He took Lucas’ face in both hands and pulled him down for a real kiss.
How they ended up on the floor after that, he couldn’t have said. The skin of his face tingled with the faint scrape of stubble. Lucas’ throat was damp from kisses Robin left there. Beneath Lucas’ ear was a spot to make the great wise one shiver and laugh and then moan quietly. His hands burned over Robin’s stomach and up the length of his back beneath his clothes.
Robin stopped to stare down at him. A well-lit living room was not a darkened bedroom and he wanted to look his fill. Lucas was on his back, as he must like to be, sweater rucked up but regrettably still on, one of his hands by his head exactly where Robin had pushed it down minutes before. He took direction so well, Robin reflected with absent pleasure, as though he’d been waiting for it.
The sweater, dark though it was, had a stain on one sleeve. Robin pulled at Lucas’ arm to examine it, his chest tight to behold the purple-red shape that was not a tall, elegant raven,but rather a small, round bird that Robin did not quite dare name, even with wine making his thoughts sparkle.
He tugged Lucas’ hand toward him and Lucas cupped the side of his neck, drawing Robin back down before Robin could manage a word.
“You don’t need to worry,” Lucas said, possibly the least wise he had ever been if he thoughtworrywas the emotion possessing Robin at the moment.
Robin wanted Lucas’ mouth and his earnest frown and the care in his hands. Of those, he took his mouth, because he could, and because Lucas offered it, and because he had thought of kissing Lucas all day and wanted Lucas to know it.
He removed the sweater eventually, so he could live a teenage dream and touch Lucas without irksome, store-bought nonsense between them. He meant only to touch, well, to look and to touch. But the discovery of dark hair and a mole and smaller scarring from the old injury had led to more kissing, all over Lucas’ skin, with Lucas making choked-off noises and watching Robin as if he didn’t know what he was seeing, or didn’t believe it.
A heady thing, to be regarded as wondrous because of a few kisses. Almost as powerful as it felt to nudge Lucas down and have him stay there.Lucaswas wondrous, and Robin told him exactly that between kisses, in a whisper against Lucas’ stomach, and lost his breath at the reaction it got.
Lucas could mutter about patience and waiting, and fret over Robin’s health all he liked, but Robin thought the sweep of Lucas’ skin under his palms was healing, and Lucas had been patient enough, to his way of thinking. And Robin didn’t want to wait to know the weight and taste of Lucas’ cock in his mouth.
Lucas’ hands fell through his hair, tightening just before he came and slowly relaxing after that, when he smoothed apologies into Robin’s shoulders as if Robin had minded. Robin kissed along Lucas’ chest, cleaning up the gleaming spill with that same stained sweater before tossing it aside. Store-bought it may be, but Robin had seen it marked well.
He considered it smugly for another moment, then shushed Lucas when Lucas tried to reach for him. Reciprocity was all well and good for the old ways, but not here and now.
“That was a gift for me,” he informed Lucas sleepily, “thank you.” He smiled to himself at the stutter in Lucas’ breathing. “You gave me exactly what I wanted,” Robin added by way of an experiment, and enjoyed the small shudder that carried through Lucas’ body.
Satisfied, andoh, he truly was, Robin put Lucas’ hands in his hair until Lucas took the hint and stroked the back of Robin’s neck.
“Blessing,” Lucas barely breathed it.
Robin hummed for an answer.
They would need to put out the fire so it could be relit tomorrow. They would also need to go to bed. After ten years, Robin ought to be in a hurry to do that. He wanted to curl up with Lucas again someplace more comfortable than the floor, perhaps kiss more, or let Lucas do whatever he clearly wanted to do to Robin. But Robin was shaking, he realized, fine tremors of exhaustion or relief at not Seeing anything horrible or at having Lucas finally, if not forever.
“I really am glad you’re here,” he sighed at last, lips to Lucas’ skin.
“Where else,” Lucas mumbled back. That, or something like that, intentionally as cryptic as Merlin, or just half-full of wine and his brain a little scrambled from a blowjob. He was relaxed and warm, eyes closed. Robin spread his arms out over him to keep him just as he was, then shut his eyes too.
Oh, it would hurt when Lucas left again, but Robin wasn’t one to fight destiny.
He was a Blessing-Redferne. They didn’t fight anything.
Twelve
The morning after the solstice, Robin again slept late. He had reason to, waking with a slight ache in his head despite the herbal blend Lucas had made for him in the hushed dark of the kitchen near midnight, and a pleasantly bruised sensation that came from dozing on the floor, and maybe also from hands pressing all over him during heated kisses in that same hushed dark of near midnight.
Robin could have gotten lost in that memory, or easily gone back to sleep. But though he was nestled beneath his blankets, toasty warm despite only having a pair of boxers on, he was also quite alone.
“Irksome habit of his,” he muttered to himself, although Lucas rising early to take care of things was what allowed Robin the time to sleep in. Robin happily ignored this fact, using his irritation to force himself from the cozy nest.
His cardigan was on the chair, but the rest of his clothes must have still been downstairs, along with his laundry.
Shivering, sighing, generally displeased, Robin slipped the sweater on before heading downstairs. His hair seemed to be more of a mess than usual, which reminded him of Lucas’ hands in it, which made him smile to himself and miss a step, only just keeping himself from spraining an ankle.
He carried on as though he didn’t hear cooing from nowhere and everywhere.
In the kitchen, the coffee machine was on and oatmeal had cooled on the stove.
“Very considerate,” he told the absent Lucas approvingly. But also not enough for such a morning, with clouded skies and air thatlookedcold, somehow. With no sign of Lucas on this part of the yard, Robin turned around to examine the contents of the refrigerator. The party leftovers called to him, but he chose eggs for a frittata of some kind, put them on the counter, then took a cup of coffee with him in search of socks and Lucas.
