Chapter 15
The problem started the following morning.
It had not escaped Nathaniel’s notice that Kit was a modest sort of fellow.
He had seemed uncomfortable while Nathaniel was washing up and had refrained from doing so himself until Nathaniel had left the room.
When Nathaniel returned to fetch Kit for dinner, he found the young man freshly scrubbed and dressed in a clean set of clothes, with his shirt buttoned up all the way to his chin and his cravat impeccably knotted.
Kit had mentioned growing up in a tiny village.
He had sisters, but no brothers. He hadn’t said anything about attending Eton or another one of the public schools.
Nathaniel assumed he must have lived something of a sheltered childhood and that there hadn’t been many boys his age in the immediate vicinity. That would explain his unease.
Nathaniel had vowed to give him as much privacy as he could manage, but it would be difficult, given that they were sharing a room.
That night, Nathaniel took the side of the bed closest to the wall. He settled on his side with his back to Kit, careful to confine himself to his half of the bed.
Yet when he awoke the following morning, he was no longer in the place where he had settled. To his mortification, he found that sometime during the night, he had taken Kit in his arms.
And what was worse, he awoke, as he often did, in an indelicate state.
Although this was worse than his usual state of morning glory.
Significantly worse.
Gracious, given how hard and throbbing and desperate he was for release, you would have thought he’d been in the throes of an erotic dream! Which he wasn’t.
He was merely lying in bed.
With Kit.
But he awoke with Kit’s back to his front, his arms cradling the younger man to his chest, the way you would hold a lover.
At least, he assumed this was how one held a lover.
Nathaniel wouldn’t know, as he’d never had one.
He was a humble university fellow, with a strait-laced temperament and a modest budget.
He did not lead the fast life of some London buck.
But the point was, he awoke to find his face buried in Kit’s hair and his cock pressing against the softness of his rump, which was an alarmingly pleasant sensation. A little voice inside him said that he needed to release Kit, to disentangle himself with all possible speed.
But it was difficult to convince himself to let go when it felt so good.
And strangely, holding Kit like this didn’t feel wrong.
It felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Maybe it was the fact that Kit smelled so wonderful.
His hair smelled sweet, like honeysuckle, and other than that, he smelled like…
Nathaniel paused to draw in a deep breath.
In truth, the only other things he could smell were pencil lead and watercolor paint.
Which didn’t sound all that appealing, but to Nathaniel’s shock, seemed nigh irresistible.
He also could not help but notice how perfectly Kit fit in his arms, and how content Kit seemed to be there. As he slept, he nuzzled against Nathaniel’s wrist, making a soft, serene sound.
But then, Kit wiggled his hips, settling himself deeper into Nathaniel’s embrace. This had the effect of rubbing the soft curve of his bottom against Nat’s straining cock.
A moan burst from his lips, low and feral. He knew at once he had startled Kit awake, because the young man abruptly stiffened. They stayed frozen that way for eight agonizing beats of Nathaniel’s racing heart.
Then, Kit flew into motion, propelling himself from Nathaniel’s arms with such force that he shot out of the bed and stumbled across the room before catching himself on the washstand.
“I’m sorry,” Nathaniel said at once. “I was asleep. I didn’t intend for that to happen.”
Kit stood bent over, clinging to the washstand, breathing hard. Nathaniel noticed with surprise that, in addition to his shirt, he had slept in his trousers.
Nat swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. Kit’s panic-filled eyes, which had been darting all over the room, suddenly fixed themselves on one point.
Unfortunately, that point was his groin.
Nathaniel glanced down. He had slept in a loose shirt, but, unsurprisingly, the outline of his erect cock was clearly visible through the linen fabric.
He moved to cover himself with his hands, pressing his cock flat against his stomach. “Sorry. It’s just… you know. Morning.”
“Ha ha! Yes!” Kit cried, his voice shrill. “I know precisely what you mean by that comment! Of course, I do!”
Nathaniel crossed to the washstand. Kit skittered back as if terrified of the notion that their bodies might brush.
Nathaniel took up the ewer. March in the Hebrides was brisk, and the water, like the room, was bitterly cold. Perfect. He poured it into the basin. “A little cold water should take care of it.”
As Nathaniel started to draw up his shirt, Kit whirled around to face the wall.
“Yes, indeed! That should do the trick, all right!” Carefully keeping his back to Nathaniel the whole time, Kit felt his way across the room to the chair where he had draped his waistcoat and jacket.
He snatched them up, along with his boots, and hurried to the door.
“I’ll see you downstairs!” he exclaimed before rushing out with the apparent intention to get dressed in the corridor.
Blast. Nathaniel knew the way he had woken up was… not ideal. But it had genuinely been unintentional, and he would have thought that, as a young man, Kit would understand that a fellow did not have complete control over his prick while he was asleep.
Still, Nathaniel should have released him immediately upon awakening, instead of lying there nuzzling the man’s hair. Gracious, what had come over him?
He finished his morning ablutions and pulled on a clean shirt. He wondered if he ought to apologize to Kit, or if that would only make things more awkward? Perhaps Kit would prefer that he not mention it.
His main concern was that this incident might strain their working relationship. He had so much riding on this project. His career was literally at stake. The last thing he needed was for their work to suffer due to an honest mistake.
As Nathaniel shut the door behind him and headed downstairs to breakfast, he vowed that he would do whatever it took to make the situation right.
If only he knew what that was.