“Wow.” He shook his head. “We are so gay.”
Nikolas lay back, laughing. “Tomorrow you take the stitches out then we play gay for real.”
“It’s too early. Few more days.”
Nikolas’s hand came to his thigh. “The real world is still out there, Ben. Gregory hasn’t gone away. We have to face it sometime.”
“You’re not strong enough yet.” He played his trump card. “You’d be a liability, hold me back.”
Nikolas relented reluctantly. “I need some exercise though. We could climb the hill.”
“No, it’ll pull your stitches. Let’s explore the grounds. Come on, Gaylord…” He heaved Nik up.
They began to follow the stream away from the bridge. It ran through a dark tangle of rhododendron for half a mile or so and then emerged onto open moorland. At that point, they found the remains of an old dry stonewall that appeared to run around the grounds, dividing them from the open moor. They crossed it and walked on the open moorland down the western edge of the grounds. They seemed to run for about a mile. Nikolas was limping visibly now, although he seemed unconcerned and was chewing a stalk of grass. Ben decided to cut back through the grounds to shorten the walk for him, but it proved hard to move through the overgrown tangle.
Eventually the oaks thinned, and they came to a clearing with a stone chapel. They stood looking at it for some time, both seemingly unwilling to point out the obvious. Everything felt unreal before butthiswas positively fairytale. Nikolas was the first to move because he wanted to sit down for a while. He went around the chapel to the door, glanced at Ben, and pushed it. Of course it swung open—why would it not? After all, he was the ghost of a dead man in a make-believe place. Inside, the heat of the sun immediately vanished. The stone exuded cold chill, but there was a timeless quality to the air as if the cold kept its secrets. Nik lowered himself gratefully to a pew and lifted his leg, stretching it out. Ben went up to the altar. He realised he was walking on engraved stone and stepped back, reading. “William de Redvers, 1802-1874. God grant him peace.” He turned at a slight exclamation from Nikolas, who appeared about to say something but then made a peculiarly European gesture of dismissal with his hand and began to read some of the carved graffiti on the pew with great interest. Ben went up to the altar and stared up at the small, exquisite stained-glass window. “Why do you think this is all abandoned? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I don’t know, but maybe it is not that unusual for the very wealthy? My estates near Copenhagen and on Aeroe are empty: the villa, the farms, the summerhouse. I haven’t wanted to do anything with them. It seems too wrong to sell them, as they are family history, but I haven’t wanted that history—or that family, particularly. These things are complex.”
“I wouldn’t know. I grew up in a council house. When my dad died, if I hadn’t joined the army, I’d have been homeless.”
Nikolas was watching him with an odd expression, but he didn’t comment, only changed the subject by saying, “We should get back. I have maybe gone too far.” Ben took it very slowly on the way back, a direct route from the chapel to the house, about half a mile on an overgrown path. They emerged at the edge of what must have been a tennis court but, neglected, was now just a vague reminder of one. Ben toed the grass. “You play?”
“Of course. I told you, I had the finest education money and influence could buy. You?”
“Nope. Tennis is for posh buggers.”
Nikolas was silent for a moment. “I could teach you, if you would like? Later, of course. When I am healed and can beat you.”
Ben turned to him and suddenly grinned. “You’re fighting back at last.” Nikolas narrowed his eyes. “When you first got here, you were resigned to your fate—what you thought you deserved. You’d waited so long for your past to catch you up, and then it did…But now you want your life back. Your future.” Nikolas pursed his lips, studying Ben for a moment, and then he continued walking slowly. He held out his arm, indicating he needed Ben to lean on.
He seemed very thoughtful on the way back. Ben attributed this to the pain he must be in, but just as they reached the house, Nikolas suddenly said, “I didn’t expect to see you again. If you had lied to me as I lied to you, I would’ve wanted to kill you. But you were here. If I want a future, Ben, then it is because of you.”
Ben privately basked in the unexpected and rare praise but only commented dryly, “You only lied by omission, remember? You never told me anything anyway.”
Ben helped Nikolas upstairs to the bedroom. Just before he lowered him to his sleeping bag, Nikolas grabbed Ben’s T-shirt and pulled him in for a kiss. As it always did between them, desire sparked. Nikolas groaned and put his hand down to Ben’s jeans, feeling the growing hardness. Ben batted his hand away. “No, you need to rest. I’ll take care of it myself. I still remember how.” He eased Nikolas down to the bed, but Nikolas didn’t let go of his hand.
“Stay. Let me watch.”
Ben was outraged. “No way.”
“Ben…” He pulled him down again, but they both knew Ben only fell because he wanted to. Nikolas slowly peeled Ben’s jeans down then lay back to watch, his face partially obscured by shadows. Ben was fully illuminated in a streak of light through the mullioned windows. He took hold of his cock, and at exactly the same time, they both moaned. It was all the encouragement Ben needed to be fully aroused, despite the unfamiliar exhibitionism. He began long pulls, twisting his foreskin at the end. He held out his palm, and Nikolas spat on it, no words needed. They smiled at each other as he continued, slick now and faster. His cock was high, hard and tight. He could feel his balls, rising and ready. He leant forward and groaned, “Open your mouth.” Nikolas shook his head.
“I want to see.”
Ben groaned, out of control now. He just turned away, arched his hips forward and came, strings of milky cum shooting out and splattering to the old wooden floor. He fell forward, braced on one hand. One more tug, one more spill, and he was done. He lowered himself slowly to one side of the dampness and lay face down, his heart racing. Eventually, he flung an arm over Nikolas. By the silence, Ben guessed he was already asleep. He curled in close, breathing in Nikolas’s scent, so evocative, so…familiar, and fell asleep on the reassuring thought that the most important things in his world hadn’t changed at all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The next day, the stitches came out in a painful but satisfactory job. Ben had put stitches in more than once, often on himself, but he’d never taken them out. He didn’t want to hurt Nikolas, but couldn’t help finding it funny when the stoic Special Forces Russian fussed and whined and swore throughout the whole operation. He took it as a sign of return to health and Nikolas-ness and tuned him out.
When it was over, the patient lay back exhausted, but after half an hour, he was flexing his knee, testing the wounds, and then he was up and taking careful steps. He seemed satisfied. “Good. A few more days and then we leave.”
“Where?”
“Well, I have come up with another option, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“Uh huh.”
