by Alexis Hall
“Not that I’m aware of.” He thought about it for a moment. “Although I suppose that’s what I’d say if I had been infected by alien brain parasites. They would want to protect themselves.”
I bit my lip, assessing the situation. “It doesn’t seem as if they’re the threatening kind of alien parasites. I mean, it’s not like they’ve mind-controlled the prime minister or the pope or someone.”
“Excuse me, I’m very rich and quite powerful.”
“Yeah, but all they’re trying to make you do is hook up with a cute boy.”
“It’s true.” He gave a somewhat self-conscious shrug. “They’re much less concerned with wealth and worldly ambition than they used to be. Apparently their priorities have shifted towards, I suppose, being in love and being happy.”
Our attempt to walk wherever Caspian thought we should walk was not going well. We’d made it all of a hundred yards. And now I made us stop, so we could kiss, and kiss, and kiss forever in the tangle of moonlight and streetlight on a softly sleeping street in Notting Hill.
“I’m going to make sure you have the most satisfied alien brain parasites in the universe,” I promised, when we finally broke apart.
A fruit machine spin of expressions whirled across Caspian’s face before he finally settled on solemn to the point of ridiculous. “Thank you. We are, indeed, blessed.”
“I’m a keeper.”
“And I will keep you as long as you wish you to be kept. Although”—another of those adorable rueful looks—“I had not intended to keep you standing around in the cold.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere I could not take the car.”
I was still so unaccustomed to questioning Caspian that it took me a second or two to realise he hadn’t actually given me an answer. But I didn’t mind. It was close to midnight, maybe even a little after it, which meant that we’d slipped into the magical space between days, when the teeth of the past were blunted and the future a starbright road. I wasn’t looking for miracles—I knew change was the shyest of friends and powerful things weren’t easily defeated—but we had time and I had hope. And the same faith I’d always had, in Caspian’s strength and goodness.
We turned, passing beneath a sneaky little archway tucked between two houses and leading onto a cobbled street. I’d heard of London’s half-secret Mews—the lanes that ran behind the grand terraces, once intended to serve as stables and servants quarters, now adapted into modern homes—but I’d never actually been to any of them. My loss again, because, even illuminated only by the glow from their own windows, the houses were lovely. Every single one of them was unique: Some were painted, others were redbrick, some had square balconies, others round, though most had retained the oversized barn doors from their horse-centric days, even if the styles varied, and nearly all were festooned with climbing vines, flower pots, and window boxes. Yet they all fit together perfectly, united in their difference and their charm.
“Oh, Caspian.” I clutched happily at his hand. “This is the best place ever.”
We had stopped outside a pale blue building, its doors and windows picked out in a darker shade, and the wintertime skeleton of a wisteria vine curling up the side. And Caspian seemed suddenly ill at ease. “I’m glad you like it.”
“I love it. But are you okay?”
“I think so. That is—Arden?”
I couldn’t totally control an instinctive flutter of anxiety. “Yes?”
“This”—he gestured not entirely helpfully—“is the first house my father bought in London. Would you…would you let me show it to you?”
“This one? This one right here? The completely perfect blue one?” By the time my brain caught up with my mouth, it was a bit late to rein things in. But I tried anyway. “I mean, only if you want to.”
“I want to. Very much.”
And then, while I bounced about beside him like an overexcited yo-yo, Caspian unlocked the door and led me inside.
Chapter 44
I’ve made sure the property is cleaned and maintained,” he muttered. “Though, of course, nobody has stayed here for many years.”
The place did have a slightly wistful feel—of unused space and vacant rooms, though I was relieved to see it had been decorated quite differently to Caspian’s other apartments. The ground floor was an open-plan kitchen/dining room: the kitchen, with a sort of modern rustic flavour, all granite surfaces and buttercup-yellow cabinets, and the dining room almost entirely dominated by one of those picnic-style tables where everyone smooshes onto benches. It was a little lifeless, and couldn’t have competed with Nathaniel’s domestic paradise, but there was something inviting there nonetheless. The promise of sunlight streaming through the big windows at the front. Friends piled around the table. Two lovers discovering they were terrible cooks in the kitchen.
Flicking on the lights as he went was Caspian’s only concession to acting as a tour guide. The rest of the time he was silent and restless, tapping his foot and twitching his fingers as I looked around. The next floor consisted of a living room, hung with framed movie posters for old science fiction films, and a gloriously squashy-looking sectional that someone appeared to have purchased for comfort rather than aesthetics. A door led to what was probably a guest room, with its own en suite bathroom, and a further flight of stairs—this one with a bookcase built into the wall beside it, albeit a bookcase currently devoid of books—took us to the master bedroom.
It was a really good space, and came with not only its own mini-terrace but an incredibly fancy bathroom, all pale brown marble and one of those walk-in showers that are so big they need to give you somewhere to sit down while you’re in them, but the lack of habitation had hit it hardest. Reduced it simply to a room with a bed and a cleaned-out closet. It made me kind of sad. Rationally, I knew it was just bricks and mortar and a wisteria plant, but it felt like a house with a missing heart.
“What do you think?”
It had been so long since Caspian had said anything that I actually jumped. “Of the house? It’s beautiful. But it’s a shame it’s empty.”
“My father loved it very much.” Caspian crossed to the window and stood looking out at the shadowy terrace, with its unoccupied flower pots. “He left it to me. Probably I should have sold it. But…I couldn’t.”
“Because it connected you?”
He nodded. “It’s a terrible paradox. I couldn’t bear to lose this part of him, but I couldn’t bear to come here either. Sometimes I tell myself if he knew what I’d become, he’d be ashamed of me. And sometimes”—his hand curled into a fist and he rested it lightly against the glass—“sometimes I am unforgivably angry at him. Because if he hadn’t died—if he hadn’t left us—none of it would have happened.”
I followed him to the window and tugged at him until he turned. “No one could ever be ashamed of you,” I told him, “especially not someone who loved you. And feelings are messy bastards—they’re not always what we’d like them to be, but that doesn’t mean we’re wrong to have them.”
He sighed. “I don’t like being angry with Dad. Besides which, he’s dead, so it’s a futile exercise.”
“I’m not sure emotions are supposed to be outcome-focused.”
“That”—his mouth softened into a smile—“is one of their many design flaws.”
I took Caspian’s hands in mine and pressed them gently back to the glass as I leaned up to kiss him. There was no force behind the gesture but it was more controlling than I would usually have dared. To my surprise, he permitted it, and I wondered if he, too, was remembering that very first time—when we had collided in his office, a storm of confused passion and irresistible need, both of us seeking surrenders we didn’t yet know how to give. Tonight, though, I was as gentle as the moonlight, and Caspian showed no fear of my freedom.
“I’m glad you brought me here,” I whispered, drawing back before my touch became challenging.
“I thought”—he paused, frowning, seemin
gly caught in his own words—“perhaps, one day, when you’re ready, when we’re both ready, if you liked the house, although of course you may not, and I have no expectation that you will, or even if you did that you might wish, that you might consent, to live in it with me. Together.”
For a moment, I was too stunned to react. Then I jumped up and down, squealing. “You want to live with me?”
“At some point in the future.”
“You want to live with me in this house.”
“I want to live with you wherever would make you happiest.” He gazed at me, searchingly. “Did I misjudge? You’re welcome to stay at the penthouse with me. Or we could move back to One Hyde Park. Or I could buy you a mansion, or an island, or a windmill, or a yacht or—”
I put my fingers to his lips. “Stop. I’ll admit I’m slightly tempted by the windmill, but this is perfect.”
“You can have a windmill as well. But Arden, are you sure?”
“Caspian, are you sure? You’re the third-richest man in the UK and you’re going to stay in a converted stable with me?”
“The only part of that sentence that has any meaning for me is with you.”
I did my best to look severe, even though I knew I was grinning like a monkey with a banana. “You’ll have to help with the washing up.”
“You may recall, I have extensive skills in that area.”
“And it won’t…it won’t make you feel bad,” I asked. “Because of your dad?”
“Maybe sometimes. But mostly”—he offered me an unexpectedly winsome smile—“it feels…right, somehow.”
“Oh. Oh.” Overcome, I hurled myself at him again and we hugged for a long time, Caspian’s arms tight around me, and his heartbeat steady beneath my cheek.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Very. I just always knew we could be like this. Or”—I peeped up at him—“hoped we could.”
“I should have trusted you.”
“Eh.” I shrugged, the happiness of this moment already infinitely realer to me than all the sadnesses that had preceded it. “We got here in the end. That’s what counts.”
Gently he untangled me. “It’s getting late. I should take you home.”
“Can we stay? Just for tonight? If it won’t freak you out.”
“It won’t, but…I don’t know how comfortable we’ll be.”
I glanced around the room—at the bed with its faceless covers and the faded patches on the carpet where other things had stood once. “This is going to be our home someday. I guess I’d like to get a head start.”
“You don’t mind that it will take some work?”
“Our relationship?”
“Well, that too. But”—he touched his nose to mine—“I meant the house.”
Oops. “I think it’s mostly fine. I mean, it’s going to need more bookshelves if I’m going to live here, and maybe we could put your father’s posters in the spare room, not that I don’t love War of the Worlds.”
“I want it to be a place for us. Not a shrine to him.”
“You’ll help, though, won’t you? I’ve never actually been responsible for a house before.”
“Neither have I. Truthfully,” he admitted, “I usually hire someone to take care of it for me.”
I pressed a hand to my brow in shock. “No. Really? I would never have guessed.”
“Shush.” He lowered his eyes, blushing faintly—though a smile seemed to tremble at the corners of his mouth.
I turned and walked the dimensions of the room before returning to the bed and kicking off my Docs. “Do you think we could we get a four-poster in here?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I mean, not a full one with a canopy and velvet curtains. I don’t want to feel like I’m Henry Tudor. But something with, y’know—posts. I’m very interested in the whole posts concepts.”
Caspian came up behind me and slipped his tuxedo jacket from my shoulders, the sudden exposure of my back to his gaze and touch enough to turn my skin into an electric storm of longing.
“We can have one made to fit,” he said. “Although I don’t quite understand this obsession with posts.”
“God, Caspian. Isn’t it every boy’s dream? To sleep in a four-poster bed like a princess. And, y’know—actually, never mind.”
“What is it?”
“I was just going make a silly kinky sex reference. It doesn’t matter.”
His lips brushed over my shoulders, like maybe he was chasing my freckles. “Please don’t hold yourself back from me. I may not be quite ready to do everything I want to do with you, but that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy hearing about it.”
“Well, you could, like, tie me to the corners and stuff?”
Caspian made a sound like he’d choked on air.
“I mean,” I went on, “since the house isn’t big enough for a sex dungeon, we’re going to have make do.”
There was a long silence.
Then, with a kind of studied blandness, “Do you want one?”
“Nope. The whole world can be our sex dungeon.” I smirked at him over my shoulder. “You can cuff me to the kitchen table. And spank me on the sofa. And put me on my knees in the shower. And, oh”—another idea occurred to me—“can we have fairy lights? I love fairy lights.”
“Yes, my Arden. We can have all of it.” Caspian was laughing and suddenly the whole room felt different. Warmer and brighter, its corners softer, its shadows less dense.
His arms slid round my waist and he pulled me back against him and I yelped because I’d forgotten—evidently we’d both forgotten—about my shoulder, the cotton of Caspian’s shirt suddenly as rough as a goddamn Brillo Pad.
“I’m so sorry.” He stepped away immediately. ”That was thoughtless of me.”
“Don’t worry. I’m mostly fine. I think.”
I twisted, trying to see, and then Caspian stilled me. “Let me look.” His fingers brushed lightly across my spine—close enough to the wound that I made an anxious whimpery noise, but not close enough to actually cause me pain. “There’s a little blood and some bruising. I should clean this for you.”
He disappeared into the bathroom and was at my side again in seconds, damp handkerchief in hand. “I wish I had some antiseptic, though I don’t think you’re in any danger of infection.”
His touch was ridiculously careful, but still made me hiss through my teeth and curl my toes into the carpet. “Goodie.”
“I hate,” Caspian growled, “that he hurt you.”
“Well, I hate that you were going to let him hurt you. So I guess we’re even?”
“Perhaps I should take you to a doctor.” His palm landed, half-reassuring, half-possessive, against the small of my back “I’m worried this could leave a permanent mark.”
“I hope it does,” I said, surprising myself by how fiercely I meant it. “That way you’ll always be able to see the difference between something like this and what we do together.”
“I should learn to bear my own scars.”
“You have enough. I’m proud to bear this one for you.”
“Arden…” He seemed to lose his words again, pressing a kiss to my shoulder instead. Even though he was nowhere near the place Nathaniel had struck me, the heat from his mouth and the heat from the cut flowed together, rushing in a red-gold river all the way down to my cock.
Chapter 45
I arched and moaned—far too loudly in the silence of that sleeping house.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” murmured Caspian, “that you look stunning tonight.”
“I’m afraid it’s”—my breath hitched as his lips landed against the nape of my neck—“it’s not my frock.”
“Then I’ll have to take you shopping.”
“Oh God. Would you really?”
The zip rasped as Caspian slowly drew it down. “Yes. We’ll go to Bahnhofstrasse and the Avenue Montaigne, Fifth Avenue, Ginza…”
“Rodeo Drive?” I suggested, lost in my Pret
ty Woman moment.
“Anywhere. Everywhere.” His fingers traced the straps of my dress all the way across my back—such a strange sensation, silk and skin together—until he was inching them down my arms. “I’ll lay the world at your feet.”
“You’re the only world I’ve ever wanted. But I have to admit”—I squirmed helplessly as the gown began to slip from my body, making me feel incredibly exposed even though I was still almost fully clothed—“the shopping does sound fun.”
“It’s not an either/or. I intend for your life to be nothing but and.”
“You’re going to spoil me.”
“Yes. I am.”
One final twitch and the dress landed on the floor in a puddle of silver and stardust, leaving me naked. Well, except for my nipple jewellery—a silver bar with multicoloured leaves dangling from it, and a simple pink glitter barbell—and the rainbow flower unicorn boxer briefs it had seemed a good idea to put on earlier. Not that they lasted long. Caspian hooked his thumbs under the waistband and peeled them off me, before spinning me round again to face him.
His scrutiny was, to say the least, intense—his gaze sweeping over me as if he wanted to claim me by the power of looking alone. It was actually a bit of a struggle, at first, to let him see me: my pretty-ish, ordinary-ish, flaw-speckled self. My knobbly knees. The chipped polish on my toenails. My skinny hips and the touch of softness at my tummy because I liked gelato way more than I liked the gym.
“My beautiful Arden,” he said. “My love. My treasure. My perfect boy.”
I wanted to tell him he’d made a mistake. That I was nobody special. But then I remembered: Caspian had never lied to me. And I was all those things to him. “Yes,” I gasped. “Please touch me. Show me I’m yours.”
“Your back?”
“Can take it.”
Once upon a time, he would probably have insisted otherwise. But tonight he just lowered me onto the bed—which, I won’t lie, made my shoulder scream bloody murder, but it was a price I was more than willing to pay to be able to watch him. Especially when he came crawling over me like some great predator, eyes ablaze with hunger and tenderness, and a purity of need he had always tried to hide from me.