Page 48 of The Vanishing
Nino shakes his head, stifling a laugh. “I just want you to try and relax. Can we take off your robe?” Haruka sits up from the bed, and Nino helps to remove his robe from around his shoulders, unwrapping it from the length of his body. When he’s naked, Haruka plops back down against the pillow in a huff, exhaling and adjusting his spine with his eyes closed. Nino scans his rail-thin frame, thinking he has a lot of work to do in the coming weeks.
Lifting so that he’s on all fours and hovering above Haruka’s face, Nino takes hold of his chin. Haruka opens his eyes and their mutual gaze locks in a weighted moment before Nino shifts higher, leaning down to kiss his forehead. “Can I start here?” he whispers, placing another kiss just between his eyebrows.
“Yes.”
Nino moves to the tip of Haruka’s nose, grazing the smooth, curved shape with his lips. He slides his palm up one side of Haruka’s face and leans in to kiss just underneath his eye, wishing he had the power to make the heavy bags there magically disappear. When Haruka’s lids flicker closed, Nino brushes his lips against the delicate skin of one lid, and then the other, thinking about how much he loves the vivid color of this creature’s eyes. The infinite range of expression layered within them, and how looking into the depths of his gaze makes his heart race.
He lifts, watching. Haruka’s lids are heavy as he opens them. His tongue slides out over his bottom lip before he parts them in quiet anticipation. But when Nino leans down, he kisses one corner of Haruka’s mouth, then the other. He kisses underneath his bottom lip and just at his chin, teasing and avoiding direct contact with his lips altogether.
Haruka exhales a heavy sigh, stretching his neck against the pillow as Nino moves underneath to kiss his throat, following the exquisite line there and sensing the pulse of his rosy blood flowing underneath his skin.
He caresses one finger along the hard edge of his collarbone. “Can I kiss you here?”
“Yes,” Haruka breathes.
While he shifts low to trace the bone with his tongue, he slides his hand down his mate’s chest, feeling Haruka’s nipple tickling the center of his palm. Nino adjusts his hand, circling the hardness of it with his thumb.
“What about here?” He moves lower, caressing down Haruka’s torso as he kisses the center of his chest. His mate is silent, breathing heavy in the stillness of the room and his body writhing against the dark bedsheets and underneath Nino’s hands. Holding Haruka’s hips, Nino dips down to lick the flat concave of his stomach. He smiles against Haruka’s skin when his belly tightens and shudders from his tongue dipping into his navel.
Slowly, Nino sits straight, drawing one of Haruka’s legs up from the bed. His mate clenches the sheets in tight fists on either side of his hips while he watches Nino’s movements.
“Are we okay?” Nino asks, holding Haruka’s bent leg in front of him. He lifts it higher, stretching his hip and kissing the thin, soft skin behind his knee. As he does this, he glides his free hand down and along the flesh of Haruka’s inner thigh, tracing with his fingertips.
“Yes,” Haruka says, his eyes morphing and glowing like a fiery sunset.
Nino kisses his calf, then rests his face against Haruka’s skin to follow the swell of muscle toward his foot. He laps his tongue within the dip of his Achilles tendon, then kisses his heel. “Every time you stretched my legs when I was on bedrest, I always wished we were naked.”
“I know,” Haruka groans, breathless. “You were quite vocal about it.”
“One day you kissed the bottom of my foot—like it was no big deal. It surprised me…” Nino mimics Haruka’s action, first resting his nose against the warm arch of his mate’s foot, then tilting his head and littering the curve with soft kisses.
Haruka’s chest rises and falls as he stares. “I love every part of you.”
“And I, you.” Nino smiles, his fingertips still gliding up and down the inside of Haruka’s thigh. “May I have this part of you? Can I try?” he asks, holding his foot steady.
“Yes,” Haruka says. He relaxes the tension in his leg as Nino dips down, teasing his foot and toes with his mouth. While he licks, sucks and kisses, he delicately strokes the inside of Haruka’s thigh as if it were a stringed instrument—something elegant, like a harp or koto.
“Nino…”
At the sound of his mate’s raspy voice, Nino stops, pulling up from the swell of Haruka’s toe. “Yeah?”
His glowing eyes are eager under furrowed brows. “Please…”
Nino drops his leg, but surprises Haruka when he leans down to take hold of his wrists. He gently pulls, urging his mate upright so that he’s in a sitting position with his legs gaped wide, knees bent. When he’s close, Nino presses their foreheads together. “Pleasewhat, tesoro?”
His head tilted, eyes half closed, Haruka stretches up to meet Nino’s mouth. He whispers, “Enough…”
Their lips touch in a swift graze before Nino pulls back, lifting his hands to hold Haruka’s face. He stares down into his glowing eyes. “Tell me what you want.”
Haruka closes his parted lips, blinking. His eyes shift to the side before meeting Nino’s gaze once more. “I… I wantyou.”
In a smooth motion, he grabs the liquid that Nino had set aside, then lifts to his knees. Placing the small bottle in Nino’s hand, he grabs his wrist and pulls him up toward the top of the bed. Haruka adjusts so that his back is facing Nino, reaches behind and tugs him into his spine. When Haruka turns his head, his hair tickles Nino’s face. “I want you.”
Nestling against his ear, Nino wraps his arms around Haruka’s body. He whispers against his skin, “You don’t need to want me, Haruka. You have me. I’m already yours.”
Nino revels in the feel of his mate’s cool flesh and nakedness underneath his hands, holding him tight. He litters Haruka’s shoulder with kisses. “And you’re mine?” Nino asks, sliding one hand down to rest flat against his stomach. Haruka arches into Nino’s groin, leaning his head back to rest on his shoulder.
“Forever.”
