Ben was frowning.“What do you mean?Gay?”
“I’m not…no, what I mean is, why do we not need what that doctor offers?Why do we…work?”
Ben lifted his head and stared at him.The pause went on for an unnatural length of time until Nikolas shifted uncomfortably.“What?”
Ben shook himself.“You?Introspection?I never thought I’d live to see the day.”
“You’re very harsh, Benjamin.I think about a lot of things very deeply as you know.”
Ben began to laugh.“Oh, yeah, you spend hours and hours thinking about me and our relationship.”
Nikolas folded his arms, his air of injured martyrdom slightly ruined by the huge erection jutting up from his lean body.Ben pushed it flat to the ridged belly and lay on top of Nikolas, propped up on his elbows, studying him.“Maybe it’s because wedon’tdo the thinking thing we work so well.”
Nikolas wasn’t particularly mollified by this suggestion.“We’re only together because we don’t think about it too much?I’m gratified and flattered by your devotion.”
Ben sighed.“When was the last time you thought about breathing?”
“What?”
“Breathing?Lungs in and out?Air?When did you last think about it?You’re like breathing.I don’t think about it, but I need it to stay alive.”A faint smile came to Nikolas’s lips.
“Then you’re like a heartbeat.I’ll miss you when you stop.”
Ben laughed then sobered slightly, trailing a finger around one of Nikolas’s nipples.“You did think I’d stopped.When I was in that coffin.Did you miss me then?You’ve never really told me.”
Nikolas raised his head a little to look at him then lowered it again, staring at the ceiling.“I haven’t told you, because I have no words for it.”He snagged his fingers into Ben’s hair and tugged him down for a kiss.Around the kissing, he murmured, “You know I’ve begun to dream, yes?That I don’t sleep well now.”
Ben nodded, clearly only intent on the taste and feel of his lips and tongue.
“Well, I dream of you every night.Over forty years of no dreams, and they turned on like a switch in my head after I watched you burn in the fire.Perhaps that says more than words.”
Ben lifted up and cupped his face.“Didn’t watchmeburn.I’m right here, Nik.”
Nikolas nodded and wrapped his arms around Ben, kissing his shoulder, pressing his face into the crook of Ben’s warm neck.He never talked about the time he thought he’d lost Ben, because this is what always happened when he tried.He swallowed and raised his eyes, biting his lip for control.
With the intuitive knowledge of him, which Ben apparently had, he didn’t try to comfort him or get him to talk more, he just slid back and took him in.Nikolas gasped.Ben sat up, dug his fingers painfully into his hard stomach and began to ride him.Nikolas arched, nightmares of losing Ben forgotten in the extreme pleasure of having him here in the bed with him.He twisted, rolled them, re-entered, lifting Ben’s thigh and gaining better access.He felt a trickle of moisture on his cheek, a residue of the grief he couldn’t articulate and pressed his face to Ben’s chest, hearing the heartbeat as he jerked, bringing his thrusts in time with that steady, strong and reassuring sound.
Ben held Nikolas’s hair, running his fingers through it, tugging it for encouragement when he needed more, and then they were coming together.Nikolas lifted up slightly off Ben’s belly, allowing Ben’s cock to jettison freely over their chests while he groaned as he unloaded deep into Ben’s body.
When he was done, he lay heavily on the soaked, hot body beneath him.Ben’s fingers still played restlessly with his hair until with another pull Ben urged, “Let’s go home tomorrow—wait there until we hear from Kate.”
Nikolas nodded.When he was embedded in Ben’s body, soaked with his juices, he’d agree to just about anything Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen wanted.
* * *
Chapter Three
Home was a glass edifice of architectural wonder nestled incongruously into a sunlit Devon valley on the southern slopes of Dartmoor.An old manor house, dating back in sections to Tudor times, had once stood on the land, which had been granted to Ben’s family by William the Conqueror.Ben, come lately into this family and being welcomed by incest, intrigue, and murder, had naturally not been all that keen on rebuilding the old house when it had been destroyed in a fire.Nikolas, however, had seen the destruction as an opportunity for a new start for both of them.Or, if he had to be totally honest with himself—which he wasn’t all that often—a chance to make a statement about his relationship with Ben without actually having to come out and say anything at all.Until death parts ushad lost some of its allure as an expression of binding commitment when he’d believed Ben to actually be dead.He preferred this declaration of light and life and all the things he’d thought he’d lost, Ben being both his light and his life.
So, with a little help from his impressively well-connected acquaintances, Nikolas had commissioned a unique house, which appeared to float from the very granite of the tor it was anchored to, like an exhalation of the rock itself.It was designed in two halves, and a swim lane joined them into a whole.This, Nikolas knew, was something particularly unusual for an English house, but as he pointed out to Ben, hewasn’tEnglish.He wasn’t restrained by an Englishman’s worst trait: a puritan distrust of anything luxurious.Also, obviously, he was a billionaire, so he wasn’t curtailed in most other ways either.He wanted a swim lane so he had one built.The rear wing, the one emerging from the tor, was their private area: bedroom, bathroom, Nikolas’s study and Ben’s gym.The front wing was much larger and was used both to run Nikolas’s charitable foundation ANGEL and for their friends to have accommodation whenever they wanted.Its central hub was a vast kitchen and dining area, which for two men who couldn’t cook often seemed a bit of a waste, but one or other of them occasionally expressed a desire to learn, so that seemed enough of a reason to justify the commercial-grade stove and superb cooking utensils that graced the rack hanging from the glass ceiling.Leading off this central hub were spokes, or segments, each one containing a guest suite and these in turn led to the outer rim of the house, the living area, which encircled the whole construction and was open plan.This then created a circular meander from a main sitting room, through to a high-tech office, on into a music room with a grand piano, and then to a billiard room, a library, and a television room; these sections only divided by vast chimneys made of Dartmoor granite set into the middle of the floor space, each housing a log burner surrounded by leather seating.
The house was beautiful whatever the weather.Made almost entirely of glass, it let in the sunshine whenever Devon graced them with sun, but when it didn’t, and southwest drizzle swept down off the moors for long hours, there was nothing more enticing than to be inside with the wood burners fighting the dark bleakness outside.
Nikolas had taken to drinking again.But now it was wine only and only in the same quantity as Ben drank.Nikolas wasn’t in the habit of letting anything control him, and he didn’t see a reason why alcohol should be any different from the other demons, human and non-human alike, he’d fought and conquered.So he’d begun joining Ben with a glass—or two, sometimes three—of red wine as they sat in the evenings by one of the fires, or played billiards, or as he played the piano.He sometimes told people the grand piano had been his only personal extravagance in this house he’d built for Ben.He occasionally managed to say this with a straight face.Although he claimed he was rusty and played very badly, he played well enough to impress Ben, and that was good enough for both of them.
That Nikolas had actually indulged himself in many other areas of the house’s design and construction was most obvious in the grounds.He’d restored the tennis court and had stables built for his horses.His horses had now been moved from their royal stable block to this new one, and they didn’t seem to mind the change.They had adapted quickly, perhaps because they now were ridden every day on Dartmoor.
* * *
