He pulled away. He tried to. He’d barely created a distance between them when Robin closed it again, fast enough that Edwin couldn’t focus on his face; couldn’t classify the expression there. Robin’s arms were tight around his back, wrapping him up, solid and inescapable. Once again it was exactly what Edwin needed. His body melted into it, need rising up through him like vines. And then Robin’s mouth was on his again, and all of a sudden the grammar of the thing fell into place.
Somehow Edwin’s back was against the wall, and they were still kissing. Robin was pressed in close enough that Edwin could feel Robin hardening against his hip. One of Robin’s hands brushed up into his hair, the other arm still snug in the small of Edwin’s back. Edwin realised he had no sodding clue what his own hands were doing—ah, there they were, holding on to Robin’s broad shoulders for dear life.
Robin sucked on Edwin’s lower lip and then drew away, pulling a sound from Edwin’s mouth along with it. Edwin froze, but Robin just made a kind of low growl and ducked his head. He mouthed at Edwin’s jaw, the side of his neck, heat and tongue and suction. Edwin’s cock hardened and he felt, rather than heard, the exhalation that was almost a sob of pleasure by the time it escaped his mouth.
Edwin moved his hands to Robin’s chest, and pushed. Gently, but firmly. Robin pulled back, and finally Edwin was able to look him in the face. Robin’s lips were wet and the lakes of his eyes gone dark, and he was staring at Edwin as though Edwin were an undiscovered wonder.
A thrill completely unlike magic chased from one end of Edwin’s spine to the other. He could feel that neediness threatening to overwhelm him. He wanted to collapse into it, to tilt back his head, to throw his body into feeling something that wasn’t pain or fatigue or tension. Pulling himself together in the face of that want was like dragging a weight uphill.
Edwin swallowed and put his hands at the sash that held Robin’s gown shut. “Can I—？”
“Yes,” Robin blurted. “God, yes.” He was still wearing drawers, beneath the gown, but nothing else. He leaned in and kept snatching kisses, hungry and disjointed, but stopped with a low moan when Edwin’s fingers closed around his cock.
It had been a long time since Edwin had done this for someone else. He experimented, gentle strokes alternating with firmer tugs, watching the way Robin’s throat moved as he swallowed, listening to the soft curses that emerged from his lips. Robin put a hand on the wall by Edwin’s shoulder and rested his weight there, giving Edwin just enough space to work his hand in between their bodies.
Edwin’s breath shuddered in his chest with the intoxicating smell of Robin’s skin. His eyes caught on small details: the evening shadow of Robin’s jaw. The trim at the collar of the gown, now gaping to reveal Robin’s chest. The action of his own hand now moving steadily back and forth along the thick shape of Robin’s cock, which was just beginning to leak at the tip.
Robin bent his head, looking down as well, and they bumped foreheads. Edwin hastily loosened his grip. “Sorry, is it—”
“Yes! Fuck, it’s—I—I want to see, is that all right?” Robin licked his lips and flicked his gaze down, then up again. “I like your hands. I like watching them.”
The easy vulnerability of the admission startled Edwin. But of course Robin was brave in this, as he was brave in everything else. Of course he’d throw himself that open without a second thought. If someone tried to mock him for what he wanted he’d probably just laugh.
The startlement was followed by a shy, deep flutter of pleasure. Edwin found himself smiling.
“Is that so,” he said. He still had his fingers crooked around Robin’s cock. It seemed like it would have been rude to release it, at this point.
Robin nodded, his eyes darkening further. “If you had any idea how distracting it is, when you do things with that string . . .”
Edwin kissed him, once and hard, trying to think. He knew how to think. He did. There had to be some blood spare in his body to power the cells of his brain, even if most of it was thickening his own cock and dancing in his limbs.
“Here,” he said. “I’ve an idea. Come and sit on the edge of the bed.”
Walking with an unsteadiness that widened Edwin’s smile, Robin did so. He wriggled out of the drawers entirely and hesitated over the robe before keeping it on. There was an almost luxurious indecency to the sight of him as he sat down, the front of him bare and exposed but framed by the green fabric. His legs were strong, a shade paler than his arms. There was a raised scar on one knee.