Page 60 of Painted

Rhys paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, watching Early with a smoldering look. A shiver passed through Early at the thought of all the things Rhys might have been imagining about the two of them in bed together.

He set his fork down, sat a little straighter, and cleared his throat. “I want to try all those things with you, too,” he said, reaching a hand across the table.

Early put down their fork so fast they nearly sent it clattering across their plate and took Rhys’s offered hand.

“I don’t want to do anything you aren’t comfortable with, though,” Rhys went on. “I’m not happy about the way I surprised you with everything the other night. I just assumed you knew what was going on, and I shouldn’t have done that.”

Early lowered their head and bit their lip for a moment before forcing themself to meet Rhys’s eyes and face their inexperience head-on.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” they admitted. “You did shock me, and it was scary. But that’s not the same thing as not liking what happened. I did like it. I liked it so much. But yeah, my head was spinning and my body didn’t know what was going on. It got a little surreal.”

“And I don’t want that to happen again,” Rhys said, squeezing their hand. “I want everything to be present and in the moment when we have sex. I want you there with me instead of just being a body for me to fuck.”

Again, Early couldn’t catch their breath and they even started shaking. Those words were raw and beautiful, and they were well aware that not every potential partner would be as considerate of them.

“I am still so confused about who I am and what I want,” they said quietly, emotion welling in them. “People keep calling me brave and strong, but I feel like I’m winging it every day. The only thing that I know that I want is you.”

They came dangerously close to tears with those words, but they’d never meant anything so deeply in their life.

“I’m honored,” Rhys said, stroking his thumb over the back of Early’s knuckles as he held their hand. “I promise you, I’ll take that trust you’ve placed in me seriously and protect you in every way I can.”

Early sucked in a breath, then unexpectedly let it out on a laugh. “This is wild,” they said, still giddy as they took their hand back so they could continue eating. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel, but I really love the idea of you protecting me and taking care of me. A lot. Does that make me, like, a submissive?” Their face flared hot again and something deep within them shivered at the idea.

“Maybe,” Rhys said with a nod. “You don’t have to put a label on how you feel, though. And like you said, we can play around with things, experiment, try stuff out, and if you decide you like or don’t like something, we’ll work from there.”

Early smiled. On the one hand, talking about the sex they were going to have felt strange and clinical. On the other, it filled them with excitement and made them even hornier than they were.

They could hardly keep their mind on mundane things like eating for the rest of the meal. They hardly said anything as Rhys chatted about boring family things and something that had happened in his afternoon, teen painting class. All they could do was watch Rhys’s mouth and his hands, wondering where they would be on their body later.

They finished the meal then got up to rinse the dishes, put away the leftovers, and tidy up together. Early’s insides buzzed the whole time, and when they finished and Rhys turned to them with a hot, mischievous smile, they thought their knees would buckle.

“So,” Rhys said, almost teasingly. “What do you want to do this evening now that the meal portion of the evening is done?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” they whispered hoarsely, glancing down. A huge wave of shyness had swept down on them, making them feel small and green, but that also felt right somehow.

Rhys must have sensed it as well. He moved closer, scooping an arm around their waist and pulling them flush against him. He slipped a hand under their chin and tilted their face up to his.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, the fire in his eyes turning Early to jelly. “I want to take you to bed, get you naked, and worship every part of your body the way you deserve to be worshiped.”

Early could barely find the breath to whisper, “Yes, please.”

Rhys smiled and brushed his hand over their face, then leaned in to capture their mouth in a kiss worthy of the most romantic movie ever made.

It was like a movie or some sort, or a dream. Rhys kissed them for several long, amazing seconds, then swept them into his arms and carried them out of the kitchen, across the flat, and into the bedroom. He lay Early across the bed, whose sheets they had changed earlier, knowing where they wanted the evening to go, then stepped back and started in on the buttons of his shirt.

Lying there, buzzing and pulsing with desire, watching Rhys undress for them was heady. They knew that they should probably be undressing, too, but they couldn’t drag their eyes away from Rhys as he slowly revealed more and more skin, starting with his chest and arms, then moving to his legs and more as he toed off his shoes and undid his trousers.

Rhys had an amazing body. He was the one who should be posing nude for an artist, although what artists out there could concentrate on something as mundane as painting with a perfect, sculpted male body like Rhys’s on display.

A hitch caught in Early’s chest as Rhys bent to pull off his trousers, then straightened, completely naked. His cock was already very interested in the evening’s activities, and his balls were drawn up and tight. Early wanted to explore them and learn everything about them. They wanted to taste and smell and play with him so that they could learn how to suck and swallow him. The sudden urge to get really good at blow jobs so they could pleasure Rhys whenever he wanted or needed it was all Early could think about for a second.

“Slow down,” Rhys told them, sitting on the side of the bed and resting one hand on either side of their hips. “I can see your thoughts are racing. Take a few deep breaths and relax.”

“I want to learn how to give you really good blow jobs,” they blurted out instead.

Immediately, they winced at how stupid they sounded.

Rhys laughed, but it wasn’t unkind. “Oh, trust me. I want you to get good at blow jobs, too. You don’t want to know the kind of fantasies I’ve been imagining that involve you with your mouth around my cock.”

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