Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
CHARMED. THAT WAS THE only word for it. Elliot was utterly charmed by the man whose firm chest rose and fell beneath his head.
He closed his eyes and listened to the steady beating of a strong heart.
He stroked his fingers through a tangle of dark chest hair, wisps of it tickling the side of his face and his nose.
The masculine scents of cooling sweat and sex teased his nose and made him half-hard again already.
Warren’s work-roughened fingers laced with his, stilling Elliot’s hand. How had they gotten like that? What did he do for a living?
There were a thousand inane questions he wanted to ask of this man and none of them emerged from his mouth when he finally opened it.
“So you leave tomorrow?” Elliot asked. Like dabbing antiseptic on a wound, it would sting, and then it would heal.
Why this should concern him so much was another matter altogether, but he found he did care, deeply, what would become of Warren.
Perhaps he was displacing his own fears or perhaps they’d forged a deeper connection than either of them intended.
The consequence was the same. Elliot was dreading the unknown with renewed vigor.
Warren hummed a yes. “You?”
Pursing his lips at his own dismay, Elliot’s stomach wrung tight. “The same.”
Silence. What was Warren thinking? Was he worrying too?
“S’pose you’ll be in officer training?”
“Apparently, a college degree, a lucrative family, and a little magic proclaim me fit to lead,” Elliot said wryly. He didn’t feel fit to lead. A lifetime spent as a pleasure-seeker did not a quality leader make.
Warren’s chuckle jostled him, and Elliot smiled in response. “What kind of degree?”
“English. I write terrible poetry I like to imagine is rather good. Do you think that makes much difference in war? I find myself unconvinced.”
“Yeah, can’t see how that’s gonna help.”
“Yet, here we are. And you?”
“No degree. I was a private detective of sorts, not that it matters now I’m enlisted. My skill’s not flashy enough that I can’t work it in front of other soldiers, so they told me I’m going to be at the front somewhere, working with regular troops. No family name to save me either.”
Bloody unfair that something so out of someone’s control determined how they served.
No one chose who they were born to. No one chose how their skill manifested.
If Elliot’s skill—the one the government knew about—hadn’t been short-range, and he’d been born to someone of lesser means, he’d be enlisted too and headed for the kind of carnage that made him want to weep for Warren. “It isn’t fair.”
“Never is. This time tomorrow I’ll be at Camp Devens.”
Oh. Now that was interesting. “As will I.”
That hung awkward in the space where warm camaraderie had been only moments before.
“We won’t be able to fraternize there.” Warren sounded apologetic.
“Even if we had time, which I doubt, they know about me. That I…have sex with men. So an officer I have no reason to communicate with? They’d assume the worst. They could make my life, and my cousin Anne’s, pretty damn uncomfortable if they went public with what they know about me. And I just can’t risk that.”
He was right. Elliot knew he was right. And it shouldn’t hurt so much hearing it. Had he seriously considered seeking Warren out?
It was an impulse. Only wanting a connection to someone in the frightening future. Nothing real. Nothing to worry about. “You’re not wrong, unfortunately. They have me over the same barrel. I wasn’t as discreet overseas as I am here. No. We can’t.”
So the only thing on offer was this one night. Elliot had to be satisfied with that, no matter how enchanted he was.
Stretching, Elliot arched his back and took notice of the warm skin he was resting against. He propped himself on one elbow, gaze lingering on Warren’s kiss-bruised lips and muddy hazel eyes.
What colors might he be able to pick out in the sunlight?
His dark hair had dried with an irresistible curl to it.
Was the dimness of the lamp concealing highlights?
Elliot brushed errant strands from Warren’s forehead and willed himself to remember every last eyelash and freckle.
He wanted to be able to scribble them in words in the morning so he wouldn’t forget.
Something he could carry in his pocket if he was mindful of how he wrote it.
“I suppose you’d like to sleep?” Elliot asked.
“Couldn’t if I wanted to.” Warren’s eyes darted shyly away.
Elliot was infatuated. “Maybe if I knew what to expect tomorrow.” He reached up and tucked a lock of Elliot’s hair behind his ear.
Elliot’s lashes fluttered shut with the sweetness of the gesture.
His heart aching in a familiar way. This was how it always started. “Why? Do you want to sleep?”
“Not a chance. I’d much rather talk to you. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” He winced at his own words. Warren blinked a couple of times before he appeared to recover.
“So poetry, huh? Can’t say I’ve read much of it, but my ma used to read me some from a book Da gave her before I was born. Always liked those. She said they reminded her of stories her ma told her back in Ireland.”
Elliot rather desperately wanted to know more. “By whom?”
A furrow creased Warren’s brow as he thought. “Can’t remember the fella’s name, but I still remember some lines.”
“Recite away, perhaps I can guess.”
“I can’t think of how it starts…um. Come away, O human child.
To the waters and the wild. With a faery, hand in hand.
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
” Warren paused forehead wrinkling further in concentration, eyes distant.
His head tilted slightly as if he was listening to his mother’s words and repeating them.
“Where the wave of moonlight glosses the dim gray sands with light, far off by furthest Rosses we foot it all the night…” He blinked rapidly, grimacing.
“And then there’s something about dancing and the hills above Glen-Car, but my memory’s shite.
I always wished I packed that book when…
well anyway, that’s all I can think of.”
Elliot smiled triumphantly. “Yeats,” he declared. “It was published in a book called The Wanderings of—”
“Oisin and Other Poems,” Warren finished, grinning beautifully back at him. “That’s right, I guess this was the one that Ma read the most from it, because I hardly remember bits of the others.”
“It’s a great story, visually evocative and nostalgic.
Mysterious beings enticing and beguiling a child away with promises to shield him from the harshness of reality.
It has a sort of sinister undertone if you think of the way old myths go.
” Elliot’s face heated. He was rambling out an unasked-for analysis.
Only bores did that. “I’m glad I recalled the author, perhaps you'll read it again someday.”
Warren glanced up at Elliot from under long dark lashes, his impish eyes glittering.
Gorgeous. And clearly more appreciative of the analysis—or of Elliot in general—than he’d thought.
“I could listen to you talk like that all night if we had longer. It’s fascinating, really.
But I can think of a better way to spend the rest of the time we’ve got left. ”
“I’m sure you can,” Elliot murmured, obliging when Warren tilted his chin up for a kiss.
Yes, charmed was absolutely the word. And if Elliot had any sense he’d climb out of the bed that instant and walk out the door before he lost every tender feeling brewing inside of him to soft lips, curious fingers, and a man destined for the front.
Then again, no one in their right mind suspected Elliot had sense to begin with. Why prove them incorrect now?