All for One (31 page)

Nervous but reminding himself Aristide would never hurt him, Benoît turned to face his lover, wrapping his arms around the musketeer’s waist. Sliding his hands up Aristide’s back, beneath the light undertunic, he massaged the heavy muscle. “I want to know what it feels like to have you inside me,” he said slowly, deliberately, making it clear he had thought about this extensively and was comfortable with his decision.

To his surprise, Aristide found tears springing to his eyes at the unspoken avowal of Benoît’s love and trust. He had imagined what it would be like to sheathe himself in his lover, of course, but if truth be told he had found such pleasure in giving himself to Benoît that if this moment had never come, he would have no complaint. That it had, at Benoît’s request rather than his own, made his heart feel as if it were about to swell from his chest. “Beloved,” he whispered, burying his face in Benoît’s hair to hide his moment of weakness.

“Emile?” Benoît asked, pulling back to search his lover’s gaze. “Is all well? Have I done something to upset you?”

“No, my love,” Aristide assured him, framing the concerned face in his hands and pressing kisses to the wide brow, the high cheekbones, the glowing eyes. “You make me love you so that the words die in my throat.” His lips wandered down the strong jaw, over the light beard, hovering above full lips. “
Je t’aime
,” he murmured, again and again, between soft, short kisses.

“
Je t’aime aussi
,” Benoît vowed, moved beyond words at the declaration, “with all my heart, all my mind, and, after today, all my body.”

Swallowing down the surge of desire that arced through him at Benoît’s words, Aristide pressed a last slow kiss to his lover’s lips before trailing them lower, over the strong chin and down the tanned column of his throat. No matter how his body urged him, he intended to spend every hour between now and dawn proving to Benoît how fully he was loved and desired. Pulling the tails of the blacksmith’s tunic free of his waistband, Aristide’s hands crept beneath, gentle touches ruching the fabric upward as his kisses moved down the vee of bared skin on his lover’s chest. When hands and lips met, he broke away only long enough to sweep the fabric over Benoît’s head, sliding to his knees and looking up with eyes brimming with love. “You are perfection.”

Benoît shook his head, sure the sentiment applied more to the musketeer than to himself, but he didn’t say that aloud. He’d had that discussion with Aristide more than once, and they’d agreed to disagree. Instead, he stroked the smiling face with tender fingers, enjoying the still-novel feel of stubble beneath their pads. He hoped he never lost his fascination with the similarities—and differences—between his lover’s body and his own.

Palms settling for the moment at the curve of Benoît’s back, Aristide shook his head slowly in turn, drawing his light beard over the large, dark areolae marking the smith’s firm pectorals. The sensitive peaks pebbled beneath him, Benoît’s back arching for a firmer touch, but Aristide only shook his head again, repeating the tender caress. He would use every weapon in his arsenal to give Benoît pleasure, and if he found special joy in those touches only another man could bestow, Benoît did not seem inclined to fault him for it.

Benoît shivered beneath the touch, silently entreating more. When Aristide did not immediately grant his desires, he opened his eyes and focused on his lover’s face. “You mean to torture me, don’t you?” he asked huskily. “To make me so wild with desire I will give you anything in exchange for my release. It isn’t necessary, you know. I will give you anything simply because you ask for it.”

Aristide did know, and the knowledge humbled him. Relenting somewhat, he dragged his tongue over a tightened nipple, the salty tang of Benoît’s sweat its own reward. “I mean to worship you. To offer you every pleasure we both can bear, because in giving you pleasure, I multiply my own.”

“I do not deserve such devotion, but I will not refuse it,” Benoît whispered, fingers tangling again in Aristide’s hair.

“You deserve everything I have to give, and more.” Aristide turned his head so that Benoît’s heartbeat sounded in his ear, as strong and vital and as necessary to life as their love. His lips and tongue teased at the dusky bud, each gasp and hitch of breath fuel to the flame of his own desire. Not until trembling hands urged him lower did he release the succulent morsel, lingering instead over the flat planes and sculpted dips of his lover’s abdomen.

Of all the things they had done to each other since becoming lovers, the feeling of Aristide’s lips on his cock and balls roused Benoît the most, for it was the most novel of sensations, an action his wife had never consented to do. Loosening his breeches and pushing them down, he urged Aristide lower, needing the heat of his lover’s mouth.

Aristide let Benoît guide him downward, spreading his knees to make it easier to move lower and to ease some of the pressure on his own throbbing cock. He made no move to undress, though. Not yet. This was not about him and his pleasure. This was about showing Benoît in the most basic of ways how much he was loved. His hands slid up and down the columns of his lover’s legs, admiring the strong muscles of the thighs, the well-shaped curve of the calves, the solid, sensitive feet. The pads of his fingers ruffled the fine coating of hair as they wandered back upward, while his lips skirted the thicker patch that framed his lover’s sex. He buried his nose in the thicket and breathed in the musky aroma, lips nipping at the wiry hairs and tugging gently, his palms coming to rest on the delicate skin of Benoît’s inner thighs.

“Emile,” Benoît rasped, his hips rocking toward his lover, needing more. There was nothing new in the way Aristide was touching him, but it seemed somehow
…more
, as if Aristide had somehow upped the intensity a notch, taking an already incredibly intimate experience and making it even more powerful. Benoît trembled with need, the force of his emotions overwhelming him. “Please…. Touch me.”

The raw need in Benoît’s voice woke an ache in Aristide’s chest. He was not doing this to make his lover beg, but to prolong the pleasure beyond an all too ephemeral moment. Sliding one hand forward, he cupped the heavy sac in his palm, rolling it gently; his other hand curled around Benoît’s hip to caress a firm globe. His tongue darted out, wetting his lips before sliding up the length of the ruddy column of flesh jutting before him. Benoît trembled so fiercely at the touch that Aristide gripped his rear more firmly, pulling him forward to brace against one shoulder while his tongue traced up and down the yearning shaft.

Benoît’s hand fell to Aristide’s shoulders, trying to steady his trembling legs. Every time, this seemed even more overwhelming than the time before. Pulling away for a moment, he stumbled to the bed, beckoning Aristide to join him.

Seeing Benoît lying in bed—their bed—opening his arms to him made Aristide pause in a silent prayer of thanksgiving. Some might scorn him for offering thanks for an act they considered unholy, but in his soul Aristide knew God would never condemn love, in whatever form it found expression. Pausing only long enough to toe off his boots, he knelt on the bed beside his lover, bending to mate their lips in a tender kiss. “
Je t’aime
,” he murmured again, hoping Benoît understood that the simple-sounding words came from the depth of his soul.

Benoît turned into the kiss, needing the expression of emotion it provided. Every time he heard those precious words from Aristide’s lips, he fell in love all over again. To know that this man, this wonderful, amazing man, was his left him awestruck whenever he dwelt on it. Needing to feel skin against skin, he worked Aristide’s shirt the rest of the way off, rolling against the heavy form, reveling in his lover’s heat.

Aristide let Benoît remove his tunic, but when the younger man tried to pull him into his arms, he urged him gently onto his back again. His lover had made it very clear what he wanted. Aristide slid down the length of Benoît’s body, letting the soft hair on his chest drag over smoother skin in its own caress, before parting the strong thighs and kneeling between them. He would not have to concern himself with holding Benoît upright any longer, but he could feel the trembling beginning again. The thought that simply his nearness could affect his lover so intensely made him feel like the most potent man in Paris. “Rest your legs on my shoulders,” he offered, before leaning down to lap at Benoît’s cock, his tongue eagerly swirling through the cloudy fluid seeping from the slit.

Benoît moaned in delight, the wet heat lapping at him enough to have his head spinning. He clutched tightly at the sheet as he lifted his legs at Aristide’s direction, draping them over his lover’s shoulders and down his back. He felt his vulnerability keenly, but he repeated over and over that Aristide would never hurt him, that a single word would stop him if at any point Benoît changed his mind.

Smiling at his lover’s groan of pleasure, Aristide parted his lips around the head of Benoît’s cock, taking it inside. His tongue delved lower, exploring the ridged head beneath its hood of foreskin, then back to the tip to tease out more of the salty fluid. He would never get enough of tasting his lover this way. Guiding the shaft deeper into his mouth with gentle suction, his other hand drifted upward, Benoît’s abdomen quivering beneath his palm until he reached and tugged at a tightened nipple.

It was always almost more pleasure than Benoît could stand when Aristide sucked him this way. He quivered on the bed, trying to rock into his lover’s mouth, but unable to get enough leverage to move the way he wanted. “Emile,” he entreated when the musketeer’s fingers closed around his nipple.

More than willing to give his lover everything he asked, Aristide bent lower, taking Benoît’s shaft inside until the head nudged the back of his throat. He swallowed against the sensitive tip, hollowing his cheeks to drag over the delicate skin as he let the shaft nearly slip from his mouth, then took it deep again, setting a slow rhythm as arousing to him as it was to Benoît. Fingers moving from one side of Benoît’s chest to the other, he let his other hand move from the base of his lover’s cock to the sac below, adding another layer of sensation to drive his pleasure even higher.

Benoît tensed when he felt Aristide’s hand move, a virgin’s instinctive shying away from an unfamiliar touch. He reminded himself that he wanted this, that he had asked Aristide to make love to him this way. Consciously relaxing his muscles, he lifted his hips as much as he was able, silent encouragement for Aristide to continue.

The sudden stillness investing Benoît’s frame reminded Aristide that while his lover had asked to be taken, he was yet subject to a natural fear of the unknown. Determined to do nothing to add to that unease, he did not move his hand any further, stroking tenderly over the crinkled skin he cradled with delicacy. He turned his attention instead to bestowing every sensual attention to the cock filling his mouth, switching from teasing laps to firmer suction and back to gentle nips, keeping his lover hovering on the edge of release, not willing to lose a moment of intimate connection.

Benoît floated on waves of pleasure, rising and falling with Aristide’s various caresses. He was so close to his climax, yet it hovered just out of reach, staved off by the knowledge of what he had requested. Finally desperate, he reached for the oil they kept well stocked by their bed. “Please,” he begged again.

Taking the flagon from Benoît’s hand, Aristide dipped his fingers into the viscous fluid, coating them until they were dripping. Then, to do all he could to ease any possible discomfort, he drizzled a thin stream of oil over Benoît’s balls, lifting the heavy sac to let the liquid trail down the sensitive skin and into the dark crease beneath.

Intellectually, Benoît knew what would happen next, knew where Aristide’s fingers would go, how his lover would stretch and fill him until he was ready for the full length and girth of the musketeer’s cock. He knew all of that from having loved Aristide more times than he could count over the past ten months, but knowing was different from experiencing, and when the tip of one finger slowly pushed past his guardian muscle and into his passage, he tensed as much as he had the first time Aristide ever touched him. He steadied himself immediately, consciously relaxing again until the clenching stopped and Aristide’s finger could slide deeper. “Go on,” he urged. “I want to feel you moving inside me.”

The words alone were nearly enough to bring Aristide undone. Closing his eyes, he breathed in deeply, steadying himself to continue. He would spend hours preparing Benoît if need be to ensure their first joining brought only pleasure. Spreading his other palm beneath his lover’s buttocks, he lifted Benoît higher, the angle letting his finger slide more easily. He traced a meandering path of kisses along the insides of Benoît’s thighs as he moved gently in the clinging passage, seeking the spot that would turn the discomfort of his entry into bliss.

Benoît jumped when Aristide’s finger found the cluster of nerves that set stars dancing behind his eyes. A deep, long groan escaped him, his fingers scrabbling in the sheets as the edge of Aristide’s nail stimulated the spot, driving him wild with desire. “
Maudit
,” he gasped. “Do that again!”

“As often as you wish,” Aristide murmured with a smile. When Benoît was gasping, his head thrown back in pleasure, Aristide slid a second finger beside the first, the added thickness garnering no more than a low, lustful moan. Raising his head to lap at Benoît’s leaking cock, he spiraled the digits, coating the velvet-lined walls with oil and slowly stretching the ring of muscle to accept him. His cock throbbed with the thought of feeling himself squeezed in that tight heat, but he held himself in check. Knowing he was the first and only to initiate Benoît in this way brought its own satisfaction.

Writhing beneath Aristide’s careful ministrations, Benoît levered open his eyelids, seeking his lover’s cerulean gaze. “I need you,” he said clearly. “Don’t make me wait any longer. Please.”

Aristide might have been able to control his own longing, but he was powerless to resist Benoît’s. Lost in the love so evident in those radiant eyes that he might have been seeing clear into his lover’s soul, he groped blindly for the oil to slicken himself, unable to break the connection linking them. Sliding his fingers free, he eased between Benoît’s thighs, hands beneath supporting him as he pressed with exquisite care against the oiled portal. The muscle resisted for a moment, and then he was slipping inside, the silken heat caressing him as he slid forward in infinitesimal increments, his eyes never leaving Benoît’s. The brown orbs never faltered, nothing but love shining from them until they were joined as fully as two bodies could be. “
Je t’aime
,” Aristide whispered, leaning forward to brush his lips tenderly against Benoît’s. “You are the breath in my lungs, the blood in my veins, the treasure of my heart.”