Winter Knights

by Harper Fox

  “Marry her? I’ll be lucky if she ever speaks to me again.”

  I rested my hot brow on his thigh. “Do you still want us to be over?”

  “I never wanted that. I just…”

  “I didn’t leave you any choice. But if things were…” I squeezed my eyes shut tight. “If things were different. If I tried to make you happy for a change.”

  His fingers brushed my nape. He leaned over me, and my nostrils filled with his dear familiar scent. He kissed the big vertebra at the top of my spine, the place where my tensions and headaches began. If I stopped fighting long enough to let him near me, he would tear up my pain by the roots. “Oh, Gav. You always did make me happy in a way. Even when we were at daggers drawn.”

  “I want to do a hell of a lot better than that.” Inspiration struck me. I lifted my head. “I know where I can start. C’mon, let’s get in the car and go talk to your mam and dad. I’ll talk to them. You don’t have to—”

  “They already know.”

  “What? I thought you didn’t…”

  “They found out—rather suddenly—when the hotel staff said you hadn’t come back. We were all on our way in to Midnight Mass—Gwen’s family, mine. I’m afraid I had a bit of a meltdown. It was all very public. That’s why Gwen was driving me. I hadn’t been on the sherries—can you imagine me too drunk to drive? I was bloody distraught.”

  “Oh, love.” I stroked his hair. My heart was beating far too fast and I could envisage the scene on the pavement outside St Matthew’s with absolute clarity. “What happened? How did they react?”

  “Do you think I stopped to look? Do you think I cared? All I could see was you, off in a snowdrift somewhere washing down pills with scotch. I love you, Gavin. Life was over for me when I thought you’d gone.”

  I uncurled from the floor, taking him with me. Or was he lifting me? It didn’t matter. Our tangle tipped over and landed us hard on the bed, Piers on top, knocking the breath out of my lungs. I seized him as hard as I could. His coat rode up, the long smart winter one Gwen and I had made him buy. “Please,” I rasped. “Can we get you out of this?”

  “Mmm.” He sat up, tearing off the garment with my clumsy help. “Think I’d like us to get me out of everything. You too.”

  It was difficult, with him half pinning me down, but I couldn’t bear to ask him to move. I was lost, enthralled by the newness of having his weight on me, his sweet cultured voice giving suggestions, commands. Your T-shirt. Yes. Now your jeans. Oh, he’d always responded when I made a move on him, but to have him initiate, take charge… I undid his shirt, pushed it back off his broad shoulders. He wriggled out of it, tossed it aside and took hold of the elastic of my briefs. “Look at you. You’re so hard.”

  “I know. I want you. You know what you said about us going at it like rabbits…”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “This might not be much better.”

  “Oh, it will.” He pulled down my briefs, not just halfway down my thighs—which was as far as they usually got—but all the way off, peeling my socks en route. “Not necessarily much slower, but…better. Oh, Gav…”

  “Yes. Your jeans now, quickly.”

  We were both stripped to the bone. I laughed and made a grab for his wristwatch as well, and he removed mine, then—his fingers were so delicate—undid the tiny stud earring whose appearance had caused my dad so much consternation when I was fourteen. Writhing, I managed to get the duvet out from under me, throwing it over us both. “When were we… When were we even last naked together?”

  “I’m not sure we ever have been.”

  “When did we last share a bed?”

  I didn’t get an answer to that. He had plunged down to kiss me—my brow, my nose, my eyelids. He brushed a brief swipe to my mouth, then dived farther south and captured one of my nipples between his lips, letting me feel a scrape of teeth. I arched, moaning. That was a new one—his gesture, and my sensitivity to it. Nothing in this scenario was as I’d imagined it. No candlelight, no long slow build-up: just the two of us grappling fiercely, the brilliance of sunshine bouncing off snow making our every touch, every shared look impossibly intimate and real. His chilly shins scraped mine. I spread my legs for him, clasped his hips between my thighs and grabbed his backside.

  I tried to hold on for him, to give our reunion at least a semblance of control, but he moved across, sucked my other nipple hard into his mouth and I was done for. I jerked my head back and hauled him against me, guiding his short powerful strokes. “Come,” I managed through gritted teeth. “For God’s sake come.” Climax broadsided me, a bone-deep jolt. I grunted in relief as he let go too, jetting hotly over my belly. Quickly I offered him my mouth. He loved to kiss as he went over. His tongue thrust shyly, hungrily deep. I bucked up against him. Our timing had never been good enough for me to know the sweetness of a shared kiss at that moment, but God it was fine—my orgasm ran hard and long, tremors racking me.

  It struck me, lying panting afterwards, that I should have been wrung out—or at least a bit depressurised—from the night before. This had seemed to burn up from a different place in me, though; the deep, gritty, real place Piers and I had carved out together, however inexpertly, over our shared years. It struck me harder that I should have mentioned my adventures to Piers before we hit the sack. That they might have changed his perspective… “Piers, love…”

  He moaned softly, rubbing his face against my neck. All his lovely long weight was on me, and I didn’t want to say or do anything that would make him move. “What is it? You okay?”

  “Mmm. Never better.” It was true. I was nothing but boneless aftermath jelly, Christmas sparkles dancing in my marrow. I ran my hands down the satiny skin of his back. I loved how his vertebra lay in their long hollow, how I could feel the potent attachment of muscle to his ribs. He was too thin. Neither of us ate very well. I had a flashing vision of learning to cook and feeding him until he filled out to match the length of his bones; a vision of the man he would be at thirty, forty, fifty… “Got to talk to you.”

  He pushed up a little and rolled onto his side. And that was no good. I couldn’t let him go, and I followed him over onto his back, losing my confessional intentions in his embrace. He made himself comfortable for me. No matter where we’d shagged and dropped, if I needed sleep afterwards he would always stretch out, offer me his shoulder, his warmth. My brow found the hollow of his collarbone, the place where we fitted together. “Yeah?” he whispered. “You were saying?”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Try me. I feel different this morning too, like…” He shifted. “Hang on. I don’t know what I’m lying on here, but…”

  Oh God. I’d forgotten the presents I’d bought him. Paper rustled and I tried to grab his hand, but he was reaching under himself. There were two things. The smaller one, in the circumstances, was either tragic or pitiful, depending on your point of view, and the larger—the one he now withdrew, smiling at me, raising an eyebrow—that was way worse. What the bloody hell had I been thinking? “Please don’t open that.”

  “Well, I won’t if it’s going to upset you, but…” He wrapped his arms around me again, only lovingly, I thought, until I realised he’d gently immobilised me in the process. “But it just feels so intriguing. And it is Christmas morning.”

  “Piers…”

  I wouldn’t stand a chance against him physically. Force had never been his thing, but if he chose to exert himself—as he was subtly doing now, those lean muscles tightening—my scrappy street-fighting skills would be of little avail. This new thought sent a dark thrill through me, diverting me briefly from mortification. My half-hearted struggle had only made him hold me more firmly. “It can’t be that bad,” he said, peeling sellotape and the bright red tissue the sex shop had provided, thank God not marked with its logo. “Oh. What are you making such a fuss about? These are beautiful.”

  They were, too. I might buy him something wildly inappropriate, but it would never be c
rap. A dozen polished quartz beads tightly strung together, building in size from a pea to a golf ball. They caught the light, glittering. “Put them away,” I croaked.

  “Are they still in some sort of wrapping, this clear plastic? Do I take it off?”

  “No. No, you don’t take that off, it’s there to keep them… Oh God, put them away. Please.”

  “Once I’ve figured out what they are.” He turned them curiously between his fingers. “Okay. I’m guessing I don’t hang them from the rearview mirror for good luck.”

  “No,” I confessed miserably. It might as well come out now, though I could have shot myself for bringing the damn things into his innocent presence. “They’re called love beads. They go inside you during sex. And when you come, you pull them out, and it makes it better.” I closed my eyes and turned to hide my burning face on his shoulder. “So I’m told.”

  A silence fell in the room. I waited, my heart contracting with dread. Would he walk out on me? I couldn’t bear that—I’d just got him back.

  But once more I’d underestimated my man. After more than half a minute, he released his breath in a long, low whistle, and broke into laughter. “Oh, my God, Gavin. You bought me a sex toy?”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Well, clearly you had big plans. You do realise we’ve never had that kind of sex in the…” He coughed, laughter catching in his throat. “In the conventional way?”

  “I know. Don’t take it personally. I’d never had it that way with anyone else, not until—”

  Not until. I shut up, horrified. Shame had thrust me right to the brink of a confession that might finish everything. I had to make it sometime, I knew, but on top of the love beads it seemed impossible. I was still casting round for a way of finishing the sentence when Piers let go of me, far enough at least that I subsided onto the pillows. He pushed onto one elbow and looked down at me. The beads, far from being cast aside like the abomination they were, still gleamed around his fingers. He was toying with them idly. Still smiling… “Until last night,” he said, not as a question. “With your rescue man.”

  I nodded. I didn’t know what had burned up inside me but I knew I would never be able to lie to or hide from him again. With immediate effect: my fatal tongue obliged me to add, very faintly, “Men. How do you know?”

  “You smell different. You feel different—softer, like you’ve had your, er…horizons expanded.”

  Laughter stirred in me too. I didn’t dare let it surface. It just wasn’t possible that this storm would pass without damage. I was almost relieved when Piers’ gaze clouded. “You know,” he said, “when we first met, you seemed so worldly. I felt so inept and naïve. I thought you must have had dozens of lovers.”

  “No. You were the first.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? We were all elbows and knees and premature ejaculation, and I thought it was my fault, like you…like you were struggling to work with terrible material.”

  “I was too proud. I was stupid. I should have said.”

  “And if we did get something right, I’d pull the rug out from under it with guilt. If it was nice, it had to be wrong. I’m astonished we managed anything at all.”

  I stared up at him. In many ways it had been a pretty terrible three years. And yet I’d never so much as glanced at anyone else. Never once considered giving it up. I remembered those guilty nights—my poor lad, white-faced in the kitchen, spooning instant coffee into a mug to wake himself up enough to go home. He couldn’t stay, not after we’d had a good one, if he’d got into it and really let go. It had made me so angry. “Why wasn’t I patient with you? Why didn’t I just let you talk?”

  “Don’t think I could have talked, not then. The patience would be good, though.”

  It sounded almost as if I might still get the chance to offer some. Maybe he hadn’t heard me properly a moment ago, although if he hadn’t been fazed by the idea of one lover… That hope died as he trailed the beads over my chest—they were warm from his touch—and said, wonderingly, “By the way—men, Gavin?”

  I couldn’t let him think there’d been a whole team. “Two. I don’t even know how it happened.”

  “Don’t look so stricken. Even if I felt like throwing a jealous fit—and I do, a bit—I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. I’d cut you loose, hadn’t I?”

  I winced at the memory of that severance. Tears blurred my vision. “Even so…”

  “Well, I’m impressed you got into a threeway on the first night you found yourself single, but—”

  “Piers.”

  “What?”

  I couldn’t laugh, not now. None of this was in any way funny. “I can’t believe you said threeway.”

  “Isn’t that what it’s called?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “When I was a kid, when I realised this whole thing about fancying other boys wasn’t going to go away, I tried to—well, research it, I suppose, see if there was any way I could fit it into some kind of intellectual framework.” He paused, shaking his head at the memory. And I could see him in my mind’s eye too, tackling the problem as an academic, brow furrowed over medical textbooks. “I didn’t find much in the library, so I turned to the internet. Had no idea what I was looking for, of course, so I stumbled straight into a mass of porn.”

  “Oh, love. That’s… Look, I don’t know much about anything, but that’s not how it is.”

  “No, I know. You showed me that.” I swallowed. I couldn’t believe I’d shown him anything good, but the kiss he pressed to my mouth had nothing but truth in it. “I picked up a term or two in the course of my studies.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not love beads, though.” He lowered the smallest of them into the hollow at the base of my throat. He seldom blushed but he was rosy now, his eyes very bright. “Nothing that romantic. What did they do to you, Gav—your rescue men? Would you tell me?”

  I couldn’t believe he wanted to know. In the warm, wet press of our bodies, though, I could feel his erection rising again. “They fed me. They were incredibly kind.” That part of the story was easy enough. Then, once I’d got started, I found that I wanted to tell him—a confession, yes, but a sharing too. “They put me to bed. When I woke up they were both in the room with me. In the bed.”

  “You’re kidding me. Then what?”

  “Arthur—he was the one who rescued me from the cave—said the best way to learn was by having it done to me.” I couldn’t elaborate on it, but Piers’ deepening colour told me he knew what I meant. “He was right, too. I mean, he was gentle, he used loads of lubricant, but it was still devastating. His lover—Lance—sucked me off to get me through the beginning of it.”

  Piers shivered. His hard-on was definite now, and my flesh, always hypersensitive to signals from his, was rising in response. He was warming up in my arms. “Gav,” he whispered. “This is turning me on.”

  “It’s okay.” I stroked his back. “I’m never gonna try and force my ideas of what’s right on you again. But if it feels good…”

  “How can anything with you be wrong?”

  That was rhetorical. I closed my mouth on my habitual smart-arse answer. He hadn’t had some kind of overnight revelation. He was still struggling. But he had been right, out on the freezing hill—it was his fight, not mine. “I don’t know,” he murmured. “I’m beginning to feel like there’s something massive—about God, sex, life—that I’ve missed, that I haven’t understood. Will you tell me the rest?”

  “They fucked me and sucked me till I came. I nearly bloody died of it. I was thinking about you all the way through, talking about you, and Art said I should pay attention, take notes, because I’d clearly been a lousy rotten lover to you, and…”

  “I’m sure he said no such thing.”

  “He said some of it. He did say I should learn, just in case you and I weren’t over. In case you were mad enough to give me a second chance.”

  A silence fell in the sun-filled room. Through
its many layers and veils, I heard a buzzard mewing somewhere off over the hills. The rattle of the chambermaid’s trolley in the corridor. Piers lifted his head. “I’m not sure I’m mad enough for the love beads,” he said. He got out of bed, unhooked the Do Not Disturb sign from the inside door handle, then cracked the door open wide enough to hang the sign outside. I stared at the wondrous sight of him, naked and unashamed in daylight, his cock jutting stiffly from its thatch of black hair. Then I lifted the duvet and intercepted his scramble back into my arms. “Not yet, anyway. But if you’ve got any other bright ideas, I think I might be open to them.”

  Chapter Nine

  It took us a long time to melt his ice. I was so ashamed for not having tried before, because that was all it was going to take—time, the slow heated passage of an hour. We stayed on the safe side, in the known world of kisses and thrusting, until the urge to finish mounted high in both of us. I dived down the bed, took him in my mouth and sucked him to the edge of climax, and while he was still protesting my sudden halt—writhing, moaning, his thigh muscles jumping under my hands—I told him to turn over. It was a command, but a very soft one, a world away from the brusque orders I’d issued while trying to force his satisfaction on him out of speed and lust. I guided his hips with my hands. Then, not giving either of us too long to think about it, I spread his buttocks and dipped my tongue down into his crease.

  “Gav, no!”

  I stopped at once, listening intently. I’d pushed him to the edge of all kinds of denials, but this sounded different. He was propped on his elbows, head down, breathing hard. “It feels so good. How can it be wrong?”

  I rested my brow on the beautiful curve of his arse. For the first time I answered him out of my heart, not my snarling, razor-edged brain. “I don’t think it is. Oh, love. I don’t know about God, but your immortal soul’s as dear to me as my own. Dearer.”

  “You told me there was no human soul. You said we were nothing but brain chemistry.”