Page 9 of Mad for Madison (The Boys of Hudson Burrow #4)

CHAPTER 8

Madison’s Canvas

Bradley

I came awake with a start. The place where I was felt foreign, as if I’d stepped from one dream to another. Blinking, I grounded myself in reality. The futon on the floor, the sheet covering only one of my legs, the nearly unbearable warmth of the radiators filling the room, the paintings, and the scent of oil paint and pine. The lights were low in Madison’s studio, and the spot where he had slept was empty. That was what had woken me. His absence.

I could have sworn that his strong arm had been wrapped around my body until a heartbeat ago, but the spot where he had been was cold.

“Don’t move,” his voice came, barely louder than the scraping of the graphite pencil against the large canvas that mostly concealed him.

“What?” I asked, my heart speeding up when I realized I needed to get to work. I blinked again and looked out the window. “What time is it?”

“Almost three,” Madison said, his voice still low and calm but carrying enough passion to resemble a gust of wind that filled the sails of a ship lost on the ocean. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Why not?” I asked, blinking myself awake. “And why can’t I move?”

Scrape, scrape, scrape .

“Because you’re beautiful,” Madison said after pondering for a moment. “And that answers both questions.”

I propped myself up on my elbow.

“No, no,” Madison said. “Please.”

I lay back down. My right arm was extended high above my head, my face resting on my upper bicep, and my left arm rested in the empty space where Madison had slept. Lying on my side, I faced Madison and his stand and his canvas.

“I need to finish this,” Madison said, although I hadn’t asked him for an explanation again.

“I thought you guys used photos for reference,” I said.

Madison chuckled. “We do. I do. But you…” Scrape, scrape . “There’s something about you tonight, Bradley. I don’t know if a photo would do you justice.”

I laughed a little. “I’m in your bed, Madison. You can stop flattering me.” Besides, I was naked. Aside from my right leg being lightly concealed, I was completely on display for him: me and my entire unimpressive self.

“I also have reservations about photographing naked people while they’re asleep,” Madison said conversationally.

“Oh.” I thought about it. It was a reasonable reservation, but… “I wouldn’t have minded. For you.”

Madison cocked his head and focused on me, although not my face. He was looking at my left hand, partly buried in the sheets.

“Will I have a face?” I asked.

“You have one,” Madison said.

A snort-chuckle escaped me. “Your boys almost never do,” I pointed out. As far as I could see, his subjects faced away from the viewer. At most, a quarter of their face was visible from behind. And in the cases where the subject looked like Madison, the face was never even a little visible. Some paintings had subjects who faced the viewer circumstantially. There were naked guys climbing a bale of hay, but one wore a straw hat that covered most of his head from my prying eyes, and the other was too far in the distance to have any distinguishing features. In another painting, where a group of young men stood on the cliff of a waterfall, the spray of the splashing water rose so high that their faces were hazy, and the one in the middle of the jump was blurred by his movement.

“You have a face,” Madison assured me, scraping away. “Almost done.”

“How long have you been up?” I asked after a long silence. I discovered that the rasping of the pencil against the linen canvas was a rather soothing sound.

“Probably close to two hours,” Madison said. “I lose track of time.”

I hummed that I understood. Three in the morning. We had half the night ahead of us. I needed to be at Neon Nights at half past six.

“They hide,” Madison said after a long silence.

“Huh?” I might have dozed off or not. I wasn’t sure.

“The boys,” Madison said. “They hide because they’re ashamed. Or shy. Some are hiding simply because it’s their nature, even when there’s nothing to hide at all.”

“But not me?” I asked.

Madison shook his head. “Bradley, you’re the most honest person I’ve ever met.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I’d hidden plenty of things in my life, but I had never been much of a liar. After breaking up with Ava, the obvious had become obvious—my father understood where the problems were. “You some kinda queer?” he’d asked tersely, and I’d nodded. “Not in my house, you ain’t.”

“Do you really think so?” I asked Madison.

Madison was quiet for a little while, working. Then he leaned his head from behind the canvas and looked into my eyes. “I keep telling you,” he said. “You’re genuine, Bradley. Nobody else is like you.”

“I’m not that special,” I breathed, more for myself than for Madison’s ears.

“You are special to me.” And those words left me silent. I didn’t know what I could possibly say to those words.

It took another thirty minutes for Madison to let out a satisfied sigh after looking at his canvas. Then, he got up from his round stool, set the pencil on the table nearby, and lifted his arms up, stretching. His body was a work of art. His defined muscles stretched and extended as he rose to the tips of his toes, his torso arching backward, his round ass firming up. He turned around, as naked as I was, and ran his hands down his chest and abs.

He was smooth and tanned, his skin glowing under the lamplight. On light feet, he came to the futon and lay next to me. His long, dark eyelashes batted as he looked at me, his hand sliding along the side of my rib cage. “I never thought I could have something like this, Bradley.”

I swallowed and caressed his face with the back of my index finger. Frowning in thought, I felt comfortable enough to ask him, “What is it like, then?”

“Working?” he asked.

I nodded.

His shoulders moved in a slight shrug. “Dunno. I don’t give it that much thought.”

“But it’s not like this,” I said, wondering if I wanted to hear the answer.

Madison shook his head resolutely. “It’s nothing like this.” We were quiet for a little while, looking into one another’s eyes, feeling each other’s bodies, tracing our curves, and memorizing our shapes. Then, Madison licked his lips. “It’s like any other job you do.” It provoked a smile from me. “Well, not office work, I think,” he clarified. “It’s like doing sports or dancing or something as physical as that. I don’t give it any meaning. I prepare for it, train for it, stay fit for it, and then I show up. It’s only my body. Does that make sense?”

“Maybe,” I said, unsure.

“Having sex in front of a camera is more technical than anything,” Madison said freely. I loved that he didn’t hide that away from me. “It can be pleasurable, but it means nothing.”

“So, it’s fake?” I asked.

Madison gave me a deadpan look. “It’s so fake, Bradley.”

I didn’t know why that offered me relief.

“We shoot a scene for three or four days,” Madison said. “It can be super frustrating because you’re not allowed to, um, finish.” When I frowned, he explained. “The director wants the big finish to be genuine most of the time, so you kind of have to hold back. So you show up, do your hair and makeup, get comfortable, and bring up the walls. You surrender your body to whatever your ultimate goal is. You separate from it.” His hand rested firmly on my bare hip. “Of course, some guys just like the exhibitionism. They get a kick out of doing it. Not me, though. I sometimes wished I was more like them, more attracted to the idea of being watched. But to me, it’s just a way to break that cursed cycle. I’m good at it. I can do a lot that directors like, especially if I’m partnered with someone I get along with.”

“It won’t hurt me if you say you like it,” I said.

Madison laughed. “I know that. I’m just not sure that’s the right word for it.” He leaned closer to me and pressed his lips against mine. His hand slipped from my hip, and he grinned while kissing me. “Does it turn you on?”

“You with other men?” I asked. “No.”

“Your dick disagrees.” His hand tightened gently, making me throb.

“You turn me on,” I said and kissed him again. “Everything about you turns me on.” But it was more than that. Knowing that there was a difference, a separation of sorts, fanned the embers of passion between us. Knowing that Madison did his work with men who were bigger and hotter and more experienced was scary enough, but hearing that he still wanted me turned me on.

His hand moved gently along my length. He stroked me while pressing his lips against mine more fervently with each heartbeat.

“I like you,” he whispered tightly between the kisses. “I like you a lot, Bradley. You make me feel…” But he never finished that sentence. Hot? Sexy? Good? Whatever it was, its meaning dissolved in a kiss that followed.

Madison and I turned and twisted on his futon, hands moving slowly at first and faster as time went on, exploring each other without hesitation. He never flinched when I cupped his balls or ran my finger between his cheeks just to feel the warmth of his hole.

Our tongues teased one another. My chest rose as I inhaled deeply, pressing hard against Madison’s, and he wrapped his arms around me to keep me closer. I kissed him madly, staringly, mercilessly. I kissed him like the approaching dawn would turn us into stone so we would never get to kiss again.

Rolling on the thin mattress, I knelt between Madison’s legs and trailed his chin, jawline, and neck with my kisses. I found the soft part of his ear and bit it, making him wiggle under my body, his fingers sinking into the flesh on my back.

“I want you,” Madison purred as I kissed the length of his neck, feeling his racing pulse under my lips. He made my blood heat up with lust, but I knew I made his heart quicken. “I need you, Bradley.”

“I’m here,” I whispered against his heated skin.

He held me closer, every inch of our torsos pressing tightly together, our bodies feeling one another with a desperate need to join, to merge together, to be one.

Before, I would have imagined Madison wanting a partner who could lift him in his arms and do wild things to him. I would have imagined him bored of whatever vanilla hip thrusts most people could offer. I would have thought he needed someone bigger, rougher, hotter than even the actors he worked with. But I had been wrong.

Madison longed to feel close to someone. He yearned for the sensual act of uniting with someone in their rawest form.

So I took his wrists in my hands and trapped his arms above his head. I kissed him while letting our bodies grind. I lifted my head and looked into his eyes, searching for his vulnerabilities and examining his longings. Nico Hart wanted big boys to rough him around; Madison Masters wanted to be loved.

I can do that for you , I thought. I can love you until my dying breath . I’d done it for free for so long. I could do it in the light of day, too.

So we kissed, turning one another on with every little move and every tiny moan. We dragged it out like we had all the time in the world and the sun would never rise.

And when my lips trailed all of his torso to the smooth skin of his groin, I inhaled deeply, taking in his scent. Mine , I thought and was filled with such possessiveness that my hands tightened around his wrists, now pinned on the sides of his hips, by sheer instinct.

Madison was so hard that his dick couldn’t lie on his stomach for even a second. It stood at full mast, curving slightly, a shade darker than the rest of his body, veins standing out. The glistening drops of precum appeared from the slit, dragging and leaving a wet trail over the swollen head of his cock. The sight made my mouth water, and I resigned myself to the physical pleasure we could find in one another.

I wrapped my lips around his cock, taking him into my mouth and letting the flavors of his precum sink into my tongue.

Madison inhaled shakily, his chest rising high, and exhaled with a shudder. He lay still, letting me tease him with my tongue, letting me drag the tip of my tongue around the rim of his head. It was all I could do when I couldn’t take him deep into my throat. Not yet, at least.

“Fuck,” he whimpered. “That feels…” But a moan cut him off, and I lowered my head a little further, feeling his cock press hard against the roof of my mouth, stopping just against the tight muscles of my throat.

I sucked him as well as I could. My body still rejected the sensation if I tried to go too far, but that didn’t stop me from finding ways to torment him with my mouth. My lips were sealed around him, my tongue pressed hard against the bottom side of him, air sucked out of my mouth, and I slowed down so much that it left Madison in a permanent state of fearful expectation. I couldn’t impress him with how deep I could take him, but I could make him feel this so strongly and so deliberately that he would never forget it.

I let go of his wrists, but he still clutched fistfuls of the bedsheet beneath him. Every muscle in his body was taut with tension. His voice was strained and small. His shoulders and upper back were lifted off the futon, and his abs flexed to keep him in that position. I could feel the tension seeping from him into me, overflowing him and filling me up.

Saliva trickled from my mouth and down his cock whenever I moved my head. And when I brought my right hand to the base of his cock, I dragged it over his slick length and his rising, tightening balls. He shivered, trembled like crazy, when I pressed my finger against his taint and dragged it lower, finding the place of his pleasure, finding the warmth of his hole, and adding just enough pressure to make his eyes open.

He looked into my eyes feverishly. “Yes,” he hissed. “I want to…feel you…inside.”

My finger was slick with my spit, and Madison was still wet and loose from a few hours ago. The faint scent of lube, rosy and enchanting, lingered on him even as I pushed my finger carefully into his body.

Madison’s head thumped back against the futon, the pillow pushed somewhere aside in the heat of our movements, and he inhaled deeply as I felt the tightness dissolve around my finger. With the tension gone, I made my way into him, feeling him relax all the way until my last knuckle.

I knew where to touch him to make him wild with lust. I knew where to add pressure to make him pant and cry for more. But I knew not to do it immediately. The art of it, in my view, was to give him the barest traces of it, to feed him breadcrumbs until he begged.

Madison’s hand moved free of the bedsheet, and his fingers closed around the curls on the back of my head. His other hand slipped between us, and he grabbed my wrist, holding me firmly and pulling me closer, making me reach deep into him with passionate thrusts.

As I jerked my hand back and forth, I extended my middle finger, letting it add pressure to his hole with each move until he accepted me inside his body. The tension was immediate, his hole tightening around my fingers, slowing me down, making me wait.

He relaxed slowly, taking time to adjust to the sensation, and I twisted my hand clockwise and counter, helping him get used to it. I eased both fingers into him, making him pant shakily while barely moving my head, simply holding him in my mouth until I was sure he wouldn’t blow. My gaze was locked on his angelic face. I watched the pleasure spilling over, glowing, rising in his features. I felt him throbbing my mouth. I heard his breaths as air hitched in his throat, and tension was such that I feared he would snap.

“Fuck me, Bradley,” he begged, his voice tight and strangled. “Please. Just…” A moan ripped free from his lips as my fingers found his prostate, making his entire body twist in pleasure.

I let my fingers slide out slowly, rubbing his hole soothingly once they were out, and I wrapped my hand around his cock to stroke him once I lifted my head. He was so ready for me that I didn’t need to wonder. The adoration on his face and in his eyes reflected what I felt for him at this exact moment.

It was devotion.

That was how you treated someone you cared about.

Madison turned around slowly, lying on his front, while I lifted condoms and lube from a few feet away where we’d left them on the floor. Although still not very practiced, I wasn’t afraid of blundering this part. I slipped the condom on and poured lube generously despite the fact that Madison was slick and waiting for me.

“Ready?” I whispered once I positioned myself above him.

Madison spread his legs and nestled his head in his arms. Lifting his butt a little for me, he nodded. “I’m ready.”

My lips pressed heatedly against his neck as I held myself firmly in my hand and let my weight do the rest. Sinking into him, I felt our mutual tension melt into something wonderful.

Madison thrust his ass higher, impaling himself on me from below, his upper back pressing against my chest, my stomach touching the curve of his lower back.

He groaned, holding himself fast as I jerked my hips back and pushed forward, sinking deeper into him.

“Fuck, that feels good,” he purred when the hard part was over. I could imagine the warmth replacing the pain—I’d explored these sensations on my own, finding that I was much more drawn to being a top. Still, thinking what it felt like for Madison turned me on by a few degrees.

I slipped my arm around Madison’s upper torso as he propped himself up on his elbows. Using his knees, he lifted his ass higher and gave me a good angle, letting me fuck him with smooth movements that gave us both the sort of pleasure poets would write about if only they knew.

He cried out, a hand reaching up and to the back of my neck, holding me close as I kissed his neck and ear. My abs burned with tension as I thrust my hips back and forth, sweat breaking over my body.

The sound of his voice when I fucked him was the sweetest music I’d ever known. He was mine. He was like this because of me. He was trapped in this moment of passion, in this indulgence, with me and nobody else.

Everything he had said to me was true.

I believed every word of it.

“Harder,” he pleaded. I knew what it meant. He didn’t need me to be more forceful, to twist his arm or pull his hair. He needed me closer.

Hugging him tightly from behind, I thrust my hips until he lay flat on the mattress, rubbing against it with every move we made. He panted and moaned, and so did I, our breaths a wild jazz performance, erratic and without any discernable harmony, simply working to perfection.

“Madison,” I huffed against his ear, feeling our mutual pleasure rise, feeling the tension match it step for step. It was incredible. It was beautiful in a way few things in life were.

We lost ourselves in one another for minutes, hours, days. I didn’t know what time was. I only knew what we were. The Earth spun around us; the universe orbited us, because we were its center. We were the heart of it all.

And when Madison’s body coiled in the heat of our pleasure, I felt him tighten and relax around me. And I knew he had reached the climax while I followed mere heartbeats behind him.

You and me , I thought as I held on to him as if a storm threatened to blow me away. The thunderous orgasm passed through my entire body, curling my toes and making my head spin. Just you and me .

Could this be real? Could we have this crazy, impossible thing? Could we keep it alive?

In this moment of pure joy, I believed we could.

I was his just as he was mine.

And in the hours that followed, we lay together, holding one another and quietly wondering what good things we had ever done to earn this reward. My thoughts were no secret, and neither were his. I could read them from the thankful looks he sent my way.

You have nothing to thank me for , I wanted to tell him. I would have given myself to him without any reward at all.

The sunrise found us half asleep on the futon, naked and together, and we didn’t turn to stone. Part of me wished we had so we wouldn’t need to leave this moment, this place, but I knew it wasn’t over. We had to leave, but we carried a promise with us now. We carried a promise to be together again.