Nikolas turned to him, his features indistinct now in the gathering dark. So many questions. He appeared to be considering which to answer—which he could answer, perhaps. Finally, he replied simply, “I had not fully appreciated how much the belief in your early abandonment had affected you until I saw how you have been these last few days. I have contributed to this by continuing to allow you to believe what you had been told by your father about her disappearance, and for this I apologise. I treat you like a child who has to be protected because I am afraid to lose you as I lost…But I now believe I will lose you if I do not let you grow up. Perhaps I have decided that I need—Anyway, your mother did not leave you. I believe she loved you a great deal and wanted to protect you. You have no reason to fear abandonment. So, there, I give you your freedom to use as you wish, only—” His voice broke slightly, but he forced himself to continue, “Only if youdodecide to return, you come home whole and—”
“Yours.”
Nikolas frowned and seemed unable to pick up the train of his thought.
“Nik, I don’t need tocomehome. I am home—wherever you are. And Iamyours, your possession—if that’s what you want. That won’t ever change. What will change though…” He snagged the lapel of Nikolas’s overcoat and pulled him close. “Is you will be my possession as well. I’ve let you shoulder everything alone. Christ, have I actually let you mother me?”
“That is a disturbing thought.”
“Why? Because we like to do this?” He seized Nikolas’s face and kissed him, seeking entry with his tongue. Nikolas opened his mouth and let him in, and with that acquiescence, Ben knew a shift in power had occurred between them. They eased apart, reluctant to fully separate. “Some birthday this is for you.”
“On the contrary,ifyou had asked me what I wanted,” Nikolas paused and gave Ben an amused look, “I would have repliedyou. However, I believe in making my own desires come true. You could not truly be mine until you felt safe not to be.”
Ben glanced down. “Do you believe the dead can see us or hear us?”
“No. Death is too absolute for that. But,” he tilted his head and appeared to be seeking something from the vast sky above them, “perhaps a love as strong as your mother had for you does live on somehow. I did not want to tell you this, but perhaps it is right you know, she fought, Ben. She fought to stay alive for you with everything she had. Perhaps your fighting spirit is hers, still with you.” Ben bit his lip. His face crumpled and he looked away. Nikolas sighed. “I’m sorry, I did not mean to make you cry.”
“I’mnotcrying.”
“It is your mother’s grave, Benjamin. Even you are allowed to cry here.” He walked slowly away, giving Ben the peace he needed to grieve. Hands in the pocket of his immaculate overcoat, Ben saw Nikolas waiting by the lychgate, apparently watching stars appear.
Although his vision was blurred by the strong emotions he’d been at pains to conceal from Nikolas, Ben couldn’t reconcile Nikolas’s belief in the finality of death with the expression now upon that striking face. Nikolas looked to Ben as if he was a man haunted by his own dead, a man rarely spared their endlessly terrifying presence.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nikolas drove once more, this time to a hotel he had booked on the edge of the moors. It was secluded, and theirs was not the only brand new Range Rover parked outside. When a liveried man came out to park the vehicle for them and another to take the dog to his appointed kennel for the night, Ben felt the same sense of bewilderment and dislocation he’d felt in the cemetery—discovering that everything he’d grown up believing was a lie—swell to almost unbearable proportions. Who the hell was Benjamin Rider? Nikolas hardly seemed to notice the men and took the wealth and privilege of the place in his stride—as he always did.
They didn’t make love that night, either; not through lack of desire on either side but through a shared need for some more profound connection. They just curled around each other, knee between thighs, Ben half-lying on Nikolas, head on chest, arm tight around waist, and emotionally exhausted, they fell asleep, entwined.
It was different when they woke. Ben opened his eyes with his face pressed into the rumpled, longish hair at the back of Nikolas’s head. He was achingly hard. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the familiar and deeply erotic smell of Nikolas’s shampoo, making his cock twitch and leak. He cupped one firm buttock then bit the back of Nikolas’s neck—hard. “Happy Birthday for yesterday.”
Ben then gave Nikolas the present he would have given him the day before had he not been a childish prick. He’d done this so many times before over the years of their relationship—slid into Nikolas’s body—but he’d never eased out again immediately and then used a finger to make Nikolas arch and cry out. He’d never made Nikolas writhe before. This was new. When he heard a moan that was as close to begging as Ben reckoned Nikolas would ever get, he slid back in up to the hilt, pausing to let Nikolas feel the full weight and size of his cock. Once more, he pulled out. Nikolas twisted around looking so unpolished, so lacking in his usual elegant detachment that Ben laughed, kissing him as he slid back in. He braced himself on one strong arm, held Nikolas’s head down and began to work him.
Four days without release for either of them and the sensation of being inside Nikolas’s body overwhelmed Ben. His entire body seemed to hover on the edge of an explosive orgasm. He changed the angle a little and knew the moment he’d got it just right. Nik’s shoulders lifted from the bed, his long, lean back a pale arc of need. Ben snagged his fingers into Nik’s hair and gripped him like reins and rode him hard. Sweat poured down his body making them slick. He held on, shifted position and knew Nikolas was close. Ignoring his own need to just release hard, he pulled Nikolas’s hips higher and began strokes so long and deep his balls slapped in a delightful rhythm against Nikolas’s hard flesh. Ben slid his hand around and took Nikolas’s aching need in his fist. It twitched once and then everything was spill and release and throb of pure pleasure inside and out. Ben lost track of where sensation came from. It was all bliss as they came together, one crashing orgasm fuelling the other and keeping it going until their bodies were utterly spent and drained. Ben fell on top of Nikolas with a grunt. Nikolas didn’t even manage that much small talk. He put a hand back to hold Ben in and passed back into sleep.
They dozed together in the early morning light until Ben’s rumbling stomach was actually vibrating between them. He heard a chuckle from somewhere deep in the body beneath him. “Go shower. I will order room service. Your abomination of congealed blood, I expect, is on the menu.”
Ben began to run light kisses down Nikolas’s back. “You order something as well. You’re too thin. Some European girl’s blouse breakfast.”
He could feel Nikolas’s frown of confusion, kissed him once more, then ripped their stuck skin apart and went into the bathroom for a long, blissful shower.
When he came out, Nik was sitting by the open balcony doors in a complimentary bathrobe, drinking coffee and reading the paper. Ben’s breakfast was magnificent. He realised he was almost faint with hunger so he occupied himself with refuelling. Nik was picking at a bowl of fruit. Ben huffed with derision but was too busy eating to comment more. When he was done, he leant back and regarded the man sitting opposite him. The first question seemed obvious. It was the others he wasn’t so sure about.
“How did you know all that about my mother and my dad?”
Nikolas glanced up. “I knew some of it from police reports which I saw when I wanted you for the department.”
“When you wanted meforthe department? Seriously.”
Nikolas allowed himself a small smirk. “As you wish—when I wantedyou. The rest I had Kate confirm for me over the last week. It was why I did not tell you that I had asked her to come work for us. I did not want her to tell you I was investigating this until I was sure—one way or the other.”
The second question was relatively obvious, too. “Why the hell would you want Kate to work with us? Given I almost married her once.”
Nikolas looked faintly annoyed at being questioned and pretended to be engrossed with pouring more coffee. Ben waited patiently. “Either your relationship with her was an aberration, or the aberration is us. I am not perfect, Ben; I chose to poke the sleeping tiger.”
“Poke the what with the…? I have no idea what you just said.”
Nikolas sighed. “It makes more sense in Rus— Danish. I wanted to test you. There, is that clear enough? Now stop asking me questions. I do not answer questions, as you well know.”
