by J. M. Snyder
“But you doubt it.” Harry looked into the fire, at scampering flames. “You don’t think much of my family, do you? My father. Me. If you approve of any of us it’s probably Ned. Which is only fair. He’s the responsible one.”
“No,” Kit said. “You’re wrong. Well, not about your father. I would happily throw him into one of the Bow Street cells for a year or ten. But…I think quite a lot of you, Harry.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Harry said. “And you’ve even used my name. I might even believe you.”
“I haven’t said anything to you that isn’t true,” Kit said. He meant it; he’d said I don’t like you, which was true, because like was not any of the words that came to mind. He thought that Harry knew that; Harry had known at the time. “So believe it.”
“I don’t know,” Harry said. “You did accuse me of sneaking into my brother’s rooms for nefarious purposes.” But one corner of that expressive mouth had tipped up.
“I apologize,” Kit said, with dignity, “for suggesting you might be a murderer.”
“Oh, well.” Harry’s grin came back more fully. “I was a bit distressed that you—that someone could think that about me. But it’s not entirely unreasonable, given the circumstances. With Ned planning to get married and likely produce an heir to the title. I understand.”
“You do that,” Kit said. “You understand. Your brother. Your tenant farmers. Me. No, eat more, I don’t need it. I could go confiscate any willow bark or feverfew you’ve got in that pantry and bring it out here, if it’ll help.”
“First you compliment me, and then you try to cure my headache with local herbs.” Harry set down his tea. Stretched a hand out to the fire, then tucked it back under blanket-hills. His skin was still pale, freckles standing out like scars over wounded parchment, but he looked more alert, and had continued smiling. “You’re nicer than you pretend to be, Constable.”
“I’m not,” Kit said. “I’m a cynical bastard, and I mean that in the literal sense; if you know my reputation you know about my mother and the stories. And it’s Christopher. Kit. If we’re snowed in together and I’m calling you Harry.” He could hazard a guess regarding Harry’s dislike for the inherited familial title. He wanted, foolishly and urgently, to hear Harry say his name, not his job title or profession, just once, just tonight.
“Kit,” Harry said, and the fire purred and sang, while snow arched upwards into shield-walls of white beyond windowpanes and heavy brocade draperies. Harry’s smile could have illuminated a universe of lonely rooms, lightless corners, empty hearts.
“Yes,” Kit said, nonsensically.
“I’m warm enough,” Harry said. “Just so you know.”
“That’s…good. That’s good to know.”
“Ned fusses over me, too,” Harry said. “It’s sometimes entirely irritating. It’s less irritating when you do it.”
“Is it,” Kit said. He was sitting very, very close to Harry on the sofa; Harry’s shirt had slid more open, and Harry’s eyes were awake and bright. Kit could have kissed him, then; could have eased him down into blankets on the sofa and tenderly undressed him, kept him close, cherished each constellation of freckles, tried to soothe the headache and the self-sacrifice with body and lips and hands.
“Yes,” Harry said. “It’s almost a—a relief. I wonder why?”
“Because you care for everyone,” Kit said, and put a hand on Harry’s knee, because, right then, he had to. He could never have not done it. Not even if he’d stopped to think. “Your brother, your people, your land. You give and you give and you hurt yourself for them, and no one thinks twice about it because you’re too damned nice, and someone needs to care for you.”
Harry looked at him. Firelight streaked ruby and gilt across that aristocratic cheekbone, that stubborn jawline. That leg shifted, under Kit’s hand: turning closer. “Someone.”
“Everything I’ve said to you has been true,” Kit said again. “I didn’t say I didn’t want you.”
Harry opened that mouth, closed it again, laughed: brilliant and amazed. “You didn’t.”
“Would you,” Kit said, “today, tonight, right now—for now, here, you and me—would you let me—”
“Yes,” Harry said. “Yes. Constable. Kit. Please.”
“No titles,” Kit said, shaking his head, laughing, because Harry was laughing as well, alive and radiant under his touch. “Not for me, not for you. Harry.”
The sparkle in those blue eyes outshone the fire. “Kit.”
“Yes,” Kit said, and leaned in, and cupped Harry’s face in a hand, and kissed him.
Chapter 8
Harry Arden kissed like holidays. Like a Midwinter morning, anticipation delicious as spruce and fir and mysterious wrapped gifts; like the crisp sweet brightness of apples ready for harvest; like the pale green scent of new leaves and white flowers in spring; and above all like the exuberant vivid heat of a Midsummer afternoon, gold-dusted as bees and sunshine on water and a plunge into a lake.
A lake. A pond. An ocean.
Harry kissed like someone who had done a certain amount of kissing but who nevertheless threw his whole heart into each time: lips parting readily, tongue teasing Kit’s mouth, head tipping naturally and easily to let Kit’s lips explore.
The fire cavorted in showers of sparks. The topmost blanket brushed woolen scratchiness along Kit’s arm.
Kit looped fingers into Harry’s sunbeam hair. Tugged. Got a breathless gasp, a moan that held the yes. In response he trailed kisses lower, rougher, more urgent: teeth, tasting, a scrape and a murmur of heat. A mark over the column of that throat. Over fair skin and flecks of nutmeg.
Harry sighed and shivered and yielded for the roughness: big and pliant and eager, liquid as honey. Kit whispered, “Tell me if you want to stop, if your head hurts, if anything hurts,” and guided him down onto the sofa: spread out and revealed, shirt open, legs spread. His body was hot and eager too, muscles and quivering breaths and the hard excited jut of arousal matching Kit’s own.
Harry whispered back, eyes solemn and happy, “Nothing hurts, Kit, I’m fine, I want this, I want you,” and so Kit had to kiss him. Harry laughed, the kind of laugh not born from amusement but from unrestrained delight, and kissed back with abandon.
The world—snow, firelight, scratchy blankets, a lurking elemental—tumbled away. Not unimportant, not completely dismissed, but set to one side. No demands. No cases to solve, no value built on fleeting celebrity. No memories of cruel fathers and restrictions and a childhood sacrificed to mend a brother’s health.
They could do nothing about the blizzard or the estate at the moment. Kit could, however, apply every last bit of skill and practice and talent to ensuring that Harry thought of nothing else, only warmth and safety and the knowledge of being cared for and wanted.
Harry made very satisfactory happy noises and squirmed around under him and got a hand up under Kit’s shirt, caresses that left tingling sunbursts in their wake, bits of fire come along to wake up every frozen heartbeat.
Harry’s hands got more mischievous. Found Kit’s waist, the fastenings of clothing. Did not quite slip inside, but waited, rubbing at Kit’s shaft through fabric, provoking, enticing. Those eyes were an invitation.
“Oh,” Kit said, “so you meant it about not being innocent, didn’t you, you’re a fucking cock-tease, aren’t you, Harry?” He used that name deliberately; he felt it on his lips, in his mouth.
Harry, despite lying down, managed an insouciant head-tilt, a wriggle, a grin. “Yes, Kit. Do you want to fuck me?”
Kit needed a moment to process this. “You’re offering?” Not all men would, not that that mattered for mutual satisfaction. However, in his experience, the larger more muscular enthusiastic gentlemen generally did not, with one or two exceptions he’d met at certain clubs. He had not expected the question; he would have given Harry pleasure with hands, mouth, every drop of skill.
“I like it.” Harry blushed a bit—endearingly so, and since w
hen had Kit’s heart thought that?—and did not glance away, unembarrassed. “I like the way that feels. Being so full, being taken by someone, being claimed…”
“Being theirs,” Kit said, softly; and kissed him again, bent down over him, weight slighter than Harry’s but incontrovertibly on top. “Being wanted. I do want you. But we’d need something…oil, or—”
“In here?” Harry waved a hand from his prone position. “We can probably find ten different types. Would you like me to go and look?”
Somehow this landed as hilarious: the two of them, the oil, the snowfall, this dreadful hunting lodge, the whole strange and improbable situation. Kit choked on a laugh, distracted them both with fingertips finding Harry’s nipple and pinching—Harry yelped—and then traced fingers over Harry’s collarbone, chasing freckles: not an apology for roughness but a kiss of sweetness after. “No. I don’t want you to get up. Yes, even if there’s a proper bedroom somewhere in your family’s ancestral sex retreat. The fire’s here.”
“Dilemmas,” Harry said, grinning. His trousers were unfastened; his shirt had gotten pulled up as well, revealing glorious tantalizing skin, a sky-map of cinnamon and sugar galaxies over toned muscle. “What would you like me to do, then?”
“Right now,” Kit said, “I want you to stay put. Exactly right there. Don’t move until I tell you you can.” He ended up surprised by the sound of his own voice. Commands, yes, but strangely lighthearted ones.
As if this could be both weightless and weighty at once. A paradox of freedom and importance. Of Harry’s teasing eyes and Kit’s newfound certainty: Harry needed to belong to someone, to be theirs, and Kit needed Harry.
He watched Harry obligingly stretch both arms over that head, and then proceed to grip one wrist with one large hand: visible obedience. With a cheeky smile.
He said, “I didn’t tell you you could move those.” Harry blinked at him, got briefly dismayed, read Kit’s tone and consequently found an answering smile, and said, “Is that what we’re doing? I’m in favor of that.”
“Of course you are. No, leave your hands there. I’ll deal with you in a second.” He went, on the wings of that smile, to explore the other doors and possible hiding-places for oil. He came back promptly. “That first room has an enormous mirror next to the bed. And also this.”
Harry, without moving, considered Kit and the small vial of oil and the mirror. “I’m not surprised. Liking the visual, liking to watch. Appealing to vanity. Do you like to watch?”
“Maybe,” Kit said. “Sometimes. When the other person involved has freckles and wants me to. Take off your clothes, if you can manage that without getting up.”
Harry thought about this for a second, then embarked on a sinuous wiggle and flurry of disrobing. Kit stood over him, gazing down. Acres of sunkissed skin, of willingness, of hopefulness. That luscious thick cock, large as Harry was everywhere, standing upright and visibly wet-tipped. The power in those shoulders, and the way Harry went still again after obeying orders: beautifully compliant.
Kit’s heart did something unusual. A flip, a turn, a twist. He did not entirely know what the emotion was; it felt raw and bright and different. Made over into something new.
He removed his own clothing, unhurried, embracing the dream of the day, the afternoon, the interlude. The world cradled them in white; the firelight licked his hip, his spine.
He moved back to Harry, on the sofa. He ran a hand over Harry: chest, stomach, one leg, that muscular thigh.
He let sensations open up and pour in. Empathy, emotions, perception.
Harry, as ever, tasted like blue and gold and good spring water and raspberry bushes and deep thrumming earth and the sharp honest tang of exertion: a man who would spend a day repairing a roof, or healing a sibling, or running along a country lane. Right now Harry also felt like sugar, like liquid sapphires, like good whiskey: flowing, malleable, blissful, craving more, but in a clear and surrendered way. Whatever Kit wanted, he’d bend to; he wanted that, and they could both feel the wanting. Being good for someone, being cherished by someone, being precisely what someone told him to be, when the telling came with praise and gentle dominance and acceptance of this gift: Harry yearned for that.
Kit bent and kissed him. Harry kissed back, a little distant, dreamy.
“I want you,” Kit said. “I want all of you. I want to fuck you. I want you to lie still and let me take care of everything. Of you. Can you do that?”
He’d played with other men, with ropes and ties and riding crops. Harry’s hushed and ecstatic “Yes, Kit” nearly undid him on the spot. Kit had to press a hand too tightly against his own cock. No spending himself yet. Not so soon.
He kissed Harry’s hip, this time, over a cluster of freckles like shooting stars: spice-hued, dramatic, cometary. He touched lips to Harry’s straining cock, that hard hot length. He breathed out over it, licked the tip, tasted Harry.
Harry moaned. Those hips jerked.
“No,” Kit said, entertained, and put one hand on him: holding him down. “No exertion.” And he got to it in earnest: drawing Harry into his mouth, licking, sucking, stroking. Harry was large and it had been a while since Kit had done this—he generally liked having it done to him—but this was the other side of that coin: this was himself caring for Harry, making Harry feel and cry out and writhe in desperate decadent sensation.
He slipped a hand between Harry’s spread thighs. He let it wander. He found that delicate place, that opening, the furl that beckoned fingers. Harry moaned again, sounding utterly wrecked and wanton; and tried to press himself against Kit’s hand.
“Shh,” Kit said gently, “I’m taking care of you, Harry, still taking care of you,” and collected the oil and let it spill over his hand, over Harry’s body. The scent filled the room: light and golden-brown, amber and sandalwood and vanilla. It met and mingled with the fire gleam, with the heat of Harry’s skin, with the private world that was this hunting lodge and this retreat.
He worked Harry open with fingers first, and did it until those blue eyes were clouded with bliss, wide and hazy. Harry’s cock was even stiffer, dripping copiously, smearing evidence of need across that taut stomach, leaving shimmers over waltzing freckle-pairs. Kit crooked fingers, repositioned them, made Harry gasp, arching into the touch.
Kit’s own cock ached. Denied attention, given the sight of Harry Arden coming apart—Kit’s fingers buried in him, Kit’s kisses pink on that skin—his body demanded more.
He knelt over Harry. He reached up, caught one large hand, dragged it to his cock. “Touch me.”
Harry whispered, “Yes, please,” and began, fumblingly, to stroke him: clumsy with euphoria, uncoordinated, but that was all right. That was exactly right.
Kit let him stroke, let him touch, let him play; told him, “Good, so good, Harry, so sweet, so good for me,” and felt the tremors of happiness inside and out: the clench of Harry’s body, the blossoming rose-pink shy emotion that washed over empath’s senses like a kiss. “My Harry.”
“Please,” Harry pleaded, “yours,” gazing at him, completely yielded, no defenses up; Harry Arden was wholly himself in this as he was in everything, Kit saw. The person who would jump over a gate and run through snow to greet a guest. The person who would pour himself out past the point of pain, to save another human being. The person who had said to Kit, I think you’re beautiful and I know you’ll say no, why would you want me, you could have anyone, but I don’t want to never have even asked, if it’s something I want, and I do.
He wanted to cry, or to laugh, because this was real; he kissed Harry instead, heart in the touch of his lips.
When he moved, when he fit himself between Harry’s long legs—they parted easily, readily, and Harry’s body opened for him too, loose with oil and with the play of fingers—and pressed forward and in, they both caught breath, astonished.
Harry murmured his name. Kit pushed in further, one full glide, making that space take him to the hilt; he grabbed Harry’s hands, p
inned them to the sofa, breathed, “Mine.”
“Yes,” Harry moaned. “Yes.”
“I’m still taking care of you.” He rocked hips: in and out, drinking in the grip and glide of Harry’s body, the incredible tightness and heat along his shaft. “Making you feel good…making you feel everything good, Harry, everything you deserve…do you like this? Me on top of you, inside you?”
“Yes…” Harry was quivering, clenching around him, cock like iron between their bodies and leaking everyplace, exuberant and messy. “Yes, Kit, please, please take care of me, please help me, I need…I need more, I need to…”
“You need more?” Harder, faster: pounding into Harry’s oil-slick hole, as the scents of amber and vanilla rose. “You need to spend yourself for me? You need to spend yourself like this, me fucking you, not even a hand on your pretty cock, just coming apart from my cock inside you, my hands holding you down, here on a sofa? You need that?”
Harry gasped, tensed, shuddered in place: eyes closing, head thrown back. He trembled head to toe, but did not quite reach release; his eyes opened slowly, serene as far-off horizons, and his body seemed to calm and go lax under Kit’s, almost drowsy except for the rigid heat of his cock, the clutch of his hole. Kit had seen that before, on occasion: that kind of floating submissive languor. But this felt new. This felt—
Like nothing he’d felt before. Like Harry had no secrets, nothing to hide, nothing furtive or shadowed. Only joy, welcomed and unashamed. And the joy reached out and gathered Kit up and tumbled him into wild breathless clamoring need: yes, this, now.
Hand wrapped around Harry’s wrists, he thrust hard, plunging into Harry’s body; he gasped, “I want to see you—now—” and squeezed those wrists and sank home, aiming for that one explosive spot. And Harry cried out and began to spill himself, a shuddering rush of wet heat that poured out across his stomach and the freckles and Kit’s body where they were pressed together.
Kit groaned, managed Harry’s name, and felt the tipping-point as it swept him up: he became lost and found in release, spending himself deep inside Harry’s slick tight body, feeling the peaks echo on and on like the billows of a rapturous storm.