Florentine

by Mazarin Stone

  Mahiro drowns in it, in the sensation of little nips and licks at Alex’s lips, in the way Alex will suck lightly on his bottom lip or trace the inside of Mahiro’s mouth with his tongue. He’s got both hands full of Alex’s perfect ass, his mouth occupied with Alex’s tongue, and this is where he wants to stay forever.

  “Mmm. Going to run out of hot water eventually,” Mahiro says and places a quick peck at the corner of Alex’s mouth. “Should have used the bath.”

  “Don’t care,” Alex mumbles. He bends down to lick and nip at Mahiro’s collarbone, and Mahiro sighs, arches back into Alex’s strong hands. It’s been ages since he’s trusted a lover with his own body like this, and it’s intoxicating.

  “Kneel for me, sweetheart,” he says, and Alex smirks.

  “Didn’t you just get enough of that?” he snarks, even as he sinks to the hard shower floor. “Playtime is over.”

  “Playtime never really got started,” Mahiro says and turns the spray to the side a bit. He pours some shampoo into his hand and begins to wash Alex’s hair. “Because a certain person decided to take charge of the evening’s agenda.”

  Alex snorts, but then sighs and preens under the slow scalp massage Mahiro gives him, waiting patiently until Mahiro rinses his hair out and pats him on the shoulder so he can stand. Mahiro turns to start rinsing his own hair, but as he does, Alex’s hands land on his hips. He turns him around carefully and takes over, washing Mahiro’s hair just as Mahiro washed his, and Mahiro smiles into the luxury of it.

  “Thank you,” he says and leans in for another kiss. Alex cups his face and kisses him carefully, then more forcefully, the kiss ramping up from sweet and chaste to wet and filthy in the matter of a moment when Alex opens his mouth and his tongue sweeps across the seam of Mahiro’s lips. Mahiro can feel himself growing hard against Alex’s body, Alex’s own cock starting to press firm and insistent at the crease of Mahiro’s thigh.

  “Christ, I want you,” Alex mumbles against his lips. “It’s like I can’t get enough. I go home after Fridays and I jerk off all week thinking of you. I jerk off the hour before I get here. The hour after I leave. In the shower. Before I go to sleep. And it’s you, always. You.”

  Mahiro shivers hearing it, Alex’s perfect mouth saying how much he gets off to thoughts of Mahiro, and Mahiro’s internal alarm is screaming.

  You can’t have this.

  You can’t have this.

  Mahiro sinks down to the shower floor until he can take Alex Breschi’s perfect cock into his mouth and suck, long and hard with a nasty little scrape of teeth until Alex bucks and shouts and comes, Mahiro swallowing every drop.

  The fuck I can’t, he thinks, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “WELL, I didn’t break the skin, at least,” Mahiro says and dabs a little antiseptic cream for good measure on the bruise on Alex’s neck. “But I did leave a mark. I hope… I didn’t ask, and I hope you’re okay.”

  Alex leans forward and kisses Mahiro’s cheek. “I’m happy to wear it. That means you were lost in us, and I’m thrilled with it.”

  Mahiro can feel his face flush. He’s marked plenty of people, but only deliberately, never in the heat of lust like he had. Jesus.

  “Hey, Mahiro. Don’t be upset.” Alex pulls the robe back up over his shoulders, sits down on the sofa in the playroom, and takes Mahiro’s hand to draw him down with him.

  Mahiro tucks himself in the corner of the sofa, facing him. “I’m not, really. It’s just that this a little unusual for me.”

  “Do you need me to cuddle you, then?” Alex teases. “I’m good at cuddling.”

  Mahiro laughs. “Okay, then. Cuddle the fuck out of me. It’ll make for an interesting change.”

  Alex grins and opens his arms, and Mahiro snuggles up against his chest. Alex wraps him up and kisses the top of his head. He’s right, honestly. He’s a champion cuddler, and Mahiro’s pulse starts to slow.

  “You never really answered me,” Alex whispers against his hair. “About tomorrow night.”

  Mahiro sighs. “I can’t say no to you, you know? This is a dangerous precedent to set. You might start getting ideas.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  Mahiro looks up at him and can feel the smile on his face. “Yes. I’m saying yes.”

  Alex’s arms tighten in a hug so firm Mahiro feels like he can’t breathe for a moment. “Just wait,” Alex says, and he sounds positively gleeful. “I’m going to make you so happy, Mahiro. I promise.”

  Mahiro smiles and ruthlessly tamps down the tiny flutter of worry blooming in his stomach. He can have this. He can.

  And when Alex pulls the collar of Mahiro’s robe away from his neck to press hot, openmouthed kisses under his ear, he’s determined that he will.

  12:46 A.M.

  I’m going to dinner with him tomorrow night.

  Adam 12:46 a.m.

  What the fuck I am in the middle of a club you cannot do this to me now

  Adam 12:46 a.m.

  Did you tell him?

  12:47 a.m.

  No. I don’t think I will. He’s going back to Russia in August.

  12:48 a.m.

  Over before it starts.

  Adam 12:49 a.m.

  You’re a grown-ass adult. Act like one and tell him. You’re always so ashamed of what is one of the most incredible things about you, and it pisses me off honestly.

  Adam 12:49 a.m.

  You have nothing to be ashamed of. You were a professional figure skater. You competed in a Grand Prix series event. You are an incredible dancer and choreographer on top of that. STOP BEING ASHAMED.

  12:50 a.m.

  I know. But if I tell him he’ll watch the Skate Am FS and I’d rather crawl into a hole and die.

  Adam 12:51 a.m.

  Sigh. Did you kiss him then or what?

  12:52 a.m.

  Yes. And “or what.” A lot of kissing. Lots of “or what.” Lots of it.

  Adam 12:53 a.m.

  Good luck, my friend. You’re going to need it.

  Mahiro drops his phone next to his bed and sighs. Scenes, impressions of his free program at Skate America six years before flash before his eyes, the humiliation of falling, falling, again and again as he dragged further and further behind in the music and then culminated in a broken lace that left him wobbly and uncertain in his final pose, tears streaming down his face and utter horror that Alex Breschi, the one person he hoped like anything would see him at his best, might have witnessed the most disastrous skate of his career, the result of overwhelming performance anxiety.

  But he hadn’t, it seems, as Mahiro’s second on the ice free program slot came after a next to last finish in the short, and Alex wasn’t even anywhere near the ice when it all went down. He wasn’t even in the locker room after Mahiro left the rest of his dignity in front of the cameras by breaking down in the kiss and cry. He wasn’t anywhere that Mahiro expected skaters who were still waiting to perform to be, and he thanked his lucky stars from that day forward that there was, at least, some measure of grace left in all of this. When he told his coach goodbye, when he left Detroit—he put that life, everything that Alex represented, away forever.

  Until he didn’t. Until Alex showed up in New York and everything he’d ever felt, thought, or experienced about Alex Breschi was ripped open again and laid bare, every admiring glance at a magazine given over to the reality of having Alex’s body gleaming with sweat under his, over his, around him. That instead of being a supplicant, compliant at Alex’s feet, he’s teaching him, dominating him, giving him something of himself that he does take pride in. It’s exhilarating, and it seems Alex finds it as intoxicating as he does. He can’t lose that.

  They’ll go to dinner. They’ll enjoy themselves. Mahiro will set Alex a fun little challenge, and he’ll pretend that he’d never once thought of Alex in any serious way until a month ago, and get to know the person he’s been having incredibly kinky sex with by talking to him and going on dates like regular
people do, and he’ll have two months of a fantasy life before Alex goes back to Russia, and maybe Mahiro will get a mysterious and cryptic mention in the acknowledgments of his book.

  It will be fine.

  Mahiro rolls over on his bed and stares at the ceiling, and his mind throws him a vision of saying goodbye to Alex in the airport before he leaves, and Mahiro’s eyes prickle.

  There’s no way this will be fine.

  But he’s doing it anyway.

  Chapter 8

  ALEX STARES at 26,816 words, highlights every last one of them, and presses Delete. They flash and vanish from the screen as if they never existed, and the relief he feels is palpable.

  Then he sighs and clicks “undo,” and they reappear again, all 26,816 of them. It had felt good, even if it was just for a moment. Instead of deleting months of work outright, however, Alex opens a new document, closes his eyes, and begins to type blind.

  “Hand me that pen,” Mason says, glancing at the table next to his chair. Conner stares for a moment, then gets up, walks over to the chair, picks up the pen, and hands it over. Their fingers brush and it’s electric, the building charge of the last month culminating in a single bright spark. He’s been watching Mason play with others, and the coffee dates and drinks afterward to discuss it have been dancing around the one subject Conner knew he could never broach. But now he was being invited, seduced really, to try a little bit of this life for himself.

  Alex opens his eyes and reads what he’s just written, then deletes it wholesale. Okay, just lay it all out there, Alex. I mean, why have any restraint about telling everyone exactly what you’ve been doing the last month? No big deal, it’s not like the gossip rags won’t have a field day with that.

  He needs to be writing a different book, honestly, because the mystery he’s supposed to be writing is shifting into the guise of an erotic thriller. While his agent might be fine with it, he’s not sure he’s quite ready to be this transparent.

  Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there lived a dark-haired, brown-eyed, beautiful boy.

  Alex rolls his eyes at himself, hits Delete again, and closes his laptop.

  FROM MAHIRO 11:46 a.m.

  Where are we going tonight?

  Alex 11:47 a.m.

  A restaurant!

  From Mahiro 11:47 a.m.

  No kidding? Really? For dinner? I’d never have guessed.

  From Mahiro 11:48 a.m.

  No seriously where are we going.

  Alex 11:50 a.m.

  Restaurant. Then another place for a drink. Then maybe a walk?

  From Mahiro 11:52 a.m.

  You. Are. Not. Helping. What am I supposed to wear?

  Alex 11:53 a.m.

  If I had my way, very little at all.

  From Mahiro 11:58 a.m.

  Isn’t that my line?

  Alex 11:59 a.m.

  Not today it isn’t.

  From Mahiro 12:01 p.m.

  Sassy. Better watch that mouth, my beauty. I may need to find something to put in it on Friday.

  Alex flops back on his bed, torn between arousal and amusement. Mahiro, it seems, can adapt to flirting outside the playroom very well indeed. He can’t wait for tonight.

  ALEX FIGHTS down the nerves that have taken up residence in his stomach as the cab makes its way to Mahiro’s house. It’s almost 6:00 p.m., and Alex keeps checking the time, strangely terrified that he’s early. Which is ridiculous as it isn’t Friday, this isn’t playtime, but he is most definitely taking Mahiro out on an actual date, away from the playroom, outside of the bounds of the arrangement they’ve made.

  Alex remembers the swoop of fear when he’d asked Mahiro to dinner tonight, the overwhelming elation he’d felt when Mahiro’s entire being had shifted, had shimmered like a mirage and given Alex the tiniest sliver of what Alex suspects is a much deeper emotional investment than he’d ever admit. Alex presses lightly on his neck, the ache of the bruise where Mahiro marked him giving him a welcome shiver up his spine. His lips still tingle with the memory of Mahiro’s kiss, hot and insistent and binding Alex to him more surely than any restraints ever could.

  Yes, he knows without a doubt he and Mahiro can be something spectacular.

  But it all hinges on whether Mahiro will meet him halfway and allow the intimacy they began to build last night to flourish. Alex is confident in his own planning, knows that as a practical matter his evening agenda will be fun and lighthearted and completely lacking in any pressure whatsoever. But will that be enough to convince Mahiro? Will he be enough?

  The cab stops and Alex is out like a shot, leaping up the steps to the front door and hitting the bell before his nerve fails him. He stands on the stoop, heel tapping a nervous rhythm as he waits. He stops stock-still, however, when the locks snick open and the door swings wide, and Mahiro is there.

  Alex can’t breathe.

  Mahiro looks beautiful. Not like he is in the playroom, not the dark, slightly dangerous sensuality of Alex’s Sir, but something bright and soft and engaging. His pale blue button-down is slim, skimming against his sides. A dark blue flourish curls its way over his shoulder and down the front, highlighting the slope of his chest and the cinnamon brown of his eyes. His dark jeans are painted over his gorgeous, thick thighs, and Alex can feel the flush on his neck when he imagines what his ass must look like. He also realizes he’s still staring and hasn’t said a word when Mahiro clears his throat and gives him a wry look.

  “Hi,” he says pointedly, and it’s likely not the first time he’s said it. Alex mentally slaps himself.

  “Hi. I’m sorry. I just… you look amazing,” he breathes, and Mahiro flushes, too, a pretty pink blush that stains the tops of his cheeks and tips of his ears. Alex can’t believe he’s seeing it.

  “Thank you. You do too.” They just look at each other, smiling like idiots, standing on the stoop in the evening sun until Mahiro finally looks away. “We should go, right?” Mahiro gestures to the still-waiting cab, and Alex nods and ushers him down the stairs with his hand on the small of Mahiro’s back.

  “I’m glad you said six,” Mahiro says as he settles himself in the back of the cab. “We really needed to be out of the way early tonight.”

  Alex blinks. “Something the matter?”

  “No, not at all. Adam has a few guests arriving at seven, that’s all. It’s a timing thing.”

  Alex nods, understanding. “Yes, I imagine so.” He considers for a moment, and then asks, “Aren’t your neighbors a little… weirded out? They have to notice all of the visitors, right?” Alex catches the cabbie’s puzzled glance in the rearview mirror. He just raises his eyebrows and looks away.

  Mahiro laughs. “Yes, well. The cops came to talk to us once. Someone had called in a complaint about drugs, but of course there wasn’t anything there. We just explained that we have friends over on the weekend and left it at that. They tend to ignore us now.”

  “I take it they didn’t check the basement?”

  “What would they see if they had, though? Furniture and some cabinets? If we got rid of the cross, we could put it on Zillow and no one would know.” Mahiro turns slightly toward him and shifts a small box in his hands. “Okay, you have to tell me where we’re going. You wouldn’t give me any clues when I texted you this morning.” He looks carefully at Alex’s own jeans and deep maroon shirt. “But I guessed okay, it seems?”

  Alex nods. “Perfect.” He finally gives in to temptation and reaches out to trace a finger over the dark blue pattern spilling over Mahiro’s shoulder. “Reminds me of a skating costume,” he murmurs. “It suits you.”

  Mahiro blanches, then clears his throat. “Ah, thank you.” He carefully picks up Alex’s hand and turns it over, raises Alex’s wrist to his lips, and touches the fine blue veins there. Alex’s heart stutters, and goose bumps erupt down his arms. “But I’m nothing compared to you, my beauty,” he whispers, and Alex can see, just for a moment, a flash of Mahiro’s playroom persona simmering under the surface.
<
br />   It’s exciting and unsettling. Alex isn’t sure who he’s getting tonight. He thought he was getting Mahiro, not his master, but as Mahiro smiles and squeezes his hand, he realizes he may be getting both.

  “DO WE really need a whole bottle of wine for just the two of us?” Mahiro asks, nose adorably wrinkled as he scans the list. “I mean, that’s quite a bit with just tapas.”

  “Of course we do! I want the Rioja, and they’re not offering it by the glass.” Alex looks at the tapas menu and starts mentally choosing a few different things. “Besides, I like it with Manchego cheese, and we’re definitely getting that.”

  “Okay, as long as I get the croquettes.” Mahiro takes a sip of water, the candlelight glistening on his lower lip. Alex wants this to be as casual and relaxed as possible, but the memory of Mahiro’s mouth stretched around his cock flashes in his mind and he has to look away when Mahiro smirks at him.

  “I love the food scene here, but I still miss my mom’s cooking most,” Mahiro says, taking pity on Alex’s libido. “She makes the most amazing food for our guests. No wonder I used to get so chubby at home.”

  Alex’s ears perk up. “For guests? Is she a chef?”

  “Hah, no, not exactly a chef. She cooks traditional dishes for guests at our family’s restaurant, Hotaru. They’ve been running it since before I was born. It’s been in the family for generations.”

  “Fascinating. And you weren’t drafted into continuing the tradition?” Alex asks as they’re interrupted by the waiter. Mahiro takes a deep breath and smiles as Alex orders the wine, then they take turns with their list of tapas. The waiter leaves and Alex smiles, encouraging Mahiro to pick up where they left off.