Chapter Seventeen #4
His whole body shuddered, and he heard the gasp that went into Eli’s mouth, but then he was lost. He forgot about his body, the way it all combined into a person with an attached brain.
He was just a series of parts, seemingly disconnected, because the shock of being touched or tasted in one place didn’t at all prepare him for the experiences of another, and he knew, theoretically, that he was giving responses and even making gestures of his own.
His hands clutched at flesh and muscle, and his mouth was tearing and devouring with enough enthusiasm, if not skill, to ensure that even a man as big as Eli wouldn’t soon have an inch unexplored.
But those things also seemed unattached somehow, like all of it and everything, his body and Eli’s, were bits of some puzzle that were happening too much and all at once.
And if his mind hadn’t already been destroyed by it all, he might have had a worry that this would kill him—that he, perhaps, was already dead.
Though in hell or heaven he couldn’t say, because though circumstances should have indicated heaven, there was too much urgency, too much unslakable and terrible thirst, to describe any of it as enjoyable.
There was still too much need and anxiety and thoughts like If I don’t have him now—NOW—it must be now!
shouting at him in too many languages, that actually, it gave him some sympathy for Nathaniel, who, if he had to put up with this feeling all the time, would have been more than bad enough to deal with even if he didn’t have to add “being cheated on” to the pile.
He broke away with so much force he nearly knocked the man to the floor.
But he didn’t notice that part. His breaths were like knives in his chest. “No!” And he understood now, even if he couldn’t make sense of all he’d been doing and feeling, knew enough to understand it was betrayal.
That he was paying back some of the greatest kindness of his life with the blackest of disloyalties.
“Nat.” And the naming was worse than anything.
He could feel the letters of that name carved directly into still-beating flesh and sinew, more than bone deep.
He wouldn’t do this. Couldn’t imagine how he’d already done it, and more than that, how Eli could have done it.
Madness, that’s what he decided. It was a kind of temporary madness, some sort of miasma that had taken hold of them both, but one he wouldn’t allow to defeat him.
Desperately, he flung his mind open, rampaging his own memories for something to hold on to.
“You’re going to get out of here, and go right to Nat,” he said.
“Father already said he’d take care of it.
That he’d get you out. It can’t be long and then you’ll—”
“What?” Eli’s eyes were so dark and wide and deep that all he wanted was to fall into them again, but when Eli took hold of him it was to give him a shake.
“What do you mean? He didn’t do anything, right?
Nathaniel said he already spoke to him about—any interference at all—it could wreck everything, Samuel. All our negotiations.”
He didn’t let himself get lost again. He was digging his nails into his own arms to ground himself, and it was a good thing too, because he wouldn’t have believed what he was hearing otherwise. “ That’s what you’re worried about? You’re cheating on Nat, and the thing on your mind is—”
Eli kissed him. Not like before, this was a thing more of affection than passion, but that the man did it at all was only further fuel to the fire, and he could feel himself swelling with an outrage Eli only compounded by interrupting.
“As much as I adore it, we don’t have time for your knight errantry right now.
We’ve got to call Than and get your father on the phone—Jenny too, if we can manage it.
” And he didn’t wait for an answer, just dragged Samuel back out of the closet, as if they’d been doing nothing but having a chat, even though their thoroughly rumpled—and, in Eli’s case, half torn shirt—made it clear they’d been doing nothing of the sort.
In fact, it was that very appearance that kept his arguments stoppered up in his throat.
He hadn’t realized all of what he’d been doing, and now every step showcased further evidence.
Eli’s swollen mouth, the unconcealed teeth marks on his jaw, the long line of sucking wet that went around nearly the whole circumference of his neck like some kind of necklace of perversion.
He didn’t know which was stronger, the awe he felt, or the guilt. There was plenty of both.
Guilt won out in the end. It began to rise when Eli got on the phone and spoke to Jethro like they were old friends who knew everything they needed to know about each other.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” said Eli without the slightest hint of intimidation.
“Samuel has his pride, sure, but he’s not going to stay here like some benighted martyr if my husband has anything to say about it.
Nathaniel’s never lost an argument, you know.
Not that I think there’ll be much of an argument.
Samuel wants to fuck him far more than he wants to fight him. ”
Eli might have said something after that.
He didn’t know. The blood was too hard in his ears.
He wrenched the phone out of Eli’s hand but couldn’t do anything but hold on to it.
And Eli was smiling at him. Was leaning in close and nudging into him with that lovely nose, and Samuel knew he was going to kiss him again and didn’t know how he was going to stop it.
He didn’t want to stop it. He had to, but he didn’t have such an endless well of strength.
How many times could one step away from his own happiness?
But he would do it. He had to. And then Nathaniel rescued him.
“Sam?”
He still hated nicknames. He was sure of it. Or would have been if he weren’t so happy to hear that name from that mouth.
He hurriedly raised the receiver. “Nat! I need to—”
He stopped. Of course he did. Because going further would mean breaking Nathaniel’s heart, and he couldn’t do it.
Even though they never lied to each other.
Not even at the very beginning. And now—and now he’d…
“I didn’t mean to cheat.” And he could feel excuses bubbling up, excuses he was desperate to believe.
Because how could he be in the kind of world where men like Nat could get cheated on?
He wouldn’t live in a world like that. Wouldn’t want anyone in a world like that, and Nathaniel most of all.
“I was just surprised, and it was sudden, and my body…” He didn’t know what to say next. It would just be lies.
“Cheat?” And Nathaniel’s voice was just as it always was. So warm and soothing and the opposite of accusation. “As if you could. Oh Sam, was it everything you hoped it would be?”
He didn’t understand. Maybe that was what kept him quiet. Or maybe he just wanted to hear more of Nathaniel’s voice.
“I know the setting isn’t what I would have wanted for you, and he tortured you for so long. Was that your first kiss with him? Tell me everything.”
And he did. At first as a duty, a man come to confession, but then because he needed to, because he needed Nathaniel to make it all right.
He couldn’t regret the kiss. He’d been wrong to do it, yes, but it had been magic, even though magic didn’t exist, not for killers and homewreckers.
But it had been. And still was. Because Eli was still there, a steady warmth at his back.
And he found himself spilling not just the kiss, but all his other sins.
His shameful thoughts, and only about half—maybe less than half—about Eli.
Nathaniel had just been so safe. So warm, and so unguarded.
“I didn’t mean to see you that way. But I would close my eyes, and you would touch me, and you made it seem like a good thing, and I thought maybe it wasn’t so bad if I just kept the thoughts in my head. If I never spoke them out loud—”
“Oh, Sam.”
And Nathaniel’s voice was hoarse, so he knew it must hurt. Really hurt. Which was why the man’s next words made so little sense.
“For fuck’s sake, Eli, take him. Take him right now, or I swear I’ll break in and fuck him myself.”
Maybe it was the stress of it all. People said all kinds of things when they were stressed. And Eli must have been stressed too, because he said, “I told you, we’re not doing anything until we can all be back home together.”
“Fuck you. Stop hurting the poor thing, and your husband as well. Didn’t you take vows against torture when you married me?”
“I know it’s difficult, but it’ll be better in the long run if— ”
“Suck him off, at least. Even you can stretch the prudishness that far, can’t you? But keep me on the phone while you do it. Or do you need privacy for things like that? I’m not as sweet as you, Sam. Will you forgive me?”
Forgive him? He was about to canonize him.
“Then…” He wasn’t sure if he could say it. He didn’t know if he could handle being laughed at just then, but it came out of him anyway. “You also want me?”
And the laugh came, just as he thought it would.
Except it wasn’t that kind of laugh. It was warm and light and wonderfully breathless.
“Want you?” And it wasn’t just Nathaniel, but Eli too, his laugh a deep thrum of vibrations that went into his and down his back as Eli pressed his lips to the base of his neck as his husband continued to speak.
“My heart, if Eli hadn’t already prepared me for men of ungodly beauty, I would have fallen to the floor stone-dead the moment I first stepped into that prison.
Want you? It goes beyond that. So far beyond that. Don’t you know how much I love you?”