AIMÉ

On Sunday, after enjoying the ballet more than he would admit to, Aimé and Asmodeus spent a lot of the day in bookshops and coffee shops. Aimé picked up a few battered philosophy texts here and there, a few things that had been vaguely on his list for a while; Asmodeus looked exclusively at torrid romance novels that Aimé made fun of him for, but if it bothered Asmodeus at all, he didn’t say so.

Aimé found a book of art depicting the French revolution, and he found himself stood for a long while with the book in his hand, his fingers tracing the faces painted in the crowd, wondering if he’d find one with bright blue eyes and a cheek scar.

On Monday, they took the cable car, and Aimé couldn’t help but stay rooted to one window the whole time, not wanting to miss a second of the view as they ascended and took in the view of the whole city. The Bastille was cool, although Aimé almost found himself wishing Colm and Jean-Pierre were there too – not just because of the way Jean-Pierre would hold his hand or lean on his arm, something he found himself feeling weirdly bereft of, but because he felt like Colm and Jean would make commentary that the guides wouldn’t.

“You’ve never been a soldier?” Aimé asked De.

“Once,” said Asmodeus as they slowly descended the long, long stairway down from the mountain. He didn’t look at Aimé’s face, but kept glancing at his feet as they moved down, making sure he wasn’t tripping. “A very long time ago.”

“It bother you that Colm and Jean-Pierre are?”

Asmodeus looked at him, now, arched one eyebrow.

“They don’t have to be in an army to be soldiers,” Aimé said lowly. “To have the mentality.”

Asmodeus let out a low sound, and Aimé couldn’t tell if it was meant to be disapproving or amused. Either way, he followed it with, “No. I suppose you don’t.”

On Tuesday, they walked around a few museums – not the Musée de Grenoble, which Aimé had shaken his head at when Asmodeus had suggested it, but through an archaeological museum, and another one, a history and lifestyle museum.

Asmodeus had added in little bits he knew here and there, small anecdotes – they weren’t the sort of anecdotes Jean-Pierre would have, because Aimé was certain he’d never been skiing in his life, but they made him miss Jean-Pierre anyway, somehow.

On Wednesday, Aimé sat with Asmodeus in the room he had been renting in Grenoble’s magical quarter. It was a nice apartment over an alchemist’s shop, and when he laid on the bench seat in the window, which he did almost the whole day, he could smell the fragrant smoke that came from the potioneer’s vent – a slightly coppery smell mixed in with the chalky scent of a flower he couldn’t remember the same of, but had pink petals and blue stamens.

“He’s brewing contraceptives,” Asmodeus supplied when he watched Aimé sit up to sniff at the air, trying to figure out what it was he was smelling. “Faerie’s finger root, copper dust, and hedenia petals. There are other ingredients, of course, but that’s the bulk of them.”

Asmodeus didn’t look up from his desk as he spoke – he was doing paperwork as Aimé read his book, and Aimé laid on his side in the window to look at him. He didn’t know anything about potions, couldn’t even remember the semantic difference between a potions lab and an alchemist’s although he was aware he was supposed to.

He wondered if Jean-Pierre could brew potions like that, and his chest gave an uncomfortable pang.

“I can’t stop thinking about him,” said Aimé.

“I’ve noticed,” replied Asmodeus. “He tends to have that effect.”

“He’s crazy.”

“He’s survived a great deal of trauma,” Asmodeus said. “He has difficulty in regulating his feelings, at times – he doesn’t have the in-built stops and balances in his head a lot of people have. You’ll forgive me if I point out that you’re rather the pot calling the kettle black, if my brother’s mental health issues are so off-putting to you.”

“Mine are different,” Aimé said. “I never hurt anybody.”

“Don’t you?” asked Asmodeus.

It was amazing, how Asmodeus could make you doubt your whole fucking existence by saying two words and not looking up from his paperwork. Aimé fell back onto the window cushion, thought about all the times he’d told a guy to fuck off after asking for a second date, all the times he’d made sure to be at his shittiest when someone actually asked him to spend time with them, all the times…

“That’s not the same thing,” he said, before he could let himself spiral further into self-analysis.

“I don’t recall saying it was,” was the artfully crafted response, and Aimé swore under his breath.

“You can see the future, right?”

“Not exactly.”

“Do you rehearse all these conversations before we have them, somehow? Or are you just that fucking smooth?”

Asmodeus laughed, and he lifted his pen from the paper for a moment, leaning back in his seat and giving Aimé an indulgent smile that very nearly, almost met his eyes, which were looking at him over his glasses.

“It isn’t that I see future conversations before I have them,” said Asmodeus. “Merely that I have had so much more practice than you at having them.”

“Prick,” Aimé said.

“If you miss him,” Asmodeus said, turning back to his work. “Go home.”

“If I don’t, will you babysit me forever?”

“I’m not babysitting you,” said Asmodeus. “You are your own man, Aimé – as am I. If you wished to accompany me on my work, I couldn’t stop you, but I fear you’d find it very dull, and rather difficult. Jean would be a far easier mountain to climb.”

“And if he kills me?”

“I would say a pleasant word at your funeral.”

“Just one?”

“Two or three, perhaps.”

“Is he worth it?” Aimé asked quietly. He didn’t really care if Jean-Pierre was worth it or not, he didn’t think – he wanted to go back regardless, wanted to fall to his knees and beg Jean-Pierre to forgive him if it meant burying his face in that frankincense scent again, if it meant seeing Jean-Pierre’s pretty laugh and his haughty smiles, feeling Jean-Pierre’s hand curl through his hair.

“I’m a biased source,” Asmodeus said.

“An unbiased one would tell me to run away.”

“It seems our biases bend in the same direction,” was the simple reply.

“Do you never get tired of acting like you’re the smartest guy in the room?”

“Not just yet,” De said. “But I’ll let you know if I ever want to pass on the torch.”

“It’s not that I can’t stand a week away from him,” Aimé muttered. “I just keep thinking… if this is the first week of hundreds. Could I stand that? And maybe, maybe I could, but… but I don’t want to. I don’t want to fucking die, either, but I don’t want to spend my whole life not with him.”

He hadn’t ever thought about a future before, not really. He’d thought in vague terms, about his paintings, about his degree, about whatever woman his father would basically force him into marrying, but he’d always kind of hoped he’d die first.

He didn’t want to die anymore, but when he thought about the future, thought about selling his paintings for real, thought about…

He wanted to go to the Musée de Grenoble. He did.

He wanted to go with Jean-Pierre beside him, Jean-Pierre leaning on his arm and listening as Aimé told him about the art, making his catty little comments about Picasso or any other artist in the room that had earned his ire.

“The first time I thought I knew what love felt like,” Asmodeus said, “I thought perhaps that I was dying. That something had gone wrong in me, in what amounted to my soul. That I should feel incomplete without another person, it seemed tantamount to a sickness.”

“You read too many shitty romance novels.”

“That’s hardly the only kind of love there is, Aimé.” Asmodeus’ tone was lightly scolding, but even as he said it, he gestured to the phone, a little black rotary thing hooked to the wall beside the door. “Book a ticket home, if you want to. Otherwise, tomorrow morning, we’re catching the train to Nice.”

Aimé looked at the phone, and blew out all the air in his lungs, felt the emptiness in his chest, held it there.

On Thursday, he went home.

*     *     *

AIMÉ

Aimé had envisioned Jean-Pierre trying to kill him.

He hadn’t imagined he’d try so soon.

As the letter opener came for his face, Aimé’s hand whipped up and he shoved Jean-Pierre’s wrist to the side the same way he did when they were wrestling together – Jean-Pierre’s wrists were weak compared to Aimé’s, and he let out a sharp cry of pain as Aimé plunged the letter opener into the wall instead of his own neck.

“Christ, Jean,” Aimé hissed. “Would you fucking calm down a second and—”

“Calm down!?” Jean-Pierre demanded, his voice a loud, sharp growl, and he got a second letter opener – it must have been from the drawer, but Aimé had never seen this one before – and went for Aimé’s gut, but Aimé grabbed his hand and pressed down hard on the sensitive spot at Jean-Pierre’s pulse point, making Jean-Pierre shout as his hand lost grip and the blade fell to the floor.

Aimé shoved him back before he could scramble for either letter opener again, and for a second, there was nothing but a flurry of blows between them, Jean-Pierre trying to land a blow against Aimé’s face or his throat as Aimé blocked every one, taking half a step forward each time even as he felt Jean-Pierre’s fists thud almost painfully against the leather fabric of his jacket, a perfectly fine impromptu armour for when your insane angel boyfriend tried to hit you to death.

“Fuck you,” Jean-Pierre spat. Aimé had never seen him so incandescent with rage, and he tried to inform his erection – casually, so as not to make a big deal out of it – that this wasn’t the time to find it hot. “You want time away from me? I will give you time—”

Jean-Pierre managed to get his hand between Aimé’s raised arms to shove his hand against Aimé’s neck, squeezing in a choke tighter than he’d ever done before, but he didn’t protect his inside elbow, and when Aimé punched hard on the inside of the joint he almost winced in sympathy at the way it would have made the whole nerve jangle, because Jean-Pierre yelped.

“You’re not being fucking cute right now, Jean,” Aimé said. “You need to calm the fuck down and listen—”

“Why should I be calm?” Jean-Pierre demanded, rubbing his sore arm. “You left me!”

“Because I thought you were going to fucking kill me, which you’re not exactly proving wro— No.” Aimé caught Jean-Pierre by the hair as he tried to lunge for Aimé this time, and unable to stop the angel’s momentum, he shoved him over the desk table instead of letting Jean-Pierre fall into him, sending the key plate and the bills and stamps and post stuff there clattering to the ground.

Jean-Pierre was almost naked, dressed only in a jumper of Aimé’s, and Aimé kept his grip in Jean-Pierre’s hair tight as he kept him pinned over the counter, not letting him go as Jean tried to struggle free, tried to kick at him.

He didn’t know why he did it, at first.

He would love to call it pure survival instinct, but his cock was interested in far more than survival in the moment, and that was undoubtedly a contributing factor: either way, as Jean-Pierre swore profusely in French, vowed he wouldn’t stop until he had Aimé’s corpse in his arms, Aimé brought the palm of his hand down hard against Jean-Pierre’s bare arse in an open-handed slap.

Jean-Pierre reacted the way he usually did when someone spanked him – or at least, the way he usually did when Aimé did – he let out a sharp, whining moan, his hands gripping tightly at the edge of the little table, and for a second, he stopped kicking.

“Not cute,” Aimé said again, aware that he was breathing heavy. “Now, Jean, if you want to take a second and talk about this like we’re— How many letter openers do you fucking have!?”

Aimé snatched this one from Jean-Pierre’s hand before he could actually doing anything, throwing it behind himself in the direction of the stairwell, and this time, when he brought his hand down against Jean-Pierre again, and again, feeling the white flesh of Jean-Pierre’s lily-white arse jump under his palm, and at the moment Jean-Pierre, gasping and red in the face, managed to weakly kick out at Aimé even as Aimé turned his other cheeks red, Aimé shifted his angle and delivered a sharp smack to the open lips of Jean-Pierre’s cunt.

The sound l’ange made was indescribable, a gasping yowl of indignant pleasure, and Aimé’s palm came away wet.

“You want to kill me, sweetheart?” Aimé asked, trying to control his breathing, because he had never been much of a dom, and he was fairly certain it would undercut the small authority he was hoping for if he wheezed his way through it. “Because it doesn’t feel like you do.”

Jean-Pierre turned with a wordless snarl, and then spat in his face – although the actual spit missed – which Aimé took to mean, “No, I don’t want to kill you, spank me harder,” and Aimé did.

Jean-Pierre came apart under his hand.

He’d smacked Jean-Pierre like this before, felt the wet jump of his cunt under his palm, but he’d never done it like this, delivered one slap after the other while pinning Jean-Pierre down, and the whole time, with each popping blow against where the angel was soaked through and brightly pink, Jean-Pierre’s back arched off the table, his neck stiffening, his mouth open, his eyes screwed tightly shut.

When Aimé brought his hand down more gently, cupped Jean-Pierre’s cunt under his palm and squeezed Jean-Pierre’s clit between the thick flesh of his mons either side, rolled it hard between his thumb and forefinger the way he knew that Jean loved, Jean moaned from low in his throat, thrust weakly against the air, against the table he was thrown over.

“You left me,” Jean-Pierre said breathlessly, even as he whimpered out a little noise and spread his thighs wider.

“I was scared,” Aimé said. “I’m not scared anymore.”

“You should be,” Jean-Pierre said, and kicked Aimé’s foot out from under him.

Aimé let out a low oof as he lost his balance, but he managed to land on his forearm and brace himself on his side instead of landing hard on his back: it meant he was better braced to knee Jean in the solar plexus as he tried to leap on top of him, but even winded, Jean managed to twist one of his legs around Aimé’s waist and pin him as he came for him with the letter opener.

Fucking letter openers.

Aimé caught Jean-Pierre by the wrist again, but he was at the wrong angle to put any meaningful pressure on it, so he took a gamble on the worst fucking odds he’d never encountered – Jean-Pierre vowing to kill him against Asmodeus saying he “probably” wouldn’t.

“Come on then, ange,” Aimé said between heavy breaths as Jean-Pierre straddled his belly, and Christ, Aimé was hot, and really regretted not taking the leather jacket off, as he pulled Jean-Pierre’s little blade up to his throat, pulling it against the flesh.

He could see Jean-Pierre’s face, now, see his wide eyes, the furious downward furrow of his eyebrows, his lips curled back to show his teeth.

“Come on, baby, do it,” Aimé said, squeezing Jean-Pierre’s fist under his own. “Look at how you’ve been feeling all week, with me gone – you want to feel that forever? That’s what’ll happen if you do it. You want to miss me forever? I couldn’t miss you forever. It’s why I came back.”

 He saw the shift in Jean-Pierre’s face.

When Jean-Pierre’s snarl slackened into something more shocked, it made the scar on his cheek shift too, falling down a little as his whole face shifted, and he could see now the tear stains on Jean-Pierre’s cheeks, could see how his pretty blue eyes shone with more tears.

He hoped it wasn’t the spanking that had made him cry – or, at least, that they weren’t tears in a bad way.

That guilt wasn’t exactly his priority as he took advantage of Jean-Pierre’s momentary hesitation and threw this letter opener away, too, threw it through the doorway into the living room, and Jean-Pierre let out a wordless cry of fury as he leapt over Aimé to try to crawl up the stairs and grab the one Aimé had tossed that way, but he saw now – not without a small hint of pride – that it was almost at the top of the flight, sticking out of the wood.

Aimé allowed himself the barest hint of a second to feel cool before he brought his elbow down between Jean-Pierre’s shoulders, where he knew the muscles were most sensitive, and Jean-Pierre screamed out a sound as he went limp on the stairs.

Aimé kept his foot on Jean-Pierre’s back, keeping him pinned there, as he shoved off his jacket and threw that into the living room, too, and tossed his sweatshirt after it. He’d dressed in comfortable clothes for the flight, and although his joggers made his hard cock a little too obvious, it wasn’t as if Jean-Pierre was taking too much time to look at him.

He fell on top of Jean-Pierre, and it was awkward as fuck, jarred his knee against one of the bare stairs – Christ, what did Colm have against carpeting? – and had to wrap one of his arms under Jean-Pierre in something too clumsy to be called a headlock to stop him from crawling away.

“You don’t want me dead,” Aimé said in Jean-Pierre’s ear. “If you wanted me dead, ange, you’d have come fucking hunting for me.”

“Perhaps I was about to,” Jean-Pierre snapped.

“Yeah? Was your pussy wet the whole time thinking about that, too?” Aimé shoved four fingers into Jean with his other hand, although the angle made his shoulder ache – and in reality, it wasn’t much of a shove, because Jean-Pierre was so sopping wet and so fucking open that Aimé felt like he could have slid his whole fist in without much trouble.

Jean-Pierre bit back a groan behind his teeth.

“You know why I left, ange?”

“Because you’re a cruel-hearted connar—”

“Because, as I said,” Aimé said, pressing his fingers down and searching for the spot that made Jean-Pierre howl, even as he dragged his teeth hard over the muscles at the back of his neck, forcing his own jumper down with his chin to keep from getting a mouthful of wool. “I thought you’d fucking kill me, and—”

“I still will!” Jean-Pierre snapped, and Aimé bit down hard enough that he tasted blood: Jean-Pierre clenched around his fingers, and for all his fucking posturing, Aimé heard the familiar whine of Jean-Pierre’s orgasm, felt the jumps and shocks underneath him as Jean-Pierre helplessly ground down against his hand. Aimé really had to concentrate to keep from thrusting his cock against the angel’s back through his joggers.

“And I came back,” Aimé went on, “because I realised it didn’t matter to me if you did. It’d be worth it.”

Jean-Pierre let out a sob of sound, pressing his forehead against the stair in front of him.

“You know why you won’t, ange?” Aimé shoved his fingers forward a little more, scissoring them as best he could and making Jean-Pierre choke on air.

“Why?” Jean-Pierre asked, in a quiet, hoarse whisper.

“’Cause I love you.”

There was no sound for a few moments except for the sound of Aimé and Jean-Pierre’s heavy breathing, the wet sound of Jean-Pierre’s hips rocking back against Aimé’s fingers, the slight creak of the stair as Jean gripped the wood so tight Aimé thought it’d crumble. Aimé realised, with a sort of sickly, sinking feeling in his belly that he’d never said that to anybody before – not to his parents, not to his nanny or any of the housekeepers, not to his grandmother, not to some other person he’d fucked, not to anybody.

He was wondering if he should regret it just as Jean-Pierre managed to viciously stab the point of his elbow against his neck, and Aimé coughed, falling back from him, closed his eyes expecting a letter opener – or, to spice things up, maybe an actual knife – against his skin, but instead of crawling out from under him Jean-Pierre twisted around to face him, and he crushed their mouths together in a kiss as he shoved Aimé’s joggers down his thighs.

“Fuck, I’ve missed this cunt,” Aimé said against Jean-Pierre’s mouth as he thrust forward, shoving Jean-Pierre up the stairs and making Jean-Pierre let out a little whimper that Aimé hoped was from his cock and not from the stair grazing his back, and wrapped his arms tightly around Aimé’s waist as Aimé twisted his hand in Jean-Pierre’s hair, shoving his head back so he could start sucking hickeys into his neck.

“Not the only part of me you missed, I hope,” Jean-Pierre managed to say between gasping little whines.

“Well,” Aimé said, dragging his teeth over Jean’s collarbone and thrilling at the way the angel arched. “It’s been a while since you sucked me off, but I guess I missed that too.”

Jean-Pierre slapped the back of his head, but he was laughing, and Aimé almost felt like he could have tears in his eyes himself, hearing that peal of laughter, even as Jean-Pierre shoved his hands up under Aimé’s shirt to dig his nails into his skin.

“I’m not gonna, ah, fuck, you’re wet, I’m not going to last very long—”

“Same as always then,” Jean-Pierre said, and Aimé reached between them with the hand not fisted in his hair and squeezed Jean-Pierre’s clit so tightly that Jean-Pierre wailed at the top of his lungs, the sound bouncing off the ceiling. Even when Jean-Pierre started to struggle and whimper and shake his head, he kept the grip tight: he waited until Jean-Pierre’s lips were almost bleeding from how much he was trying to bite them, waited until he saw a tear roll down Jean-Pierre’s cheek before he pulled, and Jean-Pierre’s gasp as he came again was the most sublime fucking thing Aimé had ever seen.

“You’re such a fucking masochist,” he managed to say, rolling his hips into Jean-Pierre’s twitching cunt even as he saw the ecstasy writ on l’ange’s face, the way his eyes all but rolled up into his pretty little head, his mouth wide open. Aimé fucked him harder, as hard as he could, and as much as he tried to hold himself back, he could feel himself drawing up, could feel his balls tightening.

“I want to, want to feel you come,” Jean-Pierre managed to say after he’d finished riding out the aftershocks, and Aimé moaned against Jean-Pierre’s neck as he let go.

Jean-Pierre, hot and wet and homicidal and fucking perfect, cupped his cheek as he came, and kissed him again.

They lay there for at least a minute or two, painting, before the adrenaline began to wear off and Aimé started feeling his new wounds – the painful bruise on the side of his throat, where Jean might as well have stabbed him with how sharp his elbow was, the bruised sensitivity of the side of his ankle, the various scuffs and grazes all over him.

“Ow,” Aimé said, and Jean-Pierre laughed, pecking him on the mouth.

“I said I would let you top,” he said sweetly, “when I thought you really wanted to.”

“Well, next time you want me to top, just try to kill me,” Aimé mumbled. “It looks like it’s a good incentive.”

Jean-Pierre giggled.

Aimé looked up at a creak on the stairs, at Colm in jeans and a t-shirt, his arms crossed over his chest as he looked down at the two of them disapprovingly. “Hope the neighbours enjoyed that,” he said dryly.

“Ignore him,” Jean-Pierre said when Aimé felt his stomach flip. “There is soundproofing.”

“Uh huh,” Colm said, and pointed behind them. “But only when you close the fucking door, Jean.”

Aimé and Jean turned as one, and Aimé stared at the front door, which was slightly ajar, letting in the sunlight and the cool November air, which he was only noticing now. As they both stared at the gap, the door juddered open a little more, and Peadar O’Malley padded through, squeezing his chunky body through the gap.

“Oh,” said Jean-Pierre.

“Yeah, oh,” Colm said. “Would you two fucking move? I’ve wanted a cup of tea for fifteen minutes.”

“You knew he was down here trying to kill me, and you just fucking stayed up there?” Aimé demanded even as he pulled himself out and off of Jean, stepping back and into the hall.

Jean-Pierre, obstinate as stone, refused to move, and Colm stepped over him, picking his way past on the stairs and reaching up to pull the letter opener out of the wall. He placed the one that he’d apparently dragged out of the stair on the hall table too.

“You seemed to have a handle on it,” Colm said dryly, and although his expression was grumpy, he slapped Aimé on the shoulder. “Besides, you knew what you were in for. You want to learn how to throw knives, let me know, but you put another one in my fucking wall, we’re gonna have a problem. Got it?”

“Got it,” Aimé said, and pushed the door closed with his shoulder as he looked to Jean, who was still sprawled back on the stairs, but Peadar was sat on the same step as his shoulder, and playfully butting his head against Jean-Pierre’s.

“Do you have to pet the cat while come’s leaking out of you?” Colm asked, disgusted.

“He doesn’t mind,” said Jean-Pierre, scratching Peadar’s ear.

“Pss pss, Peadar, tuna,” Colm said, and Peadar leapt away from Jean-Pierre, scrambling after Colm to follow him through the living room.

Aimé laughed at Jean’s pouting expression, and he slowly took a few steps forward, leaning so that Jean-Pierre could wrap his arms and legs around Aimé’s body, and started to carry him up the stairs.

“Clean up that fucking mess!” came Colm’s shout from kitchen.

“In a minute!” Jean-Pierre shouted back, and Aimé laughed against his neck as he carried him into his own room, dropping him back onto the bed. Jean-Pierre fell easily, but kept one leg hooked around Aimé’s waist and pulled him back as he tried to go downstairs.

“I need to pick up all your letter shit,” Aimé murmured, even as he let himself be dragged closer again. “And I think the third letter opener might be somewhere in the sofa.”

“I want to look at you,” Jean-Pierre said pleadingly, eyes wide as dinnerplates, and Aimé leaned over him, cupping Jean-Pierre’s hands where they came up to touch his cheeks. “You know me better than I thought,” he said in a soft whisper.

“You weren’t fighting as well as usual,” Aimé said. “Too angry.”

Jean-Pierre inhaled slowly, pressing his lips together, and Aimé leaned in, touching their noses to one another, even as he stroked idle, calming motions up and down Jean-Pierre’s thighs.

“I’m sorry I didn’t leave a note, or something,” Aimé said quietly. “I wasn’t really thinking critically – just. Jean, you’ve kind of made me realise I want to fucking live. I was scared you’d take that away from me a second later.”

“I struggle at times to control myself,” Jean-Pierre whispered, not meeting Aimé’s gaze. “I don’t want you dead, Aimé. I want you… mine.”

“And that’s terrifying,” Aimé said, and when Jean-Pierre gave him a glare, offended, Aimé laughed, stroked his thumb over Jean-Pierre’s chin. “That can’t fucking surprise you. You know you scare me, ange – you get off on it.”

“Why did you come back, then?” Jean-Pierre asked, and Aimé slid his hand between them, slid his fingers through the soaked mix of himself and Jean on Jean-Pierre’s thighs, feeling the angel shiver underneath him.

“I don’t know if you noticed, Jean, but I get off on it too,” Aimé murmured. “Don’t know what the fuck that says about me, but… it’s true.”

“How long until you can fuck me again?” Jean-Pierre asked, demanding and adorable and just a little bit frightening all at once, and Aimé laughed, pressing a kiss to his chest.

“I don’t know, sweetheart, fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“Your mouth first, then.”

“Our mess, first, and then I’ll come and eat you out ‘til my jaw falls off,” Aimé said, tugging Jean-Pierre’s hands away from his face, and Jean-Pierre bit his lip, worrying it under his teeth.

“You promise?” he asked.

“I promise,” Aimé murmured. “Is your, um— Are you okay? I feel like I hit you pretty hard.”

“Oh, no, it was good,” Jean-Pierre said, and sighed luxuriously as he fell back onto his pillows. “It was wonderful, actually. You should do that again. I’ll get a pump out.”

Aimé laughed, breathless, but he obediently nodded his head. He felt like his head was spinning, was somewhere between ecstatic and disbelieving, but as he pulled away, Jean-Pierre grabbed him by the wrist.

“How long?” he asked, looking at Aimé’s chest instead of at his face as he held him there, and Aimé felt his chest ache at the expression on his face, hesitant and a little anxious. “Will you— will you take?”

“Ten minutes, ange,” Aimé murmured. “That’s all, just ten minutes.”

Jean-Pierre let him go, and he gave Aimé a small, shy smile. It was a beautiful smile, and Aimé leaned to catch him in a kiss, to stroke his fingers through Jean-Pierre’s hair.

“Just ten minutes,” he repeated, and pulled away.

He was back with Jean within six.