Adagio — Christine Elizabeth

When he can’t sleep, Ellis plays his electric piano with the headphones plugged in.  He sneaks out of bed when he thinks Rayne is too asleep to notice his absence, and he works his way backward through musical history from David Lanz to Franz Josef Haydn, weaving together decades of songs into an eight-hour concerto.  By the time he runs out of sheet music, the sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon, and by the time Rayne crawls out from under the covers, Ellis is sitting pale-faced and bleary-eyed in the kitchen, sipping at a steaming mug of coffee.

Rayne says nothing about the purple circles under Ellis’s eyes; he just sits down, wearing nothing but his boxers, and takes Ellis’s hands in his own, massaging tired digits and swollen knuckles until his boyfriend’s eyelids flutter and finally close. Rayne then slides one pinky into his mouth, sucking tenderly, and waits for Ellis’s sleepy head to droop onto his shoulder.

“Bed?” He runs his fingers through Ellis’s thick, blonde hair.

“Yes, please.”

Rayne wraps an arm around the other man’s lithe form and pulls him to his feet.  While steering him to the bedroom, Rayne begins to place slow kisses from wrist to elbow, elbow to neck.

When they at last reach their destination, Ellis is breathing quite a bit faster, which is just what Rayne wants to hear.  He seats his lover on the mattress and removes every last shred of clothing from compliant limbs.  Ellis is already halfway hard as Rayne pushes him onto his back and lays down next to him, whispering, “Let me help you sleep.”

Ellis moans quietly when Rayne nips at his earlobe; he reaches for the waistband of Rayne’s boxers but is stopped by a firm hand on his wrist.

“No,” Rayne says, smiling.  “Just lay back-”  He plunges his tongue between Ellis’s lips for a split second.  “-and breathe deep and slow-”  He lightly drags his fingernails up the insides of Ellis’s thighs.  “-and let me do this for you.  Okay?”

“Okay,” Ellis gasps as Rayne cups his balls and slowly – so painfully slowly that Ellis actually whimpers in desperation – envelopes his length in his wonderfully hot mouth, sucking gently and rhythmically.

Ellis exhales shakily and laces his fingers through Rayne’s dark curls.  Exhaustion anchors him to the mattress like a lead weight, and his mind has gone completely blank.  All that’s left in the world now is the beating of his heart and the warmth and wet of Rayne’s lips and tongue and mouth sliding over him.  Ellis tries to take a deep breath, tries to do what Rayne told him to, but Rayne’s teeth graze over his cock, and he gasps, unconsciously tightening his fingers in Rayne’s hair, making the other man moan.

The sound reverberates through every fiber of Ellis’s being, and his hips rise up off the bed in response as he thrusts himself deeper and deeper into Rayne’s throat.

Rayne takes him in all the way without a second’s hesitation, and Ellis knows that, though it’s only been a couple of minutes at most, he’s nearing the end.

His cock stiffens further before his orgasm overtakes him, and he comes with waves of heat rolling over him, head swimming and heart racing and body trembling.

Rayne waits for Ellis to fall quiet and still before he disentangles the now limp fingers from his hair and rights himself to reach for a tissue and clean up his lover.

“Thank you,” Ellis murmurs, already mostly unconscious.

“You don’t have to say that,” Rayne replies, and Ellis blinks up at him in confusion.  “It wasn’t a favor.  I wanted to do it.”

“But-”

“Hush,” he interrupts, but Ellis shakes his head.

“What about you?”

“I’m a grown man, El.  I know how to take care of myself, and I also know how to ignore it until you’ve gotten some goddamn sleep.”

Ellis pulls Rayne down next to him and tucks his head under Rayne’s chin.  “Fine.  But just so you know, when I wake up, you’re in for it.”

“But not because you’re trying to repay me, right?” Rayne asks, stroking his hair and listening to his breathing slow as he relaxes into sleep after far too many nights at that damn piano.

“Right,” Ellis yawns.  “Because I want to.”

Rayne smiles.  Now, that’s more like it.

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Christine Elizabeth is a twenty-something writer and musician who has two novels and an English degree in the works.  She loves romance and erotica just as much as she loves classic literature, and she can be found on Twitter @teenelizabeth.