by A. Nybo
“Are they all this ridiculous?” Birch went into the main room.
“Yep, from what I saw. They’re all like master bedrooms with ensuites and walk-in closets,” said Steve. “There’s also a gym in the basement.”
Birch headed towards the hall, disappointed to have Steve in his wake instead of Henri. He opened the door to the next room, the layout a carbon copy of the previous room. Only the decor was different. The muted tones were enough to convince Birch this was the better room. “Okay, this has my name on it.”
PUFFING, HENRI slowed the treadmill and cooled down. The luxury of the holiday home offered benefits, such as the underground gym, pool, theatre room, and various other amusements. It certainly beat the previous accommodation for amenities, even if their protectors didn’t like it.
He turned the lights off as he left and with legs of jelly, climbed the stairs to the ground floor. He had just made it to the staircase leading to the second floor when Nate came from the kitchen.
“Been checking out the gym?”
“Yeah. You had a go at it?”
“Not yet, but I plan to tomorrow.” Nate looked at his watch. “You off to bed shortly?”
“Yeah. What is the time?”
“Eleven thirty.”
“Okay, well, I’ll see you in the morning.” Henri started up the stairs, leaving Nate to continue his rounds.
“Night.”
After he’d showered, Henri slid beneath the blankets. His muscles felt long, loose, and relaxed, but his mind jumped from one thing to another like a rabbit on crack. Mostly, it shot between Russell and Birch. The two men had become powerful presences in his mind, and it was like they were waging a war within him—Russell with his terror-inducing harassment, and Birch with his highly seductive serenity. The thought of Birch losing that calm demeanour at the height of sexual excitement caused something in him to shift.
A shiver radiated from Henri’s centre, and his mind filled with images of what Birch might look like in the throes of ecstasy. His cock began to thicken, and he slid a hand beneath the waistband of his sweats. Even though he dragged the event out, it was over far too quickly. He wanted to drown in that pleasurable sensation, so after he’d cleaned up, he recalled sensations he’d experienced around Birch.
As he drifted deeper towards sleep, he recalled Birch’s wicked grin when Jason had been raging at Henri for drinking. He wondered if Jason had seen that grin. He hadn’t acted like he had, but then Jason could mask his reactions. SAS personnel probably underwent training to control responses as part of their skills acquisition. That’s what he’d needed when Russell had him. If his reactions hadn’t been so obvious, Russell wouldn’t have been so enamoured with him. It reminded him of when….
Shit!
Henri sat up on the edge of the bed and took several deep breaths. He hated the way every thought seemed to lead to Russell. He needed to derail his mind from this train wreck.
Rising, he paced for a while and tried various other amusements, but every path seemed to lead back to Russell. He needed alcohol to dull his senses and relax his mind enough to allow him to lead it away from the psychopath.
The strength of desire for alcohol caused him to recall his conversation with Birch. Perhaps now was the time to determine if he’d been serious when he’d offered his company in place of drinking.
Trying to minimize the noise, Henri laid a gentle knock on Birch’s door. He waited almost a minute before repeating it. The door opened, and Birch stood with hair awry, naked-chested, and wearing a pair of sweatpants slung low on his hips. His eyes were scrunched against the light in the hall. “Henri?”
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” Henri said with a grin, “but now that you are, do you feel like keeping company?”
“Come in.” Birch went into the room and crawled back under the blankets. “Pull up a chair. Any chair. There’s probably a ten-piece living room set in the bathroom if you need it.”
He grabbed a chair and put it halfway down the length of the bed, facing the head. “You can use your get-out-of-jail-free card if you want.”
Birch rubbed his face. “Is it three in the morning?”
“Four.”
“Is the card even valid at this time?”
“It can be if I deem it so, since I’m the provider. The question is, are you up for it?”
Birch’s weary smile both warmed Henri and made him wish he had left him to sleep.
“Was there something in particular you wanted to talk about, or did you just want to pass time?”
“Just trying to derail my mind.”
“Can’t you sleep?”
“No.”
Birch lay on his side, his sleepy gaze peering from atop the pillow he’d bunched up beneath his head. “Have you slept at all?”
“No. I have tried, though. Several times.”
“What did you do in between times?”
“Went for a run, paced the room, listened to music, tried to read.” Henri shivered. He should have put something warmer on.
Birch reached behind him and drew the bedclothes back. “Get in.”
Henri’s heart skittered. “What?”
“You’re cold. Don’t worry, your virtue is safe with me. Okay, let me clarify that—it is safe with me at this time of morning.”
Henri would have laughed, but he was too involved with an internal tussle. He wanted to be in bed beside Birch, but he was afraid of being so close to someone in such a vulnerable position. He sat indecisively.
“If you feel uncomfortable, get back up. I won’t take it personally. All I ask is that you give it two minutes.”
“Are you going to time me?”
“I would, but I don’t think my eyes are up to focusing at the moment. I’m just going to have to trust you.”
And wasn’t that the kicker? Birch was willing to trust him. Was he willing to trust Birch?
Strangely, he was.
Henri walked around the other side of the bed and slid under the blankets. There was plenty of room, so he didn’t even have to touch Birch, but he got close enough to feel the warmth radiating from him. Birch didn’t turn to face him, which for some reason eased some of his concerns.
Birch turned his head to face the ceiling. “So talk away. If you hear a sort of snoring sound, it will be me agreeing with you.” Straightening his bunched pillow, Birch wriggled around until he’d obviously found just the perfect spot.
Henri couldn’t stop grinning, and he didn’t even know what he was grinning at. “So that’s it? You’re just going to go to sleep?”
“No. I’m waiting for you to talk. You can’t expect me to be a brilliant conversationalist at four in the morning. Well, you can, but your expectations are unlikely to be met.”
“I can’t believe you’ve got me in your bed, and you just want to sleep.”
“Flirting with me while you’re in my bed isn’t the wisest of ideas, Hen. Not unless you’re prepared to follow through.”
He wasn’t sure if he was. “Hen? Are you calling me a chook?”
Birch sounded almost asleep. “Huh? No, I was just too lazy to say your entire name. But I like it.”
“Coming from you, I do too.”
“Are you still flirting with me?”
“No.” He paused. “Janice used to call me Hen.”
“Sounds like you still miss her a lot.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Tell me about her.”
Henri had just finished telling a story about a holiday he and Janice had gone on when he heard Birch’s gentle but continuous agreement. Talking about Janice had eased him, and he smiled as he closed his eyes and continued to listen to Birch’s faint snoring.
“HMMM,” HENRI murmured as he turned his face and sleepily nuzzled the warm skin beneath his cheek. He followed it up with a kiss, and the body jolted as muscles tensed suddenly. Henri’s eyes flew open, and he lifted his head. “Sorry.” His eyes met Birch’s confused, sleepy gaze, looking down at him.
He pulled away, but Birch used the arm he had around Henri’s shoulders to draw him back down against his chest.
Henri fought the tension that was trying to infuse his muscles. When Birch grunted and went lax, letting his head drop back to the pillow, it was clear he was going to leave the decision, whether to move up to Henri. It was all he needed to allow himself to ease into the connection.
Basking in the warmth of the muscle and flesh beneath his cheek and arm, Henri lay still. This physical touch was what he’d fantasized about before the safe house, but since then, the touch he’d grown to need so badly belonged to Birch. The sound of Birch’s heart beating against his ear was like music weaving through his emotions, curling around his heart. He tried to recall his last pleasant experience of being close to another person.
His mind went to Janice and how she’d comforted him when Roger, his boyfriend, had dumped him. He couldn’t blame Roger, but God, it had hurt.
Birch squeezed his shoulders. “Stop it.”
“What? I wasn’t doing anything.”
“You were thinking.”
“I’m not allowed to think?”
“Not about whatever that was. It makes you tense.”
He couldn’t argue with that. But then life in general made him tense these days.
“Can I ask you something, Hen?”
He smiled. Birch’s continued use of the nickname made him feel close to someone. “Yeah. Can’t promise I can answer, though.”
“You never did tell me what exactly happened in the hallway that day. Jason told me what happened with Russell, and you said you weren’t sexually assaulted. I’m kind of confused about how it’s related.”
“It was, ah, an attempt at self-soothing that went so fucking wrong I created more problems than I solved. Now that I think about it, I didn’t actually solve any. It seems I was practicing being my own enemy.”
“Most of us do. But I still don’t understand. I mean, near the end there it felt, I don’t know….”
“Desperate? Violent? Ugly?”
“Was that how you experienced it?”
He took a moment to order his thoughts. “The last time I had sex was with Roger, my boyfriend at the time, and it was videoed by Russell, who put it on the web, blah, blah, blah.” He didn’t want to go through it all. “When Roger found out, he thought I’d done it, and he dumped me.
“Later, when I was in the psych unit, I used wanking in an attempt to make myself feel better. I had all this twisted logic tied to it, which at the time I thought was perfectly reasonable—that I would somehow be getting back at both Russell and my ex by enjoying myself sexually. It seemed to work enough to keep me at it, but the problem was I wasn’t really enjoying myself. I was performing the deed, but then I couldn’t always finish. I was becoming increasingly frustrated. What I ended up doing was giving myself a case of erectile dysfunction—until that day in the hallway.” Henri cleared his throat, remembering it had actually been earlier when he had masturbated to thoughts of Birch. But that was a private moment no one could ever share unless he wanted them to. Not even Russell had managed to view what was in his head—yet. “That was my first time with someone since.” He gave a nervous laugh. “I can’t believe I just said all that.”
“Why?”
Birch’s hand came to rest on his head, and he started. But Birch ignored it, and when he continued to smooth Henri’s hair, Henri thought he might break into a purr at any moment, it felt that good.
“It’s embarrassing is why.”
Birch lifted Henri’s chin with a finger so he was looking into his eyes. “No need to ever feel embarrassed being yourself with me.”
Henri reached out for Birch’s hand, and closing his eyes against potential rejection, set the hand on his cheek and pushed into it.
Birch slid from beneath him to lie facing him, his hand still cupping Henri’s cheek. “Open your eyes.”
Henri was greeted by the most beautiful welcoming smile, a smile that seemed to echo around inside him, making his heart feel light enough to float skywards.
Birch moved in and brushed his lips across Henri’s with a feather-soft touch before going back for more. This time he lingered before allowing a break, and the third time his tongue licked at the seam of Henri’s mouth. Whether it was a request for entry or an invitation to come and play, Henri wasn’t sure, so he answered both.
When Birch finally broke the kiss, a slow, sultry smile bloomed on his lips. “Do you want to keep going?” His voice was low and husky, and the intimacy hit Henri right in the middle of the chest.
“Touch me?” Henri whispered.
The kiss Birch left on the corner of his mouth was an intimacy that spoke of affection beyond the merely sexual. It neither required a response nor demanded anything. It was just something Birch freely gave.
Birch ran his hand over Henri’s waist and up and down his back. The sensation initially sent messages all around Henri’s body, telling him to relax, but the longer it went on, and the farther down Birch’s hand wandered, the touches began whispering of excitement.
He set his hand on the side of Birch’s ribs, and when Birch smiled, Henri allowed his hand to run across his warm, naked skin to the waistband of Birch’s sweatpants. They maintained eye contact while Henri slipped fingers beneath the elastic and grazed his knuckles across muscle to Birch’s front, where his erection strained against the fabric. Birch’s eyes drifted closed, and he inhaled sharply as Henri wrapped his hand around the velvety skin of Birch’s hard-on and began a slow stroke.
Birch initiated the undressing by breaking free and slipping his sweatpants off. Henri followed his example and had just thrown his sweats from the side of the bed when he felt Birch’s fingers trailing the scar on the inside of his leg.
Henri froze.
Anxiety seized him, and he glanced up to find Birch looking not at the scar but into his eyes. He lowered his gaze, lifted Birch’s hand, and moved it to his hip, hoping Birch would let it go.
He surreptitiously released his breath when Birch wordlessly trailed his hand up from Henri’s hip and beneath his shirt to his chest. Birch began to take the shirt off, but Henri hesitated, uncertain he was ready for Birch to see the rest of the scars.
“It’s all right.” The intimacy of Birch’s tone allowed Henri to believe it wouldn’t make any difference that he was scarred. Birch lifted Henri’s shirt, and his attention was immediately drawn to the scar on his chest—not that it could be avoided, really.
Seeing the flicker in Birch’s eyes the moment he saw the scar, Henri looked away. He didn’t want to see anything in those dark eyes except the heat of sexual excitement. But Birch’s excitement would visibly be interrupted again when he saw the scars on the insides of his upper arms.
Henri closed his eyes in avoidance and jolted when Birch kissed first the scar on his right arm and then that on his left. He followed through by kissing along the scar that trailed across his chest. Birch’s acknowledgement of past injuries was a powerful act of compassion that caused Henri to swallow, as if he could physically swallow the memories and be done with them. But when Birch kissed his Adam’s apple, as if in recognition of the difficult emotions it elicited, Henri battled to maintain his equilibrium.
If it were possible to silently read something aloud, Birch had done it with ease to both his body and emotions. He had taken Henri’s pain and offered him a tenderness that felt nurturing rather than pitying. Even so, Henri’s interest in sex began to wane.
The way Birch arched his hips against him in a fluid movement caused Henri’s eyes to fly open. He was met with a lewd grin. “Stay with me, Hen.” That sultry voice in combination with the expression brought him back from the brink of breakdown to the immediacy of high arousal.
Birch lowered his head to lick and kiss a line up from Henri’s chest to his armpit. The sensations buried so deep as to be forgotten, it was like the first time he had ever experienced such intimacy. The heady excitement of what might happen nex
t caused him to shiver as much as the sensation did.
Birch growled his appreciation and rubbed against him harder as he inhaled deeply near his underarm. Something primal stirred deep within, knowing his scent fuelled Birch’s excitement. Birch nibbled across to his neck, and Henri turned his head towards him, drawing him into a passionate kiss.
When the kiss ended, Birch licked his thumb and used it to leave a cool trail over Henri’s nipple before sending a breath of air over it, until it was almost painfully cold. He settled his mouth over the air-cooled nub, and the exquisite sensation of warmth spread farther than Birch’s tongue physically covered. Then Birch returned to kiss Henri’s eager mouth.
Returning to the task he’d started seemingly so long ago, Henri slid his hand down Birch’s torso, wrapped it around his cock, and began to stroke him again. Birch’s eyes closed, and he exhaled with a growl as he pushed himself into Henri’s grasp. The craving he expressed in that movement caused Henri’s cock to flex with need.
Precome seeped from Birch’s erection, and Henri spread the moisture down along his length, where he then pressed his own. He squeezed them together, and they began to move, creating delicious liquid friction against each other.
As excitement increased, Birch lifted Henri’s chin and claimed his mouth in an increasingly frenetic kiss while Birch’s hands roamed freely, one kneading a cheek of Henri’s butt before running down the back of Henri’s thigh and pulling his leg up over his hip. Birch removed Henri’s hand from between them and flipped them so Henri was on top.
Henri almost came apart with all that rippling muscle and warm skin along the length of his entire body. God, he had missed the sensation of being pressed against a person so intimately. He loved the way the hairs on their lower legs rubbed together, the soft smoothness of skin that covered hard muscle on Birch’s belly, the little treasure trail of dark hair that led down to greater delights, and the brushing sound of skin on skin. He groaned with intense pleasure.
