Heath looked over his shoulder once more, his agitation almost palpable. He sighed heavily and gave Austin an apologetic look before stepping inside. Austin closed and locked the door, throwing the deadbolt this time. His interns would spend their evening at the pub or in their apartments out back, they wouldn’t bother him here. He turned off the outside light and spun to face his guest. He didn’t go far before his guest had him pressed against the door. The heat from his large body almost unbearable. “I saw you in the window,” he said, forcing Austin to look up. “He’s very handsome, your publican friend.”
Austin didn’t like being crowded or threatened, and he’d been both in a handful of minutes with two different men. “He is. Very handsome.” Austin looked up into the storm brewing in Heath’s eyes and had to catch his breath.
Pain stirred in that storm, and maybe something more. “Do you welcome his affection?”
Austin leaned back against the door and willed himself to relax. He’d been alone with this man before. He wasn’t a threat. But Austin knew better. Austin wasn’t a large man. He’d had his share of dates who’d gone too far because they thought he owed them for their time and attention. He never figured Heath for the type. But… Rory had kissed him. And Heath had marked him as territory. “Rory is my friend. We’re not romantically involved if that’s what you’re asking.” Why was he bothering to tell this man anything? “Any more than I’m romantically involved with you.”
Heath blinked, or maybe he winced. Austin hadn’t meant for his words to come out harshly. But they were the truth.
“For which I am so regrettably sorry.” Heath reached out one very large hand. It was so much bigger than Rory’s against the side of his face. He stroked, softly. His fingertips callused, and rough, and freezing cold. “If I could court you as I wish… I would, Austin. I have… my home life is not… I am not free.”
“You’re married.” The idea had crossed his mind long before now, despite his young age.
Heath withdrew his hand, a look of regret in his eyes. “No. Not anymore. I once was, yes.”
The truth felt like a slap in the face. “Divorced?”
“Sadly, no.” Again, the regret and the sting of truth.
“Children then? You’re too young to work yourself to death without reason.”
He nodded, the storm in his eyes reduced to a flat gray now. “I have two younger sisters. Much younger. I’m all they have left. I earn enough to keep our household afloat, only barely. My father left nothing but debt. I can’t afford to pay for childcare.”
“And your wife?” Because he’d never lain with a man. He’d said so.
“She died in childbirth. I didn’t want to marry her. My father forced the issue. It’s not something I’m proud of.” He tucked his hand back in his pocket and balled it into a fist as if that was all it would take to keep from touching Austin. “I’ve tried to keep my distance from you. You pull me in. I can’t help myself when I’m with you. When I’m with you, I feel so… alive. I don’t want to hurt you, Austin. I’m afraid that I will. As much as I’m afraid that I might… love you.”
The confession was like a punch to the gut. Austin tried not to let it matter. The words were just that, words. This man wanted sex; this wasn’t love. Just a lonely young man trapped in an adult situation when he was still a kid himself. “Oh, baby,” Austin said, he meant to talk Heath out of his infatuation… but he didn’t want to. “I could love you right back. So very easily.”
Just infatuation. He tried to tell himself that as he stood on his toes and raised his mouth to touch Heath’s. His lips so cold when they touched. Heath moaned from deep in his throat. His large hands braced Austin’s hips, pushing him into the door as he lifted and… oh, how his body turned to flame as Austin wrapped his arms around Heath’s neck to hold on.
Their tongues met, tentatively at first, just a touch of a kiss before opening to taste each other. Heath slid his hands behind Austin’s thighs and spread him, lifting him until Austin’s legs wrapped around his waist. “I’ve never lain with a man. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Seems like you’re doing just fine to me,” Austin whispered back and closed his mouth over Heath’s, drinking in his flavor and heat. He didn’t notice that Heath had left the back hallway until they were halfway up the stairs. The second floor bathed in darkness was his first clue that this was going too far, way too fast.
Heath didn’t hesitate, his mouth still fused to Austin’s. He strode down the hallway and opened a door, kicking it closed behind them.
The bed frame was an antique, original to the house. The mattress was new. Not modern. They’d had a replica made of the original. Same with the bedding. A replica of the moth-eaten wedding ring quilt draped the bed. The room was one of a few put back the way it had been. The lamps on the beside converted from oil to electricity. But the glow when Heath lit one felt… intimate, like a flame instead of a light bulb. The room was so cold. Heath’s body the only source of heat.
“We shouldn’t be in here,” he said, but didn’t stop working the buttons on Heath’s rough shirt free.
“Where else would we go?” Heath did the same, his large fingers fumbling so much he popped the buttons off Austin’s shirt.
“My apartment,” Austin suggested as he pushed the shirt from Heath’s broad shoulders grazing his fingers down the smooth flesh of the man’s back.
“Too far away,” Heath’s whisper ended on a soft gasp. The bulge in his pants pressed hard and hot into Austin’s groin. “I want to touch you all over. I want to taste you.”
“Yes, please,” Austin agreed, lifting for Heath to strip his shirt from his body. The bedsprings squeaked loudly under their weight. If anyone had been in the house, they would surely know Austin was about to get laid in a fucking museum. “I don’t have any condoms here. We should go to my apartment.”
“What are condoms?” Heath breathed over his mouth, his fingers fumbling with the buttons on Austin’s jeans, finally giving up he ripped the fly open. His mouth settled on Austin’s neck, kissing him, sucking at the skin just below his ear that made Austin forget his own fucking name.
“Fuck, that’s good.” Austin sighed, not caring that Heath made little sense. “Shoes. Pants. Off.”
His shoes came off, one at a time. Heath lifted one hip off him and helped tug his jeans and briefs off while Austin made quick work of the buttons at Heath’s waist. The coarse fabric of his pants fighting him. He wore nothing underneath. Austin fumbled inside the fabric, sighing again at the hot rigid steel that filled his hand. Heath shoved his own pants down his hips to his thighs and thrust himself into Austin’s hand, his hot gasping breaths washing over Austin’s face.
“I might spend if you handle me like that.” Heath sounded so unsure of himself. He held himself so still now that they were mostly naked together on the bed.
Austin relaxed his grip and swiped the hair that covered Heath’s eyes from his face with gentle hands. “Shh, sweetie, we’ll go slow. I want to touch you. I want to know how you taste and feel. I want to know the sounds you make and see your eyes when you come.”
Heath nodded and released a long, deep breath. He seemed almost relieved. “Have you received other men inside you… your… back entrance?” He rocked himself slowly in Austin’s hand, he held himself rigidly above Austin, almost as if he was afraid of hurting Austin.
“Would it upset you if I have?” He didn’t know why he asked that. Why would it matter? Heath understood that Austin was gay. That he’d been with other men.
He looked away, a pink tinge seeping into his cheeks. “No. I… does it hurt? To take a… you are very large.”
Austin pulled his hand from between them and eased his legs wider, Heath settled between his thighs with a grunt. Austin swiped his hand over Heath’s hip and his buttock. He gripped him there. Hard. Squeezing. And lifting his hips to grind into Heath even as he pressed him close. “There are so many ways to make love besides penetration,” he exp
lained, watching the swirling storm in his lover’s eyes.
Heath dropped onto his elbows and hovered over Austin, his gaze locked with Austin’s, and Austin lifted one leg and draped it over the back of Heath’s thigh. “Move with me,” he pleaded, squeezing Heath’s ass with both hands now. “I’m on fire and need you to… kiss me.”
Heath nodded, his pupils blown now as desire took over and his body mimicked the lovemaking, he’d most likely known with his wife. His hips thrust under Austin’s hands as Austin encouraged him with soft gasps. Heath sweated, his hair dripping as if the room was a steam bath. His skin glowed from the fire in the fireplace, the creak of the mattress the only sound in the house. They moved together, sweating in the night, slowly, so slowly. The clock on the mantel chimed the hour, six bells. Heath’s mouth took Austin’s, his tongue delving into Austin’s mouth, playing with his own, lapping at the roof of his mouth, and over the sharp edges of his teeth. The fire crackled and came to life, illuminating the room. The pictures on the mantel of people long dead, watching them. The wallpaper seemed tattered. The mattress dipped in the middle. The quilt from another lover’s dowry bunching under his back and hips and Heath groaned in his ear as his mouth burned the sweat-drenched slope of Austin’s shoulder.
He tasted the bitter tang of blood on his tongue where he bit down to keep from waking the household as Heath’s sharp teeth broke skin. Austin wrapped his legs around this man and arched his back, trying to pull him inside him. Seven chimes from the mantel and the flame burned brighter.
“Inside me. Oh god, inside me. I will die if you’re not inside me.” He heard himself beg. He spread himself as wide as he could, lifting his body off the bed as Heath thrust upward. The sweat of their bodies and the slick of their lovemaking mingled with his heated desire enough to ease the pain of penetration. The shock in Heath’s gaze doused the fire threatening to consume him, but only for a moment.
“Austin,” Heath whispered, awe and pain in his voice as he held himself so very still. “Is this real?”
Austin had no idea. He smelled a wood fire and sweaty hot man and sex and wanted so much for this to be real. “Yes,” he whispered back, arching his body once again to accept the thrust of his lover. “Please. I need this to be real.”
Heath’s eyes flared with smoky blue flame. The fire reflected there burned Austin to his very core. The clock chimed eight times, and he didn’t care who could hear his cries. The sound of the old bed creaking violently as it pounded against the wall and the floor seemed almost muted. He heard the mutterings of unfamiliar voices. A baby cried somewhere in the distance. But that didn’t matter. Heath’s body held him to the bed, his flesh to Austin’s flesh, inside him, hot and hard, engulfing him until Austin thought the fire raging in the hearth would consume him.
“Austin,” he heard Heath cry his name, the flush of heated pleasure inside his body accompanied his sweet voice. Sweat dripped into his eyes, blinding him. The room faded to darkness as his body cooled. Heath’s mouth so gentle as he kissed him after. His fingers shaking where he touched Austin’s tender body. “I love you,” he whispered at the next chiming of the clock.
“I love you too,” Austin whispered back in the frigid dark of night, the lamp and the fire burned out now, the house so quiet he could hear his own heartbeat.
The clock on the mantel chimed five times. The cold penetrated his bones. He reached for his lover’s heat and found… nothing.
Austin sat up in bed. The dim light from the street lamps outside and the first hint of dawn illuminated the room. He was alone. Fully dressed. Lying on top of the replica quilt. There was no wood in the fireplace or photos on the mantel. The wallpaper had been stripped, and the walls painted a pastel blue. Yet he reeked of sex, his body aching from hard use.
He’d been here. They’d made love into the night. He was sure of it. He could feel Heath’s… unprotected sex… “Oh god,” he rolled out of the bed and tried to straighten the covers. There were security cameras in every room in the house. If this one had caught him having sex… he looked around the room wondering why he thought there had been a fire.
Fired.
Hell, he should quit. He was experiencing his own version of The Shining.
It was real. He could feel it. He could feel him. Right?
He raked his hands through his hair where Heath’s hands had been not so long ago. He could still feel him. All over his body. He could see the look in his eyes when he came, the shock of it turning to pleasure. They’d kissed. He felt the sting of Heath’s bite on his neck.
“Oh, god, I’m losing my damned mind.” Austin looked around the room for anything that would prove he hadn’t gotten drunk and passed out on the bed. A button. He’d ripped at least one button off Heath’s shirt. He remembered more than one button coming from his own shirt. His shirt was buttoned and tucked and, other than being wrinkled from sleep, it was exactly how it was the evening before.
“Oh, god.”
He stumbled out of the room, tripping over rolled-up carpets and dodging chairs still in plastic wrap as he made his way down to the main floor.
The lights were all still ablaze, just as he’d left them. He grabbed his coat. He’d go home and sleep it off.
Hours of lovemaking.
Slow, slow lovemaking.
He remembered every second. He could still smell wood smoke and sweat and come on his body. He could barely walk for feeling everything Heath had done to him. The slickness of his spend inside his body… yet the deadbolt on the courtyard door was still locked from the inside. And he was all alone. Even the baby had stopped crying.
He felt the wail rip from his throat and clamped his hand over his mouth. He tore open the bolt. He could see the glow of light across the garden where his apartment should be and stumbled blindly out into the misty morning… the day before Christmas.
Chapter Seven
Heath wasn’t sure where he was. He’d left for the mill at the same time as he did every morning. The day was to be short for the holiday. He remembered dressing and leaving. He didn’t remember breaking his fast in the kitchen. He could smell the smoky scent of the fire on his clothes. Another scent mingled with his own. A musky scent that aroused the urges he repressed. A bespectacled face flashed in his memory. He’d removed those glasses at some point and lost them in the quilt. It seemed an odd memory.
The taste on his tongue… of sweat and desire and a touch of blood where he’d lost himself and abused his lover. His lower body stirred at the fantasy vision. The short-cropped hair, a sable color, his eyes the color of trees, brown with flecks of green that overcame the brown when aroused… and gold, almost as gold as the band he wore… he held his hand up, the ring gone now.
When had he taken it off? He couldn’t remember. She’d passed, only that
He never made it to the mill that morning, he remembered… as specs of white danced in the air around him. Snow. Then… and… Now. He felt the first fluffy flake settle on the back of his hand. Confused, he watched as it melted against his skin. He was so warm. Despite the cold.
The trolley out to the mill had been early… that morning. He’d missed it. Or he’d been late. He could not remember. She would be laid to rest that afternoon. He’d not gone to the mill at all…
No… that wasn’t right. He turned in a circle on the street, the unfamiliar bustle of a town that shouldn’t be there all around him. The publican stepped out of the front door, a broom in his fat hands. He smiled, his newsboy cap should look ridiculous on a man of that age, but his cheery eyes and ready smile as Heath walked past each morning kept him going.
The scent of coffee filled the air. People stood in line outside of the little café that had just opened. The snow falling unnoticed around them as they huddled together against the wind and waited their turn. The bookstore did a brisk business. Christmas carols filled the air each time the door opened as one patron entered and another left.
The Creamery sold ice cream on a cold day to peo
ple who smiled and waved and laughed as if… as if—
The sun went behind a cloud as the snow fell harder. His heart raced erratically from the wrongness of it all.
The stout publican shouted and waved, drawing Heath’s attention to that side of the street, always friendly, even in a snowstorm. A cold rain replaced the snow. The publican’s cheerful demeanor turned dark. Tall and thin, heartbreakingly handsome, and Heath felt a twist in his chest that turned his vision red.
The one who would have what he wanted. The one he would not share now that he found… Austin.
His name was Austin.
He’d lain with Austin. He could smell him on his skin and taste him on his lips. He could hear the soft, whispered pleas and feel the tender caress of his hands as they’d made love.
Austin?
He could sense Austin… the fear coming from him. He could feel the dread of seeing his friend -the friend who would be lover in Heath’s place- emanating from him. His fear… pungent… enough so that even his friend sensed it.
Austin did not cross the street as his friend beckoned. He hurried from the coffee shop, past the bookstore. He ignored the people wishing him a Merry Christmas. The young woman he’d noticed coming and going from the house flirted with him, but he was distracted and… he wasn’t dressed for the weather. In shirt sleeves, the very shirt Heath had peeled from his body. It would smell of… their union.
The sun peeked through the rain at the end of the street. It was so low. Setting.
On Christmas Eve.
He’d left the mill early to be with his family.
Yet he couldn’t remember ever going to work…
Austin ignored the handsome publican. He seemed lost in his own thoughts. His hair stood up on one side of his head and lay matted on the other. He didn’t have his glasses on. He held his cup with both hands and moved quickly, his shoulders slumped against the wind.
Rain pelted against Austin as he left the safety of the awnings over the sidewalk in front of the shops, but Austin didn’t seem to notice. He walked faster, past the courtyard where they’d shared ice cream the night they’d met. Along the wrought-iron fence that protected the old house where he worked.
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