41. Only Now, Only Me
ONLY NOW, ONLY ME
LEV
A fter Silas’s earlier torment, and witnessing Asher’s panic, Lev needed the distraction too. Lev untangled himself from Asher and sat up.
Asher’s eyes widened. “How are you going to distract me? Where are you going?”
“Nowhere, love. The farthest I’m going is the closet to find a cravat to cover your eyes with.”
Asher’s hypervigilance broke Lev’s heart. The anxiety attack had changed him into a bundle of nerves, so unlike his stoic nature. What had Lev done or said to cause it?
Asher sat up. “Closing my eyes doesn’t work for me. That’s when I see him.”
“I see.” Lev winced. “I apologize. Poor choice of words. Let me grab a pen, then.” Lev pecked a kiss on Asher’s forehead.
The floor was frigid, the fireplace unlit. That wouldn’t do. He turned to Asher. “I’m such an utter twat. I left you in a cold, empty bed, didn’t I? No wonder you’re so much more irritable than usual.”
He’d left in a hurry, summoned by Silas bellowing from the passageway at the end of the hall. Things between them were rather strained, considering Silas’s attempt to murder him via Asher’s sword.
“I’m not irritable.”
“Of course, darling.” Lev bent before the fireplace and pulled out a starter log from the steamer trunk he kept stocked for particularly wintry mornings.
“So, a cravat, huh? Do you have a top hat and powdered wig to go with it?”
Lev grinned. “It was for a masquerade ball, and I’ve no need for a powdered wig. Who’d want to cover this hair?”
Asher rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t boast. You could lose it soon. At your age…”
“Sod off,” Lev said, reassured Asher was teasing him again.
The log ignited, and warmth radiated against his face.
“But you have a top hat?” Asher asked.
“Only for polo events.”
“Oh my God. Is it in the closet? Do you have a little jacket with a train or whatever they’re called?”
“A tailcoat? I’m afraid not.”
“ Right ,” Asher said slowly.
Lev clapped his hands together, dusting the grit from his palms. He wouldn’t give Asher the ammunition of learning about the chest filled with tailcoats in a spare room Father had used like a junk drawer.
“Here we are,” Lev said, plucking a handful of markers from the cup on his desk.He sat on the bed beside Asher. “Lie down for me, lad.”
Once Asher complied with a nervous nod, Lev pulled Asher’s arm into his lap. But what to draw? Perhaps something from the library he’d left in vain after Silas had antagonized him anytime he drifted.
“Remember, only think of me, of this moment, the caress of my marker, the crackle of the fire, feel the warmth it emanates, feel the pillow beneath your head.”
Asher’s attention was rapt. Lev started to sketch, making use of the gap between the snake encircling Asher’s wrist and the eye on his forearm. He drew a dragon to protect him from the dead like the one on the door to the mausoleum. Minutes passed as they both drifted into peaceful silence.
“I’m sorry I freaked out before,” Asher said as Lev added the last of the dragon’s scales. “I know I can trust you. I know you were joking, but what you were joking about is something he’s done before.”
Lev’s marker stuttered. He clenched his jaw, overcome with murderous intent. He needed to ruin Ben’s life. He needed to make him pay. He needed to focus on the present and be there for Asher.
“But you released me, and it healed something. Every time you’ve protected me where he would have hurt me has helped to ease this ache inside.
” Asher rubbed the center of his chest. “It’s like I’ve got all these broken pieces of my heart and they don’t fit back together anymore.
” He bit his bottom lip. “I’ve read about sexual assault survivors painting over their trauma and reclaiming it.
Ben ruined so many things for me. Do you think you’d ever want to help me with that? ”
“You’d like me to be your dom?”
Silas had asked for the same, though Silas had still directed the show, and pushed Lev far over the boundaries they’d set, chasing the high of nearly dying so he could feel like he wasn’t dead, even if it left Lev disgusted with himself for what he’d done at Silas’s behest.
“I don’t want scenes,” Asher said. “I don’t want impact play or punishment. I want what you already do. Commands, care, praise.”
“Are you sure? You’ve seemed to enjoy bossing me around rather a lot.” Perhaps that would help more.
“I love that you give me so much power. I still want that sometimes, but I want to serve you more. I want to be taken care of by you in the ways you already do.”
Serve you. Asher’s offer ricocheted through Lev’s thoughts .
“What happens if you don’t listen? I’m not sure if you’re aware, Blakely, but you’re rather bratty.”
“I trust you to make me behave without punishing me.”
“What if I hurt you?”
“You won’t. You’re too preoccupied with my general well-being to do that. Oh, Asher, mind the seventeenth step on the south spiral staircase. I stubbed my toe there once when I was twelve .”
“I don’t sound like that.”
“We’re both broken in our own ways,” Asher continued. “We can fill the broken pieces and be the strength for each other’s weakness. Maybe taking control will heal you too.”
Lev blew at the wet ink on Asher’s forearm. “Alright. We can try. But only if you’re honest. Can I trust you to tell me when to stop?”
“Yes, sir.”
Lev’s cock twitched. “Mm. I like you like this.” He swallowed thickly. “Roll onto your stomach.”
Asher did as he was told and turned his head to the side, cheek pressed against the pillow, eyes on Lev.
“There we go. Good lad.”
Asher smiled shyly, and it was so adorable Lev couldn’t resist petting his silken waves under the guise of pushing his hair out of his face.
“Now, I’m going to pull the blanket down to expose your back. I promise not to straddle you or restrain you. Is that alright?”
“Yes,” Asher mumbled, mouth already slack, lids relaxed.
Lev stroked his hand down Asher’s spine as he dragged the bed linen until just above his rump. Gooseflesh pebbled his skin. His hips shifted, lifting his arse only just.
“Blakely, do you know your colors?”
“Huh?” Asher asked, hooded lids lifting lazily.
“Like the traffic light. Green means go. Yellow means slow. Red means stop.”
“Oh, that. Yes.”
Lev debated asking if Ben had used the same system, but he was afraid of the answer, and right now it was only now, only them.
“What color are you?”
“So fucking green.”
Lev laughed. “Let’s proceed, then. I’ll trust you to tell me if your color changes, and you’ll answer honestly when I check in. If you need to safe-word, say red or stop , alright?”
Asher dropped his lashes, demurring his gaze. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
The lad was every bit the natural submissive Lev had guessed at. He’d just needed permission. Lev loved Asher sullen and bratty as much as he loved him vulnerable and supplicating, but what he loved most, was that he could be what Asher needed.
“I wonder what plans you have for your back tattoos?” Lev rested his hand on the curve of Asher’s lower back and stroked his chin as he mapped the landmarks of his canvas.
“I want a single piece of art, but I haven’t been able to commit.”
“Perhaps you were waiting for me to draw something for you.” Lev bowed over Asher and kissed his temple, then sat back and asked, “Your color?”
“Green.”
“Good. Now, remember—only now, only me. Hm?”
“Only now. Only you.”
Lev inhaled a shiver of a breath, trapped in a déjà vu wormhole between past and present. After what was probably an uncomfortable period, Lev praised him. “Top marks, Blakely.”
It was cheap and corny and decidedly unsexy, and Asher had to have agreed because a smirk twitched the corner of his lips and a single brow lifted, a specter of his snark. But he didn’t tease him, which surely required an impressive amount of restraint.
“Your submission pleases me.” He tapped his lips. “Now then, what to draw? Any requests?”
Asher chewed on his lip.
“I asked you a question. Answer honestly.”
“I have an idea.”
Lev had assumed as much. “Tell me.”
“What about a map of Lichenmoor on my back?”
“Oh?”
“I know I wouldn’t be able to use it. It’s not about using it as a map, but what it means.”
“And what would that be?” Lev began at once, drawing the outline of Lichenmoor Hall.
“That when you made it, you didn’t want me to get lost. You wanted me to stay. You trusted me enough to share Lichenmoor’s secrets.”
Asher was correct. Mostly. “I must confess, I didn’t put all of Lichenmoor’s secrets on your map.” Lev moved on to the central staircase.
“I know.”
“Perhaps, I’ll add a few more secrets to your back, and take a photo of you. I can even add a new secret each time you let me draw on you.”
“I’d like that.”
“I would too.”
Especially if he held onto Asher long enough to share every secret with him, and perhaps encourage him to have it tattooed so Lichenmoor would always be with him, because one day he would leave. Lev wouldn’t live forever, and he’d never condemn Asher to the same lonely fate.
By the time Lev reached the third story of the central wing, Asher had fallen asleep. It took some time before the wrinkle on Asher’s brow and the tension around his eyes relaxed. Lev shook his head. Poor lad.
Lev chewed on the cap of his pen. With the skeleton of the castle complete, which secret route to share first? The hidden back spiral staircase that provided a direct path to the second floor of the library was an obvious choice. Once he’d finished, the sun had ascended over the horizon.
Next, he added the modern saltwater pool retrofitted in a tucked-away atrium of the south wing. Lev liked to swim there during the winter when outside exercise was a miserable endeavor.
Asher twitched as if he were dreaming, and the last jolt of his body scribbled a jagged line on the cobblestone road leading out of Lichenmoor.
Lev wasn’t finished. Not even close.
But he’d scarcely slept, and he’d done his job, so he capped his pen, snapped a picture of Asher’s back, and joined him under the covers. His back and neck ached from bending over Asher for so long, but any pain was worth granting Asher the peace he so desperately needed.
Lev rolled onto his side, face close enough to Asher’s to feel his breath gust against Lev’s lips like the ghost of a kiss until he drifted into the abyss too.