CHAPTER FOUR Rules After Dark #3
“We can face opposite directions,” Gideon said.
Jude lifted their cuffed wrists. “That will be graceful.”
“It doesn’t need to be graceful.”
“Everything becomes intimate when two men are chained together.”
“That does not make it desirable.”
Jude’s eyes remained on him. “No. Desire appears to have arrived without assistance.”
Gideon turned his back.
The movement pulled Jude behind him until their shoulders nearly touched.
Gideon opened his trousers with his right hand. His numb fingers struggled with the buttons. The wet fabric clung to his hips and thighs.
Jude’s cuffed arm rested along Gideon’s left side. Every motion dragged their wrists against one another.
“Need help?” Jude asked.
“No.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m cold.”
“Of course.”
Gideon pushed the trousers downward.
The bandage around his waist remained intact. Below it, wet underclothes clung to his skin.
He removed the trousers and kicked them toward the stove without turning.
Behind him, Jude began doing the same.
The sound of wet fabric dragging over skin filled the small room.
Gideon stared at the wall.
Jude grunted.
“What?” Gideon asked.
“Buttons.”
Gideon looked over his shoulder.
Jude’s injured right hand remained cuffed to Gideon’s left. His free fingers had become too numb to work the fastening at his waist.
Their eyes met.
“May I?” Gideon asked.
Jude’s expression changed.
The teasing remained, but something more vulnerable appeared beneath it.
“Yes.”
Gideon turned.
Jude stood bare-chested in front of him, wet trousers fitted low around his hips. Gideon reached for the fastening.
His knuckles brushed Jude’s stomach.
Jude’s muscles tightened.
Gideon opened one button, then another. The trousers loosened beneath his hands.
He stopped.
“Continue?” he asked.
Jude’s breathing had deepened. “Yes.”
Gideon pushed the wet fabric over Jude’s hips.
His palms touched bare skin.
The contact lasted only long enough to free the trousers, but Gideon felt the shape of Jude’s body beneath his hands: the lean ridge of his hips, the strength held in his thighs, the involuntary tension passing through him.
Jude stepped out of the garment.
Both men stood in wet underclothes.
The thin fabric concealed almost nothing.
Gideon turned away again.
“We remove these ourselves.”
Jude laughed quietly. “Coward.”
“Cold kills modest men too.”
“That sounded almost like experience.”
Gideon stripped the last wet layer from his body and wrapped the driest portion of his torn shirt around his hips. Behind him, Jude did the same with the remains of the other shirt.
Neither garment offered warmth.
They existed solely to preserve the final fiction that the two men were not naked together.
Gideon hung their trousers and underclothes from nails around the stove. Steam began to rise from the wet fabric.
When he turned, Jude stood near the bunk.
His makeshift covering hung low around his hips, revealing nearly all of his legs and the cut lines of his abdomen. Firelight moved across the dark hair on his chest and the old scars along his shoulders.
Jude’s gaze traveled over Gideon with equal frankness.
The wet bandage remained around Gideon’s waist. Below it, a strip of torn linen covered what dignity the storm had not already taken.
Neither looked away.
The silence became physical.
It pressed against Gideon’s bare skin as tangibly as Jude’s hand had.
Jude shivered.
The moment broke.
Gideon searched the bunk and found one coarse wool blanket rolled against the wall. It smelled of dust, old horses, and mice, but remained dry.
“One blanket,” Jude said.
“One bunk.”
“Your government continues to provide.”
“This is Harrow property.”
“Then I suppose theft is another charge for my trial.”
Gideon opened the blanket over the mattress.
The bunk was narrow enough that two men could occupy it only by touching.
Jude looked at the dimensions.
“You first,” he said.
Gideon lay on his back.
The ropes sagged beneath his weight. His shoulders nearly filled the width of the mattress, leaving Jude no place except against him.
Jude climbed in and drew the blanket over them.
He lay rigidly at Gideon’s side, their shoulders and hips touching. The short chain rested across Gideon’s stomach.
Cold continued to work through them.
The stove produced more smoke than heat. Rain entered beneath the door and dripped from the roof. Their wet clothes steamed faintly but remained far from dry.
Jude’s teeth struck together.
Gideon turned his head. “Come closer.”
Jude looked at him.
“For warmth,” Gideon added.
“Of course.”
“Do you want to freeze?”
“No.”
“Then move.”
Jude did not.
Instead, he lifted their connected hands and laid them between their bodies.
“One rule,” he said.
Gideon waited.
“An accidental touch does not grant permission for the next one.”
The words were quiet but absolute.
Jude’s storm-colored eyes held his.
“If your hand lands somewhere because we’re chained, because this bed is too narrow, or because the cold moves us together, neither of us pretends it was an invitation.”
Gideon felt the space between them change.
“What if the touch is not accidental?” he asked.
“Then you ask.”
“And you?”
“The same rule.”
“You ask.”
“Yes.”
“You wait for an answer.”
“Yes.”
“And if the answer is no?”
Jude’s gaze did not waver. “Then nothing happens.”
Gideon considered the man beside him.
Jude was accused of killing five men. Gideon wore the badge. Steel still joined them. Yet Jude had placed the boundary between them with greater clarity than most free men ever offered one another.
“Agreed,” Gideon said.
Jude released a breath.
Gideon rolled onto his left side, protecting the stitched wound along his right. The movement drew their cuffed arms together.
He looked at Jude.
“May I pull you against me?”
Jude’s expression softened by a fraction.
“Yes.”
Jude turned onto his right side.
Gideon drew him back.
The first complete contact was almost unbearable.
Jude’s back fitted against Gideon’s chest. His hips settled into the curve of Gideon’s body. Gideon’s knees drew behind Jude’s, their legs aligned beneath the blanket.
Their bare skin met along nearly every possible line.
Chest to back.
Thigh to thigh.
Gideon’s breath against Jude’s neck.
The thin strip of linen around Gideon’s hips offered little separation. Jude’s makeshift covering had shifted upward, exposing the outside of one thigh.
Gideon passed his cuffed left arm around Jude’s middle. His palm settled against the firm plane of Jude’s stomach.
Jude’s right hand, connected to his, rested over it.
“Too tight?” Gideon asked.
“No.”
“Your ribs?”
“Protected.”
“Your side?”
“Hurts.”
Gideon loosened his hold.
Jude pressed back against him.
“Not that much,” he said.
Gideon drew him closer again.
Heat began gathering between them.
Not enough at first. Both continued shivering beneath the blanket, muscles contracting involuntarily. Gideon spread his hand over Jude’s stomach and used his body to shield as much of the man as possible.
Jude’s breathing gradually slowed.
So did Gideon’s.
The practical arrangement should have become easier as warmth returned.
Instead, awareness sharpened.
Gideon felt every breath expand Jude’s abdomen beneath his palm. He felt the movement of Jude’s shoulder blades against his chest. He felt damp hair against his jaw and the pulse in Jude’s throat whenever Gideon’s mouth drifted near it.
Their legs shifted.
Jude’s calf slid between Gideon’s.
Gideon’s body responded before discipline could prevent it.
He became rigid against Jude’s hip.
Both men stopped breathing.
Shame struck Gideon with immediate force.
He pulled backward.
Cold air entered between them.
Jude caught his cuffed wrist. “Stay.”
Gideon stared at the back of his head. “You know what—”
“Yes.”
“I did not intend—”
“I know.”
“It does not give me the right to—”
“I know that too.”
Jude’s hand tightened over Gideon’s.
The movement held Gideon’s palm against his stomach.
“You are warm,” Jude said. “The storm is cold. Your body is alive. So is mine.”
Gideon felt the meaning before Jude moved.
The smallest adjustment brought another unmistakable response against Gideon’s thigh.
Heat moved through Gideon, heavier than embarrassment and far more dangerous.
Jude did not press closer.
He did not turn the accidental discovery into invitation.
He obeyed his own rule.
Gideon did the same.
They remained still until stillness itself became an agony.
Rain hammered the roof. The stove hissed whenever water found the cracked pipe. The bunk ropes creaked beneath the combined weight of their bodies.
Gideon’s hand remained spread over Jude’s stomach.
“May I move my thumb?” he asked.
Jude released a breath that trembled at the end. “Where?”
“Across your skin. Nowhere else.”
“Yes.”
Gideon moved his thumb.
Once.
A slow stroke across the warm skin above Jude’s navel.
Jude’s stomach tightened beneath it.
Gideon stopped.
“You can continue,” Jude whispered.
“That was not the rule.”
Jude understood.
“Yes,” he said more clearly. “I want you to continue.”
Gideon moved his thumb again.
The touch was almost nothing. A narrow path across Jude’s stomach. No more intimate than checking a wound.
Yet it held none of medicine’s protection.
Jude had asked for it.
That difference changed everything.
Gideon traced the same line once more, then allowed his palm to become still.
“Why did you stop?” Jude asked.
“Because I wanted to do more.”
Jude’s breath caught.
Gideon felt it against every point where their bodies met.
“And wanting frightens you?” Jude asked.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Wanting does not frighten me.”
“What does?”
Gideon looked toward the dark roof.
“Taking.”
Jude was quiet for several seconds.
Then his hand covered Gideon’s more completely.
“You aren’t taking anything now.”
“No.”
“You asked.”
“Yes.”
“I answered.”
Gideon lowered his face until his forehead rested lightly against the back of Jude’s head.
“That does not make this wise,” he said.
Jude’s voice became softer. “I didn’t mistake you for wise.”
A laugh moved unexpectedly through Gideon’s chest.
It was barely a sound, but Jude felt it.
He turned his head enough to look back.