27. Effigy
EFFIGY
LEV
L ev yawned behind his palm. Watching Asher sleep was an exercise in control. Asher ran hot and slept fitfully. He’d wriggled his way out of Lev’s pajama bottoms in the middle of the night, and nearly walloped Lev’s bollocks with his knee when he’d tossed onto his side.
Unable to sleep after that, he’d already made his daily rounds of Lichenmoor’s borders. While he hadn’t found Silas’s body, or the specter himself, he had found Asher’s bag tangled in kelp, clothes herniating through gashes like an effigy of Asher destroyed by the sea.
Lev had carried the waterlogged bag up the hill in his arms like a hollow stand-in for the body he longed to lay to rest in Lichenmoor’s mausoleum. Asher’s art kit was ruined, but Lev had salvaged most of his clothing, which he’d already washed and popped into the dryer.
Art supplies, toiletries, and a spare pair of trainers could all be replaced.
Lev had ordered a new pair of his shoes, and some sensible boots through his personal shopper.
Father’s supply room held enough paint and brushes for them to paint every day for the next ten years without running out.
Perhaps Asher would enjoy rebuilding his stash with the Marks family’s stock.
The sheets stirred. Lev lifted his head from his sketch. But no, Asher still slept sprawled out on his back, with one leg kicked from the covers, exposing the crease where his thigh met his groin and the root of his cock.
Ugly bruises bloomed over his right shoulder and side, coloring in some of Lev’s art. Asher had been through a lot more than he’d let on, in more ways than one. The story Asher told didn’t match the state of him. Had he taken a tumble?
He wished his private physician could have looked Asher over before bed, but with the tide high, he’d had no choice but to trust Asher when he said he was fine, though he’d also checked the lad’s breathing a few times.
While he’d waited for Asher to wake, he preserved his memories of the last twenty-four hours in his sketchbook—Asher hugging his knees on the cobblestone. Asher perched on the kitchen island eating Lev’s omelet. Asher bent over the table, looking back at Lev as he climaxed.
Lev adjusted his cock in his slacks, and drew Asher in media res—lust sated, wounded but not defeated. He lifted the book to his lips and blew away stray graphite dust. Sleepy hazel eyes opened.
“I’m not sure if it’s creepy or cute that this is the second time I’ve caught you watching me sleep,” Asher mumbled.
Lev wanted to be the only person in the world to hear Asher’s first words spoken every day, the ones he uttered while dusting the cobwebs off his dreams.
“To be fair, you were only pretending to sleep in the church, and you’re very pretty when you sleep.
” Lev dropped his sketchbook on the chair and crossed to sit at the edge of the bed.
“Muscles slack and pliant, that wrinkle so often on your brow smoothed away, all the flush in your face absent as the blood settles back in your veins.”
Asher swallowed with a delicious bob of his Adam’s apple. “Did you touch me while I slept?”
“No. Never without your consent.” Lev drifted toward Asher’s ear. “Would you have liked it if I had?”
Asher’s black lashes fanned downward on a sharp inhale. “Yes.”
“You trust me to handle you while you’re unconscious, to play with you until pleasure pulls you from your dreams?”
Asher nodded, shifting his hips in bed. Did his morning wood need attention?
“Consent with words, Blakely. I need to hear it.”
“I trust you.” Asher licked his lips and shifted his hips again. A small circle of precum bloomed on the white sheets before Lev’s eyes.
“Your trust is a gift.” Lev wrinkled his nose at the question that came to mind next. “Have you played like that with anyone else?”
“Yeah, with Ben.”
“You trusted him once too?”
“I guess, but… It’s hard to explain.” Asher nibbled his lip. “Ben had a way of making me believe his ideas were mine. Does that make sense?”
“If you mean he manipulated you, then yes.”
Asher raked his hair back from his forehead with both hands, baring sexy pits Lev longed to lick. “It’s too early for an interrogation about my exes.”
“That’s fair, though I do hate that I’m not the one to take your somnophilia virginity.”
Asher snorted. “You’re almost fifteen years older than me! I’ll never be your first in anything.”
“You’re very cute when you’re jealous. How are you feeling?”
“Sore.” Asher scooted to a seated position with his back to the headboard, taking the sheets with him.
“I’m so sorry.” Lev wished he could carry his pain, but the best he could do was promise never to hurt him again.
Asher lifted his palm. “I can’t take any more apologies.”
“You liked my apology last night.”
“Those, I don’t mind.”
Lev nodded at Asher’s tented sheets. “How do you feel about spending most of the day in bed?”
Asher grinned, adorable dimples like crescents at the corners of his mouth. “That depends on what your definition of spending the day in bed is.”
“Blakely,” Lev gasped, clutching his chest with feigned indignation. “Are you insinuating that I want to keep you in bed so I can fuck you into the mattress so many times your body will leave an imprint?”
The muscles in Asher’s throat flexed as he swallowed. “It sounds like a great way to apologize to me.”
Lev tugged his gaze away. “I’m afraid that won’t be the case. You need rest and recovery, and breakfast in bed.”
“Sounds boring.” Asher yawned, stretching his corded arms overhead, accentuating Icarus’s fall from the ladder of his ribs.
Lev pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know what you’re doing.”
Asher crossed his arms over his chest, framing his pecs, dimples deepening with a smirk. “What am I doing?”
“Taunting me. Let’s have a look at your toes, and I’ll get your coffee.”
With a roll of his eyes, Asher complied, pulling his leg out from the covers and allowing Lev to draw his foot into his lap.
Asher’s toes had darkened to a deep aubergine.
Lev bit back an apology, intent on following Asher’s wishes. “This looks painful. Can you still move them?”
Asher bit his lip and moved his toes sluggishly with a wince.
“Poor dear,” Lev said. Certainly, that wasn’t an apology. He gently massaged his foot and calf, searching for any pain points.
“That feels good.” Asher hummed, arching his spine, dragging his cockhead against the sheets and leaving a trail of precum behind.
Christ. Lev cleared his throat and stood. “Right. Coffee. You must be cold.” He jerked the blankets deftly over Asher’s lap and crossed to the side table, ignoring Asher’s snicker.
“Do you want milk?” Lev asked as he poured a cup of coffee from an insulated carafe and lifted a small silver pitcher.
“If you’re offering.”
Lev tutted and drizzled milk into the mug. “I’ve already added fresh vanilla bean and sugar.”
“Vanilla bean? Is that Luna’s recipe?”
He shook his head slowly. “Wendell’s… He was a friend of Father’s.”
Asher bolted upright and gripped Lev’s wrist. “Wait. Wendell Morrigan, the poet?”
“You’ve heard of him?” Of course, Asher had. Lev shouldn’t have said anything.
Asher’s lips moved in silent conversation with himself. “Silas… I knew I’d heard the name somewhere. Silas was Wendell’s son?”
“Yes.” Lev huffed a soft sigh and passed him the mug. He’d only wanted to dote on Asher, not unearth old skeletons. “Wendell had preferred coffee to tea, but only with fresh vanilla bean.”
Asher sipped. “That’s delicious.” Asher took another sip and watched him, a hundred unasked questions behind his gaze.
“Much better than from the shops?”
“Infinitely. You know you don’t have to do all this, right?”
“I know, but it pleases me to care for you.”
Coffee in bed wasn’t that lavish of a gesture, was it? Had no one ever spoiled him? Lev endeavored to show Asher what it was like to be adored.
“What other ways do you like to please?” Asher sipped from the cup. “What if I wanted to top you?”
Fuck. Me. Blakely. “I would like that very much.”
Asher arched a brow, and one corner of his lips quirked into a half smile. “You like to bottom?”
Lev watched him over the rim of his teacup. “I prefer to top, but sometimes I crave to be filled. Only with those I trust, however. I’ve been fucked by a few selfish tops who didn’t care about my pleasure.”
“You trust me?” All signs of flirtation fled Asher’s face.
Lev brushed Asher’s hair back from his brow.
“I can’t imagine my number one fan betraying me, which reminds me, I left instructions for the other artists.
I took your suggestion and selected Pride for the next sin.
Do you want to join them? What better way to demonstrate pride than by rubbing our newly consummated relationship in Theo’s face? ”
Asher’s smile broke. “They must have heard everything.”
Lev waved his hand airily. “Don’t worry about them. Soon they’ll be gone. I’d charter a boat and send them home today if I could, but the phone lines are down and that would be rather rude.”
“You should offer them a chance to stay for the rest of the retreat and keep teaching them. They took time off from work and came all this way.”
“But I find two-thirds of them tedious and the remaining third downright dreadful. Don’t even get me started on Chuck. I’ll gladly lend him a lifeboat.”
Asher swatted his arm.
“You must know you’re the only one who came here for artistic reasons aside from Melody and Julian. The others came lusting for me, or clout.”
Asher rolled his eyes. “Daria seems genuine too.”
“Genuinely frightening.” Lev moved Asher’s mug to the bedside table and kissed him, sending the rest of his apologies wordlessly. “Mm. I may acquire a taste for coffee if I am to taste it fresh on your lips each morning.”
Asher laughed. “You’re talking like a time traveler again.”
Lev scoffed and climbed off the bed.
Asher reached for him. “Hey, where are you going?”
Lev let Asher pull him back into another kiss and then escaped. “I have breakfast for you. Stay there.” He lifted the cloche from the tray he’d left on the desk and returned with a cream cheese bagel he’d added tomato and cucumber to. “It’s vegetarian.”
“This looks great.” Asher moved to get out of bed.
“Stay.” Lev put a pillow on Asher’s lap and placed the plate on top of it. “Later, let’s make a list of food you’d like Luna to pick up.”
Asher’s eyes snapped wide. “Did you clean up downstairs?”
He nodded. “While I appreciated your offer to help, I’d never have let you.”
After placing a glass of orange juice on Asher’s bedside table, Lev joined him in bed. Asher bit into his bagel sandwich and hummed contentedly.
“This is delicious.”
The fox tattoo on his right arm summoned Lev’s attention. The tattoo artist had recreated each delicate blade of fur thinner than a strand of hair.
“Who did these? They’re very good.” He hated that someone so talented had spent so much time with Asher’s body.
“A guy I know from school. He’s the only one I trust to do your art any justice.”
“I see.”
Asher smiled knowingly. “He’s not my type.”
Lev stroked the fox’s tiny paw. “My mum believed foxes were lost souls caught in purgatory. During the day they appear as people, but at night their souls return to the fox’s form. That’s why seeing a fox during the day is so rare. I used to go looking for foxes to see if I could find her.”
Asher covered Lev’s hand and nodded, encouraging him to continue.
“Sometimes I can barely remember her. Father took so many pictures and mementos before her death, painted her in every light and shadow, took casts of her hands.” Father had created an entire room devoted to her. “But memories are too ephemeral to be preserved, as fragile as spider webs.”
“I wish you could have had more time with her.”
Being consoled by a man who was born after his mum died made Lev feel dirty. While he’d slept with a few younger twinks with a daddy kink, this was different.
It was real.