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To be fair, Arthur should have known this would inevitably happen when he agreed to exclusive and official relationship with Francis, the most hopeless romantic ever and the representative of the self-proclaimed country of l’amour. He should have seen it coming from miles, or at least fathoms, away.
But there he was, at the doorstep to his bedroom, and Arthur could say he had honestly not seen this coming. This being a fully naked Frenchman lying on his bed in a pose meant to be seductive, a presumably thornless rose between his lips, and all around him lay fiery red flower petals. Knowing Francis, those too were from roses.
“Bienvenue, Arthur,” Francis said, the stem of the rose curling up with his smile. “I have been waiting for you.”
Arthur nearly dropped the keys from his suddenly stilled hand as he searched for any words for a painfully long couple of seconds. “What… how did you get inside?”
“You gave me your key, non?” Francis hummed as he shifted on the bed, raising his knee up. Arthur tried not to stare at the sight of the naked man on his bed, he truly did. He didn’t have time for this — his briefcase full of papers in need of his signature said as much. Briefcase, which he had already taken to his study.
“O-oh,” Arthur stammered, instantly frustrated with his lack of coherency. His eyes followed the curves of Francis’s shapely legs, landing on Francis’s crotch and the half-formed erection. He swallowed, just a bit. “I did, indeed.”
“A deer in the headlights, are you?” Francis mused as he regarded Arthur with an obvious case of bedroom eyes that Arthur usually found too damn irresistible. After a long day spent on listening to the House of Lords, Arthur wasn’t quite prepared for such a drastic change in mood. Francis seemed to understand that much as he simply gestured Arthur to lie down with him. “Come here, mon amour. You look like you need, ah, de-stressing.”
Dropping the keys onto the sole desk in the room, Arthur nodded wordlessly, still somewhat astounded that he had never thought that Francis would do something like this in the course of their relationship. Really, Arthur. “Let me take off my suit first.”
“I can help you with that.” Francis wasn’t quite thoughtful enough to not make that suggestion, and Arthur scowled at his in-a-way beloved boyfriend.
“You stay there where I can see you,” Arthur said dismissively as he began to undo the tie’s knot around his neck.
“Oh, yes. Watch me all you want, Arthur.” Francis pointedly stretched, back arching over the petal-covered sheets. It was like a corny scene from a French romance novel. How fitting. Arthur smiled wryly, biting back a retort regarding Francis’s egotistic tendencies.
Arthur left the button-up shirt fully buttoned, but he did take off the trousers, reveling in Francis’s gaze that was glued on him. “Now who’s the one staring, hmm?”
“My eyes are always on you, mon amour, surely you know that.”
Arthur shook his head in disbelief as he hung the jacked on the back of a chair, as well as the trousers before pulling off socks from his feet as he presumably wouldn’t be leaving the bed for quite a while. There were several things he could inquire Francis about — for one, didn’t he have any work to do and didn’t he have to meet up with Germany for the EU-related one-on-one discussions — but Arthur found himself unwilling to spend time on thinking about those things at the moment. Francis’s company was welcomed, anyhow, and the bloody git knew it.
And, well. Politics were hard to discuss when one of them was an attractive and very much naked Frenchman.
“You’re so cheesy,” Arthur murmured as he finally finished struggling against his clothes and went to climb into the bed, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. Rose petals pooled beneath him as he settled down, and Francis’s hand came to rest over his hipbone, finger diving under Arthur’s shirt.
“You adore it,” Francis returned, tenderly, and his eyes were soft like the deepest blue on the skies or the seas Arthur had conquered. There were times when those skies and sea were furious with him, but they always somehow ended up reaching peace through the storms. And now Arthur was being sappy, wasn’t he? Oh, dear, the things love did to a person…
“I do not,” Arthur muttered, settling a hand over Francis’s upper arm. Skin warm and soft against his, Arthur found the definite proof that Francis was there, in reality, with him. In all of his French glory, or the lack of it. “Also, why—”
Francis’s shushed him with a well-timed nuzzle to Arthur’s cheek. Arthur melted, just a little bit. It wasn’t his fault Francis was easy to get affection from… unless one was England, but even that wasn’t as much an exception to the rule anymore. “Because you have missed me oh so terribly, mon ange. Don’t think I couldn’t tell from your emails.”
“Oh, please, I wasn’t that obvious—” Arthur blurted out hastily, but fell silent when Francis sniggered, his hand gently massaging Arthur’s hip.
Ignoring Francis’s obvious erection, it was all fairly normal.
And all right, especially the erection made this usual. Francis always was easy to rile up, Arthur had discovered.
“You are truly like an open book to me, mon amour,” Francis said, and brought his free hand into Arthur’s bushy hair, fingers tugging at the knots absentmindedly. Francis’s smile grew, eyes narrowing devilishly, and Arthur got a bad feeling. “And now, cher—”
“Please, don’t say another word, you—”
Francis’s voice dropped into a low murmur, “—draw me like one of your English girls, Angleterre.”
Arthur made a low screeching sound that resembled a sound effect from one of America’s inane action movies, and apparently that was enough to make Francis laugh his sorry arse off. Arthur only now noticed that the rose from before had disappeared from Francis’s mouth, but that didn’t matter much when he had a Frenchman to shove a pillow at.
“That’s not how the quote goes,” Arthur sniffed haughtily, trying not to smile as Francis managed to wrap his arms around Arthur’s waist and bring him close. “Didn’t you watch the blasted movie twenty-two times?”
“Twenty-six,” Francis corrected once the pillow was away from his face, and went to shower Arthur’s neck with kisses. Arthur only put the minimal effort into dodging those ticklish kisses. (He wasn’t ticklish, shut up.) “And I don’t want to imagine you painting my girls, mon cher. There’s only so much I can take.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, you little— and besides, you know I’m better at sonnets than painting—”
Francis’s mouth landed on Arthur’s, suffocating the remnants of Arthur’s irritated squawking, before Francis drew back and winked at Arthur. “Oui, I know. You have written quite a few about me, have you not, darling?”
The way Francis pronounced English endearments still made Arthur embarrassed on some level. That horrible, horrible accent accompanied with that lecherous grin was simply too much to take. Not to mention the hair that framed Francis’s face. The hair that had given Arthur so much grievance when they had been younger and lighter people at heart.
Arthur choked up for a moment, doing nothing but staring at Francis and that bloody gorgeous face. The moment was a little ruined by the poke of Francis’s dick against Arthur’s thigh, though.
“How did you… I mean, fuck, absolutely not!” Arthur brought his arms around Francis’s neck, thick eyebrows knit together in a frown as he glared into Francis’s eyes. Half-hearted at best, and whatever heat he felt certainly wasn’t anger as he was far too tired to put up a tantrum.
“16th century?” Francis suggested slyly, and Arthur had the urge to choke this man. It wasn’t anything new.
“Oh, sod off,” Arthur groaned, burying his face into Francis’s neck to hide the embarrassment on his face. As revenge, he pushed his knee forward to Francis’s crotch. “You be quiet now.”
“I don’t think that’ll keep me quiet, you know,” Francis sneered, his hand wandering to Arthur’s thigh.
“Oh, I’ll make you scream, all right,” Arthur muttered, leaning to press a kiss to Francis’s smugly smiling and waiting lips. “Don’t blame it one me if you lose your voice, old chap.”
“You’ve always overestimated your capabilities, Arthur,” Francis murmured against Arthur’s mouth, and that was the last thing he spoke for quite a while.