Page 61 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
Close enough that my cock is hard.
Finally, I stop. I stop in a room that is nearly all installation—a mounded structure made of woven grain with a narrow passage for an entrance. I doubt I’m allowed to, but I move into the passage, having to turn sideways to fit, and push myself into the center of the structure, emerging with a few bits of straw clinging to my tuxedo and dusting the tops of my shoes. A bright light shines into the passage I just came in from, and above me, the ceiling is arched and ribbed like the vaults of a cathedral—except the vaults are made of willow rods and grain instead of stone. The ceiling is dropping wheat heads and barley spikes onto the floor.
It smells of summer inside.
The structure is only half a structure; the gallery wall bisects the chamber halfway in. The wall is painted a plain white and still marked with the hanging screws of whatever exhibit was here last.
I press myself against it and try to decide how to feel when Auden can’t find me.
Except, of course, he does find me.
I wasn’t fast enough, or he could hear me shuffling through the passage, or it’s where he would have hidden if he were the type of man to hide. It doesn’t matter, because the minute I hear his footsteps coming closer, everything about my body comes alive. My organ is so swollen now that it presses against my zipper. I know if I pulled it out, it would be wet at the tip.
He steps out of the passage without a single fleck of straw or grain on him, his expression carnivorous. “St. Sebastian,” he says.
Chapter Fifteen
St. Sebastian
“I didn’t come here for you,” I say.
It’s a lie, we both know that, but I have to say it anyway. “I didn’t come here for this.”
“I think you did,” Auden says softly. “I think you came here for exactly this.”
He steps closer. The grain chamber muffles the noise some, which makes the room feel even smaller. A cloister of barley. A cell of wheat.
He steps closer again, close enough to reach out and run a long finger up my lapel, which he does now. “Do you like your tuxedo?”
“I’m going to have to clean the barley off it before I return it.”
Auden’s forehead wrinkles. “Return it?”
“To wherever you rented it from?”
Auden looks appalled. “I didn’t rent you a tuxedo, St. Sebastian. Give me some credit.” His mouth pulls into a moue of offended pride.
Rich boy.
I look down to where his hand still caresses my lapel. It’s hypnotic to watch his fingertips ghosting over the fabric, lingering over the neatly tailored peaks, dancing over the single button that keeps the jacket closed.
“Grosgrain,” he says after a minute, his eyes on the lapel now too. “Instead of satin. I thought it suited you better.”
“I don’t know what grosgrain is,” I tell him. His fingers are plucking at my jacket button, each little tug and pull of the fabric like a whispering kiss along my middle. If he popped the button open, there’d be nothing between his hands and my stomach but my dress shirt.
“It’s silk,” he says, “but it’s been pulled and twisted into something rough and strong. Unlike other fabrics, grosgrain shows its bones.” And then my jacket button releases and his hands are inside, sliding up my stomach to my chest. When his palms drag over my nipples, obviously bunched into tiny points even with the shirt between us, he lets out a long-suffering sigh. As if I should be ashamed I’ve been denying him the pleasure of this.
“This shirt is Egyptian cotton,” he tells me. “It has the longest fibers of any of the cotton breeds. It makes the fabric stronger, but softer too. Almost silky. Do you feel it? The silkiness?”
His hands are everywhere under my jacket now, rubbing along my spine and shaping the blades of my shoulders, tracing the waistband of my trousers, pushing gently against my navel. I can’t bear to look at his haughty, handsome face, and so I have to close my eyes.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I feel it.”
“The tuxedo itself is made of wool,” he says, his hands moving down to my hips, and then around to my ass. He doesn’t linger there, and neither does he pause over the obvious ridge of my erection, but my body hums as if he’s already inside of me, as if he’s already wrapped a strong hand around my staff and started squeezing. “Sturdy but so finely carded that you could almost believe it a cousin to silk. Listen to my tuxedo against yours—it’s barely a whisper, isn’t it? It’s like a breeze in the evening or the wash of the river when the water is low. Barely any noise at all.”
He’s stepped into me in order to prove his point—his thighs moving against mine, his closed jacket brushing against my open one—and my eyes are still closed and I’m shuddering, shuddering, shuddering.
“And our shoes,” he murmurs, his voice so close that I know his mouth is hovering near my jaw, “are calf leather. Made in Italy. Supple—” One of his shoes nudges against mine, forcing me to step out to the side. “—but robust.” His other shoe pushes against my foot and then my legs are spread wide enough that he can fit both of his between mine. I’m unsteady like this, off balance with my back against the wall and my feet planted wide, and so I have no choice but to press against Auden’s touch. His hands sliding under my jacket to grip my shoulders and triceps, his hips pinned firmly to mine. I can feel his cock, hard and stretching to his hip.
