Denny hesitated a moment. Then he slipped off his shoes and took Kit’s proffered hand. Kit drew him down onto the bed, pulling him closer until they lay face-to-face. Kit propped his chin in his palm, his golden stubble gleaming, and his gaze drifted down Denny’s trussed-up torso. Warmth glowed within Denny, and his last inkling of embarrassment died.
“Thank you,” said Kit. “I wanted to see you in silk and lace and all your herculean glory.”
Denny couldn’t keep the mirth from his voice. “Herculean glory? You really do mean this crap you’re spouting, don’t you?”
“Of course I mean it. With all my heart and soul.”
Kit moved the same instant he did. Their lips clashed; their mouths opened. The kiss turned messy, brutal, and wet, teeth scraping soft flesh. Denny refused to think, just concentrated on the potent taste of Kit, which swamped the sweet lip gloss. The elf rolled on top of him, his weight pressing the steel ribs of the corset into Denny’s flesh.
Kit ground his cock against Denny’s panties and the rigid contour of the erection beneath. Denny ran his hands up Kit’s back, feeling the arch of the elf’s spine under his shirt, the ripple of muscle. He twisted his fingers in Kit’s hair and then cupped his neck. He needed to feel each bone, every flexing fiber. He slipped his palm across Kit’s belly and stroked its downy smoothness.
The elf stilled, but Denny kept touching him, jerking his hips to increase the heat between their cocks. “Earlier…I… Oh fuck. Forgive me?” asked Denny.
“It’s okay. Yes…yes…I do.”
Like an unstoppable tide, Kit thrust back and moaned his appreciation. He slipped his knees to either side of Denny’s hips to gain better leverage, and Denny rocked against him. Only the ruffled silk, wet with their precum, came between the hardness of their cocks. This was too good to be true; Denny’s senses swam like in a dream. Nothing seemed real anymore, beyond pure carnal sensation and the knowledge that Kit stayed. He wanted me.
Denny’s cock gave a twinge, his climax mounting under the intensity of their contact, and silk or no, elf or man, he needed Kit’s flesh against his.
He ripped down the veil of his bulging panties and fisted both their cocks. Foreskin slipped against foreskin, hard ridge against ridge. Kit’s mouth formed a perfect circle, his expression inscribed with bliss. Denny fixated on the depths of his eyes, glittering with pained pleasure, as his dick juddered. Their bodies tightened toward orgasm in perfect union.
Denny clamped their cocks as one when they both came. His climax broke like a busted dam. He opened his mouth, and he heard Kit’s ecstasy-filled scream. Then Kit flopped heavily onto his stomach while their cocks still throbbed, pressing Denny’s corset into him. Their mingled fluids seeped through the thinner parts of the fabric.
He breathed in time with Kit’s heavy panting, which proved the easiest option, and wrapped an arm about him. He couldn’t see Kit’s expression or know what he thought, but his sheer closeness made the afterglow as sweet as the heights of passion. Even Denny’s most foolish fantasies resonated like the truth.
Maybe we can find a way. We are perfect together.
After a few minutes, he gently pushed a very sleepy Kit away so he could unhook and cast his corset aside. Pulling his lover back to him, comfortable, he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Six
He awoke with Kit still enfolded in his embrace. Lit by a streak of dusty sunbeams, Kit’s cheek rested against his chest, his face half-concealed under his fringe. As several heartbeats flew by, Denny floated on a warm ocean of content.
It felt wonderful not to wake up alone.
Gently he brushed back Kit’s hair, catching a hint of those pointed ears. His insides turned cold, not at the sight but at the horrible truth.
This could never work. He’d solved nothing.
He extracted himself and sat up. At the loss of contact, Kit moaned and grabbed a pillow to his chest. Denny reached for his bedside clock.
Nearly a quarter to nine.
Shit, shit, shit.
He was supposed to have been working again at eight o’clock but had forgotten to set his alarm.
Panic bore him downstairs, where his phone flashed accusingly at him. Laura wouldn’t be on shift again until at least noon, which meant he’d have to deal with Nadine. He reached to press the Dial button, his mind racing as fast as his pulse. He should be on routine patrol on the Underground by now.
Nadine addressed him like a truant kid who’d skipped his homework. “Why the hell are you calling me from your home number? I’ve been waiting for a status report for three quarters of an hour.”
“Sorry, I slept in. I…I’m sick, okay?”
Her answering silence struck like a slap to the face. He realized she must be reading Laura’s notes about last night from her computer screen.
After what seemed like an hour but could only have been fifteen seconds, she snatched a terse breath. “Says here you’ve an EB in hand, and they were expecting you at Croydon before one o’clock in the morning. You didn’t show. Is it still in your van?”
No. The elf is still in my bed.
“I-it’s in my temporary storage facility.” Denny dropped his voice to a croak, doing his best to sound ill. He needed to get his arse in gear this instant and start thinking like an agent. “Look, I was wiped out last night. I don’t know what it is, some bug I picked up on the tube, I guess. I only just woke up, and seriously, I think if I tried to drive right now, I’d be sick.”
Nadine clicked her tongue. “Well, it doesn’t look good. I’m going to have to put this on your record.”
“Mmmm.” That was the least of his worries.
“I’ll get somebody to send a van over to pick up that EB.”
Horror clenched him. “No.”
“No? What do you mean?”
“I mean…give me an hour or so to pull myself together. It’s my responsibility. I’ll take care of it, go straight over, and then get up into central London.”
“Are you sick or not? Oh…oh, hold on. Says here Croydon is still in a bit of a mess and can’t get a van out until two o’clock this afternoon at the earliest. If you think you’ll be back on your feet before then, you’d better take the EB over yourself.”
“Yeah, okay.” Denny rubbed his brow, finding it slick with sweat. “Look, I’d better go check on the thing. I’ll give you a status report as soon as I’m on the road.”
“Fair enough. Laura will be back on at midday, so I’ll leave notes for her.”
Thank heaven for Laura. “I’d appreciate that. Bye.” He hung up.
“Well done, you. That should put the hounds off my scent for a while.” Kit’s voice had Denny jumping an inch in the air. He turned to see him sitting at the top of the stairs, still dressed only in his shirt and with his mop of blond hair mussed from sleep.
“You can’t stay here.”
Kit shrugged. “We can go away together.”
“Are you trying to destroy me or something? I’ve got responsibilities. Oh…oh God!” It was Jen’s birthday. He’d not yet called. What a bastard. “Look, do something useful. Put the kettle on. I need to ring my daughter.”
“Okay.” Kit pulled a black dressing gown from over the banister and tossed it down the stairs. Denny caught it on reflex. “You better wrap up in this. As much as I loathe seeing you cover up, you’ll get cold.”
Denny remained dressed in ruffled panties, stockings, and suspenders. Hurrying out of bed and talking to Nadine, he’d been so caught up in his woes he’d not registered that he’d never changed. Awareness now rushed through him like a hot flood. Rather than experiencing relaxation or sweet arousal, his nerves hummed.
While his every fiber strained toward Kit, he wished the elf had just left him last night. Under the light of day, what had passed between them seemed like a dream. It couldn’t have been real. Oh God. Had he been royally sucked in by this one?
He slipped the gown on, an oversize woman’s, short and silky with little red r
oses embroidered around the hems. Kit winked and descended the stairs, stretching one arm in the air and curling the other behind his head in a picturesque yawn. His shirt rode up to kiss the tops of his sinewy thighs, the cute curves of his arse. Denny clenched his jaw. He refused to be turned on again.
He turned his back and made his call, but in vain. Saritha had turned her mobile off to take Jen to school, probably bad-mouthing him all the way. He hoped she wasn’t, not only for his sake. Jen would hardly be cheered by it, and he’d rather she didn’t think of him at all than be upset. Maybe he was a crap father.
In the kitchen, Kit had found some eggs in the fridge and now was heating oil in a pan. “Got any bread?”
“Might be some in the freezer.” Denny sank down at the kitchen table. The kettle bubbled and jumped and then clicked on to boil. “Check the eggs aren’t bad. They’re probably past their sell-by date.”
“Okay.” Kit put on the apron, then cracked an egg on the side of the pan. It sizzled in the oil. “They seem fine.”
How could Kit seem so happy, acting as if cooking him breakfast after their night of passion was the most natural thing in the world? Like they’d done it a thousand times, and Denny wasn’t supposed to take him to the depot.
The depot.
Was it really a black hole of torture and death? No. It couldn’t be. He’d always clung to the belief his government was humane, that in his job he performed a necessary public service, and that elves felt no pain anyway.
But last night had changed everything. Kit clearly experienced plenty of bodily sensations. Didn’t he? Denny frowned. Kit might not have been the first one to sow seeds of suspicion about the validity of Denny’s work, but the elf had nurtured them with all his might. Then again, it was in Kit’s interest to do so. Who or what should he trust?
“Tea?” asked the elf.
He grunted, which Kit took as assent. Kit put two round bags in a little red pot, which Denny had stored in the back of a cupboard and forgotten he owned, and left it to brew. The elf went back to flip the eggs so they would be neatly fried on both sides.
Denny poured out the tea and regarded it in agonized silence. Kit hummed a wild and busy tune. When the toast had popped up and the elf placed his breakfast in front of him, he mustered the wherewithal to speak. “If I don’t take you to the depot, they’ll send a van to collect you.”
Kit sat down opposite him. He’d stopped humming, but the frantic melody seemed to dance on in his eyes. “So I hide under the stairs.”
“It’s not that simple. They’ll search. If you hang around, I could lose everything.”
Kit’s expression grew more serious. “Okay. I’ll go away and come back when the coast’s clear.”
Denny clenched about his mug handle so hard his knuckles whitened. Kit’s leaving seemed their only option. He could plead he’d not closed the safe properly because he’d been tired and unwell, and the EB escaped, though that kind of incompetence could get him fired. Or he could claim Kit had faded. Okay, one night wasn’t supposed to be long enough for that to happen, but he began to suspect the so-called experts might be unsurprised that another “fact” about EBs had been transgressed.
“How do you usually hide?” Denny asked quietly. “Are there any other elves you can go to for refuge? Some kind of safe house?”
“Not that I know of. At least, not in this day and age.” Kit sipped his tea. “I have to admit, I’m a bit of a solitary elf. Some of us are more group-orientated and can even sense others of our kind nearby, but not me. I’ve always preferred the company of men.”
“Oh.” Denny looked down at his untouched breakfast, then back at Kit. The elf took a mouthful of his egg on toast and chewed slowly. His stubble had thickened, and the morning light highlighted the nigh perfection of his fine-boned features.
“Heavens, last night was amazing,” said Kit, after swallowing. “I hate to leave you for any time at all. Do you think we could…you know…try something else before I go? In case it’s a few days before I can come back.”
“How can you be thinking about sex now? For God’s sake.”
Apparently undeterred, Kit reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a purple plastic cock ring, something else he’d plundered from Denny’s drawer. He displayed it on his open palm.
“Why not? Seriously, I could give you a blowjob that would blast your mind.”
He moistened his lips, and they glistened. For a moment, Denny grew transfixed, but he forced his brain to override his instincts. They’d never taught him anything about elves benefiting from sexual interaction with humans, but it was growing clear they did. Recalling what Kit said about lovers making and breaking him, he met the elf’s gaze evenly.
“This…this thing between us. All the sex. It’s making you more human.”
Kit curled his fingers up over the cock ring. He drew in his hand and nodded.
“When we fucked, and all the other stuff we did together, that was a pretty big boost for you, wasn’t it?”
No answer. Kit shrank back a little.
“That’s why you said those things last night,” continued Denny, “why you stayed. Because we’ve bonded, had sex, you need me to keep you strong.”
The EB looked to his half-eaten breakfast. “I’ve never felt any bond this powerful before. I was nearly lost when you rejected me in the garage; you know I was. And that was before we had sex.”
Kit didn’t want him at all; it was just his weird EB biology. Denny’s frustrations snapped toward anger. “Great. Do you have a pulse yet?” He reached across the table and seized Kit’s wrist, pressing but feeling nothing. Kit strained, but Denny held him firmly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to check. I’ve got a right, haven’t I? After what you’re doing to me, ruining my life.”
The elf yanked his arm away and jumped up. His chair tottered backward, landing on the floor with a crash. “What about what you’re doing to me?”
“I’m not doing anything. I—”
“You people never listen! You need food, don’t you?” Kit thumped the table so hard the plates leaped. “Is what you’re doing so wrong—taking breakfast, because you need it to survive?”
“That’s different. Calm down.”
“How is it different? So sex helps me grow stronger, helps me last. It doesn’t make a difference between us, does it? Surely you feel it? We fit together last night. We want the same thing.”
Denny opened his mouth and then shut it again. They had fit together, and Kit seemed to like the sight of him in suspenders. But he couldn’t trust these urges any more than he did Kit.
“Or maybe we don’t.” Kit flattened his tone, and he slid his gaze to the back door, which led from the kitchen into Denny’s tiny patch of garden. “Ah well, I’ve got it wrong before. Time after time after time.”
Kit shuffled back a step, and Denny narrowed his eyes. Was the elf about to try to run? If so, Kit wouldn’t get far in just his shirt, and Denny could overpower him in an instant anyway. More pressingly, he despised the idea of Kit leaving under such a cloud as much as he hated the prospect of taking him to Croydon. Their argument felt suddenly irrelevant.
“I’m sorry. I won’t turn you in.” He raked through his hair. “I like you, and I want to help you. I really do. But can’t you see how impossible this is? If you stay here, they’ll find you sooner or later, whatever stories we spin. And I’m already in big trouble. Oh God, I hardly care for myself, but what about my daughter?” He glanced toward the hall and Jen’s pictures. “If my life fucks up, I could lose her, and she’ll lose her dad.”
Kit’s agony gleamed in his eyes for the fleetest moment but still cut Denny to the quick. “Okay,” said the elf. His shoulders sagged. “I understand, and I’m sorry. I’ll get dressed. Then I’ll leave for good.”
“But where will you go?” Denny couldn’t stop a surge of worry, and his voice cracked. He knew the answer but wished he didn’t.
“I only need to hide for a couple
of days, and then I’ll probably be out of your way forever, unless I find somebody else superfast. Fading’s better than being caught and done for, so thanks for that.” Kit laughed dryly, and Denny suppressed competing desires to comfort him and to scream.
“You will come back one day? I mean, if the worse comes to the worst and you do fade?”
Reaching the kitchen door, Kit looked back, twisting a mirthless smile on his lips. “Ah, you’re keen enough to believe in my past existences now.” He sighed. “God, after the last couple of times, in the war and then the sixties, I figured wherever I showed up, it would be a post nuclear wasteland. I wonder where the hell I’ll materialize next? Or in what hell?”
Denny listened to Kit’s soft footfalls on the stairs and cursed bitterly. Now he had to believe the elf’s stories. The thought of Kit dying proved unbearable. The notion of his fading was torture enough.
Bugger. It felt equally unendurable.
He swigged some tea, then shoveled cooling eggs between his lips. There had to be some solution to this mess. Maybe he could quit his job and start looking for something else. What other work could he do? Henry had been right. EB policies were highly unsound.
He nearly choked on his mouthful.
Of course. Henry.
He rushed into the hall.
“What is it?” After descending the staircase, Kit paused. He’d pulled his trousers back on, and his tailcoat hung from his slender frame. He pushed his hair from his brow, and Denny’s heart melted for what seemed like the hundredth time in less than a day. Each time they parted, seeing Kit again set his body screaming for him. This time tender yearning revived also, scything through his doubts and confirming what he must do. Reaching through the banister, he caught Kit’s hand and squeezed it.
“I’ve thought of somebody who might just be able to help you.” Or rather, help us. “Don’t go.”
Catching Kit Page 6