An Improper Holiday (6 page)
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Authors: K.A. Mitchell
“By God, how I’ve missed you.” Nicky chuckled and yanked Ian’s cravat free.
Ian felt his own lips curve in answer. There had always been so much laughter between them. For
years, that absence cut as keenly as the loss of Nicky’s touch.
Shoving away bolster and counterpane, Nicky flung himself onto the bed. “Now. Kindly divest
yourself of those clothes and get up here before I am forced to seek other amusements.”
Nicky arranged himself in a gloriously naked display, familiar laugh and cornflower-blue eyes at odds
with the strangeness of a body more heavily muscled, more thickly pelted, but no less enthralling than the one that had filled Ian’s dreams as he slept in tents on the edges of battlefields. Longing clawed deeper hollows than all those years of denial, until again Ian was deprived of sufficient breath.
Such was the assault wrought on his senses by Nicky’s sprawl across the mattress that Ian had
stripped away waistcoat and shirt and unfastened his breeches before Nicky’s last words attached
themselves to a meaning. The haze of lust clouding Ian’s mind took on a red veil of anger.
“Other amusements?”
Nicky sighed and leaned forward, taking Ian by the arm. “I swear to provide you with a detailed
history of the past five years in writing and affix the bloody Carleigh seal to my testimony. But if I don’t have you right now, one of us will end up dead.”
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An Improper Holiday
Nicky pulled him with a force too gentle to be compelling, but it was easier by far to let Nicky drag
Ian onto the bed than to make the decision himself.
Nicky rolled, trapping Ian beneath, the press of hard warm skin such a shock Ian had to close his eyes against the sensation. When he opened them, there was Nicky, the achingly familiar blue eyes and full lips all Ian could hope of heaven.
“Which of us?”
“Does it matter?” Nicky rocked against him.
Ian thought again of Aristophanes and Phaedrus and their tales of separated lovers. Of Achilles’
terrible grief for Patroclus. “No.”
Nicky kissed the word from his mouth in a gentle press of lips, but Ian brought his hand up to tangle
at last in those curls and pinned Nicky tight, an upward thrust of hips to feel the harder, wetter kiss of Nicky’s cock on Ian’s belly.
Nicky wrenched free and reared up, hands working to finish his duty as substitute valet, shoving away
Ian’s breeches and small clothes until at last their pricks slapped together. Ian thought he had exorcised it from his memory, but there was no forgetting that sensation, the silky heat of Nicky’s cock against his.
Adding his spit to slick the way, Nicky held them together, rubbing the thick ridges against each
other, washing the whole shaft with heat and pressure. Sweet enough to die from but not enough. God, not enough.
Ian reached up with both arms to pull Nicky down against him, and then let his good arm drop as the
left hung useless, withered stump bared to Nicky’s gaze. Nicky caught Ian’s half-arm as it fell and bent to press a kiss on the scarred folds of skin. Although the wound was ill-repaired to the point of numbness, the intimacy on his maimed flesh sent a shock of sensation up and down his arm, making his ghost fingers
tingle.
Suddenly Ian was ashamed of the way he had made Nicky coax him into this, as if he were somehow
unmoved by what Nicky offered.
“That part about not having you or dying. Nicky, now, please.”
Nicky dropped down, stretched out. Ian flattened his palm against Nicky’s back, urging him on. He
slid forward an inch and their pricks aligned, trapped together in hard heat and driving friction. No
tenderness now, Ian couldn’t have stood it. Nicky seemed to understand that only violence could tear
through Ian’s hard-won restraint, meeting each thrust of hips with matching force.
Openmouthed kisses, shared breath and—as an errant tooth met an eager lip—shared blood, but Ian
couldn’t make himself care whose blood had spilled. All that mattered was the rut of rigid flesh, and the sound of Nicky’s groans trapped between them as they strained together.
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A plea rose in Ian’s throat, though what more he would demand he could not say. Much as he wanted
to ride the sharp, sweet edge of satisfaction forever, he needed the completion that would burn away what remained of the distance between them, bind them with slick seed.
“Now, Nicky.” Ian’s palm slid on sweat as he pressed lower, hand wide across Nicky’s arse to draw
him even closer. “Come to it.”
Nicky gasped, a short choked sound, and spilled hot and slippery across their bellies. The first splash of warmth from inside Nicky’s body on Ian’s prick took him over, dropping him into long spasms of
blissful relief.
Uncaring of the solid bulk sinking down on him, Ian would have surrendered consciousness in favor
of heedless sleep, but Nicky lifted himself away, forcing Ian’s attention to the clammy state of his belly.
He sat up, catching Nicky under the chin with his stump.
“Ow. What the hell?”
“My breeches. The linens.”
Nicky rubbed his chin. “Bugger your breeches.”
Ian couldn’t say who broke first. The laughter came almost immediately, great gulps of it, until they
were breathless and their faces wet with tears. He collapsed on his back. Nicky swiped his thumb across Ian’s cheek. “I did miss you. And all this.”
Ian knew what he meant. No one had ever known him better. Since they had first met Nicky had been
the brighter half of Ian’s heart, sharing the joy that followed in Nicky’s wake. But that had never been just Ian’s; Nicky shared his light with everyone.
Those thoughts linked darkly, one to the other until the twinned pleasures of laughter and sexual
satisfaction were buried under a cold weight beneath Ian’s ribs. Perhaps knowing would be worse, but he could no longer stand the uncertainty, could not face Lewes until Ian learned the truth to outface the man’s lies.
“You swore you would tell me of the last five years.”
Nicky’s laughter disappeared as swiftly as the sun behind leaden clouds. “You cannot allow us even a
moment to savor our reunion? You are without a doubt misery’s most ardent suitor, Ian Stanton.”
Ian turned his head from the hard look in Nicky’s eyes, making busy with kicking away breeches,
reaching down to wipe at the cloying seed with soiled smallclothes. What if there was truth to Nicky’s accusations? Ian never asked for unhappiness, but avoiding it served no good purpose.
“And if I am, what does that make you?”
“An utter fool.” With a long sigh, Nicky retrieved the bolster and propped himself upon it, apparently unconcerned with his nudity.
Ian longed for a nightshirt. His stump was not the only disfiguring souvenir he had brought home
from the Peninsula. An ill-knitted scar the size of a fist blossomed over his ribs to mark where the shrapnel 32
An Improper Holiday
that had taken his hand had also sought his heart. After envisioning himself trying to wrestle the shirt over his head while Nicky laughed from the bed, Ian contented himself with hunching over a pillow placed on his lap.
“What is it you feel you must know?” Nicky’s voice was still heavy from his sigh.
“Lewes.” The name rushed from Ian’s lips. “That filthy bastard told me—”
“That filthy bastard is a good friend.”
“What sort of friend could such a man possibly be?”
“I’ll tell you if you stop shrieking like a fishwife.”
Outrage drove Ian’s fist into the pillow. “Fishwife?”
“An aggrieved peacock then.” It wasn’t quite up to Nicky’s usual smile.
“Lewes,” Ian said again. He would not let Nicky bait him to a false trail, though Ian suspected he
already knew the answer.
“You truly wish to know?”
“No. But I must.”
“What a quiz you are. Very well.” Nicky settled farther back against the bolster. “Julian had a younger brother who was a year ahead of us at school, do you remember?”
Ian shook his head.
“Julian came up to visit. You had been gone for more than a year.”
“I wrote you.”
“Yes. A few terse passages on the ineptitude of the quartermaster was definitely the sort of thing to
keep the fires burning.” Nicky glanced away and then looked directly into Ian’s eyes. “Julian was—well, Julian. You’ve met him. He spoke to me. He was charming, older and beautiful. He said he wanted to show me his new tack, but I knew why he summoned me to the stable.”
Ian had demanded this, but with supper curdling in his belly, he couldn’t bear anymore. He turned
away.
Swift as a hawk, Nicky snatched Ian’s chin, forcing his gaze up.
“I have heard enough.” Ian tried to pull away, but Nicky had a bruising grip.
“No. You wanted this. I dropped to my knees and sucked his cock in that stall. He gave me his
direction in London and when I managed a visit, I learned more than you and I could ever find in those missing dialogues of Plato’s Symposium. He fucked my arse until I could barely walk and I loved it. He showed me a club—”
A hard shove freed Ian’s head at last, the force causing his head to snap on his neck. He was free for an instant then Nicky followed after, pinning Ian to the bed. “You asked. You bloody well insisted, so stop acting like you didn’t want to hear every damned word.”
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Ian stopped struggling. Not because Nicky was right, but to fend off fresh humiliation. Every breath
filled his senses with the mingled smell of their sex and sweat, and Ian’s lust, so long mewed up, tore free again. Nicky’s weight against him, the heat of skin, the rub of ballocks and prick against his own. Anger and disgust were an insufficient barrier as need came roaring back.
He tried to lock it away. “I shall never be able to look at him—or even at you—without seeing—”
“Then prepare to start a new fashion for wearing horse blinders. Half the men in London have
probably had Julian’s cock in them one way or another.” Nicky shifted and Ian’s prick made an
embarrassing twitch as it filled anew.
Nicky’s narrowed gaze widened abruptly. “Is it like that, then? You like to watch others at it? Get a
cock-stand from watching them fuck? A man at Hylas House watched his friend buggered by half the room
and said he’d pay a thousand pounds to watch again.”
Shame and desire coiled like snakes in Ian’s belly. Not to watch Nicky, no. But the idea that there
were others, that they sought it. Wanted it. Wanted and freely took that which filled Ian with terror and need.
“Is that what you want? Shall I invite Julian to join us? Do you want to see me split wide open on his cock?”
“Stop your mouth.” Ian yanked Nicky’s head down again. Ian meant the kiss only to silence Nicky,
but he greeted Ian’s assault with open passion. The slick pass of Nicky’s tongue between Ian’s lips licked deeper inside than just his mouth until Ian burned with an all-consuming need to stamp Nicky with
ownership, brand him until Julian Lewes and everyone else alive knew this skin, this taste, this man was for Ian alone.
Ian rolled, dragging Nicky beneath, hand holding his chin, thumb rubbing across the full wet lips.
Nicky flicked the thick pad with his tongue then drew it into his mouth. An overwhelming sight and
sensation, never was there anything as astonishingly lewd as Nicky’s tongue and lips suckling Ian’s thumb.
Blood filled his prick in a painful rush, and he drove it against Nicky’s belly, Nicky returning the
rough embrace thrust for thrust. Ian pulled his thumb free, scraping it across Nicky’s cheek before swiping the curls back from Nicky’s brow.
Pinning him flat with full settled weight between his thighs, Ian demanded, “And what now?”
Nicky blinked. “Now? Are you asking for instructions?”
“What is between you now?”
“Lord, but you are a contrary animal. Friendship. Nothing but friendship. Anything Julian had to offer me was long ago.”
“Good. Because I swear, Nicky, if Lewes dares try anything with you again, I’ll geld the bastard.”
“I am not exactly a helpless female in this, you know.”
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Ian watched the bob of the apple on Nicky’s throat, barely resisting the urge to set teeth to it. “Then I’ll damned well geld you both.”
Nicky swallowed again. “Very well.” But there followed a quick flash of his smile. “But before it
comes to that, suck my cock, will you?”
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Chapter Five
Nicky waited to see how Ian would react. Would there be more outraged protests? Or would he
unleash the furious caresses Nicky would never have anticipated and certainly would never have expected to find so arousing?
He had forgotten how much fun there was to be had in baiting Ian, teasing him from his dark moods,
challenging his painfully rigid views. That such action also brought forth a wildness in his lover that seared them both with its heat was a
bonne bouche
atop the sweetest meal.
What Nicky’s demand wrought was an echoing groan before Ian bent to bruise Nicky’s lips. There
was so much he had dreamed of showing Ian when he finally succumbed, yet all Nicky wanted to do now
was lie back and let Ian take what he would from Nicky’s mouth before moving onto his jaw and throat. A moment’s hesitation, the tingling scrape of teeth, and when Nicky whispered, “Yes,” Ian’s mouth latched onto the tight skin beneath Nicky’s ear and sucked the blood to the surface until Nicky moaned and arched.
Ian had ever been a quick study and he applied the lesson down Nicky’s collarbone and even to his
