Free The Gilded Scarab by Anna Butler Page A

he said. “The commitments I had… well, they involved other people and promises made that I couldn’t break. It has been a very long time since I was free to be with someone like you, Rafe. And although I’ve been back to Margrethe’s three or four times recently, I haven’t allowed things to go this far.” Edward’s smile, the little crooked turning-up of his mouth, was pained. “I think I’m a little nervous.”
    I could understand that. My hands were trembly, and I had to keep working my mouth to moisten it, it was so dry. I may even have been a little nervous myself. Odd, though, how his honesty, the lack of polite evasion, prompted the same in me. “It’s been a while for me too. Not because I was ever lucky enough to find one person the way you did, if I understand what you say about commitment—the Lancaster luck doesn’t run that way. But still, the life I had, the Aero Corps… I couldn’t risk it. So it’s been a long time.” I managed a grin. “At least, a long time since it wasn’t furtive and quick and in the dark, as if it were shameful. Nothing as open as this. But what I remember of it, it’s a pleasure I would really like to taste with you.”
    He nodded, and this time his smile looked real. “I would be very glad to retaste it with you, Rafe.”
    I took a step toward him. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and held it out to me.
    I sought for something to say as I took it. His palm was warm and dry, and his fingers curled around mine. “Do you like kissing?”
    This time I got the full smile, bright and dazzling and lighting up his whole face. “I do.”
    “Not all men allow it.” I made a gesture with my free hand. “There’s a spot there I’d rather like to kiss.”
    The particular kissable spot was under his chin, half-hid in flickering shadow, half-lit by the firelight. I laughed when my lips settled against the skin of his throat, and he laughed with me; I felt it thrumming in his throat. I raised both hands and held his face, tilting it away from the fire. His eyes were shadowed. I used my fingertips first, following the light down the side of his jaw, tracing the line of his neck and smoothing into the warm hollow at the base of his throat. The little bones cradling it were hard under my fingers, harder still under my tongue. The hollow of his throat tasted of salt.
    Edward sighed, his hands fell onto my shoulders and squeezed, his head tilted back to let me do my worst. It would be all right. We’d find our way back to our old lives together.
    The next kiss wasn’t gentle. It set the world ablaze.
    You know, a bit of my mind still worked. The part of me that wasn’t focused on how Edward tasted and sounded was very appreciative of the skill with which he was licking, kissing, and touching back. Despite his recent abstinence, then, he hadn’t forgotten how. Nor had he forgotten how to get undressed quickly and without breaking a kiss. We scattered clothes all over the room, and my mouth never left his.
    Edward was a good-looking man clothed in his expensive evening suit. Out of it, he was glorious. He had a long lean body, well muscled, with a flat belly leading my eyes inexorably down to the dark blond bush and the springing cock. He had a couple of long scars over the left side of his rib cage, one of which curved around to his back, and I wondered if they were the result of the accident he’d mentioned earlier. But I didn’t ask. It wasn’t important, and as we fell onto the bed, already entwined, I was too busy to worry about it. The scars hardly marred the man’s beauty.
    “Rafe?”
    “Hmn?” I was tasting his inner right thigh. It was saltier than the inner left. I liked salty.
    He tugged me up to kiss his mouth and rolled me over. “Do you want me?”
    I stopped kissing long enough to stare. Perhaps it was a trick question?
    Edward laughed. “I mean, inside you?”
    Definitely a trick question.
    He rolled again so I was on top of him, and he was nearer