Shortbread and Shadows - Amy Lane Page 0,38

feel of it in his palm. There was more to what he wanted—so much more—than a quick hand job on the kitchen floor, but they both needed right now to the point of pain, and Lachlan knew that if he wanted to slow down, wanted to take his time with Bartholomew, to savor every cry and every shiver, he’d have to ease the ache of arousal now.

He stroked slow and hard and lowered his mouth to Bartholomew’s ear. “I’m gonna make you come,” he said crudely. “Just enough so you can think. So we can slow this down. Because I need you too, so bad, you have no idea. But we need room to breathe. So kiss me, and come for me, and then I’ll fuck you proper.”

Bartholomew’s shudder started almost before Lachlan could swallow his cry of orgasm. Maybe it was the crude words, or maybe it was Lachlan’s hand on his cock, but his entire body shook and his shriek of climax filled Lachlan’s chest like oxygen. His come spilled, hot and thick, over Lachlan’s fist.

Lachlan moaned a little, his own cock still hard in his jeans. He pulled away, resting his forehead on Bartholomew’s and trying to catch his breath.

“How you doin’, Tolly?”

“Wasn’t enough,” Bartholomew admitted.

Lachlan’s smile was a little dirty and a lot hungry. “Good. Head for the guest bed. Take off all your clothes.”

He stood and gave Bartholomew a hand up, then kissed him hard, enjoying his taste, his hunger, even the smell of come that was tinging the already charged incense of the spell.

“Okay,” Bartholomew whispered. “What—”

“Just go, Tolly. I’ll be right there.”

Lachlan turned toward the amulets, both of them dyed that sensual burgundy red, lying in a bed of rose petals as fresh as though they’d only now been plucked. The metal pentagrams had arced out slightly, like a protective force between joy and the world, their points lodging into the wood with what Lachlan suspected would be a lifelong bond.

He lifted them out of the flowers and took the cords—now lying neatly coiled next to the spent candle—with him as he walked to the bed. He set them on his bed stand before undressing, working hard not to look at Bartholomew’s slender and milk-pale body as he squirmed under the plain cotton sheets and colorful quilt that decked out the guest bed.

Lachlan kicked off his work boots, shucked his pants, pulled his shirts over his head without fuss or ceremony, and slid in after him.

“Come here,” he demanded simply, and Bartholomew turned those giant haunted gray eyes to his face.

“What?”

“I want to feel you,” he said. “Skin to skin. Twined. Like you said. Come here and kiss me, and let’s make some more magic real.”

Bartholomew’s mouth on his, hungry and yielding at once, was the sweetest wine he’d ever tasted. The scent of the spell mixed with the scent of Bartholomew’s skin, and together, they became a sort of heady incense, indelibly mixed and printed in Lachlan’s primal response center.

This smell would always make him want, always make him need, always make him hard.

For a moment, they simply kissed, skin to skin, Bartholomew on top of him, gloriously nude. Then Bartholomew undulated against him and his cock swelled against Lachlan’s thigh.

“Tolly,” Lachlan murmured urgently, “this is your first time?”

Bartholomew slid sideways and buried his face against Lachlan’s chest. “Yes. I’m sor—”

“No. God, don’t apologize. I’m sorry—I’m just enough of a caveman to get off on that a little. I’m the one who should be sorry, or at least throwing you out into a naked mosh pit so you know I’m the one you want to mate necklaces with.”

Bartholomew’s giggle against his neck gave him heart. “Don’t you see?” he said, meeting Lachlan’s eyes finally. “I trust you. I… I’ve only ever trusted my friends, but I trust you with my body. With… with being naked. That’s why we… mated necklaces, I guess.”

Lachlan swept Bartholomew’s hair back from his forehead, liking that it was over the collar, hating that it hid his eyes. “Then let me trust you,” Lachlan murmured. “I’m here, I’m naked, I want you—oh my God, I want you. Play with me a little, okay? No tickling—pretty please—but other than that?”

Bartholomew’s smile went smug, and he swept a hand from Lachlan’s shoulder to his waist. “All mine.”

“And everything south too,” Lachlan said. Bartholomew rubbed his pectoral again, gentle and firm, and Lachlan moaned breathily. “Everything.”

“Everything?” Bartholomew kept rubbing.

“There’s a nipple in there, Tolly—you could always—yes!”

Bartholomew’s lips, eager and sensual, closed