Chapter 15
I rolled on top of him, kissing him fiercely, before trailing my lips down his throat. His skin tasted salty, and his masculine scent fired my nerves. His chest invited exploration, and I ran my hands over the finely-sculpted muscles, over the little buds of nipples. He sighed in pleasure when I touched them, so I bent and kissed the one, then the other.
“Yes.” He arched against me. “Use your teeth.”
A gasp and a twitch of his member were my rewards. I kissed and licked and nipped my way down, making him jump once or twice when I found unexpectedly sensitive places. I wanted to explore every inch of his skin; I wanted to learn everything he liked.
His member distracted me from the task; hard and leaking with need, it bobbed and twitched in response to my mouth on his belly, as if asking for attention. I sat back and ran my fingers up and down the shaft, exploring.
“Mmm, yes,” he gasped, his hips jerking slightly against me, as if he couldn’t keep still.
My mouth watered, and I licked my lips nervously. “May I…?”
“Do you want to suck my cock?”
Stupidly, his language made me blush, even though I was on my knees between his legs, naked and erect, having already spent myself into his mouth. “Y-Yes.”
“Then do, or else you’ll have me begging.”
I wanted to devour him like a starving man, but somehow I held back, tasting him with my tongue, lapping up the liquid seeping from his slit, swirling around the head, sucking lightly on the hood.
“My dear, please,” he whimpered, his hips flexing again. “Before you drive me mad!”
I closed my mouth around him, careful of my teeth. I tried to take the thick column of flesh entirely, as he had with me, but the brush of the head against the back of my mouth almost had me gagging. “I’m sorry,” I said, after I’d hastily drawn back.
He shook his head. “Don’t be. What you’re doing feels wonderful.”
Wanting to give him as much pleasure as I could, I wrapped my hand around the base of his member and put my mouth to work on the upper part. His moans and pants were encouraging, even interrupted with the occasional “more tongue—oh!” or “less teeth.”
Eventually, he reached down and tugged me away. “Kiss me,” he said breathlessly.
I kissed him, and he rolled me onto my side, so we lay facing each other. Our lengths rubbed together, and I let out a small gasp at the sensation. To know he was hard, needy, for me, to feel his erection against my own, was powerfully arousing.
He flung one leg over my hip, rubbing his full length against me. “My dear,” he whispered, but anything further seemed beyond him.
“Yes.” I gripped his shoulders with my hands and thrust against him.
A shiver ran across his skin in response, and a sigh escaped him. One of his hands curled around both our lengths, and his leg tightened over my hip, as if seeking to draw us even closer. We writhed against one another, pushing and rubbing and thrusting, until suddenly his body stiffened, his member twitching against mine.
“Yes, yes, please, Ival, yes—”
Hot semen jetted out against my belly, even as his face contorted with ecstasy. And, oh God, I had done this to him, me, and I couldn’t possibly hold back any longer, body tightening and a second surge of pleasure pulsing through my member, even as I shuddered and whimpered and bit at the smooth skin of his shoulder.
Eventually, my mind pieced itself back together from the shattering ecstasy. We lay curled together, his leg still loose across my hip, our mingled spend cooling on our bellies. His breathing was ragged from exertion, as was mine. His eyes were closed, his forehead pressed to my shoulder.
What was the etiquette of the situation? Was I to thank him, gather up my things, and leave? Yet again, I had no idea what he might expect from me.
As if he’d heard my thoughts, he nuzzled his lips against my skin. “Stay the night?”
My heart gave a happy little lurch in my chest. “Yes. If it’s not inconvenient.”
He chuckled warmly. “You are anything but an inconvenience, my dear.”
I liked hearing him call me that. But it brought up a question I couldn’t hold back. “When you, er, you called me…”
He drew back, and to my astonishment, a light blush spread across his cheeks. “You said you didn’t like Percival or Percy, and Whyborne seemed terribly formal for the throes of passion. I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind Ival too much. If you hate it, of course, I won’t—”
“No, not at all.” But it didn’t sound as if he’d invented it on the spot. “Do you mean to imply you’ve been contemplating what to call me in the ‘throes of passion,’ as you put it?”
He laughed, but it seemed directed at himself. “Well, yes. I had to have something to call you when I dreamed about having you in my bed.”
Did he mean to say he’d imagined this? Perhaps even brought himself to release thinking about me? Even as spent as I was, my member gave a twitch.
“Me?” I asked, baffled. “Why me?”
“Because I want you,” he said simply.
“Then why… the other night, after we went to the brothel…you didn’t…I mean, you might have…”
He propped himself up on an elbow, looking down at me quizzically. “You were drunk, Whyborne. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d taken advantage.”
Oh. “I thought you hated me,” I confessed.
He collapsed beside me again with a sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh. “Why on earth would you think such a thing? I didn’t hate you, and indeed I felt rather guilty for being as tempted as I was. And if you must ask ‘why’ again, as I suspect you will, then because I preferred to have you in my bed because you wished to be there, not because you were too drunk to know any better.”
I could hardly argue with such a sentiment. Still, it made me feel warm, all the way down to my toes. “I’m glad,” I said softly.
He glanced at me, and whatever he saw in my face made him smile. “As am I.”
His body fit snugly against mine, his head resting on my shoulder, one arm tossed across my chest and his legs tangled with mine. I closed my eyes, thinking this couldn’t possibly be true. I’d wake tomorrow in my lonely little bed, with nothing but my drab, colorless existence around me. Griffin’s presence in my life would have been a dream altogether, something I longed for but could never have.
He let out a little sigh of contentment, and his arm tightened around me as sleep claimed him. I turned my head just enough to press my lips against his forehead, and silently strove to memorize the smell of his skin, the weight of his limbs.
Outside, the snow piled up against the windows, but our bed was warm and safe. Holding Griffin against me, I let myself slip away into sated sleep.
~ * ~
I slept poorly, mainly because I was unused to sharing a bed with another. Every time Griffin shifted or snored or rolled over, I awoke with a jolt. At some point during the night, Saul wandered in, and, finding his master’s bed otherwise occupied, curled up at our feet and began to purr. It would have been soothing, if he hadn’t chosen to change position every ten minutes.
I finally fell into a deep sleep some time shortly before dawn. When I at last awoke, my first groggy thought was it all must have been a dream. But I was naked under the sheets, a state I had never before slept in, and the scent on the pillow beneath my cheek was of Griffin’s shampoo.
I opened my eyes and blinked a few times. Griffin was no longer beneath the covers with me; instead, he sat on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, one hand resting lightly on my leg.
There was a damp patch on my pillow; I’d been drooling. Hoping he hadn’t noticed, I sat up, pulling the covers with me to keep out the cold air, and to keep from revealing my nakedness. Not that he hadn’t already seen all I had to offer, but it put me at a bit of a disadvantage, sitting there without a stitch of clothing, while he wore everything but his suit coat.
“Good morning,” he said with a warm smile. “I was just going down to make breakfast. Would you like something? I have eggs and cold cereal.”
We’d just spent the night together: was I supposed to acknowledge it at all? Pretend it had never happened? Kiss him?
“Breakfast sounds wonderful,” I said.
He took his hand away from my leg, and his expression grew more guarded. “Is everything all right?”
I’d given away my anxiety. “Er, yes, at least I think it is. I haven’t looked out the window, but I suppose the world continues apace? And you seem to be in good health, and reasonably cheerful, so…perhaps?”
He stared at me for a moment, before tossing back his head and laughing. “My dear Whyborne, every time I think I know what’s going on in that head of yours, you manage to utterly confound me.”
Oh. He’d thought my fears more commonplace ones. “Forgive me, I…everything is fine. I have no regrets about last night.”
His laughter trailed off into a wicked grin, and his hand strayed back to my knee. “I’m very glad to hear it. Perhaps you would consent to a repeat performance?”
My length showed its approval by rapidly forming a tent in the covers. Griffin’s smile grew wider at the sight, even as my face heated. What must he think of my complete lack of control?
“Would you be so kind as to pass me my drawers?” I asked. Still grinning, he did so, and then watched as I readied myself for the day. Had he dressed first and quietly as a way of steeling himself against rejection, should I harbor regrets or shame about our actions? Certainly it would be easier to take such a thing dressed and at a distance, instead of naked in bed with the fellow. But someone as accomplished, worldly, and handsome as Griffin would have no fear of rejection from, well, someone like me, so that couldn’t be it.
“Will you tell me why you expected disaster, simply because you lost control over your passions?” he asked, as I knotted my tie.
I hesitated. What would he think of me, when he heard my story? Would he regret sleeping with me?
“There was a boy,” I said at last. “A dear friend. Leander Somerby. He was two years older than me, the son of my godfather. Our fathers were great friends from their school days. I knew him my entire life.”
I paused, but Griffin only said, “Go on,” in a gentle tone I didn’t deserve.
I drew a deep breath, struggling to steady the beating of my heart and the sourness rising in my stomach. “We grew up together, more or less. We explored the bounds of Somerby Estate every chance we got: wading through its streams, riding through its fields, and skipping stones across the lake behind the house.”
Griffin smiled. “I must confess, I rather imagined you were the sort of boy to be happier reading indoors than running about outside.”
“Yes, well, you have the right of it for the most part,” I admitted. Would he think less of me for it? “Leander was always the leader in our exploits. Left to my own devices, I would have chosen the library.”
“I see.”
“One spring, Leander became convinced someone was performing blasphemous rituals on the island in the center of the lake. It was boyish nonsense, of course, but reading too much wild fiction had fired our imaginations. It seemed to have all the makings of a grand adventure.
“Leander came up with a plan. We would take his boat out on Walpurgisnacht—May Eve, the so-called witches sabbath—which seemed a natural time for any evil-doers to return to the island. He dreamed of the praise we would receive, having thus proved ourselves men. As for me, I imagined crouching in the little boat beside him, huddled under a blanket to hide ourselves from any observers, our thighs pressed together in the close quarters.”
“Heh.” Griffin’s smile hinted at memories of his own. “And rather more than that, I assume.”
“You assume correctly.” What a young fool I had been. “When the night finally came, it was nothing like my fevered dreams. A storm arose with the sunset. Rain and wind lashed the lake into a cauldron of thrashing water, and lightning danced off the surrounding hilltops.
“I should never have agreed to go out on such a night. It was madness, and I knew it. But I didn’t want him to be angry, or to scorn me for a coward. I wanted him to l-love me as I loved h-him.”
The smile vanished from Griffin’s face. Moving to my side, he put a hand to my shoulder. “What happened?”
“Disaster, of course. The boat capsized.” I rubbed at my arms, trying to warm them. God, the water had been cold. “I managed to get the boat turned back over, with me in it, more by luck than anything else. Leander didn’t have enough strength left to pull himself back in, though. I grabbed his hands, but the cold…I could barely feel my fingers even though I’d only been in the water a few minutes. I-I hung on for as long as I could, but…The last I saw of him was his pale face, staring up at me in despair as the water closed over him.”
Griffin put his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. “I don’t recall anything else until waking up in bed with pneumonia,” I said. “Uncle Addison had pulled me out of the boat, unconscious and cold as death. Th-they had to drag the bottom to find Leander.”
“The blame isn’t yours,” Griffin murmured against my hair.
“If I hadn’t loved him, if I hadn’t wanted him, I would never have gone along with his scheme. I might have talked him out of it, or at least not been so desperate to-to prove myself to him. I couldn’t let it happen again, so I tried not to think of, er, such things. To remain in control.”
His arms were warm around me. “What changed your mind?”
“I didn’t,” I admitted. “But it seems there is something about you I find irresistible.”
“Careful: your compliments will go to my head.”
Perhaps I owed him the truth. “Your kindness,” I said, not daring to look at him.
He regarded me with a mixture of warmth and puzzlement. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re…well. You’re an ex-Pinkerton. You foil bank robberies and chase down outlaws, and carry revolvers and a sword cane, for God’s sake. And you would have been far above me even if you were hideous, but of course you had to be terribly handsome on top of everything else, and-and I assumed you would be condescending, or cruel. A situation I know how to handle. But you weren’t, you were kind. You didn’t laugh at me, and you didn’t act like I was useless, even when I behaved foolishly. How could I defend myself?”
Dear heavens, how pathetic. I twisted my hands together and hoped the floor might open up beneath me.
His hands twined around mine, stilling them. I stared at the buttons of his vest, breathing in the smell of sandalwood. “I haven’t had much of any schooling, you know,” he said, apropos of nothing. “I grew up on the Kansas prairie, where the orphan train left me. There was a small schoolhouse with a few books, where I learned to read and do sums, but little else. Once I arrived in Chicago, I taught myself to speak and dress properly, and copied the manners of wealthier men until I made those manners my own. I read as often as I have free time, but I must admit to preferring novels to scientific treatises. How do you think I felt, going to the museum with the object of asking help from a man with a real job, who could speak a dozen languages—”
“Thirteen. But I can read more.”
He laughed. “Thirteen languages and can read more, and is the son of a railroad magnate to boot—”
“That doesn’t matter,” I objected.
“My point is you were raised with manners and books and servants, while I was hitching mules and milking cows. I was intimidated; I rather worried you’d sneer at me, and was very grateful when you didn’t.”
“Oh,” I said. Griffin, intimidated by me? Even given his reasoning, it seemed ludicrous.
He brushed a kiss across my lips, there and gone before I could gather myself to respond. “Come now, my dear. Let’s have breakfast.”
“Yes.” There was a golden bubble in my chest, pushing out against my ribs. “Thank you for being patient with me.”
His smile turned the gloomy morning to pure sunshine. “You’re worth it.”