Page 65 of Hellfire & Tinsel
“I cried as well.”
Beau made a hurt sound. “You did?”
Kassel nodded, tucking a piece of Beau’s hair behind his ear. “Once I realized you were my heart, I grew sad.”
Beau caught a breath he didn’t need to take, sure he had misheard. He looked between all of Kassel’s beautiful eyes, seeking the answer. “Your heart?”
“My heart. The only one I’ll ever have.”
A few tears slipped free of Beau’s lashes, Kassel catching them with concern.
“You are sad still?”
Beau shook his head, making more tears fall, but he smiled through it, tasting salt on his tongue. “These are happy tears. Overwhelmed tears like when you came back the first time. I didn’t think I’d ever get to hear someone tell me…”
“That I love you?”
It was all he had ever wanted.
He buried his face in Kassel’s shoulder and felt Kassel cradle the back of his head. He didn’t sob, but the tears flowed, like a dam breaking. He released a lifetime of unworthiness andsadness, letting it leak down Kassel’s leather jacket and be dried by the warm fires of Hell.
“I love you too. That’s why I had to come here to see you, I needed you to know. I regretted not saying it as soon as you were gone.”
“Feelings were explained to me,” Kassel said. “I didn’t know I had so many.”
That startled a giggle out of Beau, and he pulled back to look at Kassel’s handsome face. Kassel stared back, softness and wonder there plain to see.
“I think you became my heart when you laughed at the top of the world.”
Beau was touched beyond words, remembering that magical moment vividly. Kassel’s words, usually so dry and clipped, painted a picture just for him. “You became mine the moment I read about you in that summoning book. I just knew it had to be you.”
Kassel laid him down on the bed, following after him. He was tight against his side and propped up on an elbow, staring and staring and staring like he couldn’t get enough.
“Kiss me?” Beau begged.
Kassel gave him what he wanted without hesitation, no summoning in place to muddy the waters. He kissed him because Beau asked and Kassel wanted to give it to him, wanted it too.
Beau’s leftover tears smeared between their cheeks but were quick to dry, Beau getting lost in every gentle press of their mouths. He’d longed for it so much. He felt drunk on it now he could indulge without limits.
Kassel petted his hair, fingers finding the edges of the bow and tracing them like he had some sort of fascination with it. He pulled back to look at it. “I like this.”
Beau squirmed a little, thighs rubbing together as his excitement bloomed shyly. “The bow or…”
He blushed.
Kassel sifted his fingers through his hair again, then lower, skating over his chest. “All of it. You make a pretty gift.”
“You can unwrap me if you want,” Beau said boldly, then immediately became mortified.
He didn’t have a controlled enough face to say those things out loud and not cringe.
Kassel seemed intrigued by the prospect though, eyes turning a shade darker. “Can we keep the bow on?”
Beau was burning up. “Yes.”
Kassel didn’t need telling twice. He shed his jacket, throwing it off into the room somewhere. Beau was left to admire miles of rippling lavender skin as Kassel tugged his leather pants open. He didn’t take them all the way off, just left them hanging, the base of his hardening cock visible through the opening, making Beau want to simultaneously clutch his pearls and die from how hot it looked.
Kassel was on him next, hands snaking under the ribbon’s edges and pushing at Beau’s turtleneck first, making it skate up his body before it disappeared entirely from existence.
