He turns me onto my side, our two bodies nestled together like a pair of quotation marks in one of the texts I’m supposed to be studying. His hands idle across my body, ships at the mercy of the wind, trailing a wake of pleasure that gathers on my skin with the sheen of sweat. I writhe into all his touches, breathe only in gasps and pleas, unravel and am remade. His teeth graze my shoulder and his hand closes hard about my prick until I’m driving myself mindlessly, shamelessly against his ink-stained fingers, lost in the moment of his making. He cries out my name and I shatter into starlight in his arms.
Afterwards, when our lips are sore from kissing and our bodies weary from coupling, we lie beneath a sky swirled pink and gold by the setting sun. And Isidore says, come away with me.
And I say yes.
“It all began with Isidore.” Micha sat hunched on the edge of Thomas’s bed. He glanced up with a faint, sardonic smile. “We fell in love at Oxford, and, when he left, I went with him.”
“You travelled together?” After a moment of hesitation, Thomas reached out and took his hand, and Micha did not pull away. His cold fingers lay quiescent, enfolded by Thomas’s.
“Yes. On his money, for I had none. We never intended to return to England. Isidore said we would take a villa in Naples, live out the rest of our days together beneath a kinder sky.” Micha swallowed. “He always loved the sea.”
“Oh Micha, you were so young.”
He nodded. “Boys playing at being men. But he loved me, I know he did. I think that’s what I find hardest to bear.” Thomas’s fingers stroked and squeezed. “And, of course, I loved him too. How could I not? He was beautiful, brilliant, extraordinary in many ways.” Again Micha’s eyes sought Thomas’s. “He was not like you.”
“Well, no,” said Thomas gently. “I am none of those things.”
“You see people. Isidore saw only the horizon. I admired him terribly, but it was like staring into the sun. I should have known I couldn’t keep a man like that.”
Thomas frowned, just a little. “It was very wrong of him to make you promises he did not intend to keep.”
If only it had been that simple. A villain, a victim, a betrayal, and a broken heart. “It wasn’t like that. We truly believed we could be together. We thought love was enough.”
“What happened?”
“His father died unexpectedly, and Isidore inherited everything. That was the first time we truly understood the choice we’d made. It was easy enough for me to give up my world; it was such a narrow thing. An education. A respectable career. A wife from a good family. Fuck.” He leaned lightly against Thomas, his head resting against the other man’s shoulder. “But Isidore, he had ambition, intellect, and a whole shining future waiting for him back in England. It was me or everything else. So we parted ways at Dover. It was the greyest day I’d ever seen, and I had absolutely nothing.”
“He gave you no assistance?”
Micha’s head jerked up. “I was his lover, not his whore.”
“I didn’t—”
“And, anyway, I was too miserable and too proud to tell him the truth.”
Thomas smiled rather sadly. “That sounds so very like you.”
“It’s not real pride. I lost that a long time ago.”
“Had you no friends to turn to? What of your family?”
“Our friends Isidore and I shed together. And my family I lost when I left Oxford. I should never have told them. I don’t know why I did. Perhaps they would have forgiven me, but I didn’t dare go back.”
Thomas drew in an unsteady breath.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry, it’s absurd, I can’t protect you from your past, but I hate to think of all you must have suffered.”
“Don’t weep for me.” Micha pressed a kiss against Thomas’s cheek to take the harshness from his words. “It carried a heavy punishment, but I saw the world. I knew love. How many people can say that?” He paused. “And it seems to have brought me to you.”
“Yes. You are world enough for me.”
“Let’s not make promises. I’d rather just—” He broke off. Thomas raised his brows quizzically, and Micha laughed, surprising himself. “Have faith,” he finished.
Thomas’s hand tightened on Micha’s. “That I can do.”
“I may test you yet.”
