‘It’s even got a VAR form on it. And an actual volcanic eruption to fly over—in Ecuador. I checked.’
‘I…’
‘I thought it might make your homework more fun. Happy birthday.’
‘I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you.’
This was a highly agreeable response. He wrapped his arms around Ben’s waist, propping his chin on his shoulder. ‘Come back to bed and I’ll show you many ways you can earn my generosity…’ He bit lightly into the back of Ben’s neck, relishing the feel of the warm, strong back against his bare chest.
Ben slipped out of his hold and hopped over the frame as gracefully as he slid into his Maserati, murmuring, ‘Okay…’
* * *
It was oddly restful having the bed to himself. He spread out, starfished, right in the middle, and smoked very happily, picturing Ben flying somewhere exotic. Every single airstrip in the world was on the system down to the tiniest detail. Knowing Ben, which he did, some poor country’s innocent inhabitants were currently being bombed to extinction.
If Aleksey were being entirely honest with himself, his best trait really, he’d rather Ben stuck with the simulated version of his new hobby and not actually put it into practice. One day, he supposed, he might be glad Ben could fly them somewhere. But standing with the moron by the site for the new guardhouse, he could not shake the thought of the four horses. Wulf Schultz had said—I assume you know what the forth horse portends? Well, he did. And it did not seem to him a particularly wise thing now to invite that final steed into your life in any shape or form.
There were compensations to falling asleep alone, Aleksey discovered. He got woken up in the early hours of the morning to be properly thanked for his present. He got to see in the dawn deep in Ben’s willing body, to watch the swelling soft light slowly reveal smooth, amber skin, to hear the dawn chorus mixing and mingling with Ben’s low moans of pleasure. And when he was done, he got to be used like a cockpit, to be manoeuvred and swung and handled and driven, taken off and landed, so that when it was full light he could not have moved a muscle or done other than he did. He wrapped himself tightly around Ben’s sweaty, hot body and let the entire morning go.
* * *
Chapter Eight
They awoke sticky and a little ashamed of themselves in the middle of the afternoon, which only provoked some wry smiles from Ben in the shower as they washed off the evidence of their debauchery. They had a birthday picnic tea to attend, and how they had woken would not do. Once they were dressed, they headed to the clearing in the woods where the little chapel stood. Everyone was there already, rugs had been laid on the yellowing grass, and there were heaped bowls of strawberries and cream, a cake, plates of sandwiches, and some cocktail sausages for Radulf and PB. There were lots of presents. Ben and Squeezy played cricket with Emilia out on the moorland slope just beyond the drystone wall. Aleksey lay on his side, watching them with his head propped on his hand unable still to shake the impression of the night. They’d been wild in a way they’d not been since returning from the island. There, for one night, under a liquid river of stars beside the glowing bioluminescence of the ocean, they’d attacked each other’s bodies like a challenge, as if they were obstacles to subdue by force. So often lately love making had been something of slow sensuality, brought on mainly by his long recovery, so that this return to past excesses was almost disturbing. He literally could not have sat up if he’d wanted to. He wondered how Ben had the wherewithal to leap and dive and roll as he currently was, and concluded Ben was indestructible—he’d certainly withstood what he’d been put through the previous night.
The game swapped positions and Ben got to bowl for the first time. He was a natural at that too—he smashed the stumps. Aleksey chuckled at the consequent furious attack from the other two.
He felt himself drifting off, his eyes closing. ‘Did you know that the red squirrels on our island probably swam there from Tresco? That’s awfully impressive: miles and miles.’
He smiled inwardly. ‘How do you know they didn’t make a raft?’
He couldn’t see the boy, but he was fairly sure Miles was frowning. ‘They can’t do things like that.’
‘They can build nests…’
‘Dreys. They’re called dreys. Everybody knows that.’
‘Well, there you go. They’re good builders.’ He actually quite liked the idea. Could picture them up on their little hind legs, paddling bravely.
‘Well, what I was thinking was I could bring two home and we could have red squirrels here. Introduce them. Granny says she’s never seen them.’
‘Would you need to introduce them if they’d already travelled together?’
‘Oh, that’s the scientific term for putting a new species into an area. Youintroduceit.’
‘Ah, I didn’t know that. How would you persuade them to come here?’
‘Oh, yes, that’s a bit of a worry. Uncle Tim insisted it wouldn’t be ethical to take them if they didn’t want to leave. It would be horrible if they were homesick.’
Aleksey snorted, but only quietly. ‘Well, if they didn’t like it, you could take them home again.’ He glanced over at the boy who was watching the cricket game a little wistfully. Enid had been carried out to a chair where, bundled in rugs, she could umpire, which as she had only ever watched normal cricket, and not the Ben-Squeezy-Emilia version of this game, she was obviously finding a little challenging.
‘Will you think about something for me?’
Miles’s eyebrows rose. ‘Yes, please. Is it designing mines for the coastline? I’ve got some pretty good ideas for those already. Oh, and I was thinking about a wind turbine if we can’t find the generator. But that’s awfully bad for the migrating birds. And Ididsee a vulture, by the way. It was an orange-faced Egyptian vulture. Imagine if he flew into my turbine.’
‘Messy, yes. No, I want you to think about school. Now Emilia isn’t going to be there, and your grandmother lives here… I don’t think she’ll ever go back to her bungalow now, do you?’
Miles became extremely interested in some lichen which was growing on one of the ancient stones. This was a subject he stoutly refused to discuss.
