Page 105 of Wear It Like a Crown

“Yourroyally spoilt brat.”

Yours, Leo thought, mind stuttering over it. Joshua washis.

Something in his expression must have shifted, betrayed his instant of disorientation, because Joshua reached for him, drawing him down until they were looking at each other from up close. “Hey,” Joshua murmured. “This isn’t… I didn’t misread you, the last time. Did I? You do enjoy sex with me.”

It seemed so absurd that Leo needed a second to even process Joshua’s meaning. Then he gripped his shoulder and frowned, leaning down further so he could nudge their noses together. “Don’t ever doubt that, okay? Nothing has ever felt like you. My past is… tricky, yeah, and I had a lot of sex and didn’t always like it very much, was often just going through the motions.” He inhaled on a slow breath, so close that all he could see was the clear green of Joshua’s eyes. “With you, it’s nothing like that.Nothinglike that.”

Joshua’s smile started in his eyes. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Leo said. A strange lightness spread in his bones, and it might have been prompted by the tiredness that fogged up the edges of his vision—but maybe it wasn’t. He drew another breath. “You make me happy. I don’t quite know how I got so lucky, but?—”

“Because,” Joshua broke in, “you act all tough, but you’re really not, and it’s the most stunning thing when your face softens. And you don’t let me get away with crap. You don’t indulge me, but when I needed you—like, all that time, with my coming-out, when I didn’t feel good… You were right there.”

There was nothing Leo could say that wouldn’t sound like a line from a cheesy love ballad. He settled for dragging Joshua into a harsh kiss and hoped it would convey the idea.

Joshua turned into it like it was instinct, tilting his hips up—responsive, so beautifully responsive as Leo pressed down,Jesus. Joshua’s fingers grappled at Leo’s T-shirt, then moved to the front of Leo’s jeans, tugging with both hands, a little aimlessly as though he was already stupid just from this, from their kiss and the slow grind of their hips. Leo caught both of Joshua’s hands and trapped them against the sheets.

“What do you like?” he managed, words only just within his grasp.

For a beat everything came to a halt, then Joshua’s body relaxed under Leo’s weight. His voice was like rough-spun silk. “What doyoulike?”

You.I like you.

Leo opened his eyes and found Joshua watching him with a gentle smile. Leo smiled back. “Why don’t you guide me?”

“Why don’tyouguideme?” Joshua shot back. He was still smiling, but there was something slow and careful behind it, something Leo didn’t quite understand. It didn’t feel as though Joshua was trying to mock him, but—what was this?

“You can’t just keep answering a question with a question,” Leo told him.

Joshua shook his head, curls dragging over the sheets. He was dark hair and green eyes and red lips, and Leo lost himself in it for a moment, almost missed it when Joshua said, “That’s not what this is about. This is about…” He twisted one hand in Leo’s hold so that they were palm to palm. “I already know what I like, and I’ll let you know if something doesn’t work for me. But the thing is, I’m not so certain that you know what it is thatyoulike?”

His voice had tilted up towards the end, turning it into a question, and… Oh.

“No one’s ever asked,” Leo whispered. Joshua’s expression flooded with so much tenderness that Leo struggled to keep looking at him. He couldn’t look away either.

Joshua twisted one hand free to touch Leo’s jaw, fingertips gentle, reverent. “Not even your first time? He didn’t stop to ask what worked for you and what didn’t? Whether you wanted it slow or fast?”

Leo couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this—ribcage split open to expose him completely, yet trusting Joshua to keep him safe. “My first time,”—he made himself hold Joshua’s gaze—“was in the Rose Garden. So, you know.”

“The Rose Garden?”

Right. Of course Joshua wouldn’t know London’s favourite destinations for gay cruising. For some reason, it lightened Leo’s mood. “The Rose Garden,” he said grandly, “is Hyde Park’s number-one spot to get your dick sucked. Lots of bushes, not a lot of romance, but it seemed as good a place as any for a first fuck. That was shortly after I’d arrived in London, when I’d decided that losing my virginity was overdue. Not exactly the place for candlelight and sweet nothings, mind.”

Joshua looked sad for just a moment, then it made room for a hint of teasing. “So, hey. Is that what you want—candlelight and sweet nothings?”

For all that there’d been humour in Joshua’s tone, the underlying question had been a genuine one, and Leo considered it. “I want,” he said slowly, slightly transfixed by the sunlight slanting over Joshua’s face, “to fuck you on that sofa bed, the one that’s on your terrace at home. In full daylight, and there’s the tree hiding us, sure, but with the noise we’re making, anyone who passes by below will hear.”

Joshua’s throat clicked as he swallowed, and he blinked once, drugged-slow. “We can do that,” he mumbled. “Once we’re back home.”

“Until then…” Leo leaned down until their noses were almost touching, and oh,oh, the way Joshua’s pupils dilated was brilliant. Hefelt on top of the world. “Until then, I want to spend hours mapping your body. And then fuck you. Then sleep a little and wake up with your fingers inside me.”

“Jesus,” Joshua breathed.

“Leo will do.”

Some focus returned to Joshua’s eyes, and he giggled quietly. “I can’t believe you made that pun. Also, I thought you were tired.”

“Hit a second high,” Leo declared. It was mostly true, although there was this mild haze floating through his brain that slowed the spinning world down to a crawl. He rocked his hips down. Joshua’s lips parted, lids drifting shut, and Leo was so in love with him it was hard to breathe.