweater. With methodical attention to detail, Lev gently scrubbed the dried come from Asher’s chest and abs, and between his legs. Asher’s cock filled at Lev’s attention.
“Thank you.” Asher shifted his hips, squirming with need. Insatiable lad.
Lev’s hand lingered on his thigh. “Of course.” He tapped his hip. “Right. Let’s get you fed.”
Asher braced his arms on the edge of the butcher block and scooted to hop down.
“Oh no you don’t.” Lev stopped him. “Do you want leftovers? Luna likely saved some.”
Asher’s stomach rolled. He closed his eyes against the memory of blood steaming in the cold air as it traveled toward the drain. “I don’t eat beef.”
“I hadn’t realized…” Lev ducked out from behind the fridge door. “Are you vegetarian?”
“I eat everything else as long as I buy from local farms that treat their animals well, but I haven’t been able to eat beef since I was a kid. Maybe I’m too sensitive.” He shrugged, and the sweater slid off his shoulder.
Lev’s eyes dropped to his exposed skin. “There’s nothing wrong with being sensitive. I think it’s very sweet, Blakely.” He cringed and raked a hand through his ginger hair. “And here I’ve harped on and on about you eating tonight…”
“You didn’t know.”
“What about an omelet? The eggs are from our chickens. They live a jolly good life trouncing about in our conservatory during the cooler months.”
Asher smiled. “An omelet would be perfect.” For the first time since he’d arrived at Lichenmoor, he actually had an appetite.
“Splendid.” Lev slipped a pan from a hook above the oven and slid it onto the gas stove. “Dinner wasn’t the only time you haven’t eaten, though.” He opened the fridge and scavenged through the vegetable drawer, emerging with a bag of spinach, a bell pepper, and a carton of mushrooms.
“I don’t have an eating disorder, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Asher said.
Lev paused, his hand mid-pilfering a bowl of eggs on the counter. “I don’t know what to think beyond that I find it impossible not to worry over you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize.”
“When I’m anxious or upset, I can’t eat, and if I try to force it, I get nauseous.”
Lev rinsed the eggs in the sink. “So you’re saying I’ve been such an arsehole that I turned you off food?”
Asher laughed. “It’s not all your fault. Sometimes I forget to eat if I get sucked into a project, and you’re a lot more distracting than art.”
“That happens to me too.” He tapped the blunt edge of the knife to his head. “It’s that ADHD hyper-focus.”
“I didn’t know you had ADHD.”
“I was a late bloomer. Or rather, undiagnosed until I was in my thirties. People had always assumed I was flighty and eccentric, your typical artist stereotype, but with medication, my brain is quiet and uncluttered. I can remember more.”
“The meds don’t affect your creativity?”
“I don’t know, Blakely. What do you think? Have I lost my touch?” He smiled good-naturedly.
“Nah. You’ve still got it.”
They fell into a companionable silence, one Asher’s brain filled with anxiety. “Do you think I have ADHD?”
“What? No, I wasn’t diagnosing you.”
“I love it when you say what like that.”
“Like what?” Lev said, his accent made what rhyme with hot .
“Like that.” Asher rolled his neck, stretching it. “I don’t think I have ADHD. Just the anxiety and panic attacks you’ve been unlucky enough to witness.”
“I witnessed nothing more than a man in need of comfort and company.” Lev turned and tipped the sliced bell pepper into the pan, scraping the stragglers off the cutting board with the edge of his blade.
He seasoned them with a vigorous twist of the pepper mill and a dash of salt. “When did your attacks start?”
“Huh?” Asher blinked, preoccupied by the accidental eroticism of Lev grinding pepper. He cleared his throat. “At art school. Between the workload, stress, and Ben…”