Chapter 18 #5
“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.”
“I’m ready. How did you make your way in the world without money or friends?”
“I . . .” Micha sighed. “I fell upon hard times. I’ll tell you, if you ask me, because I don’t want to lie to you anymore. But please don’t. I don’t want to speak of it.”
“Then I will not ask,” said Thomas, at once.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I have faith in you too, Micha. I don’t need to hear anything you don’t wish to tell me.”
Micha pulled Thomas with him onto the bed, so that they fell together, entangled. “I don’t deserve any of this,” he muttered, relieved and humbled and perilously close to happy.
Thomas gave a small, breathless laugh, all but smothered by Micha’s body pressed against him. And suddenly they were kissing, clumsy and frantic, scrabbling and struggling to get closer to each other, as though flesh itself had become a barrier.
“Oh hell,” growled Micha, dragging himself away before he lost any power to do so. “Thomas, there’s something else. Something I need to . . . change. Somehow.”
Thomas’s hands stroked languorously up and down his spine. “What is it?”
“While I was . . . that is . . . during . . . when I was . . .” He stuttered into silence.
Micha’s habits were well known at Madame Defleur’s, but he had never spoken of them.
It had not been necessary. Survival, in whatever form it took, was simply unquestioned.
But he hated to lay such wretchedness bare before Thomas.
“I can’t remember when I started, only that it helped.
” Thomas was nodding but without comprehension.
Micha took a shuddering breath, the word clogged in his throat.
“Opium. I lived for it. I always knew it was treacherous, nothing but smoke and madness and empty dreams, but a beautiful falsehood is better than an ugly truth.”
“How lost you’ve been,” whispered Thomas, tears thick in his voice again.
“Beyond rescue, or so I thought. And I’ve been using laudanum since my illness.”
Micha felt the scrape of Thomas’s eyelashes across his skin as he blinked. “Sheba thought so, but I saw no sign of it.”
“I hid it from you. I was ashamed. I still am.”
“Why? Is it harmful?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But it drives my actions, and I want to stop except I can’t, I just fucking can’t.
” Thomas held him and gentled him while Micha raged.
“It’s why I did what I did. I made your Mrs. Clark bring me laudanum.
And then she knew all my secrets, so I wanted her gone.
Please . . .” Micha faltered, despising his own weakness but unable to deny or suppress it.
“Please don’t hate me. I’ve committed so many wrongs, but I was desperate. ”
“All this,” said Thomas, softly, “for a remedy?”
Micha could only nod. “Or for my own frailty. I can’t tell where the one begins and the other ends.”
“You know I would have given you anything? Helped you however I could.”
“I know. And I know that makes it worse.”
The seconds moved slowly, landing as heavy as rain upon Micha, until Thomas finally spoke again. “Thank you, at least, for telling me. And for trusting me.”
Micha gave a soft, tight laugh. “I think I was in love with you, even then, but in such a twisted way it barely deserves the name.” He cringed from the remembrance of himself, so wanting and so afraid. “I was monstrous. Most likely I still am.”
Arching up, Thomas kissed him, pressing a denial into his mouth, like a bite without teeth. “I cannot lie. I wish you had behaved differently, Micha. But it’s not for me to judge you.”
“Because”—and here Micha’s tone grew sardonic—“that’s reserved for your damn God?”
“Because I love you.”
“Even after . . .” Micha couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Even after,” Thomas confirmed.
It was exactly what Micha needed to hear, but it crushed him nonetheless. He sheltered his face beneath his arm. “I don’t deserve—”
“Let’s not speak of what is or is not deserved.” Thomas cut him off gently. “I doubt you deserved your hard times either. May we go back to the laudanum?”
“Why not?” Micha huffed out a sound that was not quite a laugh. “I always do.”
“If I am to understand you correctly,” Thomas began, his voice careful, the words deliberate, “you’ve been using laudanum since your illness, and opium before that, and now you wish to stop?”
It was not the right term. Wishing implied more volition than Micha truly possessed. But still he nodded.
“And stopping is difficult?”
Another nod.
“I hate the thought of you suffering more than you already have.” Thomas’s gaze was stricken. “Must this truly be done?”
“It must be done.” It was not until he’d said the words aloud that Micha discovered something perilously close to conviction. “It comes between us. It stops me feeling and I want to feel. And, with you, I want to feel everything.”
There was a long silence.
“Then what do we do?” asked Thomas.
“There’s no ‘we’ for this. It’s simply something for me to endure.
” For Thomas’s sake, he mustered what boldness was left to him.
Micha had experienced a little for himself, and witnessed in others, the ravages of opium withdrawal, and he was not so lost to dreams of love that he did not fear them.
He doubted his own strength, but he did not doubt Thomas.
If this was to be the price, he would somehow find a way to pay it.
If it was punishment, for old sins or newer ones, or for all those he wished to commit, he would bear it.
He would fight this dragon of his own making, cut it from his flesh, and vanquish it.
He would prove himself worthy. Gods be damned.
He would have Thomas. They would have each other.
Micha was shaking slightly with the knowledge of what lay ahead, and Thomas held him tightly, body to body, heart to heart. “There must be something I can do to help you.”
“No,” Micha snapped. “No.” And, gentling his tone with difficulty, “I don’t want you to see. It’s miserable, Thomas. And repulsive. I still don’t know if I’ll even be able to do it.”
“I believe you can, if that’s what you want.”
Micha shrugged. “Maybe not for myself, but for us, I can try.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay away from you.”
“You have to promise me. Please.”
But Thomas shook his head. “I can’t give you that promise, but I’ll try to honour your preference.”
“You’re a stubborn fucker.”
Thomas smiled. “Yes.”
Micha groaned, love, despair, and surrender tangled up inside him, almost indistinguishable from each other. “It’ll take a while. Maybe a month or two.”
“A month?” repeated Thomas, so dismayed it was almost comical.
And suddenly a month felt like an unbearably long time to Micha too. He pressed himself against, or perhaps into, Thomas’s grasp. “Just kiss me. Like you did in the wood.”
Thomas’s lips twitched into a smile. “You mean, without any idea what I was doing?”
“Like you knew me.”
Thomas leaned over him and took Micha’s mouth in a deep, sure kiss.
And Micha arched up into it, breathlessly moaning, his abruptly uncertain hands clutching at nothing.
“Will you . . . I want . . .” It was ridiculous, but heat rushed suddenly to his face, and he was blushing like a virgin.
“I want to be with you. I want to feel you.”
Thomas’s sharp hips were pressed into Micha’s, but it was a welcome ache. “Whatever you want is yours.”
“Oh.” Micha twisted a little, tormented by a longing so rare and unexpected it felt almost sweet. “I wish I could fuck you, but I don’t think I can.”
“We could try?” Thomas ducked his head shyly. “Or I could find some other way to please you.” His free hand traced a somewhat hesitant path between their bodies.
Micha’s breath quickened, sheer hope and instinct, and then he reached his arms above his head, offering . . . yielding himself to Thomas. “Fuck me. I’ll show you how.”
Thomas was silent a moment. “Is this something we share or something you give?”
“Both, and something I take.” Micha curled a leg around Thomas, drawing him closer, feeling the hot, hard pressure of the man’s cock against his own, even through two layers of clothing.
Thomas’s body jerked, a deep tremor running through him, like he was a bow Micha had drawn tight with a single, simple action.
Micha made a mindless, needy noise, his fingers curling over his exposed palms. “Tonight,” he panted. “Whatever happens, give me tonight.”
“And every night that follows. Every day.”
“No promises, remember? Just fuck me. Let me feel something before tomorrow.”
When Thomas eased them apart, Micha ached with loss. He struggled semi-upright and yanked the shirt over his head.
“What?” he asked.
Thomas was simply looking at him.
“What?”
“You’re so remarkably beautiful, Micha.” Thomas splayed a hand across his chest, his fingers carding lightly through the coarse hair that gathered there.
“Like Blake’s tyger.” He traced a band of shadow across Micha’s torso, then a band of light, and Micha shivered helplessly, responding less to the sensation than the intent within it, the care and reverence.
He fell back onto his elbows, the uncertain light spilling like liquid over his skin, shifting with his quickened breath.
Thomas followed him, his lips catching at the pulse beating in Micha’s neck, then tumbling in tiny kisses across his collarbones and shoulders.
The tip of his tongue pursued the flickering patterns of light, leaving new ones, silver-bright amidst the gold, a ripple of silken warmth that did not entirely fade.
Micha’s chest heaved. His head fell back. Thomas’s tongue swirled across one of his nipples, and his back arched wildly. “Fuck, oh fuck. Oh Thomas.”