Page 46 of Darling
I feel my cheeks warm, and I lean in to press a kiss to his. “Where do you want me?”
His eyes are still travelling the length of my body, lingering on my cock. He clears his throat. “Um, okay, so maybe this is gonna be harder than I thought. Uh, can you lie on your front? On the couch.”
I do as I’m told and make my way across his living room, trying to ignore the very obvious fact that I’m completely naked.
“You know, you have a really nice ass for a politician,” he says as I go.
“But pretty average for a lawyer?”
“I have no idea. Never seen one naked before.”
“Well you have now.”
He’s grinning as I kneel up on the couch before settling forward on my front. Asher starts by pulling the coffee table out of its place and across the room. It’s not a natural position for me, and so it takes me a moment to figure out what to do with my arms and my head. The natural position seems to be resting it sideways on my arms, which are crossed in front. He arranges my legs, one across the other in a relaxed fashion, and then crouches down by my face.
“Thank you for doing this,” he says, eyes bright and intense. His cheeks have a delicate blush on them, and I note his breathing is a little quick. He looks down my body to my arse. “You look really fucking hot like this.”
“Well, that’s good to know. I feel a little silly.”
“Well, no one except me can see you. Until I finish this painting and sell it to a gallery downtown, and then everyone will be able to see you. Gonna call it ‘The Naked Ambassador’.”
This time, I know he’s joking. I give him a rueful smile.
“It’s almost like you want to give me another heart attack.”
“I mean, I do want to sit on your cock and ride you into next month at the earliest opportunity—is that what you mean?” He winks, standing to move back to the canvas.
My dick stiffens beneath my body at the image he’s just conjured. It had been only moments I’d been inside him, but Christ, he’d felt heavenly. Tight warm hole wrapped around my dick, lean firm muscle under my fingers, sweet breath hot on my cheek. I want him to ride me into next week, and if I have another heart attack? Well, it would be a transcendent way to leave this earth.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he studies me again fromthis new angle. “Can you tilt your head up a little, just like lift your chin toward me. Yeah, perfect. Is that gonna be comfortable?”
“It’s fine.”
“Great. Okay, I’m gonna sketch first, so if you can hold that as long as possible, that would be amazing.”
“I’ll try not to move.”
He nods, gives me one last look, and then gets to work. An air of seriousness I’ve never seen comes over him, all playfulness wiped from his fae-like features. The focus manifests in a creased brow and a straight mouth, eyes narrowing in study. He holds out his pencil and measures something with a thumb, which he then marks on his canvas. Then repeats the action a few times at different angles. He works fast, or seems to, his pencil scratching across the canvas in wide arcs first, and then smaller motions. He erases for a time, and then the wide arcs start again, seeming to be looking at me completely while his hand moves across the sketch. There’s intimacy in this, not in the fact that I’m naked while he sketches me onto parchment, but in being allowed to see him like this; hair a wild tangle, mouth bitten lush and red with concentration, talent flowing from his fingertips.
He’s exquisite. Remarkable. Asher Fox, Thomas Lisowski, is a bloody marvel. His quiet rebellion against the world that raised him, the wonder and joy he’d found in escaping it, the bold way he asks for the things he wants, the bare-faced courage with which he looks at himself. He has a strength of character I’ve rarely seen in men twice his age, that I certainly don’t see in myself. I understand something then, something critical:
Iadmirehim.
Ienvyhim.
And beneath all that, the more base understanding: I desirehim. I want nothing more than to bathe in his light for as long as he’ll let me. Have it wash over me and revive me: heal me.
Later that night, much later, when I arrive home, I find Leo and Gael in the kitchen, talking quietly by the breakfast nook. They turn their heads quickly and in unison, before Leo slides off the stool and stalks toward me, looking angry.
“Where were you? I’ve been calling you all night.”
The look on his face and the tone of his voice, fatherly and chiding, is so absurd that I let out a burst of laughter. “Excuse me?”
“Dad, you’re bloody ill. You’resupposedto be resting. Not fucking off out to god knows where all day with your phone turned off.”
“I’m perfectly fine. I went to a movie and got some dinner. I needed to get out of this house. I’m not used to being cooped up all day.” I open the fridge and inspect the contents. There’s a low churn of hunger in the pit of my stomach, though I suspect it’s a different kind of hunger. Asher had been the consummate professional, but it was still extremely arousing watching him work. As the light had begun to die, he’d set his paintbrush down and announced we were done for the day. I’d gotten dressed, wished him a happy birthday, kissed him chastely, and then left.
“You went to the movies by yourself?” Leo looks astounded.