Chapter 7: The Bee in the Rectory
The laughter subsided into a warm, breathless quiet, the sheets a tangled nest around them. Ed’s footsteps faded down the stairs, followed by the distant suck-and-thud of the rectory’s front door.
“He’s going to tell my mother,” Riley groaned, letting his head fall back onto the pillow. “We’ll never hear the end of it. ‘My brave boy, scared of a little insect.’”
Paul, still tucked against Riley’s side, nuzzled into the space between his jaw and shoulder. His breathing had slowed, but a residual tremor of adrenaline hummed through him. “I wasn’t scared,” he murmured into Riley’s skin. “I was exercising prudent caution. Bees are important pollinators. I was respecting its role in the ecosystem from a safe distance.”
“You shoved me in front of you and used me as a human shield.”
“A loving barrier.” Paul’s hand slid across Riley’s stomach, fingers splaying possessively. “You’re sturdier.”
The afternoon light had softened, slanting gold through the window Ed had opened and closed. The room held the scent of their sleep, of clean cotton, and now, the faint, grassy note of the outside air. The panic was gone, replaced by a lazy, sated intimacy. Riley turned onto his side, facing Paul. He brushed a strand of black hair from his forehead, his thumb tracing the delicate arch of an eyebrow.
Paul’s eyes were heavy-lidded, his gaze soft. In this light, Riley could see the faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose that only appeared in summer. He saw the way Paul’s sweater had ridden up, exposing a slice of his lower belly. It was undeniably fuller, a gentle, firm curve where there had once been taut leanness.
His own words from the lane echoed in his head. You’re going to be an incredible father.
His hand followed his thoughts, coming to rest where Paul’s own hand lay. He didn’t press, just covered it, feeling the warmth. Paul’s breath hitched, just a tiny catch. His eyes, knowing and suddenly vulnerable, locked onto Riley’s.
“Erin knows,” Paul said softly. It wasn’t a question.
“She suspects,” Riley corrected, his voice a low rumble. “She was smiling at breakfast like she’d solved the universe.”
“She’s perceptive.”
“Are you?” Riley asked, the words barely audible. “Perceiving… anything?”
Paul looked down at their joined hands. He guided Riley’s palm, pressing it more firmly against his lower abdomen. The flesh there was warm and firm, not soft. A profound, quiet vitality hummed beneath the surface. “I’m… aware,” he admitted. “Things feel different. Sharper. Smells. The light. The way my body… occupies space.” He looked back up, a flicker of old fear in his brown eyes. “It could still be nothing. A strange echo. A remnant of… before.”
Riley shook his head slowly. “This isn’t that. That was a parasite. This…” He shifted closer, their foreheads touching. “This is us. In here. In you.”
He leaned in and kissed him, a slow, deep communication that bypassed all the fragile, terrifying words. Paul melted into it, his arms coming up to encircle Riley’s neck, pulling him closer until their bodies aligned fully. Riley could feel the new softness of Paul’s breasts against his chest, the hardened peaks of his nipples even through the layers of fabric. A low noise escaped Paul, part sigh, part ache.
Riley broke the kiss, trailing his lips along Paul’s jaw, down the column of his throat. He pushed the sweater up, exposing the smooth plane of his stomach, the dark trail of hair that led downward. He pressed his lips to the skin just below Paul’s navel, a silent, secular prayer.
Paul’s fingers threaded through his short hair, not guiding, just holding. “What if I’m not… built for this?” The question was a raw whisper, the doubt of a man who had been both a monster and a martyr, but never simply a vessel. “What if my body doesn’t remember how to do something holy?”
Riley lifted his head. “Your body isn’t doing it alone. And it’s not about being holy. It’s about being ours.” His hand drifted lower, fingers slipping beneath the waistband of Paul’s soft trousers, finding the heat and the wetness already gathering there. Paul gasped, his hips rolling instinctively. “See?” Riley murmured, watching the flush spread across Paul’s chest. “It knows. It remembers this just fine.”
This time, there was no frantic energy, no desperate chase. It was a deliberate rediscovery. Riley took his time, mapping the changes with his hands and mouth. He worshipped the new weight of Paul’s breasts, tracing the dramatic, dark circles of his areolas with his tongue until Paul was arching off the bed, pleading. He moved lower, through the coarse hair, parting him with infinite care to taste the essence of him, salty and familiar yet somehow deeper, richer. Paul’s cries were muffled by the pillow he’d dragged over his own face, his legs trembling where they bracketed Riley’s head.
When Riley finally sheathed himself inside him, it was with a slow, inexorable pressure that made them both cry out. Paul felt different. Softer, warmer, gripping him with a new, devastating intimacy. Riley stilled, buried to the hilt, forehead damp against Paul’s shoulder, overwhelmed by the sensation. “God, Paul…”
“Don’t stop,” Paul begged, his voice shattered. “Please, Riley, don’t stop.”
He didn’t. He moved with a relentless, gentle precision, each thrust a promise, a claim, a benediction. Paul clutched at his back, his blunt nails scoring faint lines, his heels digging into Riley’s thighs. The world narrowed to the slick, rhythmic sound of their joining, the creak of the bed, the choked-off sobs of pleasure Paul could no longer contain.
Riley felt the climax building not as a sudden surge, but as a deep, tectonic shift. He came with a groan that was half a sob, pulsing deep within that incredible, life-giving heat. Paul followed him over the edge a moment later, his body clamping down in a series of ragged, endless pulses, his cry finally escaping the pillow, loud and unashamed.
For a long time, they just breathed, tangled and spent. The room was dark now, the gold light replaced by indigo twilight.
Riley finally shifted, pulling Paul against his chest, feeling the frantic beat of his heart slowly calm. He kissed his sweat-damp temple.
“We should get a test,” Riley said into the quiet. The words hung there, practical and terrifying.
Paul was silent for a full minute. Then he nodded, his hair brushing Riley’s chin. “Okay,” he whispered. “Not from the island. We’ll go to the mainland. Saturday.”
“Saturday,” Riley agreed, holding him tighter.
Downstairs, the old rectory clock chimed the hour. The ordinary world was waiting. But here, in the dark, they held the possible, the miraculous, the terrifyingly theirs, between them. And for now, that was enough.