Free Fic: Claret Decadence

http://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/decorating/decorating-tips-techniques/color-combinations/berry-putty-burgundy-room

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"Now, this is nice." Max whistled as he entered the room.

"It's very red." Lucas nodded. "I don't remember this from the website."

"They didn't have photos of every room." Max turned a circle in the room. "Even the borders along the ceiling are red."

"It's only for a week, anyway." Lucas thumbed his way through the books piled on a side table. "And someone left a used glass here."

"The previous guests, I'm sure." Max picked up the glass. It was a gorgeous stemmed thing, with swirls in the glass, looking like a chalice for drinking wine. It instantly set him to craving something lush. He looked to Lucas, and reached out to catch the hand of his fiancé and pull him into a kiss. "You wait right here. I'm going to pour us a glass of wine and come back here."

"We haven't unpacked yet, or even seen the rest of the house."

"Don't care. Wait here, and you won't regret it." Max whisked the glass off to the kitchen. He set it on the counter and discovered, as he'd hoped, more clean ones of the same kind in a cupboard. They'd bought several bottles of wine with them from home, when they'd packed for this vacation and house rental. A quick dash back to the car netted him a bottle. There wasn't enough time to open it and let it air properly, but Max didn't care. He popped the cork, poured the wine, and brought the glasses back to the room.

Lucas sprawled on the grey couch, his head propped up with pillows, and one lanky leg over the back of the couch and one dangling off the edge. He'd been skimming through one of the books. "Poetry," he said, when he saw Max standing over him. "And not good poetry either. Industrial stuff. About machines and smog."

Max set the two glasses of wine on the mantle, where the light from the window bounced through them to the mirror and back again to smudge red-colored reflections on the ceiling and the floor. "Don't care," he said. He pushed his fingers past the waistband on Lucas' trousers, the backs of his fingers rubbing against soft skin. "You look good in this room." He pressed his face into the crook of Lucas' neck. "You smell even better."

He meant both compliments. Lucas was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with an olive-tone to his skin, that just made him fit absolutely perfectly into the red jewel tones of the room. Max wanted to have him, there on the couch, or on the thin blood-red rug on the floor, or in the window alcove with the sunlight streaming in on the pine floorboards and the decorated sides of the windows glowing in mulberry hues all around them.

"You are unbelievable," Max said, "You make me feel incredible." They were a jumble of arms and legs together, balanced precariously on a thin couch. He shifted up to kiss the skin beneath Lucas' jaw line and the pressure popped the two pillows into the air. The book of poems thudded to the floor.

"Yeah?" Lucas said, his voice a rasp of sound. "And that's why I'm going to marry you. Because you make me feel amazing, too."

Later, tired and happy, they curled around each other on the floor. Max looked up and saw the untouched glasses of wine on the mantel. He chuckled and pointed. "The thought of drinking wine in here with you, and ravishing you--I couldn't even wait to drink the wine. I went right to the ravishing."

"Remind me to paint the bedroom red when we get back home," Lucas said. "I like what it does to you."