Page 30 of Break the Rule
For reasons unknown to Charlie, the sudden inspiration to paint has returned, and he’s got a hot date tonight.
“Lookslike you’re standing me up this time.”
The unfamiliar voice startles Charlie out of his intense focus, a bit too abruptly judging by the bottle of cerulean blue paint he knocks to the ground with his elbow. It clatters to the floor, spilling across the hardwood of his studio and mixing with other various stains.
“You should probably clean that.”
Charlie’s gaze draws upward to the figure basked in the light spilling out of his open studio doors—his pale hair all but glowing in the moonlight while his clothing blends into the otherwise pitch dark yard. The guy is a vision in black. He’s wearing an oversized band tee like he had on at Juanita’s earlier, but for the first time since Charlie laid eyes on him at the gallery his forearms are bare, revealing an array of colorful tattoos dotted over both his arms almost like stickers. He’s too far away to make them out in the dark, but Charlie wishes he could.
Each of his wrists are adorned with beaded bracelets that clink together when he lowers his arms to shove his hands into the pockets of the skirt he’s wearing. It’s simple in cut and style, black like the shirt he’s wearing. It shows off his trim legs and knobby knees, scuffed up Converse on his feet. He’s changed his makeup from earlier in the day, and while his eyes are decorated in the same bold liner Charlie’s come to associate with him, it's now accompanied by heavily glittered eyelids and what almostappears to be glittering freckles that definitely weren’t there earlier.
It’s all Charlie can do not to drop to his knees and crawl across the floor to him. He’d cover himself in paint, and it would be so fucking worth it. This guy is a fucking thing of beauty, all his delicate and sharp edges colliding, the same way his mix of masculine and feminine clothing does. He’s a mess of contradictions that make him a fucking work of art.
“Are you going to do anything but stare?” He asks, his earlier confidence flicking like a candle close to burning out. “I knocked a few times and you didn’t answer, but then I heard the music and looked over the fence and saw the light, but I can go.”
“Don’t go,” Charlie blurts, moving without thinking. His foot squelches in the paint, and he doesn’t even care, dropping his paint brush in favor of stalking towards his companion. “I was painting.”
“I see that.”
Up close it’s clear they are glitter freckles. Charlie wants to lick them. He wants to pick him up and devour him, paint him, memorize him. He’s rock hard already, paint splattered fingers twitching at his sides. “I forgot you were coming. I get focused and lose track of things.”
He hums, stepping into Charlie’s personal space. “Do you want me to leave so you can finish painting?”
Charlie shakes his head. He’s not usually lost for words but all of his are gone now. Replaced by a mind full of colors—thick streaks of black and gray, washed out by messy splatters of blue. A garish swash of white. Messy and beautiful. There are times like now where Charlie doesn’t think in words, he thinks in colors and feelings that grow too big until he has to get them out or it feels like they might suffocate him.
“You’re staring, Charlie.”
He is staring. Far beyond the vein of what might be considered polite, but looking away for even a second is inconceivable when there is something in front of him thisbeautiful.
As a child, Charlie had collected random shit. Pretty rocks from sidewalks, tabs from soda cans, the tags off gifts he coveted more than the gifts themselves. Some people called it trash, but Charlie knew better. Beauty lies in the things people look over. In their few short meetings, Charlie understands all the ways this guy is used to being ignored, but if Charlie had his way he’d never look away.
“You’re gorgeous.” He scoffs, but Charlie isn’t deterred, stalking towards him with single-minded focus. “I’m going to touch you. If you don’t want me to, tell me right now.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want you to touch me,” he asserts, widening his stance before tipping his face up at Charlie. “But there are rules.”
Charlie’s hands hover just an inch or so away from their desired destination, but he keeps them there waiting, exerting the kind of self-control he usually lacks. The shift in his facial expression—the tightness in his jaw and pinched eyebrows loosening—is so subtle it’d be easy to miss, but Charlie’s always been a details man. Noticing it feels like a reward just for him.
“Are you a good boy, Charlie?”
“Fuck no,” Charlie laughs. “But I am a respectful one.”
“Being good is overrated anyway,” he replies, rising onto the tiptoes of his scuffed up hot pink Converse. Even then it’s a reach, so Charlie angles his body down, expecting a kiss. Instead, blunt fingernails scrape tantalizingly along his scalp as his head is pulled down, chapped lips finding his ear not his mouth.
“Rules?” Charlie groans, proud of himself for not lifting him up and walking him backwards to press him against the wall to devour him the way he wants to. Charlie might identify as a slut,but he’s not sure he’s ever been so hard just from looking at someone.
“No kissing.” He answers, lips grazing the shell of Charlie’s ear. “And no touching my hair.”
Charlie shudders with anticipation and arousal. He really wanted to touch his soft-looking, white blonde hair, and kiss those pretty lips, but he’s a man of his word. Charlie can resist if he’s not comfortable.
“Anywhere else?” Charlie asks.
“You can touch me anywhere else with your hands or mouth. What about you?” He withdraws slightly, blinking those pretty baby blues at Charlie. “Anything off limits?”
“Nope,” Charlie answers, popping thep. “You could literally step on me and I’d let you.”
“What if I wanted to bend you over that workspace of yours and fuck you?”
“Yes,” Charlie answers so quickly it earns him a quirk of the other man’s beautiful lips which turns Charlie on further. There’s no point playing coy when he’s got a guy right out of one of his fantasies standing here willing to defile him. He kind of hopes he keeps the skirt on when he does it. No one’s ever fucked Charlie while wearing a skirt. Hard to believe, but now that he’s thought it, he knows it’s true. He might have had enough partners over his lifetime that a lot of the sexual escapades bleed together, but he would definitely remember if someone ever fucked him with a skirt on.
