It was Ben’s turn to frown uncertainly. “So, not such a great Christmas present then?”
“I can’t buy it for you, because you own it already, apparently. You inherited it from your real father, John Redvers, when he died.”
“Huh? Wh—? Huh?”
“Coherent to the last.” He propped himself up on one elbow, and Ben did the same, so they were facing each other, cocooned in the warm bed. “I’ve had Kate working on two things for me for some time; trying to discover your mother’s life before she arrived with you in the north of England, and discovering the provenance of the old house so we could enquire, as I promised we would, if it was for sale. She told me tonight these two strands of inquiry had merged.” He gazed at Ben. “Your mother was Elizabeth Redvers, John Redvers’s wife. When they were married, she was only seventeen and possibly pregnant with you already. He was fifty-eight. She left him four years later and took you, their only child, with her. You remember nothing of this?”
Ben shook his head. “I remembered the house—the sound of the rooks. The smell. I thought it was—”
“Your annoying and totally ridiculous belief in fate?”
Ben gave him a curious look. “And that from the man who sees and talks to ghosts.”
“Don’t change the subject, child. So, John Redvers died early this year. He spent the last three years of his life in a nursing home near Exeter. He was eighty-eight when he died. He lived at the house until he could cope no longer. He was very clear and specific in his will. He left the house and all his property to his son, Benjamin Redvers, Benjamin Rider. There’s no doubt it’s you, and I’m willing to have a DNA test done on his exhumed remains if anyone questions your rights.” Seeing Ben was not listening to him anymore he added, “I could provide your sample myself, perhaps. I often contain a great deal of your DNA these days…”
“Redvers. Rider. That’s so weird.”
“Perhaps the similarity of the names was one inducement for her to stay with your adopted father—and the proximity of the moors, which reminded her of home? At four, you’d be less likely to find the change so hard to grasp?”
“I don’t remember.”
Nikolas watched Ben carefully as he absorbed this news. He’d been in two minds on the drive back to the cabin whether to tell Ben all he’d discovered from Kate. He’d not yet told him John’s relatives were disputing the will, and this process might drag on for some time. But in the end, he’d decided it could only help Ben’s recovery to at least be given the basic information. What had happened in the bathroom two nights previous should not be forgotten by either of them, but they could move on from it—recover. Even in Nikolas’s more prosaic mind, the weeks they’d spent camped out in the old manor house on the edge of the moors now seemed like an idyll of warmth and bright colour. He could picture Ben stripped to the waist, building a dam in the stream, vital and strong; Ben running to the top of the tor every morning; Ben pressing his heavy, strong body into—
“What’s wrong?”
Nikolas swallowed. “Nothing. I was just thinking.” It had also occurred to him much of what the police had insinuated, things that’d clearly affected Ben deeply and had greatly contributed to his diminishing, would now be healed by seeing himself in this new light, the legitimate owner of an ancient name and house.
“Redvers. Ben Redvers. I can’t—”
“You’re maybe fixating on the wrong thing? The house? Your inheritance?”
Ben shook his head, wonderingly. “It took us there, Nik—the sat-thingy, when you put in a completely different address, it took us there.”
Nikolas stared at him. “You’re not going to recruit me into your twilight-world beliefs, Ben. It’s a far more rational explanation that, by mistake, I happened to put that address in because I’d maybe heard you mumble it one night.” He pursed his lips. “But even I think that sounds unlikely.”
“It was fate.”
Nikolas groaned and fell onto his back. Ben slid carefully on top of him, eyeing the bandages around his ribs. “This okay?”
Nikolas nodded. “It’d be okay even if it wasn’t.”
“My house.” Ben frowned. “It’s mine.” He swooped down and kissed Nikolas, opening Nikolas’s mouth with his tongue, tasting him, moving up to kiss his scarred nose—one of his favourite places on Nikolas’s face now after the rakish scar on his cheekbone, which was kissed next. Nikolas laughed into the feel of Ben’s soft lips and the feel of other things much harder. “You’re getting better. The restorative powers of inheriting money are impressive.”
Ben put a hand down to Nikolas’s entrance and teased him with a finger. “How well are you feeling?”
“I wasn’t injured there.”
Ben grinned and proved that, indeed, Nikolas’s injuries didn’t extend to his insides. He lifted one thigh and pushed his slick, needy cockhead against the tight entrance. They both hissed in expectation, and then Ben entered. He arched back; Nikolas let out a sigh of great pleasure. Very gently, far more gently than they usually played out their passion, Ben skilfully brought them much desired and much needed release. Nikolas let his milky fluid jet up onto his belly and felt Ben shudder above him. It was the old Ben he heard and felt. When he opened his eyes, other than the ridiculous shorn hair that would grow once more, he saw the old Ben, too, wide-set green eyes and a face almost too beautiful for a man. Ben stayed in and lay down on Nikolas’s spill. “Too heavy?”
“Never.” He put his hands up and began to stroke Ben’s soft scalp. The bandage on his wrist shone white in the gloom, and he peeled it off. He was healed enough. When he was done, he picked up Ben’s wrist and did the same, more carefully, for his cut had been far deeper. He examined it, running his thumb over the stitches he’d put in, then placed both scars carefully together as they drifted to sleep, still joined.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“When can we go to the house? Nik? Are you awake?”
“I am now.” He glanced at the clock. “Fucking hell, Ben, it’s two a.m. I’ve been asleep for approximately half an hour. Fuck off.”
“Did you just swear at me?”
“I never swear, as you know. Get off me and go to sleep.” Ben dutifully rolled off Nikolas, easing himself out as he did. He was hard again, but although Nikolas had obviously noticed this, he turned on his side away from Ben and pulled the covers over his head.
Ben lay thinking things over, his head buzzing, totally unable to sleep. After a while, he got up, but a hand snaked out from the covers and caught his wrist. “Where’re you going?”
“Just down to get some water! I’m okay, Nik. God, you’ll be following me to the bathroom…” He trailed off and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “Sorry.”
“That’s the old Benjamin. Apologising for things that are my fault. I give you my permission to get some water.”
Ben thumped him gently where he could see skin and not bruising or scarring and went downstairs. He sat with Radulf for while as he drank the water, updating him on the house situation.
When he returned to bed, Nikolas was asleep, which was a good sign. He’d not slept for the last two nights but had kept vigil beside him. He slid very carefully in alongside the silent figure.
If Ben could cut off a hand or arm or something vital to make visible and obvious amends for what he’d put Nikolas through, he would. Sometimes, in the dark of the night, he woke up with a huge weight of fear pressing down on him when he remembered if he’d succeeded in doing what he’d tried to do, if Nikolas had stayed down at the lake for half an hour, maybe fifteen minutes longer, Nik would’ve come back to the cabin and found himself alone, betrayed—deserted. After all he’d gone through. After all he’d done to survive and come back to him. Nikolas told him he wouldn’t have succeeded anyway, because he was cutting wrong or something—Nikolas had a slightly unsettling knowledge of these things—but Ben wasn’t so sure about this. He was determined when he put his mind to things. So now he had Nikolas’s return to healt
h to put his mind to. If Nikolas wanted to baby him, feed him, constantly watch him, then he, Ben, would let him. He’d grumble and complain and pretend he didn’t need Nik’s constant attention, because it wouldn’t seem normal without that. He would, however, be and do whatever Nikolas Mikkelsen wanted him to be and do, for however long Nik wanted—needed—that to be. They were joined now. He too put their wrists together at the matching scars. Who needed rings to bind you unto death when you had scars and stitches, bruises and blood?
He spooned himself against Nikolas’s warm back, moulding himself around his firm arse, pressing his swelling cock against the warm flesh where it would wait, satisfactorily hard and eager until they were ready. He slid his arm over Nik’s chest and pressed his face against his hair. When he was fully immersed in the scent and feel of real-Nikolas, he breathed deeply once and let himself think about the house, his name, and all that might come of this great revelation.
§ § §
It took them almost another week to extract themselves from Denmark and return home to London. Nikolas had builders at the summerhouse to organise; Ben had people to say good-bye to. Nikolas felt sure their involvement with Gabby Peterson was not entirely over, but he’d retained Jans LaCour’s services as well and left further liaison with the police in his capable hands. Ben, he was determined, wouldn’t be questioned by them again.
It was on a very dark, wet and cold January night, therefore, they returned to English soil and drove the final few miles through heavy rain to their house in London. It’d been totally cleansed of the events that’d driven them both from home many months ago, and Kate had been in and put the heating on and left them a refrigerator full of food. Nikolas went immediately to his office. Radulf was clearly glad to be back in familiar territory, and this, added to the high of his successful and highly illegal defeat of British customs, saw him collapse happily in his basket in the kitchen. Which only left Ben. He was feeling disassociated again. He’d lived a life of brilliant white snow and Danish for so long that to return to rain and the washed-out greys of London and the flatter, more prosaic English was unsettling. He needed to unpack but only stared at their bags without enthusiasm. He desperately needed to do laundry but, again, couldn’t summon the energy. All he wanted to do was go to his house, to feel once more the strange spirit of place that had so entranced him the first time—but now enjoy it knowing its provenance. But Nikolas had finally admitted to him his claim was being contested and had told him to be patient.
He put the kettle on which was always a good standby and eyed the bottles of wine Kate had left on the counter. Both he and Nikolas had stopped drinking after…He looked down at his wrist. He was rubbing his scar again. Nikolas badgered him about this as much as he’d once nagged Nik about smoking. He couldn’t seem to stop doing it. It was like a talisman, if he rubbed it, it reminded him. Reminded, he knew what he owed now to Nikolas. Nikolas wanted him to owe it to himself, but Ben knew better. If he was getting better, if his world was righting itself once more on its correct axis, then this was because he too wanted a long life—and he wanted it alongside Nikolas Mikkelsen.
Finally, although he hated himself for being so weak, he wandered up to the office.
Nikolas was doing something on the computer. He turned the screen slightly away from Ben and didn’t look up. “Did you get lost?”
This was something of a standing joke between them; Ben and office work didn’t do well together. Ben perched on the edge of the desk, watching him. “What’re you doing?”
“This life of idle indulgence doesn’t pay for itself. Annoyingly, I have to occasionally click some buttons to produce this vast amount of wealth we both enjoy. What do you want?”
“You?”
“I’m busy, Ben. Go play with your toys.”
Ben slid closer. “That’s exactly what I had in mind, only my toys are…here…”
§ § §
Nikolas wondered later if he’d lost a few million because he realised one hand had been on the keyboard as he’d taken Ben, very slowly, bent over the desk. Who knows?—maybe he’d made a few instead…
Afterward, in the shower, Ben seemed distant once more. Nikolas didn’t get a face full of soapsuds, he didn’t get annoyingly probed or squeezed, or any of the other things Ben usually amused himself with when he had a captive, naked Nikolas. He pursed his lips for a while, debating letting it go. He’d known Ben intimately for five years and knew very well Ben would probably tell him what was wrong sooner or later. But he didn’t want later. Later hadn’t worked so well for them recently. When they were drying off, therefore, Nikolas commented as casually as he could, “You’re very quiet.”
Ben shrugged.
“I rest my case.”
Ben sighed. “It’s you.”
“Me! Well, that’s more like the old Benjamin. What’ve I done now?”
“It’s what you’re not doing.”
“Ah.” Nikolas knew very well where this was going, and he didn’t like it. He tried to slide past Ben toward the bedroom, but Ben caught his arm.
“I’m not a fucking girl, Nik.”
Nikolas shook his hand off. “I’d have thought, given what we’ve just spent the last hour doing, it was obvious I know you aren’t a girl. And how many times do I have to tell you—don’t swear at me. ”
“I don’t know, Nikolas, how many times do I have to tell you I’m fine? I don’t need mollycoddling. I don’t need you constantly monitoring me, and most of all I don’t need you to fuck me like I’ll break in two if you so much as thrust too hard. What the fuck was that in there? Last time we did that in the office, we broke the desk if you recall!”
“I do, and it was expensive to replace.”
“Bollocks, and it wasn’t. You’re just making that up. This is about those questions the police asked you, isn’t it?”
Nikolas rounded on him. “I’d have thought it was more about the questions the police asked you, the examin—”
“It wasn’t any of that that got to me. It was the…other things they said. I didn’t—don’t—care about the bruises, you know that—or you used to.”
“Well, I cared! Fuck, Ben, I had to sit there and let those little men recite a catalogue of injuries, as if I’d done to you what that psychotic bitch did to me. Rope burns! Rape? How do you think that made me feel?”
Ben suddenly chuckled. “You didn’t let them know how you felt. That was so cool.”
Slightly mollified, Nikolas went into the bedroom. “Well, I wasn’t so cool inside, Benjamin, trust me. I’m not going to hurt you like that again.”
Ben caught him around the waist and wrestled him to the bed. They lay side by side, naked. Ben turned his head and regarded the stony profile. “You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust myself.”
“You’re demeaning me by making this decision for us both.”
“Have you been reading women’s magazines again?”
“There you go again. Making fun of it, making fun of me. You don’t take me seriously.”
“If I hadn’t spent my formative years in prison camps of only men, I might be married now with a wife who nags me. Oh, I am.”
Ben sat up. Nikolas pulled him back down. He turned his head to meet Ben’s gaze. “Shall I tell you a secret?”
Ben’s eyes went wide. “I thought you instantly combusted if you even so much as implied those words.”
“I might. When that cun—” He shuddered. “When Ann―Gabby—had me in the shed, she said she loved you. I kept my cool, of course, just as I did with the policemen, but I do remember telling her something along the lines of she couldn’t have my fucking boyfriend.”
“You?” Ben looked at him slightly askance. “You actually used the B-word?”
“Uh-huh. Me. So, there you are. I said it first. So, who isn’t taking whom seriously?”
“But you didn’t actually say it to me.”
“Well, I’m not that gay. So, my point being, hurting you
in any way doesn’t seem consistent with how I feel about you.”
Ben lay back, seeming to consider this for a while. Nikolas twitched the covers over them both. He hadn’t thought they were going to bed, but it seemed like a good idea now. Finally, Ben countered, “So, if I took this,” he held Nikolas’s hand and put it to his cock, which was hard and standing high, “and opened you up and rammed you with it until you hurt, you wouldn’t like that?” He made Nikolas’s hand slide up and down with his.
Nikolas swallowed hard. “Don’t be stupid, Ben. You know I would, but that’s me, this is—”
“Me. It’s me, Nik. I’m still me. That’s what I’m trying to say to you. I’m still the same bloke who followed you into the billiard room that night. Remember? We’d been drinking all night? You kept staring at me, and I thought you were trying to decide whether to offer me the job or not. You asked if I played billiards, and I said no, so you offered to teach me? Fuck, I still can’t work out how we went from me copying you with that damn little chalk thing, screwing our cues around, to—”
Conscious Decisions of the Heart Page 19