“Is it so dreadful?”
Micha made an odd noise. Not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. “Yes. And no. I suppose I can learn.”
“I’ll be with you, every step of the way.”
Slowly Micha relaxed, the lines of his body yielding, his hand gliding over Thomas’s hip, slightly protective, slightly possessive. But, when he spoke, his voice was bleak. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ll ever truly be done with it. I think I’ll always carry this weakness.”
“This weakness,” whispered Thomas, “and this strength.”
“You’re my strength. I think I could do anything for you. Anything.” But before Thomas could say anything, he went on, sleepily, “Now tell me again just how terribly fucking brave I am.”
Thomas smiled, even though he knew Micha would not be able to see it. “Like a knight of old.”
“I did slay a dragon.”
“And you rescued me, Micha, from a prison so cunningly wrought I could not even see the bars.”
But Micha did not answer. He had slipped effortlessly into sleep.
Chapter 20
Midway through December, Nettlefield was blessed by a few days of snow. Thomas managed to acquire a sled from somewhere, and he and Hope spent the afternoon careening down the hill that ran from the rectory to the village. Micha, wearing so many layers he looked like twice the man he was, could not be dragged into such indignities, but he watched them from the garden with Madame Defleur’s daughter. Thomas’s laughter, heedless as a boy’s, unravelled like a rainbow.
“Oh fuck,” said Micha. “Will you look at him. The idiot. He belongs here.”
Madame Defleur’s daughter shrugged. “He belongs with you.”
“My word.” Thomas leaned over Micha’s shoulder to look at his painting. “That’s quite ... extraordinary. What is it?”
Micha glared.
“No, wait, don’t tell me, don’t tell me. It is quite self-evidently ... Is it a cake?”
“What the fuck are you saying? A cake? Where are you getting cake?”
“Well, those ripples there.” Thomas’s fingertip tapped the page. “They look like pastry. And are those not raisins?”
“It’s the village, you prick,” snarled Micha, though on his lips the insult became an endearment, which became a caress, which brought the heat rushing to Thomas’s skin as surely as a touch. “Those are roofs.”
Micha’s finger slid alongside Thomas’s, making his breath catch. “And the raisins?”
“Windows.”
“Of course. My mistake.”
“Damn right it is. You’re misunderstanding my genius.”
And then, suddenly, somehow, they were kissing, hands tangling like their mouths, the sketchbook falling disregarded between them.
“Oh yes.” Micha thrust a triumphant hand into the air. “Will you look at that? I won. I fucking won.”
Thomas sat on the other side of the chessboard, his head thrown back, his face contorted in some unbearable combination of torment and rapture. His breath came in shallow pants. “I think,” he managed, “you ... cheated.”
Beneath the table, Micha’s stocking-clad foot was nestled between Thomas’s legs. His toes nudged in a rough caress against Thomas’s cock, and Thomas arched his back, thrust his hips, and groaned.
“You could have told me to stop at any time,” said Micha in his most dulcet tones.
“Oh no. D-don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
