WIP Wednesday

Sometimes I think I will never be done with this story. My family hasn't had the greatest week and my writing time has been severely curtailed. I have a ton of editing to do on this before I submit it, so I'm not even sure what's going to end up surviving, lol. Oh well, let's find something to share anyway.

*****


Mention of Amy drove Andre’s eyes to the house, giving Thomas valuable seconds to study him without fear of being caught. He’d worn his hair loose today, and the sunlight filtered through the ends, gilding his skin more golden than usual. His strong profile should’ve been captured on Roman coins, or something else equally magnificent. The more Thomas saw of him, the more convinced he became he belonged elsewhere, not in some backwater town that couldn’t see what it had. Even with the scars, he’d bet Andre could model. He was hotter than anybody Thomas saw gracing his magazines.

When Andre came back to him, a definite sadness pervaded the pale depths of his eyes. The hand that had been branding Thomas’s stomach lifted, and a shadow fell across his face when the same fingertips that had caressed his abdomen now fluttered over his brow.

Thomas closed his eyes automatically. A smart man would push the contact away. He knew what Andre was doing, this soothing of his torturous thoughts, and would have laughed at ever submitting to such vulnerability. He was stronger than that. He didn’t need another man’s gentleness.

At the same time, nothing had ever felt so good. The firm press of their bodies that morning had been exhilarating, the taste of Andre’s skin delightful, but this surpassed all of that. This opened a door in the back of his heart he’d locked the last time he’d been left alone. He’d vowed he didn’t need anyone else again, and he’d stuck to that promise for over a year now. Until the call from Pastor, he’d been content with the solitude he’d embraced.

Now he’d met a man even more lonely than him. Someone bearing the physical scars of fighting for what he loved. Someone who continued to walk along the fringe of the very thing that had nearly destroyed him and did so willingly, because he preferred it to the alternative. Andre’s strength in the face of that overwhelming force put Thomas’s to shame. After all, what kind of strength came in running from life?

A sigh escaped his lips. The strokes along his forehead went down the side of his face, tickling at the edge of his beard, to feather over his mouth. Just as gentle. Just as giving. His tongue darted out, and there was the salty skin he remembered, the heat more so because it had been warmed by the afternoon sun. He licked at the callused pad, picturing the long, slender fingers dancing across his body as he tasted it.

Hands like that were sinful. The things they could do. Pulling him apart. Putting him back together. Delving deep and deep and deep until the line of separation between them disappeared. Thomas topped more than he bottomed, but for this man, he’d crawl on his hands and knees to be taken and consumed. Something told him Andre would make it worth it.