Zed barely had time to draw air into his lungs before Caspian was kissing him again, nipping his lips, pushing his tongue in and out of his mouth as if he were fucking him. Zed threaded his fingers in Caspian’s silky hair and kept him close. The hard ridges of their cocks rubbed together and they moaned into each other’s mouth. The kiss was brutal, hard and perfect. Zed didn’t fight it, felt every moment of it, allowed it to swallow him as he surrendered to Caspian.
This was all he’d ever wanted.
Somehow they ended up lying on the grass, side by side, though Zed couldn’t have said how they got there. Boneless legs, probably. He lifted his fingers to Caspian’s face, cupped his chin and stroked his lips. Caspian kissed Zed’s fingers.
“Not panicking?” Zed whispered.
“No. My head’s buzzing but only with thoughts of what I want to do to you. I want us lying with no clothes on. I want to kiss you all over, lick every inch of you, suck every inch of you, taste your skin, taste your cum, swallow your cum, listen to you groaning in my ear, make you groan louder. I want you to do the same to me. I want your fingers everywhere. I want to tease you and stop you coming until you can’t stand it and then make you come so fucking hard you won’t be able to breathe. I want to fuck you and I want you to fuck me. I want to catch fire. I want to fucking fly.”
“Have you been thinking about this for long?”
Caspian laughed, his face lit up and he looked like the old Caspian.
“I don’t have any condoms.” Zed hesitated. “Or lube. Plus we’re outside. The postman might see us.”
Caspian tried and failed to smother his chuckle. “Passion killer.”
“Am I?” Zed mock-glared.
“No.” Caspian slid his hand down and unfastened the button on Zed’s jeans, then slowly eased down the zip.
Zed’s breathing turned choppy. It stopped altogether when Caspian moved down and took Zed’s cock into his warm, wet mouth.
“Oh wow, wow, wow,” Zed stuttered. “We’re not going to do the making me wait thing, are we? Because… Oh fuuuuck.”
Caspian sucked his balls and Zed bucked. It felt as if Caspian was doing everything he could think of with his teeth, his tongue and his hand. When he managed to open his eyes to look at him, he found Caspian looking up at him. The jolt of lust almost made him lose control. Caspian’s mouth was wet with saliva and precum and when he licked his lips and smiled, Zed moaned, his lungs locked, his hips bucked and he exploded. The pleasure was so acute, he cried out. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
He stroked Caspian’s hair, as Caspian licked him clean. Aftershocks still rumbled through his body. He hadn’t remembered how good this felt. Caspian squirmed up to kiss him again. Soft, slow kisses that shifted to deep and hard, then back again time after time.
“Let me suck…” Zed managed to gasp.
Caspian laughed into his mouth. “Too late.”
They spent the rest of the day working on the garden together in their boxers. Zed had found suntan lotion in his father’s bathroom and though it was out of date, they figured it was better than nothing. But applying it to each other made them hard. They messed around until they were soft again.
They had fun. Caspian squirted Zed with the hose, raced around the lawn after the water had turned cold and laughed as Zed yelped. Zed pinned Caspian down and found every place that was ticklish. They were the kids they’d once been and wanted to be for all the years they’d been apart. They lay on their backs on the lawn looking up into the sky.
“I feel as if I’ve been lying under a concrete slab and you’ve just rescued me,” Caspian said. “I can breathe, smile, laugh. I’m sure I’ll never have another panic attack.”
Zed threaded his fingers with Caspian’s. “Do they go away just like that?”
He felt bad when he saw the worry on Caspian’s face, but Zed was worried too. If Caspian thought he wasn’t going to have another and then he did…
“I was broken but the glue is right here.” Caspian turned to look at him.
I want to be the glue but you have to help yourself too.
In between periods of mucking about or lying in the sun trailing their fingers over each other, they’d attacked the weeds and the hedge and by late afternoon, had transformed the garden.
“I can’t believe how different it looks. Part of me wishes it was still wild.”
“After all that work? I’ll let you replant all the weeds.”
Caspian grabbed his jeans and pulled them on. Zed took the hint about getting dressed and put on his jeans too.
“Do you need to do much to the house?”
“Empty it. I have to order a skip. Some stuff needs dumping. Maybe there’s a charity that would like the furniture and his clothes. I’ve got more calls to make, appointments to sort out. Stuff like that.”
“And Tamaz won’t come back to help?”
“No.”
Caspian tossed Zed his T-shirt and pulled his own over his head. “Can I help?”
“That would be great.” Zed tugged Caspian into his arms and threaded his fingers in his hair. “I wish you could stay the night.”
“So do I but I daren’t risk it. One nosey person could wreck everything. I think most people in these two villages would like me to end up back inside.”
“Most people?”
“Those who know who I am. They refused to serve me in most of the places I went into.” He pulled out of Zed’s hold.
“Want me to run you back?”
“No, it’s fine. I like walking.” Caspian tied his laces.
They both turned when they heard a vehicle pull up on the drive. Zed headed around the corner to see who it was. Jackson climbed out of a black Audi.
“What are you doing here?” Zed asked.
“I’ve brought you a present.”
Zed turned to look for Caspian and he’d gone. Shit.
Jackson handed Zed an envelope. Inside was a driving licence and credit card in his birth name.
“The credit card is linked to a bank account we’ve set up for you. Use it for anything connected to your father. There’s ten thousand in there. To be repaid at some point. The address on your licence is what you need to use when anyone asks. Okay?”
“Great. Thanks.”
“I’ll take the phone and the computer with me.”
“Want a drink?”
“Please.”
He led Jackson back around the corner to go into the kitchen through the bifold doors.
“Been working on the garden?”
“Yep.”
“Seen Caspian?” Jackson asked as he entered the kitchen.
“Yes.”
“Was that a good idea? You’re not going to be staying here for long.”
“Water or orange juice?”
“Water’s fine.”
Zed put a full glass on the work surface.
“How are things going with Electric Ice?”
“Pretty good. Since Pete Corrigan became our manager we’re getting more gigs.”
“You’ll be playing all over the country.”
“I guess so.”
“Caspian won’t be able to go with you.”
Zed stared at him.
Jackson shrugged. “The terms of his release make that impossible.”
“A compelling reason to work for you.”
“You could look at it like that.”
“Could you fix it that Caspian isn’t bound by the terms of his release?”
“Why would we interfere with the justice system?”
“Because—” Zed so nearly blurted out the truth.
Jackson looked at him carefully as if he was trying to see what Zed had almost told him.
“I’ll get you the computer and phone.”
“I’ll take some of the paperwork too. Let me look at what there is.”
Zed sighed and led him to the study.
Caspian made his way home across the fields. Today had been more than he could have hoped for u
ntil that guy had turned up. Caspian had slid to one side when Zed went to see who it was, and when he’d heard I’ve bought you a present, Caspian had carried on sliding into a flat-out run around the other side of the house to the road. Not that he thought this was Zed’s boyfriend. He believed him about that, but more because the impossibility of all…this…had slammed back on his shoulders.
How long would Zed even be in Kent? The only reason he’d come was to sort out his father’s affairs, not because Caspian was out of jail. Zed had said he would have looked for him but why hadn’t he known he’d been released? Hadn’t he counted down the days? Caspian stamped angrily down the side of the field. It was as if everything positive was being strangled by negative thoughts. And it was his own fucking fault. Why should Zed have been anxiously waiting for his release. Caspian had broken things off. The mere fact that he’d hoped Zed wouldn’t listen was just a pathetic attempt to… Oh shit. When his heart rate climbed he took deep breaths and made himself walk more slowly. I am not going to panic. I won’t let myself.
There was a poem he’d had to learn for school when he was twelve called Invictus. Latin for undefeated. The whole class had to pick a poem, any poem, and learn it. He’d struggled and struggled until he could recite Invictus without faltering. He’d found himself waking in in the dormitory, saying the words out loud with the other boys laughing at him. When it was his turn to stand up in class, he’d been word perfect and for once, been praised by a teacher.
When things were dark in the YOI, he’d repeated the poem to himself. The guy who wrote it—Henley—had been sick with tuberculosis of the bone and the poem was about his fight to keep going despite everything. It ended I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. Whether Caspian survived or not, was up to him. Whether he made a life with Zed or not, was up to him, as long as Zed wanted him. Caspian hadn’t had a serious disease like Henley but for the last few years it had been a struggle to hang onto hope in the darkness, to believe that his world would be light again one day. But now his life was his. Almost.
Today had been brilliant. He had to stop looking for problems. He was his own worst enemy.
I am the master of my fate.
He went straight to his father’s study and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” his father called.
Caspian closed the door behind him. His father sat at his desk.
“Yes, Caspian.”
“I’m not going to work in a clothes shop. I want you to back one of my inventions. You promised to help in return for me taking the blame for what Lachlan did. Lachlan was young and stupid. The real crime was when you didn’t call the police and tell them what had happened. Because of you, I was locked up for five years. I deserve something for that. And I’m not going to marry Poppy. I’m gay.”
His father dropped his pen and stared at him. “Gay?”
“Yes. It means—”
“I know what it fucking means.”
Caspian curled his toes in his shoes. His father rarely swore.
“Look. What you got up to on the day of the accident with that boy, it was an aberration. That means—”
“I know what aberration means, and it wasn’t. For me that’s normal behaviour, not a deviation.”
“Spending time locked up with a lot of other young men, I understand you’d form attachments, and in a search for affection you became confused. Though the prison service has something to answer for in letting that happen. But that’s all behind you. This is a fresh start. I’ll look again at your ideas and speak to some people. Maybe we can set up a little business for you to run. If you don’t want to marry Poppy, that’s fine. Apparently, she wasn’t too keen on the idea either, but gay? No, you are not gay.”
Caspian let out a strangled laugh. “Why don’t you ever listen to me? I know what I am.”
His father pushed to his feet and came around to the other side of the desk, his face full of unarticulated fury. Caspian guessed the lack of articulation wouldn’t last.
“No son of mine is going to be gay.” He spat out the words and dotted Caspian’s face with spittle. “Bad enough that Lachlan is doing work for that LG… whatever that ridiculous acronym stands for. Do you hear me? If you want money for your scheme, forget about being gay. I don’t want to hear another word on the subject.”
Caspian was the one filled with fury then. “You can’t tell me not to be gay. It isn’t a fucking choice. It’s not an illness. It’s not something to be ashamed of. I am what I am.”
“Not if you want my money.”
“Then I don’t want your fucking money.” Caspian turned to go, then spun round. “I blame you more than Lachlan, you know that? When he came back here and told you what he’d done, you could have called the police, told them he’d panicked. Did you even come rushing to the scene to see if I was still breathing? No, you did not. You couldn’t even call an ambulance, could you? You sat here concocting my brother’s alibi, while I might have been dying or burning to death. Easier for you if I had died. Lachlan’s everything you wanted—a successful lawyer, everything you deserve—a lying bastard just like you.”
The blow across the face took Caspian by surprise. He backed up to the door, opened it and fled. By the time he was in the woods, he’d shifted into full-blown panic. It wasn’t just him that was rushing, but everything around him—bushes, trees, birds. He was so scared of what was happening that it fed his panic and panic fed his fear.
He stumbled up the ladder into the treehouse and threw himself in a corner, curled up with his arms around his head as if he were trying to escape from some wild animal. Just like before he couldn’t breathe. He was able to understand that unfolding himself would help his lungs expand, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t bear it. His heart couldn’t beat so fast without breaking. If he didn’t manage to draw more air into his lungs, he’d die.
I’m coming apart.
I’m lying on a narrow ledge halfway down a cliff. If I move, I’ll fall and I won’t stop falling. So don’t move. Don’t move. Don’t move.
Eventually, after minutes or hours, he pulled himself back, reassembled himself, regained control. He’d seen guys inside have panic attacks. He’d never thought it would happen to him. Death had seemed imminent, not just possible but probable, but it hadn’t claimed him.
Now he could breathe, he knew it was all in his head. Maybe his father hitting him had caused it, maybe it hadn’t been that at all. Maybe just the act of running had triggered it. But this wasn’t something he could ignore because the likelihood was it would happen again. The thought depressed him. He wasn’t cured. Having Zed in his life hadn’t stopped this happening.
He forced himself to unfold and hauled himself up. He leaned against the window, dragging air into his lungs. One breath before the boards broke and he fell out of the tree.
Chapter Twenty-Six
When Jackson had gone, Zed went online to find the number of a local skip company and ordered the largest they had. It was too late to deal with the rest of those who needed to be contacted about his father’s death and since it was Saturday tomorrow, it would have to wait until Monday. A weekend with Caspian.
As Zed stood in the shower, he wondered why he’d run off? Does he think I’m ashamed of him? Caspian might not be able to spend the night here, but he could spend the night with Caspian. Or if he didn’t want him at Barton Hall, Caspian could stay at Larch Cottage until late and Zed would drive him back. He felt increasingly uneasy about the way they’d parted.
When Caspian didn’t answer his phone, Zed felt more than uneasy. He wasn’t sure whether to drive to Barton House or take the cross-fields route that Caspian would have taken, just in case anything had happened to him on the way back. He decided on the latter.
By the time he reached Barton Hall, he was hot and sweaty. I should have brought water. He rang the bell.
Betsy answered. She smiled when she saw him.
“Zed. How lovely to see you again.” She pulled the
door almost closed behind her. “Caspian’s not here,” she said in a whisper.
Zed frowned. “Didn’t he come back about an hour ago?”
“I don’t know. They’re eating dinner and his father is angry he’s not at the table.”
“Okay. I think I might know where he is.”
“He’s…”
Zed turned back to face her.
“He’s very sad,” she whispered. “All his life, he’s believed he could do anything and now that belief has gone, he’s adrift. Find him. Make him believe in himself again.”
Zed nodded and ran to the treehouse.
When he saw Caspian lying on his back at the foot of the tree surrounded by broken pieces of wood, his stomach dropped. He fell to his knees at his side. Caspian opened his eyes and Zed groaned with relief.
“It broke,” Caspian muttered.
“Did it break you?” Zed ran his hands down Caspian’s legs and arms alert for any sign of pain.
Caspian didn’t make a sound, but there was blood on his face, a dark graze on his cheek.
“Can you move?” The words blocked Zed’s throat but when Caspian wriggled his fingers and moved his legs, Zed could breathe again.
“My treehouse is broken,” Caspian whispered. “Our place. Everything’s broken.”
“We’ll rebuild it together.” Rebuild you together. “Think you can sit up?” He helped Caspian to a sitting position, then checked the back of his head. A bump that made Caspian wince when Zed touched it, but no blood. Zed lifted his T-shirt. Caspian’s back was scraped and bruised. “Where does it hurt?”
“I’m okay.”
Caspian tried to get up and Zed stopped him. “Just sit a moment. What are you doing out here? Your family are eating dinner.”
“You’ve been to the house?”
“Betsy answered the door. I guessed where you might be.”
“I told my father I was gay and he hit me.”
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