“Let me hold the lantern,” Ward said at last. “Perhaps that will be easier, since I can judge more accurately where it is if I am holding it and focus my gaze accordingly.”
“I think it may already be too late,” Nick warned as he handed the lantern over. “The storm’s moving on again.” Over the last few minutes, the rumbles of thunder had grown quieter and further apart. “Perhaps it’s time to stop.”
Ward didn’t respond to that suggestion. He knelt on the wet wood and lifted the lantern above his head, staring at the flame, his face frozen in an expression of grim determination. He stared so long and so fixedly that Nick began to think he might actually have succeeded, but just as he inched closer to check, Ward let out a bark of frustration and cast the lantern aside. It fell on its side and rolled to the edge of the platform.
“God damn it!” he yelled into the storm. Then he looked up at the sky and screamed, “Where are you?”
Nick could see that cry was ripped straight from Ward’s heart, a gory, bloody thing. His chest was heaving, and his face was wet with rain or tears, or both. The lantern rolled in the wind, back and forth, back and forth, at the platform edge, and Ward kicked out at it viciously, sending it hurling down the zawn to the sea below.
“How could you leave me?” he screamed at the sky.
Nick laid a careful hand on his arm. “Ward. Please.” He didn’t even have to raise his voice to be heard anymore.
He half expected Ward to shake him off, but Ward turned to look at him instead, his face a picture of agonised, naked grief. “I will never see him again, Nicholas.”
Nick’s heart ached. “I know,” he said, and he did. He knew this feeling all too well. The immensity of that realisation. All the warning in the world couldn’t prepare you for that, when it came. That knowledge of the finality of death.
The thunder pealed again, but this time it was little more than a distant echo of what had gone before. The storm had indeed moved on, was likely many miles away now.
The rain had been relentless all night, but as the storm departed, still heavier rain followed in its wake, like a courtier behind a monarch. It drove down on them as they sat there on the platform, defeated, steady rivulets trickling down the back of their necks.
“I’m so sorry, Ward,” Nick said at last, though he wasn’t sure what he was sorry for exactly. Suggesting they come here? Failing? Maybe he was sorry because he’d never believed in Ward’s theories. Despite that, he had tried tonight, for Ward, though he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing now.
Ward put his hand over Nick’s. “It’s not you who should be apologising,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve been lying to myself. You were right when you told me I was searching for a way to believe that George isn’t really gone.” He swallowed, hard. “And you were right when you said he is gone.”
“Ward—”
“And even now, I’m being a selfish idiot, behaving like this over my brother who died a whole year ago when you’ve just lost your grandfather tonight.” He shook his head miserably.
“It’s all right,” Nick said gently. “Godfrey wasn’t my family. This is different.”
“Nicholas—”
“No, really,” Nick insisted. “I know what it is to lose someone you love. It was different with Godfrey. I can’t say I loved him, and I’m quite sure he didn’t love me. I think the reason he asked for me tonight was because he felt, well, connected to me. The same way he felt connected to the Roscarrock land maybe.”
“It couldn’t just have been that,” Ward said. “He already has a legitimate grandson to carry on his name. I’m sure he must have loved you, Nicholas.”
Nick gave a small smile, oddly touched by that attempt at reassurance. “No, it’s just that Harry’s nothing like Godfrey, whereas I— Well, he probably thought I was cut from his cloth, at least as far as the land’s concerned. That’s a sort of connection, but it isn’t love.”
“Isn’t it?” Ward whispered. “Then what is?”
Nick turned over the hand that lay beneath Ward’s so that they were palm to palm. He spread his fingers, sliding them into the spaces between Ward’s, and Ward gripped him back. He couldn’t breathe, never mind speak, but at last he managed a breathless, “Don’t you know? Don’t you feel it?”
Ward stared at him, his throat working. He whispered, “Nicholas—”
“I love you, Ward.”
Ward’s eyes glittered in the darkness. He said hoarsely, “Don’t say that if you’re only going to leave again.”
“I’m not,” Nick whispered and leaned in, using his free hand to grasp Ward round the back of his neck and yank him close, pressing their mouths together.
They crouched there, on the wooden platform in that great chasm in the ground, with the rain pouring down on top of them, freezing, shivering, sodden, and kissing, and Nick was so intensely happy in that instant that his heart hurt with it, as though it couldn’t quite hold all the love inside him. He clutched Ward closer, deepening the kiss, and Ward groaned into his mouth.
Eventually Ward broke the kiss, pulling back to stare into Nick’s eyes. “You must know already that I love you.”
“I knew no such thing,” Nick said, smiling foolishly, unable to hide his pleasure at that declaration.
“Well, I do,” Ward assured him, and though his voice was little more than a croak, his words were the sweetest Nick thought he had ever heard. At some stage, Ward’s ruined voice had become so dearly familiar to him, he didn’t notice its ugliness anymore.
“Come home with me,” Ward said. “I want you in my bed.”
“God, yes.” Nick longed to be naked with Ward again, skin to skin. To lose himself in the private cocoon they made with their bodies.
“And this time,” Ward said, “you’re staying.”
“Yes,” Nick agreed eagerly, kissing up the line of Ward’s jaw. “This time I’ll stay all night.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Ward pressed Nick back, and Nick blinked at the loss of contact.
“What?”
“I don’t just want you to stay one night,” Ward continued. “I want you with me always, Nicholas.”
Nick stared at him. There were a hundred reasons he could give Ward right now as to why that couldn’t be. But if he started enumerating them, this would end before it had even begun, and he couldn’t let that happen.
What was he to do? Jump over the edge and hope for the best? Trust he wouldn’t perish on the rocks? There were so many rocks. But there was also Ward.
“All right,” he said, rain dripping down his face. “For always.”
Varhak Manor was solid and square, modern and defiant against the wild Cornish sky. Pipp must have been watching for them—he opened the front door before they even reached it, searching Ward’s face with his careful gaze as Ward and Nicholas removed their sodden coats and hats.
Ward offered Pipp a small smile, and Pipp’s tense expression eased.
“Do you require any refreshments, sir? I can have a tray made up.”
Ward glanced at Nicholas, who shook his head. “No, thank you, Pipp. Just some brandy perhaps. We’re both soaked through.”
“Very good, sir. Shall I bring it to you in the—”
“Just bring me the bottle,” Ward interrupted. “We’ll take it up with us.”
Pipp gave an uncharacteristic grin and hurried off. Minutes later, they were climbing the stairs, Ward carrying two empty snifters in one hand and a bottle of French brandy in the other.
Since Ward’s hands were full, Nicholas opened the bedchamber door, holding it so Ward preceded him.
A gas lamp on the table in the corner gave off low, gentle light, and a well-banked fire glowed in the grate. Everything was warm and welcoming and cosy. Ward set down the glasses and bottle on the table and turned.
Nicholas was leaning against the closed door, his black hair wet and slicked back from his brow, his silver eyes startling as ever. The very space between them seemed
to pulse, as though all the longing of the past weeks had built up like so much electrical charge.
In the end, it was Nicholas who moved first, crossing the floor in a few quick strides and pulling Ward into his arms, pressing a line of small desperate kisses along Ward’s jaw till Ward turned his head with an inarticulate sound and their lips finally met.
Nicholas’s tongue speared into his mouth, Nicholas’s hands firm on his hips as he yanked him even closer. The noise that tore from Ward was part groan, part sob. Their tongues tangled, bristled chins scraping together, and it was so sweet and good.
Nicholas began to efficiently strip Ward of all his wet clothes, his hands working quickly to remove and discard each garment till they were surrounded by damp heaps of cloth. He gazed on each new area of exposed skin with possessive, burning eyes, sliding his hands reverently over Ward’s sensitive skin.
“My handsome lad,” he whispered. “My comely boy.”
Ward whimpered.
Once Ward was fully naked, Nicholas quickly stripped his own things off before stepping forward again to run his hands up Ward’s sides and over his chest. He brushed his palms over Ward’s nipples, then returned to pinch them lightly, sweetly, between thumbs and forefingers, making Ward gasp at the sharp, biting sensation, each tiny painful twist making Ward’s cock stiffen and leak. He arched his chest towards Nicholas in encouragement, baring his throat submissively, and Nicholas chuckled, bending his head to press a row of suckling kisses along Ward’s collarbone, then up his throat, and all the way to his ear.
“You like that?” he said softly when he got there, his breath warm and damp, making Ward shiver helplessly.
“God, yes,” Ward groaned. “More, please.”
Nicholas chuckled again. “So demanding,” he murmured, lips brushing the delicate curl of Ward’s outer ear, before his teeth nipped lightly at the fleshy lobe and his tongue snaked briefly inside.
Ward shivered at that too, hunching a shoulder and giving a gasping laugh, his cock straining towards his belly. He liked this very much indeed, this—being mastered. He liked that Nicholas was making all the decisions and all Ward had to do was react.
Nicholas took his hand and tugged, pulling him towards the bed. “Lie down. I want to give you pleasure.”
“But I want to give you pleasure too,” Ward protested, even as he obeyed, the sheets cool and clean beneath his naked body.
Nicholas smiled. “We’ll pleasure each other,” he promised, and as he positioned himself beside Ward, Ward began to see what he had in mind.
Ward turned on to his side mere moments after Nicholas did, reaching for the man’s cock a scant second later. As his own cock was drawn into the wet, perfect heat of Nicholas’s mouth, he drove his lips down Nicholas’s shaft, filling himself with Nicholas’s flesh and inhaling his heady scent. And then it was a messy blur of mixed-up sensations. The insistent, unbearably good penetration of demanding flesh, pressing right into his throat till he felt dizzy with it and drool leaked from his mouth. The hot sucking grasp of Nicholas’s mouth on his own cock, drawing him in. The snaking swirl of that agile tongue against Ward’s sensitive shaft.
Ward’s mind battled to reconcile these competing sensations, the push and the pull, one part of him opening to receive even as another demanded entry. It was all his mind could do to just keep up with those twin experiences—what he was doing and what was being done to him. It felt as though his attention were jumping around like a grasshopper.
As his impending climax intensified, it became more and more difficult to concentrate on Nicholas. He gasped, losing his rhythm, and Nicholas’s shaft drew free of his mouth. Nicholas didn’t allow him even a moment to recover. He pressed in closer, moaning around Ward’s cock as he took him impossibly deeper, letting Ward push forward one last impossible fraction till the head of his cock bumped against the back of Nicholas’s throat.
And God, but that did it. Ward grasped the back of Nicholas’s thigh and erupted into his mouth with a harsh groan. His climax came in hot, helpless pulses, and Nicholas’s throat closed as he tried to swallow it all.
Ward drew back, strangely, possessively, needing to see. When he saw Nicholas’s face—his lips swollen and decorated with traces of Ward’s spend—a very primal satisfaction filled him. He reached out, brushing his thumb over Nicholas’s lips to collect the pearly remains before sucking his thumb clean.
Nicholas groaned. “Ward—”
“Your turn,” Ward whispered. “Lie on your back and spread your legs.”
Nicholas obeyed, his silver eyes hot as molten metal as he watched Ward shuffle into the space between Nicholas’s legs, on his knees.
“Take hold of your cock,” Ward said, sliding down to lie flat on the mattress. He grinned. “Show me how you please yourself when you’re alone.”
Nicholas let out a shaky laugh at that, but again he obeyed, his teeth sinking into his lower lip as he circled his fingers round his hard shaft and began to stroke. He watched avidly as Ward stretched forward just a little further and, slowly, tenderly . . . kissed his balls.
“Oh Christ,” Nicholas breathed. “Ward—”
Ward kissed and lapped and suckled, gently at first, then more firmly, loving the contrast of fragility and roughness. Loving even more Nicholas’s astonished, helpless gasps. He captured the tender orbs between his lips and cradled them there, rolling his tongue over them, before gently suckling them into his mouth. Then he did it all over again, and again, till Nick was chanting his name like a prayer. He moved lower, dipping his head to explore the tender, sensitive patch of skin below Nicholas’s balls, then lower still, so that his tongue skirted the very edge of Nicholas’s tight hole. That glancing caress made Nicholas cry out with something like desperation, so he did it again, stretching his tongue to graze the tender ring, over and over.
“My God, Ward,” Nicholas gasped. “I’ve never—”
He broke off, and the sentence went unfinished, forgotten even, because Nicholas was groaning now, his jerking hand moving ever swifter as he wrenched out his climax. At last his spend erupted from him, splashing his belly, his chest, even his throat as he came hard, his bright gaze fixed on Ward.
They lay tangled together in bed after. The lantern had gone out, but the fire in the grate, though low, gave off a faint glow.
Outside, the rain still fell, though now with diminishing force. The storm was well and truly over.
“So, what now?” Nick asked. “Do you intend to continue with your work?”
“My attempts to contact the spirits, you mean?” Ward asked. He’d been staring at the ceiling, but now he turned his head to meet Nick’s gaze, his expression a little bleak. “No, I don’t.”
He didn’t offer any explanation, and Nick didn’t ask for one. Right now, everything was still rather too raw for that, he thought. Instead he propped himself up on one elbow and gazed down at Ward’s comely face. “What will you do then?”
Ward thought about that. “I may go back to the work I was doing before,” he said. Then he smiled faintly, just a small quirk of his lips. “Or perhaps I will find something new to occupy me.”
“Do you have something in mind?”
Ward paused. Then he said carefully, almost diffidently, “I’ve become quite interested in weather prediction lately.” A self-deprecating huff. “It’s all that watching for storms, I expect.”
Nick was hit by an unfamiliar surge of affection—the hint of uncertainty in Ward’s expression was so unexpected. It was rare to see Ward look anything but entirely sure of himself.
“Well, I can certainly see the practical use of that,” Nick said. “The fishermen round here would welcome it, I’m sure. Too many men are lost to storms at sea.”
“It would be good to do something useful,” Ward agreed quietly.
“Ward, I didn’t mean—” Nick began, falling silent when Ward reached up to place cool fingertips over his lips.
“I know you didn’t,” Ward said. “But you
were right when you questioned what good my reaching George would do anyone in this life. So yes, that’s one of the reasons I won’t be continuing with my previous studies. And yes, in the future, I would like to do something that benefits someone in a meaningful way.” He smiled then. “Anyway, what about you? What does your future hold, Nicholas—apart from me, of course?”
“Apart from me.” Those words prompted a helpless smile from Nick. His cheeks had begun to ache with all the smiling he was doing.
“Well,” he said, dropping down to the mattress again, so that they lay facing one another, their heads on the same pillow, “if you can believe it, Godfrey’s apparently bequeathed me some land.”
“Has he? Where?”
“It’s the other part of the plot he sold you. It badly wants improving—it’s nothing but grass and rocks just now. I’ve been nagging at Godfrey for a while to put it to some use. He must’ve decided to just give me it and let me do my worst. Probably realised Harry would never rouse himself to do anything more with it than stake it in a game of cards.”
Ward raised his eyebrows at that, but only said, “And how do you propose to cultivate it?”
“I’m not sure. I’d be starting from scratch. Most farmers round here have dairy herds so there’s really no more call for that kind of thing. The land’s not particularly apt for arable crops, but it’s good for other crops, and when the new train line’s built from here to Truro, I’d be able to transport any produce a good distance, so that might be a way forward—” He realised he was beginning to babble and came to an abrupt halt, embarrassed by the betraying eagerness in his tone.
Ward didn’t look bored though, or even amused. His eyes were warm, a faint smile playing over his lips. “It sounds as though you have some thinking to do,” he said softly.
“It sounds as though we both do,” Nick said. He reached out to brush back that always-straying lock of Ward’s hair from his forehead.
“There are some things I need to think about,” Ward agreed. “But there’s others I’m already decided on.”
“Such as?” Nick asked.
A Gathering Storm (Porthkennack Book 2) Page 25