Chapter 2 #4
No sooner that he thought this than Hull, glancing over Drude’s massive shoulder, caught Ephraim’s gaze. A bewildered furrow appeared betwixt his brows. Then it smoothed away with an encouraging smile, and his hand reached for Ephraim.
Thus beckoned, Ephraim could hardly do otherwise than obey.
The moment he drew within arm’s reach, Hull caught his hand and brought it to his lips to press a kiss to his palm, and from thence to the inside of his wrist. A shiver of anticipation whispered over Ephraim’s skin.
“Will you join us?” Hull murmured.
The way his breath caught precluded speech, so instead Ephraim nodded.
He felt a touch odd at remaining clothed whilst both his beloved and his guest had disrobed.
Normally it was Hull who divested him of his garments.
Hull’s infirmity at present made that impractical at best. While Ephraim knew very well how to undress himself in the purely practical sense, he hadn’t the least idea how to do so in the elegant and enticing manner which seemed to come so naturally to both the fae before him.
Despite Ephraim’s decades of experience in concealing his true feelings, Hull took in his struggle with a glance. He caught Ephraim’s eye with a knowing look and beckoned him nearer. Ephraim obediently bent his ear to his beloved’s lips.
“Would you mind terribly,” Hull whispered, “if he were to assist you in my stead?”
The thought made Ephraim’s pulse stutter, though whether from excitement or dread he couldn’t quite discern.
It was an exciting thought, certainly. But he’d only just met the man.
Then again he was about to become very close to him indeed, and perhaps from that perspective something which otherwise might feel quite extreme was actually rather tame in comparison.
“You don’t have to,” Hull began, which told Ephraim he had taken a moment too long to answer. “We could draw a curtain for you to disrobe behind. Or if you would prefer to remain dressed—”
“No, no,” Ephraim hastily replied. If he were to disrobe behind a curtain he doubted if he would ever find the courage to emerge from said curtain in his naked state. “I should be very glad for his assistance, if he doesn’t mind.”
Ephraim could hear the smile in Hull’s voice as his lover softly told him, “He won’t mind in the least. Quite the reverse.”
A dubious assertion. But given that Hull was an invalid, Ephraim chose not to argue the point.
And as he drew back from Hull to regard their guest, Ephraim did have to admit that Drude appeared far more intrigued than he’d anticipated.
Drude took Ephraim’s coat in much the same manner as Ephraim had taken his, though with far more grace.
Then Hull set to work on his waistcoat buttons with familiar eagerness and stole a kiss as he whisked away Ephraim’s cravat.
No sooner had the kiss ceased than Drude descended upon his knees—a very far way for a man of his stature to go, Ephraim thought—to dispense with his trouser buttons and ties.
The sight of Drude (immense, horned, hooved, tailed, with his dark hair pouring down like ink and his dark eyes gazing up in barely-restrained hunger) kneeling before him was more than enough to set Ephraim’s pulse pattering.
The gentle brush of his fingertips and claws against the wool of his trousers over his root would’ve sent Ephraim over the brink if he were but forty, thirty, even twenty years younger.
At present his mast strained every timber in its desperation to rise.
“Brace your hands on my shoulders,” Drude bid him. “So you may step out.”
Ephraim had spent so much of his concentration upon resisting that very urge that it took him a half-second too long to obey.
He laid his hands upon the brawny scarlet muscles—felt them strain against his palms as Drude slid his trousers down—tried not to think about how pale and withered his own legs were in comparison to Drude and Hull’s sinewy thighs and well-turned calves.
Belatedly he realised he’d forgotten to step out of his trouser-legs and hastened to do so.
Mercifully, Drude didn’t seem put off by his dawdling.
Having done away with his trousers, Drude reached for the hem of his shirt.
“Perhaps—!” Ephraim blurted, his voice emerging in a far higher pitch than he’d intended.
Drude’s hands ceased at once. The fathomless dark eyes glanced up in unmistakable concern.
Ephraim cleared his throat. “Perhaps we might leave the shirt… for now?”
The heavy brow unknit, and the relieved smile that graced those scarlet lips was far kinder than Ephraim deserved.
“Of course,” Drude replied in that sonorous rumble that seemed to carry through the floorboards.
The shirt covered Ephraim from throat to thighs, which more than sufficed to hide his withered candle stub.
He knew Hull appreciated the stub and all the rest—he knew not how, but Hull had expressed said appreciation time and again in more ways than Ephraim could possibly have imagined, and so he felt forced to trust that it was both possible and true—but it would require heights of vanity far beyond Ephraim’s reach to assume that anyone besides Hull could hold his body and its feeble efforts in the same regard, and so it was something of a comfort to him not to bare absolutely everything from the start.
Though as Drude’s appreciative gaze traced over his shirt and skin alike, he felt very naked indeed. Not unpleasantly so, which was better than he’d hoped. His own gaze lingered on Drude in return.
“I told you he was beautiful,” said Hull.
Hull had told Ephraim nothing of the sort. Then again Ephraim could hardly blame him, given how he struggled to describe Drude’s beauty himself.
“I never doubted it for a moment,” Drude replied with a low throaty chuckle that went straight to Ephraim’s root.
Only then did Ephraim begin to suspect that, unaccountably, Hull had not spoken to him but rather to Drude. Of Ephraim. And called him beautiful.
Well. If Ephraim’s countenance weren’t already aflame, that thought would suffice to break out in fresh rosy blooms across his features.
Drude glanced from Ephraim’s face to the hem of his shirt and back again. “Perhaps… we might begin with a kiss?”
“Oh!” Ephraim struggled to drag his blood back up from his root to his brain so he might explain himself more sensibly. “That’s—very kind of you to offer, but—I thought—rather, that is to say—not that I mind, you understand, quite the reverse—but I had supposed you would attend to Hull.”
“Oh,” said Drude. Evident and unaccountable disappointment flickered across his brow, but he recovered swiftly and manfully; if any offence were taken he showed not a hint.
Hull broke in. “If you would prefer…”
Ephraim glanced between them: two beautiful men, one a stranger and the other his dearest beloved, both of whom (for reasons far beyond Ephraim’s understanding) desired him.
And yet. “I fear I find it difficult to concentrate upon… well, anything, really,” he said, with a desperate glance at Hull, “knowing that you are wounded.”
Comprehension dawned across Hull’s handsome features. Concern followed, much to Ephraim’s dismay.
“Forgive me,” Hull began. “I hadn’t considered—”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Ephraim hastened to assure him.
Hull exchanged another speaking glance with Drude, then returned his gaze to Ephraim. “Then, perhaps, you might like to watch matters unfold? Just to begin.”
Ever since Hull had first revealed his true form, Ephraim had harboured a great curiosity regarding fae ritual and custom. He had glimpsed magic from Hull now and again. It thrilled him every time. Nonetheless he felt it would be gauche to ask to watch.
But if the offer was made to him, unprompted, then…
“Yes,” Ephraim said softly. Perhaps he ought to strive to sound more commanding or confident, but he had barely courage enough to speak as matters stood. “I think I would.”
Hull gently drew Ephraim down for a kiss.
All the while, Ephraim felt acutely aware of Drude’s eyes upon them.
No one had ever witnessed open affection between Ephraim and Hull.
Or Ephraim and any other man for that matter.
Nonetheless he knew his instinctive fear was unfounded; Drude presented none of the danger that any other witness in London would.
Still, new fears arose, for Drude had kissed Hull a hundred times over at the very least, and surely he could not help but judge how Ephraim kissed him now.
Tentatively, gingerly, shyly, not at all the commanding embrace Drude had given Hull upon their reunion.
At best Drude must find his efforts ridiculous.
And yet, when they broke off at last and Ephraim dared a glance at Drude… he found no trace of mockery or derision or disdain in his gaze. Rather a curiosity. An intrigue. Perhaps even eagerness.
Hull caught Ephraim by the wrist and ever-so-gently drew him into the bed.
“Won’t I be in the way?” Ephraim asked even as he followed where’er Hull led.
“Balderdash,” Hull murmured, a smile playing across his dappled lips. “My way is better with you in it, after all.”
And, with another kiss as if to seal his promise, he settled Ephraim into place beside him.
Drude required nowhere near so much coaxing.
Ephraim had a moment’s concern for how they might all fit together, for while the bed was snug enough for Hull and himself, Drude was easily twice the size of another man.
These concerns were unfounded, for Drude’s evident awareness of his bulk was matched only by his natural grace.
As deftly and easily as another man might wave his hand, he alighted upon the bed and wove his limbs around Hull and Ephraim both to support his towering over them.