Just a friendly warning – if you’re reading this, then it’s likely you have no problems with gay-themed stories. If you do or if you are under the legal age of consent in your country, please leave without reading on.

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Versailles and a summer storm – not what Will had been promised…

Rain

Up to three minutes ago, the gardens of Versailles had been a sun-drenched haven of tranquillity, in truth an earthly paradise, if a very formal one. The storm clouds had come out of nowhere it seemed, and opened up in a deluge of biblical proportions.

Most of the tourists ran for cover, but the two men down by Grand Canal did not. Mainly because one was filled with righteous wrath and the other was crippled with mirth.

The rain hammered down on Will’s dark head, sleeking short hair to an otter’s pelt and trickling off his sharp nose in a miniature waterfall.

“Bevan,” he snarled. “You are going to die.” Almost helpless with laughter, Bryn backed away with less than his usual grace and Will followed him. “Sun, you said. No rain. Well,” he amended, “the odd light shower, you said. Does this look like a light shower to you? I am soaked to the skin!” He spread his arms to demonstrate, and the lightweight cream sweater flapped like batwings, stretched all out of shape by the weight of water in the wool. The bottom hem that had draped comfortably over his hips now swung round his knees, while elongated cuffs slid past his hands to hang a good ten inches beyond his fingertips.

Bryn howled in a fresh paroxysm of mirth, and at the same time thunder cracked over their heads.

Will raised a furious fist to the blackened sky. “Who asked for your opinion?” he bellowed, and Bryn curled over his aching stomach, sobbing. “It. Is. Not. Funny.” Will ground out the words between clenched teeth. “How could you get it so wrong? Didn’t commonsense and experience tell you this would happen? Oh, no, I was forgetting. Weather-lore Welsh-style–if you can see across the valley, it’s going to rain. If you can’t see across the valley, it is raining. Whatever. You are going to die, Bevan. Probably by drowning when I find a puddle deep enough. Which,” he screamed at the sky, ” will be any time now!”

That was the last straw for Bryn. He collapsed to his knees in the sodden grass, landing with a distinct squelch that just made him laugh the more.

“You look,” he wheezed, “like a drowned–”

“I am drowned!”

“It’s warm rain,” Bryn managed, in between struggles for breath. “Don’t make me laugh again–it hurts–”

“It’ll hurt a damn-sight more when I’ve finished with you!” Will snapped. “Will you look at this sweater? It’s practically new and now–”

With a gasping yowl, Bryn doubled over again, clutching his ribs. “It’s my sweater,” he choked out.

“So? I at least have respect for my–your–clothes! I don’t drag you out into a tropical storm that would have given Noah problems!”

“Not tropical. Versailles doesn’t do tropical.”

“That’s it! Forget the puddle! You’re going in the Canal!” He lunged for Bryn, but skidded on the waterlogged grass and would have measured his length if Bryn hadn’t caught him. Will clutched at wet white cotton, but it was too slippery to get a grip.

“Shelter,” Bryn said, trying desperately for coherence. “Trees.”

“In a thunderstorm?” Will was outraged. “Are you completely insane? And will you stop giggling, for God’s sake! Grown men do not giggle!” Which started Bryn off again.

With difficulty and monumental disgust, Will pulled himself free and stood up, stripping off the offending sweater and throwing it at Bryn’s head. It left his upper body naked, but that didn’t seem to bother him. The rain was, after all, warm. “I’m leaving,” he growled. “You can walk back to sodding Paris!”

“My car.” Bryn was at the hiccupping stage as he yanked the clinging mess of knitwear away so he could see. “My car keys are in my pocket,” he added, just to emphasise the point.

“They can be removed,” Will snarled, “along with your balls!” He pounced, surefooted this time, and Bryn found himself pinned on his back with Will sitting on his stomach. “Keys! Give!”

“Uh-uh.” Rain was still falling, was still cascading off his lover’s nose, and now it was sluicing down the pale skin, putting a gloss on the long sweeps of muscle and tendon. Bryn began to chuckle again, but this time there was an undertone that wasn’t there before: a sensuality that always lay so close to his surface where this one man was concerned. He moved under Will’s weight, a slow glide, his hands sliding up the braced arms to cup the wet head. “Will,” he whispered, and watched agate eyes darken with sudden hunger.

“Not here! In the middle of bloody-Versailles?” Will whimpered. “God! Do you know what you look like? That wet shirt’s transparent–you glow–”

“Will,” he breathed, giving the name a huskiness that never failed to seduce. It didn’t fail now. Will leaned down and took his mouth in a deep kiss, tongue probing, wordless murmurs of pleasure and arousal passing between them.

Will slowly stretched out until he was lying full-length along Bryn’s body and their erections pressed together through their soaked clothing. Bryn parted his thighs and fumbled for the waistband of Will’s jeans. Will’s hand was performing the same service for him, and he gasped as their bodies came together again, heated skin on skin. Now Will turned his attention to Bryn’s shirt, but the buttons proved stubborn. He had no patience with them and the last one went flying off to be lost in the grass. Will gave a hiss of triumph as he spread the thin material away from Bryn’s chest.

Thunder rolled again, and the rain became even heavier, bouncing off Will’s back. He smiled, eyes narrowed, voracious. “He’s jealous,” he drawled. “Him upstairs with His thunderbolts. You’re mine and I’m not sharing.”

“Arrogant–” Bryn’s words were stopped by another devouring kiss, so he stroked his hands down the lean back, pushed them under the loosened waistband and cupped the muscled haunches, rocking Will against him in a rhythmic slide. Their cocks slipped along wet skin, lubricated by rain and precome, pressed together by the weight of Will’s body and the strength of Bryn’s embrace. The rhythm became faster, Will’s thrusts became harder, pleasure was a spiralling rip-tide that carried them on its crest to a shared completion, and Bryn’s yell as his body spasmed in release was drowned out by the thunder above.

They lay still for a short while, locked together, until their hearts settled back to a normal beat. “Damn, you’re good,” Bryn whispered into a dripping ear.

“And you are incredibly muddy,” Will snickered.

“No problem,” Bryn murmured, running his tongue-tip around Will’s ear. He rolled over, pinning the man beneath him momentarily, then in one convulsive surge got to his feet and lifted Will with him. “The Canal’s just here–”

The roar of fury and the crash of two heavy bodies hitting the water were lost in the last rolling salute from the storm.

Minutes later, the sun broke through.

End