Copyright © 2008 M. King
All rights reserved, Freya's Bower.
By reading this excerpt, you are stating that you are at least 18 years of age. If you are younger than 18 years old, you must exit this site at once.
"What I want is to get warm," Ryan said softly.
Three years. If you'd asked him back then where he thought he'd be today, he wouldn't have said with Devon Turner. Not in a million years. There were times Ryan still wanted to pinch himself, look at his scrubby-haired, pale-cheeked reflection in the mirror and say: You don't deserve him. He had days of believing it, sometimes. Days of wondering what would have happened if he'd never had that argument at work with the lighting director, stormed out of the theater, and gone to cool his heels in the new coffee shop across the street. If he'd never noticed the black Adonis in the business suit and--pumped up with testosterone, lust and sheer terror--actually managed to speak to him. Ryan had never met anyone who skated so close to perfection. It unnerved him every now and then.
However, there wasn't much point in denying his arousal any longer, especially with Devon's hand cupping the front of his pants. Devon smiled.
"Good. Here, or in front of the fire?"
The image of their bodies coupling in the flicker of the flames--black and white both burnished by the orange light--danced behind Ryan's eyes. He licked his lips.
"Hmm. I dunno. Let's see where it goes."
Devon stood and held out his hand. "C'mon."
Ryan sighed and sat up. He let Devon lead him back into the ghastly open-plan living room where, sure enough, a fire sputtered invitingly in the wood burner. It provided a gentle soundtrack of pops, cracks, and burrs as Devon pulled him down onto the saggy couch. Fat flakes of snow bumped against the window, the late afternoon washed into a pale, streaky mist. The firelight suffused the couch's faded grey upholstery, though the smell of musty fabric and incipient damp fractured the romance of the moment a little. Ryan considered complaining, but the odor dropped into insignificance next to the heady proximity of Devon's body. Ryan ran his hand up under Devon's shirt, eager for the direct touch of skin on skin. Devon smiled, evidently amused by that, and swallowed Ryan up in more kisses, purposely slowing the pace. His fingers raked through Ryan's short brown hair, cupped his long, lean jaw, always moving over him, as if in a quest to learn him by touch alone.
The room still felt cold; the air raised gooseflesh when they stripped, slipping to the floor, ever closer to the flames. The warmth from the fire was patchy. It licked over Ryan, toasting part of his side and one foot, but left the rest of him chilly. Devon did his best, trailing heat from his lips and stirring sparks with his fingers. In turn, Ryan took the time to rediscover his partner's body, each caress an apology for every late night, every hurried breakfast or postponed date or outing. Devon stretched out under him, arms above his head, his ribs lifted, and his chest high, like an old physique model. Ryan straddled his hips, slid his hands up the glorious planes of muscle to the hard lines of his breastbone. His thumbs crowned Devon's hardened rose-dark nipples, eliciting a squirm and a low croon of satisfaction. Devon sank his teeth into the soft pink inner of his lower lip.