Page 12 of Pansies

Fen’s eye closed again.

He tried desperately to think of what to say.9 But his blood was too busy carrying oxygen away from his brain. “Like that jewellery with the white silhouettes. My mam used to have one.”

The slap of skin on skin resounded through the room as Fen’s hand crashed onto his own chest and began to scrub ineffectivelyat the mess there.

Shut up, Alfie. Shut up, right now. “I think it was a brooch.”

Fen mumbled something.

“Eh?”

“Cameo.” His head half-turned in Alfie’s direction, his eyes easing reluctantly open. His expression was blank, his eyes reflected nothing, and he sounded annoyed.

“What?”

“It’s called cameo. It’s a form of carving.”

“Oh right.” There was another endless silence. “Thanks.”

Slowly, so slowly that Alfie barely saw the movement, Fen’s body curled in on itself like wilting petals.

“Are you… Was that… Is everything…okay?”

No answer.

Alfie had no idea what he was supposed to do now. He was getting the sense things had gone badly wrong, but he couldn’t figure out exactly where. It had seemed fine, better than fine, a lot better than fine, when they’d been touching. So he reached out a tentative hand and brushed it over Fen’s pale, shivering shoulder. Gooseflesh rose immediately to greet him, and he felt the tension ease from the muscle.

He shuffled a little closer over the wrinkled sheets, and to his surprise, Fen twisted round, tossed his glasses aside, and rolled straight into his arms. Alfie wrapped him up and pulled him close, fitting their bodies into a new togetherness. Fen’s head found a place to nestle against Alfie’s neck, and one of his hands curved possessively over Alfie’s upper arm, his fingers sliding over the spirals of ink.

Alfie’s erection, which had flagged a bit during the cameo business, came bouncing eagerly back. He winced. “Sorry, mate.” He shoved a hand between their bodies and tried to stop his cockpushing into Fen like it was hinting. “Just ignore it.”

Fen pulled back just a little, enough to raise his head again. Without glasses, his face looked different, younger, his eyes exposed and vulnerable. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Well, it was fine. What we did before. It was so good. I don’t need—” But Alfie had absolutely no chance of finishing that sentence because, suddenly, there was a hand on him, and all his words vanished into a gasp.

Fen’s touch was rough, almost too rough, but Alfie arched into it anyway, wanting it, wanting those long, merciless fingers, the rasp of dry skin against tender. It was like he could feel all the deep furrows of Fen’s palm pressed into him like a brand. Like a new tattoo.

He meant to say,You don’t have to do this, but he couldn’t catch his breath. His world was spiralling into Fen’s hand. Into the long, sure strokes that dragged him to the precipice of ecstasy and pulled him back again.

It made him ache. But wonderfully.

Fen was watching him, expressionless, his eyes burning. Though when he spoke, his voice was far from steady. “You want me.”

It wasn’t quite a question, but Alfie nodded.

Fen’s hand tightened. “Say it.”

Alfie kind of thought the fact they were in bed together, and he was frantically thrusting into the tight channel of Fen’s fist, had given the game away there. But he could barely keep a thought in his head, let alone construct an entire sentence.

Fen pulled back, and Alfie heard himself make a sound that was almost a whimper, his body stilled with the pure shock of rejection.

“Say it,” whispered Fen a little desperately. “Tell me howmuch you want me.”

Alfie’s mouth had gone completely dry, but he managed to scratch out the basic idea. “I want you. Please, Fen. Touch me.”

He was immediately rewarded by a touch so sweet it made him groan shamelessly for more. And Fen gave him more until he came so hard it made his ears ring, stars the colour of Fen’s eyes dancing in the sudden darkness of his pleasure. He fell stickily against Fen, too blissfully spent to care much about anything just then, including the state of the sheets.

Fen was still and silent again, but not pulling away. Alfie didn’t know what to say again, but he was full of questions. He wanted to know about the stranger who lay in his arms. But he didn’t dare. Instead he watched, through half-closed eyes, as the man slowly—miraculously—relaxed. His breathing grew deep and steady. He slept.

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