Page 80 of In the Frame

“Can you be very quiet?” I ask, tilting my head back to look at him.

His eyes widen. “What are you planning on doing?”

“Sucking you off. Quickly.”

Florian blinks and leans into my hand. He’s already breathing hard and nods.

I unfasten his belt, his jeans, pushing them down around his hips. I free his cock from his boxers, rigid and damp with precum. I trace the head with my tongue, and I draw him in deep for a moment, and he whimpers. He’s hot in my mouth. Then I release him, and his body practically convulses.

“Shh.”

And I deliver on my promise.

I continue urgently, my hand and mouth working him, as his breathing becomes desperate and his hands tighten in my hair. Against my tongue, he practically trembles, rigid in my mouth.

I feel reckless, and he’s intoxicating, and I can’t think about what I’m doing. Or how much I want him or how much I’ve craved him and how lonely I’ve been since leaving London, even surrounded by my family. I can’t believe we’re doing this. I can’t think about it. Especially here, of all places, or I’ll lose my nerve.

He’s thrusting into my mouth to meet my intense movements. Florian’s trying his best not to make a sound, but he’s huffing and shuddering, and it’s so fucking hot. When he erupts with a muffled sound deep in my throat, I swallow his cum, licking his head and shaft clean. And he’s now standing braced with his hands on the slanted ceiling, gasping. He stares at me.

I draw his boxers up and stand and kiss him. The kiss he gives back is ferocious, hungry. His hand comes to hold the back of my head, and I groan. My body ripples with pleasure.

“Let me return the favor,” he murmurs, kissing along my jaw. I press into him, goose bumps covering my body. I’m so into him right now.

Yet.

“Wait,” I manage unsteadily. “I can’t have you suck me off right now. Not here. Not at my parents’.”

“Didn’t you just give me a blow job?” Florian looks slightly confused. He’s flustered. “When? Where?”

“I don’t know. And it’s different when it’s my cock’s involved at my family’s house. I don’t make the rules. I’m just not ready today. It’s too weird right now.”

“Got it.” He nods. Florian sucks back a shaky breath, flushed. He studies me. And he’s still trembling.

I kiss him again, more lightly this time, and straighten. “I’ll think about selling the paintings. Not today.”

He exhales sharply.

I smile, tracing his cheek. “Have some tea.”

Florian sits down hard on the stool, stunned and reeling. I pass him his tea. I sit on the desk chair partway across the room, out of arm’s reach. “I just… need a moment,” Florian says.

I work on my tea, sitting quietly at my desk, and I reach for a sketchbook. In quick sketches, I draw Florian, the intense way he looks at me, the way he’s loose-limbed and spent after he came. I want to remember this moment, our conversation, the way it feels to have him so close, and yet we’re worlds apart. Outside, the sun’s nearly gone, the skies over the fields turned gold with a hint of cloud above gone pink.

Finally, I finished my drawing, with Florian on the stool, his hands braced on his thighs. “Feeling alright now?” I ask.

He nods, a struggle across his features. I would love to kiss his lips, his face. But none of that helps either one of us. Instead, I fold my hands in my lap.

“Think about coming back to London?” he tries. “Please.”

I shrug. “We’ll see.”

“I miss you, Matty,” he murmurs, and something in him looks broken and lost, and all I want to do is go to him. But it’s not going to make anything better, and ultimately, it will feel a whole lot worse. “But more than anything, I want you to be happy.”

My throat’s tight. I just nod. I don’t dare say I miss him too. I don’t trust what I might say. Or do. And, after all, his investments come in first place. And maybe it’s silly to think that way, like it’s a choice between me and the Rose, but he knows where I stand.

“I should leave,” Florian whispers. “I need to go early to help my brother.”

“Yeah?”