Page 19 of Prayers for the Prickly

“It is. I’ll show you that first, if you’d like, it’s my studio, it’s where I draw up my ideas and assemble the scrapbooks of photos detailing each project from the day the wood is collected until it’s placed upon the shelf. Sometimes, if people are willing, we take a picture of the item leaving with them, Olly’s in charge of that part. I leave the peopling part to him.”

We stashed his duffel bag on a hook at the top of the stairs leading to the middle atrium and continued up to the third floor. On one side of the room was my drafting materials, on the other side was my massive king-sized bed and bedroom set.

There were bedside tables on each side of the bed, a smart speaker and lamps for when I sketched in bed. Waking up in the middle of the night with images and ideas in my head used to happen several times a night, but in the last few years, I’d just lie there looking at the stars through the skylights. I occasionally stashed a magazine or two on the bottom shelf of the nightstand. A few articles and I’d fall asleep with little effort, sometimes with the magazine on my face.

He gasped and moved away from me, hurrying to the nearest window to look out at the waves rolling beneath the moon. Cozying up behind him, I braced my hands on the windowsill on either side of him and bracketed him in with my body.

“It is a magnificent view, isn’t it?” I growled as I kissed the top of his head.

Feeling him shiver prompted me to nuzzle and nip at the back of his neck until he was quaking. Each tremor that tore through him made him rub that pert little backside against the front of my jeans.

He even tasted like candy, so sweet I lapped at the spots I nipped before nuzzling my way to the next one.

“I love watching the boats go out in the morning,” I admitted. “I stand up here, sip my coffee and watch their shadows disappear on the horizon.”

“Have you ever worked on one?” August asked.

“I grew up working on them,” I explained. “And I still go out whenever they need me to. It’s what everyone in my family does. You either work on the dock and the shipyards, work in the fish market, or work on one of the boats. It’s how I made the money to buy this place and convert it and later, purchase and set up the shop.”

“Holy crap, how long were you doing it?”

“I started going out after school when I was thirteen, when it wasn’t hockey season, but I was cleaning the boats after they came back and helping to maintain them long before that. My first job was scraping barnacles, and yes, my uncles were rude enough bastards to call me Barnacle Boy.”

He choked at that, gasped and doubled over, wiggling that little backside against me until I had to grab him around the middle and grind against his ass until he threw his head back and hooked an arm around my neck, grinding in earnest.

“August,” I growled, nipping his earlobe as I started to rut against his backside. “Do you want me to take you to the bed and pin you to the mattress, or take you right here on the floor?”

He let out an adorable littleeepas he shivered, breath hitching as he let out a little pant.

“B-bed,” he moaned.

I didn’t wait for him to finish speaking the words, I just picked him up the minute I heard the B sound, and carried him to the four poster, king-sized canopy bed that sat against the wall. It was draped in blue and black right now, a bit extravagant maybe, but I liked the way the cloth fluttered and flowed when I opened the windows.

The motion reminded me of the waves, so much so that when I did drag myself out of bed in the morning to confront the real waves outside, the transition wasn’t so jarring that I was snarling profanities before I made it out the door.

I dropped him on the center of the bed, chuckling when he bounced, eeped, and giggled before rolling on his back to pull off his socks. I tossed my t-shirt somewhere and left my jeans in a pool around my ankles before stepping out of them.

My lower belly was tight, heat pooling like lava in my groin, cluing me in as to what was happening.

Rut.

Fuck.

Oh, fuck yeah.

I barely brushed a hand over my length and my body clenched as my cock gave a little twitch, precum welling up at the tip as I moaned.

“Aren’t you supposed to be letting me do the touching?” August asked.

I met his gaze from halfway across the bed. He sat already naked, shooting me smoldering bedroom eyes that screamed hurry up. I nearly tripped over myself trying to pull my socks off, but somehow I managed to not to do a face plant on the bed while still managing to shuck them.

Desperate to regain at least a shred of dignity, I crawled up the bed, stalking his toes, which I proceeded to tickle, while he twisted and thrashed around, finally getting hold of a pillow that he thwacked me with until I quit tickling him.

“Truce?” he offered, slowly lowering the pillow back onto the bed.

“Truce,” I confirmed, moving my fingers farther from his feet, allowing him to relax completely.

I flopped down beside him, gathered him close and nuzzled the back of his neck, an act that was rapidly becoming my favorite thing to do whenever he was in my arms. I felt him scoot a little closer, until you couldn’t have slipped a piece of paper between us.

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