Page 21 of Sigh of Relief

Elton slid his fingers over his mouth, halting his words.

Archer’s lips were soft, unlike his perpetually chapped ones. How would they feel under his? How would they taste? Like the wine last night? Like the vineyard he spent all day tending to? Like relief?

Now.

“I want to kiss you,” Elton admitted, then, after a hard swallow to clear the gravel suddenly in his own throat, confessed another truth. “But I don’t know how.”

Archer’s eyes widened and his lips parted under his fingers, momentarily surprised, but then he schooled his features and took Elton’s hand in his, drawing it away from his mouth. “You were married.”

“To a woman.”

“You’ve never kissed a man before,” he correctly surmised.

Blushing, he ducked his face and nuzzled against the comforting strength of Archer’s solid jaw. “I’ve wanted to. I’ve always been attracted to men.”

Archer rocked his hips, and Elton gasped at the friction. “You don’t say.”

“Not fair.” Elton rolled back, then made another confession. “I’ve thought about checking the bisexual box on dozens of forms, but it’s always felt like a risk just checking the Black box. With my job . . .” He squeezed the hand in his, taking strength from the stronger man. “I never checked the other.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re any less bi.” Archer gently lifted his chin. “And doesn’t mean you don’t know how to kiss.” When he lifted his gaze to Archer’s, the heat staring back at him was scorching. Hand cupping his face, grip tightening on his jaw, Archer wasn’t giving him an out. “Kiss me, Elton.”

Elton didn’t need any outs. The chance to turn fantasy into reality was in this bed with him, and Elton was determined to take it.

Finally.

Now.

He leaned forward and brushed his chapped lips against Archer’s soft ones, tasting his breath and all those things he’d wondered about.

Last night’s wine, misty vineyards, and relief.

So much relief.

He sighed, body relaxing into Archer’s, into a future he’d been chasing for months, a truth he’d known even longer.

And then Archer slid his tongue between his lips, and every inch of Elton raced from relaxed to tense, on the edge of exploding in a split second.

Archer tightened the hand around his, grounding him, giving him a counterpoint to focus on, some place for all the crackling energy to go as he, tentatively at first, returned the kiss, then deepened it, pursuing Archer’s tongue, dipping inside his mouth, hungry for more of that relief.

For Archer.

Kissing him the way he’d dreamed about, wild and desperate.

Loving the way Archer responded in kind, seeming to be as needy for him, for this moment they’d been building up to and dancing around for too long.

Following when Archer rolled onto his back, tugging Elton over him, one hand still clasped, the other flailing until Elton pinned it to the mattress.

Archer groaned and arched beneath him, same as he’d done outside the restaurant last night when Elton had restrained him then.

Parts of Elton’s brain and body that he’d turned off years ago came back online.

“You like that,” he mumbled against Archer’s lips. “Restraint.”

“It’s a start.”

Words laced with a challenge, the tone with a smirk that, when Elton drew back, he was unsurprised to find on Archer’s face too. Along with pupils that were eating up his hazel irises and a rosy blush that bled all the way down to his heaving chest sprinkled with freckles and salt-and-pepper curls. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.”

Smirk deepening, Archer hiked up his legs on either side of his hips and rolled, his hard cock sliding the length of Elton’s. “Imagine how beautiful I’ll look covered in come.”