Snow Storm

Chapter 15

Claude

Claude fought back a groan as Harley’s fingers dug into his sides. He had the perfect spot, the one that drove Claude wild, but this wasn’t about him. Not right now. Right now, he had Harley draped halfway over him, legs spread wanton and needy, and three fingers in his ass.

He’d already found his prostate, and he was urging Harley to fuck the space between Claude’s thighs. He wanted this. He’d been thinking about him all day, his body humming with desire. No one got him hot and bothered the way Harley did, and it was even better feeling his weight pressing Claude into the mattress as the man fell apart in his arms.

“How does it feel?” Claude prompted.

Harley muttered something against his chest as his hips stuttered forward.

“What was that?”

Harley lifted his head, cheeks flaming. “Please don’t make me talk dirty.”

Claude stilled his fingers, stretching them wide the way Harley liked, and he met his gaze. “You write sexy words, don’t you? Your books, they have romance and sex, yes?”

Harley swallowed thickly. “I…yeah, but writing it is a lot different than saying it aloud.”

“Alright,” Claude said quietly. He stroked a touch over Harley’s jaw. “I won’t make you. Nothing you don’t want.” And he meant that. He never wanted Harley to feel even a moment of discomfort. He’d been through enough. As much as Claude wanted to hear filthy words raining from his lips and tongue, he’d never push the issue.

He resumed his task, hitting Harley’s prostate with unerring accuracy. Harley’s body melted against him, hips writhing, fucking his hips downward until he shuddered, and cried out, and then came all over Claude’s lap.

He could only just feel the wetness as it hit him, and he shuddered, letting out a hard breath as pleasure raced up his spine. It wasn’t like an orgasm, but it was close. His heart kicked up a few notches, his breathing hitched, and he eased his hand out of Harley’s ass to see that his fingers were shaking.

“You okay?”

Claude laughed. “I should be asking you that. You look very well fucked, sweetheart.”

Harley groaned and pressed his face down before looking up again. “I feel amazing. But you’re a little pale.”

Claude knew his blood pressure was acting up. It wasn’t a common thing for his type of injury, but it happened every so often. He eased Harley off his lap, then settled back and controlled his breathing. After a few stuttered beats, his heart was regular again, and he could feel his body relaxing.

“Is that from your, ah…”

“Paralysis?” Claude offered as Harley slid close to him. He smiled when his lover took his discarded shirt and cleaned up the mess from his lap. He brushed along Harley’s tangled curls. “It is, yes. It’s not something that happens often, but I have to pay attention to my blood pressure sometimes when I get worked up. It’s more dangerous for people whose injuries are up higher than mine, but it still happens from time to time.”

“Is there something I should do, or?—”

“No, mon ame. Just be as you are.” He tilted Harley’s head up with a finger under his chin and took a kiss. “That was good for you, yes?”

“Amazing,” Harley said, but there was hesitation in his voice.

Claude waited a long beat, but when he was met with silence, he shifted his body to better look at him. “Tell me.”

Harley swallowed heavily, his gaze darting away. “I want to be able to, you know, talk the way you want me to talk.”

“No,” Claude began, but Harley shook his head, cutting him off.

“Yes. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with dirty talk. I think it’s s-sexy,” he stuttered a little. “I don’t really watch a lot of porn, but I found this channel that had set up an account that was all audio and, uh…and yeah.”

Claude raised a brow at him. “It got you off?”

Harley nodded, biting his lip. After a few breaths, he said, “The first time I ever wrote sex into a book, I was asked to do a reading, and those were the passages they highlighted. It was…awkward, and I got a lot of people who complained to my publisher and my agent about how bad I was at that signing.”

Claude felt his eyes darken. “That’s unkind. That isn’t your job.”

“Reading is part of my job though,” Harley said in a small voice. “I was never good at public speaking. I have to write all these mental scripts, and then I get in front of a crowd, and they ask me questions, and I get all…tongue-tied. I thought for a while that it wasn’t right to get personal questions about my sex life, but my agent seems to think it comes as part of the job.”

“Is that what happened? Why you’re here?”

Harley hunched into himself, pressing his body harder against Claude’s. “You really haven’t watched the video?”

“Ah, chéri. I saw a little bit of it, but there was no audio, and I didn’t go back for details. There’s no point in me watching it, especially if it’ll hurt you.”

Harley was still and quiet for so long Claude started to worry, and then he sat up and looked him in the eye. “Watch it with me.”

“What? No, Harley. I don’t need?—”

“ I need it,” Harley interrupted. “I need you to know. It might change things for you.”

“How’s that?”

Harley wrapped his arms tightly around his middle. “I hit someone. I used physical violence against someone, and I…I need you to see that part of me before you decide you want to take a risk on all this with me.”

Claude didn’t know what to say or think. He was a man who abhorred the very idea of getting violent with someone, but he was also a man who had been pushed to his limit a time or two—especially when he was younger. But that didn’t mean he’d ever put his hands on a partner.

And he was willing to bet most of what he had and who he was that Harley wasn’t that kind of person either.

Still, he could tell this was important to him, and he knew he’d give Harley anything he asked for…

Within reason—and maybe some things beyond reason too.

“Show me,” he finally said.

Harley looked both relieved and terrified. “Let me get my phone.” He slid off Claude’s lap and disappeared into the bedroom.

When he didn’t return right away, Claude reached for his sweats and managed to get them up over his trembling legs and stiff ass. He was just pulling on his sweater when Harley returned dressed in thick, soft pajama pants from one of Claude’s drawers and a T-shirt.

It did something to Claude to see his lover in his clothes. He stretched out his arms, and when Harley was close enough, he bundled him against his body and slipped sideways on the sofa until he was spooned up against Harley’s back.

“I have to warn you,” Harley said softly, “this isn’t going to make me look good.”

Claude kissed the back of his neck. “Let me be the judge.”

Harley’s finger hesitated as he hovered it over the screen, and then after a long beat, he hit Play.

The sound was mostly the dull roar of a chattering crowd. The video was obviously taken on someone’s phone, and it was a little shaky, but as it zoomed into focus, he saw Harley on a stage under bright lights. He looked uncomfortable, hunched into himself, his face twisted with nerves.

There was a voice off-screen, and it took Claude a second to make out what the person was saying.

“…it wasn’t kinky, but it definitely wasn’t vanilla or fade to black like you’d been writing before. Did you and your ex act out those scenes before you wrote them down so they’d be accurate?”

Claude’s ears began to buzz with fury. The audacity ! He heard Harley’s mumbled response and saw the look of fear crossing his beloved’s face. He wanted to reach through the screen and punch the man who was speaking.

“Did he just say you had internalized homophobia because you wouldn’t talk about your sex life?” Claude growled.

Harley stiffened. “I…well. Just hang on. There’s more, and it…it gets worse..”

He wasn’t wrong. That video cut out, and it was spliced with another. Harley was in what looked like a hotel hallway with ugly red carpets and cream-colored walls. He was standing in front of a tall, beady-eyed man with slicked-back dark hair and a smirk on his face.

Harley looked terrified, and the man looked furious.

“I’m deadly serious. Get your fucking ass back in there, apologize to that man, describe your dick down to the freckles if that’s what he wants, and make this right. You’re nothing without all of this, Harley. Fix it.”

“Harley,” Claude breathed out. His chest hurt from the cruelty. Harley was stiff in his arms, and to make matters worse, the video kept going. The asshole who did this to him apparently wasn’t done.

“…And if you were half as talented as your ego, you wouldn’t need to do little signings like this to keep from going broke. You’re not important to this industry. You’re a sad little nobody who can’t even keep his broke-ass boyfriend interested in him. It’s no wonder why he left you. I should have fucked him when he came on to me.”

“Yeah, maybe you should have,” video-Harley said .

Then, he fulfilled all of Claude’s wishes and punched the man.

There was a gasp from the crowd, and Harley looked like he was in a fugue state. And then the video ended.

Stillness fell over the two of them, and then Harley’s fingers released the phone, and it clattered to the ground. Claude didn’t move. He wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t sure what Harley was expecting him to say.

“So, yeah,” Harley whispered.

Claude cleared his throat. “You shouldn’t have punched him.”

“I know. Fuck, I know . I know I’m?—”

“You should have given him a knee right to his balls.”

Harley’s jaw shut so hard Claude both felt and heard the click in his jaw. A beat of silence passed. Then another. Then Harley asked, “Uh, what?”

Claude turned Harley in his arms, arranging him with one leg over his hips, the other between his knees. He kept them in close enough that all he had to do was lean in an inch and they’d be kissing.

“He deserved the punch.”

“No one deserves that.”

“I’m not so sure I believe that. I saw the whole thing, mon ame. I heard every single word those monsters said to you. The man in the crowd was so wrong for what he asked. You are a person. You are an author, and no one has any right to know what happens in your personal life.”

“Ethan was pretty quick to remind me that the moment you achieve any kind of public fame, your right to privacy gets smaller.”

“He’s a liar,” Claude said, his voice both quiet and fierce. His heart was hurting so badly for this man. “And a sorry excuse for a human being.”

Harley closed his eyes and sagged against Claude. “I think I would have handled it better if it happened months ago. Or months from now. But my jackass ex just left, and it was the anniversary of my dad’s death and…and I don’t know. I didn’t even want to do that fucking signing, but Ethan said if I didn’t show up, I’d be in breach of contract. He promised me everyone would be vetted and that those questions were banned, but the mods weren’t paying attention, and they just…they just let this guy talk.”

“And then he yelled at you for enforcing the rules he agreed upon. He made you feel shame that you had no business feeling, and he got what any person should have gotten in that moment,” Claude said. He hoped he could run into Ethan someday so he could give the man a proper encore. Cupping Harley’s face between his hands, Claude drew him in for a kiss. “But you were right,” he said when he pulled back. “That video does change everything.”

Harley swallowed heavily. “How?”

“It makes me realize that the strength I thought you possessed was underestimated. You gave him far less than he deserved.”

“I don’t think the internet agrees with you,” Harley said miserably.

“Have you checked?”

Harley’s face flushed. “Well, no. I’m terrified to look. I’m just hoping that some other big celebrity does something wild so people will forget about me.”

Claude laughed softly and shook his head. “Maybe that will happen, but from everything Lyric and Aminah have told me, more people are on your side than you think. I’m here for you. You can lay low in my arms, and I will protect you. But I hope you won’t be afraid to step back out into the world when the storm passes.”

Harley bit his lip, then surged up and kissed Claude for millions more than he would ever be worth. “Thank you.”

Claude had no idea what to say to that. He didn’t need thanks. He just needed this. And for the moment—and maybe for a million more—he’d get to keep it.