42. Love Too Much
LOVE TOO MUCH
ASHER
A sher opened his eyes to twin pools of blue. It took him a second or two to realize he was awake, and the twin pools were Lev’s irises.
“Good morning, you,” Lev murmured. His large hand brushed Asher’s hair back from his face.
Asher frowned. “Did you sleep at all?”
“I only woke a few moments ago.” Lev yawned, and stroked a line down Asher’s spine, ending at his tailbone. “How are you feeling?”
Asher wasn’t sure if Lev was asking how sore his hole was or where his head was at. He took stock of both. “Better. Thank you for last night.”
His cheeks heated. Shame slipped in with the fog-filtered daylight. Had he really asked Lev to be his dom? He looked over his shoulder, vision blurring on what little of Lev’s map he could see.
“So, that wasn’t a dream.”
“No, it was not.” Lev’s hand drifted south and squeezed Asher’s ass. “You were very good for me. ”
Asher stiffened. “I don’t want—we don’t have to play like that again. I was in a weird mood last night.”
Lev removed his hand. “What’s your color?”
“I don’t have one. This isn’t a scene.” Asher sat up and scrubbed his face with his hands. He was being a dick. “I’m sorry.”
“You said you would be honest.”
Last night he’d been weak and pathetic. But he wasn’t anymore. “Forget what I said. You can’t fix me and I can’t fix you.”
He got out of bed and made for the door in the wall connecting their rooms. Repainting over what happened with Ben would never work. How could he ever trust Lev when he still held so much back?
Lev followed. “Asher, wait!”
Asher slipped under the tapestry—and slammed into the low doorframe so hard he saw stars and tears stung his eyes.
“Fuck!” He sat back on the cold floor on his bare ass and rubbed his forehead.
Lev was already there, dropping to his knees, face grave, one arm supporting Asher’s back. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” Asher snapped.
Ignoring the outburst, Lev pulled Asher’s hand away from his head. The nauseating scent of copper hit him first, then his vision swam at the blood on his hand.
Lev sucked air through his teeth. “That sounded like it hurt. Wait here.” Moving Asher as if he weighed nothing, Lev guided him to lean against the wall and hurried to the bathroom.
Asher considered taking the chance and leaving, but all fight and flight left him. Blood tickled as it dribbled down his forehead.
His stomach gave an ominous roll. He tipped his head back before blood dripped into his eyes and tried to breathe through his mouth. He refused to vomit all over himself on top of everything else.
Lev returned with a first aid kit and kneeled beside him.
“Another first aid kit?” Asher asked.
“The kitchen is quite a walk if you’re alone in the castle and injured.”
“It’s not a castle,” Asher teased.
“But it has turrets and suits of armor…” Lev teased back.
Asher smiled in spite of his nausea.
Lev unscrewed a brown bottle and poured amber liquid on a cotton ball. The sharp scent chased away the scent of blood, helping almost immediately.
“Is there a story behind keeping a first aid kit here? Cut yourself while shaving?”
Was Lev overcompensating? Had Silas been injured beyond repair, too far from medical attention? Was that how he’d died? Or was he just prepared?
“Hm?” Lev asked.
“You said the kitchen was far away.”
“Oh, that. No.” Without preamble, Lev blotted Asher’s broken skin with the cotton ball.
“Fuck.” Asher hissed.
“Sorry.” Lev clicked his tongue. “Ordinarily, I’d say this was overkill, but I can’t remember the last time that door has been dusted. Who knows what kind of centuries-old bacteria lurks there?”
Lev didn’t meet his gaze, attention focused on pressing a wad of gauze to the wound at his hairline. When finished, Lev dropped the blood-stained gauze on a towel.
Asher closed his eyes and breathed through his mouth, willing his stomach to comply.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
Asher nodded, daring only to answer, “Blood makes me sick.”
“Ah.” Lev rustled around. Paper tore. “Breathe in. ”
Asher did. The scent of rubbing alcohol flooded his nostrils.
“Good lad—erm. Sorry.”
Footsteps padded away. Asher opened his eyes. The bloody bandages were gone and Lev was halfway to the bathroom.
“Chemo made Mum sick,” Lev said when he returned.
So it wasn’t Silas. His mother’s illness had taught Lev to keep first aid kits near.
“Her carer taught me this for nausea. It helped sometimes. At least for a few minutes, anyway.”
Lev pulled an alcohol wipe packet from the first aid kit, tore it open partially, and passed it to him. The astringent smell replaced the scent of blood.
“Better?” Lev asked.
Asher nodded.
“Give this a sniff if you feel like you’re going to vom?—”
“Don’t say it,” Asher said.
“Sorry.” Lev’s lips curved down. “I’m going to clean this and be done. Best to get it over with.” He blotted Asher’s head with a towel and tossed it far across the room before Asher could see any blood. “It looks as if you narrowly avoided stitches yet again. Are you always so clumsy?”
“I’m not clumsy when the roads are level and construction is to code.”
Lev laughed. “I love you prickly as much as I love you eager to please, just so you know.”
Asher scowled.
Lev applied a bandage and pecked a kiss beside it. “There. Finished.” He stuffed the spare bandages inside and snapped the first aid kit shut.
“When I said I want all of you, I meant all of your moods and emotions too,” Lev said. “I only wish you could explain why the sudden change from last night to today.”
Asher wished he could explain it too. He pushed to his feet .
“Allow me.” Lev gripped Asher’s hip and hooked his arm under Asher’s armpit, before boosting him up.
“Now then,” Lev said on the way back to bed, hand still on Asher’s hip. “Would you like to discuss what’s troubling you now and I’ll bend you over the bed and kiss your hole better, or would you rather have breakfast first?”
Asher rolled his eyes even as his cock hardened.
Lev looked down and smirked.
“It’s morning wood,” Asher said.
“Of course,” Lev agreed knowingly.
Ass.
They reached the bed. Lev squeezed Asher’s hip, fingers wrapping toward Asher’s cleft.
“Make a decision, Blakely, before I make it for you and pop down to put the kettle on.” His hand left Asher as he stroked his chin.
“Come to think of it, what sort of host would I be if I ate you before I fed you first?”
“Oh, fuck off,” Asher said without bite. “It’s just…”
Asher sat on the edge of the bed and buried his head in his hands. The bed dipped as Lev joined him.
Lev rubbed his back in soothing circles. “What, love?”
“Maybe we escalated things too quickly.” Asher lifted his head. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do that last night.”
“I’m honored that you trusted me enough to ask, and you were right to suggest it. I think it helped us both. Don’t you?”
“It helped you?”
Lev nodded. “Helping you find peace helped me find my own. You do know, though, Blakely, that nothing between us is transactional, right? I don’t need your servitude, or your sweet mouth, or your art.
“You don’t have to make yourself worthy of my love because you already have it. I would do anything to make you happy. Tell me what you need.”
Asher grimaced. “I was vulnerable with you last night, and it helped at the time, but we recreated a ritual you did with Silas. He casts a shadow on everything we do and I’ve shown you so much of myself, and shared my most shameful secrets, and still know so little about him, or you.
I don’t want you to tell me anything before you’re ready.
I’m just trying to explain why I acted insane this morning. ”
“You didn’t act insane. Please don’t automatically discount your feelings. If they’re real to you, they’re real, no matter what anyone else has told you.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, I haven’t been as forthcoming. There are some things I can tell you.
“Silas talked like poetry ran in his blood, rhyming accidentally, speaking in a lyrical cadence. He told me his favorite color was black, but that wasn’t true. His favorite color was blue. Like my eyes. I found out later.”
“He must have loved you so much.”
Instead of smiling, Lev grimaced. “Too much.”
Asher didn’t like the insinuation, because hadn’t that been the case with him and Ben, and worse so now with Lev? Asher had loved to the point of destruction. Would he meet the same end again?
“Please don’t think I’m ungrateful,” Lev said. Did Asher look as crestfallen as he felt?
“I don’t.”
“Let me think of a better way to explain.” He tapped his lips with his finger several times. “I suppose it’s a bit like a plant. Too much sunlight will kill it. Too much water will drown it. Silas loved me so much I started to wilt.”
“What, so he suffocated you?” Asher didn’t like this conversation at all, especially when he already felt needy and insecure.
“No, darling. I see where your head is going.” Lev cupped Asher’s cheek. “Your love will never be too much because you love yourself too.” Lev dropped his hand. “Silas needed me in ways I could never achieve. He wanted my every breath to whisper his name on an exhale.”
“That doesn’t sound like love. It sounds like possession.”
Lev winced. “Don’t misunderstand. He wasn’t a monster. He was very sweet and had the sharpest wit and sense of humor.”
“I wish I could have met him.” Who was the man who’d held Lev’s heart for so long?
Lev laughed. “I’m quite certain you would have hated him. If you were both alive, and competing for my hand, he would have hated you too.”
Asher shivered.
Lev noticed, but misinterpreted the reason, or maybe he wanted an excuse to change conversation because after he’d settled the duvet around Asher’s shoulders, he asked, “What’s your favorite color?”
Answering that question was more difficult now because Asher’s favorite color actually was black. At least when it came to paint. It darkened all his hues to suit his mood. “I don’t have a favorite color.”
“Truly?”
Asher shrugged. “Yeah.”
Lev watched him shrewdly. Asher’s skin prickled under his inspection.
“Interesting. Perhaps we’re alike in that way.
I do have a favorite color, but it always changes.
I become obsessed and use it in everything until I can’t stand to look at it.
Sometimes it’s the dewy green of grass after the first rain in spring, the pale gray of bark on a tree.
Apparently such hyper-fixation is a hallmark symptom of ADHD, one reason perhaps why my father had never had me evaluated. ”
Asher already knew that. Lev had spoken about his use of color many times over the years and he’d always had a different favorite color depending on the interview.
“I’ve had many favorites since you’ve joined me here. The color of your hair—darkest brown, not quite black in daylight. The faded scarlet of your flushed chest after I make you come. I could go on and on.”
Did that mean one day Lev would be sick of him too? Was he on borrowed time? Was he just a fixation Lev would lose interest in? Was that what had happened to Lev’s previous bedmates?
The questions lingered, even as Lev massaged Asher’s back and thighs, his glutes, and then positioned him over a pile of pillows and reverently, gently, kissed his hole better as promised.
And even later, when Lev spooned Asher from behind and thrust between his thighs while jerking Asher until they both got off.
What had happened when Lev had grown tired of Silas? Would it happen to him? Had Silas hurt himself?