A Hidden Beauty

by Jamie Craig

  “Is that it?” Micah’s question yanked Jefferson back to the moment, and he tore his focus away to see Micah regarding him, his fingers hovering at his waistband. “Merely shedding my shirt almost seems like…a verse half done.”

  “Wait a moment,” Jefferson murmured. He took Micah’s shoulder and silently encouraged him to turn away from Jefferson and face the fire. He unbuttoned his own shirt quickly and shrugged it off, but his belt and his pants remained untouched. He settled behind Micah, close enough to feel the heat coming from his back, but not quite close enough to touch him. “Unbutton your trousers and take yourself out.”

  In spite of the crackling flames, an array of gooseflesh appeared on Micah’s arm, the muscles quivering as he did exactly as he was told. His hand was shaking as it slipped inside the coarse fabric, but it stilled when the muscles in his wrist flexed. Jefferson held his breath. Micah used his free hand to push the open flaps out of his way and gradually exposed himself.

  Dark hair curled around the base, and though Micah’s grip hid much of his length from view, the tight hold had already pulled back the foreskin, revealing the glistening tip. It was thicker than Jefferson had imagined, and the stray thought of whether or not everything about Micah was better without the trappings of clothes did nothing to ease the sudden throbbing in his groin.

  “Is this what you wanted?”

  Not quite, but close enough. He desperately wanted to test the texture and firmness of his length with his tongue and fingers. He wanted to lay Micah down in front of the fire and do everything he had ever described to Micah in his letters. He almost swayed forward, but he was careful not to press his groin against Micah’s backside. The last thing he wanted to do was startle Micah with the implication of something that wasn’t going to happen that night—and may not happen ever.

  “Yes. Now…” He skimmed his palms down Micah’s bare arms and pressed his lips against Micah’s nape. “Slide your hand from the base to the tip. Just stroke yourself.”

  Micah dropped his head forward, the small bones shifting at the top of his spine. His chest rose, fell, rose again, each breath almost a struggle, but he obeyed Jefferson’s directive, his hand moving slowly down his thick length. It pulled the skin back over the head, though that did nothing to deter Micah from letting his thumb skim across the end, coming away wet so that the skin shone in the firelight.

  Jefferson’s mouth watered. He wanted to taste the glistening skin. Just let his tongue linger on the salty fluid, and then move lower for another taste, and another. He kept his touch deliberately light, and the hair on his chest scraped across Micah’s back as he moved still closer. His trousers were painfully tight against his erection.

  “Do it again,” Jefferson said roughly. “Don’t stop.”

  The cast of the flames turned Micah’s skin golden. Each languid stroke along his prick came with that same swipe across the tip. He may have professed to only touching himself a few times, but Micah had clearly learned just what it was that gave him pleasure.

  Jefferson hid his smile by kissing the soft skin below Micah’s ear. So much for him to learn, to absorb. Every moment would be a gift, small and perfect.

  “Do you do this?” Micah’s voice was rough, hoarser than Jefferson could ever remember hearing before. “Your letters…hinted at such desires, passion I could only yearn for.”

  Jefferson didn’t hesitate to answer his question. He would never avoid answering any of Micah’s questions. “Yes. I do.” He took measured breaths to keep his voice even. “The thought of you is enough to arouse me. But the things you said in your letters, the memory of your lips, the image of your smile…sometimes I would simply fantasize about this. About you coming to me, choosing me.”

  Micah turned his head to look back at him, though his hand kept moving up and down his shaft. “Sometimes I feel as if you found me,” he whispered. “From the moment I first read your verse. Your words…called to me, only to be surpassed when I saw you that first time at your lecture. How could I not choose you? You’ve enthralled me, and I am but your servant. Always.”

  Jefferson hooked his finger under Micah’s chin, holding him in place as he kissed a trail from his ear to his mouth. When he reached Micah’s lips, he didn’t try to deepen the kiss. He spoke with his mouth against Micah’s, tracing the words against Micah’s skin as he uttered them. “My heart is ever at your service.”

  “Just your heart?” His breath was sweet, and the tip of his tongue tickled against Jefferson’s lips as he swiftly wet his own. “I think…I’m certain I can bear it if you wish to touch me again. Should that still be your wish.”

  “It will always be my wish, from now until the grave.” He slid his hand down Micah’s chest, letting his palm brush over one flat nipple before moving to his taut stomach. “Tell me where you wish to be touched.”

  “Cover my hand.”

  His strokes stopped, his fingers gripping the root of his prick. Jefferson refused to break the contact of their mouths, smoothing his hand over the coarse hair to mold it over Micah’s.

  Micah sighed, a pleased sound that spoke of more than satisfaction. “Perhaps…” He tilted his head and kissed Jefferson softly. “If you teach me how it is you touch yourself, I might be able to do it for you. I’m a very quick study, after all. It would be a shame not to take advantage of my strengths.”

  Jefferson almost protested that he didn’t have to do that, but stopped the words. Discouraging Micah now wouldn’t accomplish anything, and if Micah hesitated to touch him later, he wouldn’t hold it against him.

  “You are also very persuasive.” Jefferson moved Micah’s hand up his shaft to the head. He had Micah circle the tip with the center of his palm, smearing the fluid over the sensitive crown. He continued to move Micah’s hand in a slow circle until Micah gasped, then he guided him back down to the base.

  “Do you…?” The question choked in his throat when Jefferson braved reaching forward with his other hand, finding the heavy sac tight against his body. “Oh, God,” Micah panted. His stroke faltered. “What…what are you doing?”

  “I’m showing you how I touch myself.” He flexed his fingers, squeezing gently. Micah tensed against him, and his hand slowed, almost to a stop. Jefferson began pumping his wrist in a steady rhythm, forcing Micah to continue, even as he began to massage Micah’s sac against his palm. “I like a little bit of pressure. Do you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never…”

  A glance across the velvety skin behind the sac made Micah slam back into Jefferson’s body, driving them together. Chest met shoulders. Hips met buttocks. And Jefferson’s throbbing shaft ground into the taut flesh he ached to sink into.

  Jefferson’s hips moved automatically, jerking forward. The new pressure against his arousal made him cry out, and he forgot that he didn’t want to make Micah nervous. He forgot everything except seeking out the pressure a third time, and finding new friction. He released Micah’s sac, his hand going to his hip to hold him in place as he shifted his body. Each stroke along Micah’s shaft was accompanied with another rotation of Jefferson’s hips, another soft moan.

  He thought he imagined it at first. The heat was all consuming, his head awhirl with the knowledge that Micah was here, that he held Micah in his arms, that he was tasting and breathing and smelling the man he loved. But as the pulls along Micah’s shaft grew quicker, more erratic, it came again. And again. And Jefferson groaned when Micah matched every thrust of Jefferson’s prick with an instinctive roll of his hips.

  Jefferson allowed himself to imagine he was sinking into Micah’s tight heat with each thrust. He imagined Micah clenching around him, panting his name. He imagined being completely connected to Micah, with nothing separating them. Micah looking at him with trusting, brown eyes…

  Micah’s groan pulled Jefferson out of his thoughts, and he realized Micah was tensing, his body jerking sharply. Jefferson tightened his grip on Micah’s hand, increasing the pressure around his shaft. He mad
e sure to look, to watch as long streams of fluid erupted from Micah, covering their hands and dripping to the floor between his knees.

  “Oh…Micah…” Jefferson slammed forward one final time, the sharp pleasure building below his spine and then exploding beneath his skin. He might have cried out Micah’s name again as he felt his own warm fluid roll down his shaft and stick to the front of his pants. “Love you…” He panted the words until his heart began to slow, and he put an arm around Micah, to steady them both.

  With the loosening of his fingers, Micah forced their hands from his prick. The muscles in his back shifted, and Jefferson lifted his head from where he nuzzled Micah’s neck to meet eyes that shocked him. They glittered with a ferocious heat, the vestiges of propriety stripped away. Before Jefferson had the opportunity to comment, Micah clutched at the back of his neck and brought their mouths together again. This kiss was not the tentative caress of a man unaware of intimacy. This was hard and desperate, ravenous as the others had never been. It lacked the others’ grace, their teeth occasionally clicking where they clashed, but it compensated with passion, full evidence of how profoundly Micah had experienced their touching.

  The heat from the fire tightened Jefferson’s skin, and the heat generated by Micah’s kiss tightened his groin. When Jefferson tried to break away for air, Micah followed, chasing him with his mouth, drawing him back into another deep kiss. And when Micah tried for a breath, Jefferson refused to let him go, spurred on by the knowledge that he never had to.

  Nails dug into Jefferson’s hip. He groaned, flashing on the sensation of Micah holding him close, guiding his thrusts as he stroked in and out of his heat. Perhaps it wasn’t so improbable that Micah might allow such intimacy. His body had reacted to the feel of Jefferson’s, moving with his natural grace. Even now, holding Jefferson as he was, it felt like he was silently asking for it. It was a fallacy, most likely induced by Jefferson’s desires, but it felt genuine, nonetheless.

  He had no idea how much time passed, how long he was able to devour the mouth that had plagued his dreams, how long he was able to hold the quivering body nearly molded to his. A log fell in the fire, and the sudden noise of it made Micah jump, finally jerking away far enough to gaze at Jefferson. His lips were swollen, his nostrils flaring from his quickened breath, but it was the adoration in his gaze that Jefferson responded to the most.

  “My plans are utterly disrupted,” he said with a hint of a smile. “Could this be how Simonsen thinks you mean to corrupt me?”

  Jefferson looked down to his own stained pants and the drying, white fluid on his hand. “This is precisely how Simonsen thinks I mean to corrupt you. But perhaps we can still salvage your plan? The night is still young, after all.”

  Micah shook his head. “I’m of the mind to simply wallow in your arms a trifle longer. Or all night, if you will let me. I’ll reclaim my plans in the morn. They are likely better suited to Christmas Day anyway.”

  “If we are to wallow in each other’s arms, we should retire to the bedroom. It is far more comfortable than the floor.” He released Micah and stood. Micah took his offered hand, and allowed Jefferson to pull him to his feet. “But I must admit an intense curiosity about a plan better suited for Christmas Day.”

  “If you think to trick me into telling, you’ll be disappointed.” Tucking himself away back into his pants, he glanced at Jefferson’s groin and the fluid still marring the floor, the twinkle in his eye fading. “But I seem to have made quite the mess with my unfettered response to you. Literally.”

  Jefferson shook his head. “Don’t give it another thought. This sort of thing is a messy business. I’d be disappointed if there wasn’t something to clean up. Which I will do later.”

  “Later?” Micah looked genuinely concerned. “Will your insomnia continue as badly as before? I’d hoped…”

  Jefferson reached for Micah’s hand. “No, not because of my insomnia. I mean, I’d rather focus my attentions on you right now. I haven’t seen you in what seems like months and months. I’ve missed you.”

  Some of the concern faded, though it did not completely disappear. “I’ve missed you too.” Micah tightened his fingers around Jefferson’s, and the twinkle returned. “Does this mean you are not banishing me to a pallet in the corner?”

  “When you see how narrow my bed is, you might wish for your own pallet in the corner,” Jefferson teased.

  He led Micah out of the sitting room, leaving behind the porridge on the floor, Micah’s satchel, and their discarded shirts. Jefferson’s ideas of order were gone, replaced entirely by Micah. Just the promise of holding Micah as he drifted to sleep made Jefferson forget about everything he ever considered a priority. Micah was his only priority now.

  Chapter 14

  Micah did not remember falling asleep. He remembered walking into Jefferson’s bedroom and teasing him unmercifully about how they would have to sleep on top of each other for his narrow bed to accommodate both of them. He remembered Jefferson guiding him to the edge of the bed, pushing him to sit, kneeling at his feet in order to remove his boots and socks. He remembered how tight his chest was when he saw the love naked in Jefferson’s eyes, and he remembered wondering how it was he could never have seen it before.

  Neither had disrobed, though Jefferson shed his soiled trousers to sleep in a clean cotton undergarment. Micah had crawled into bed while he changed, but when Jefferson had slid in behind him, they had moved instinctively, Jefferson’s arm coming around Micah’s waist as their bodies molded together. The sense of comfort, of feeling wanted, enveloped Micah like the warmest of blankets, and he’d settled his head on the pillow, sighing each time he felt Jefferson brush a kiss along his shoulder.

  There was talking, and soft touching, and more talking. There was Jefferson’s resonant voice in his ear, Jefferson’s fingers stroking his tight stomach, Jefferson’s arousal pressed against his backside. Micah had dwelled in drabs on what had happened in front of the fireplace, how it had seemed like the most natural thing in the world to rock with Jefferson as he stroked Micah’s prick, but their conversation distracted further contemplation more than once.

  He remembered all of it. But he did not remember falling asleep.

  Micah woke to the smell of sausage and poked his head out from beneath the pillow to blink blearily around the room. Jefferson wasn’t in sight, but his satchel sat on the floor next to the wardrobe and his shirt was draped over the back of the chair. He sat up, stretching and yawning. It had been a long time since he had slept so deeply; he hadn’t even dreamt, which was highly unusual for him.

  His stomach rumbled. Grabbing his shirt, Micah pulled it on over his head and went in search of what smelled so absolutely delicious.

  He found Jefferson in his small kitchen, standing over a narrow, cast-iron stove. It was nothing like the massive stove in his father’s kitchen that almost seemed large enough to use as a second home. Jefferson’s stove fit in the back corner, heat and the rich aroma of breakfast emanating from it and filling the room. Jefferson stood in his shirtsleeves, a cup of coffee in one hand, a spatula in the other as he kept the breakfast from burning. The window over Jefferson’s head revealed a silent, white world, the icy crust of the snow reflecting a million points of fresh sunshine.

  “Good morning,” Jefferson greeted, without turning around. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, please.” He went to the cupboard and helped himself to the cup that had been reserved for his use that week they’d spent wrapped up with their discourse. “Did you sleep? Please tell me you haven’t been up all night again.”

  “I slept.” Jefferson carefully poured Micah’s coffee and smiled. “It isn’t surprising, considering the fact you were the reason I couldn’t sleep before.”

  Micah flushed in pleased embarrassment. “You said you’d always had insomnia. Or was that because you were too frightened to tell me how you felt?”

  “I must confess to the lie. But I don’t think the truth would have been an acceptable
response at the time.”

  He agreed, though he refrained from saying so out loud. He had been terrified after knowing Jefferson for a week; if he had discovered the truth earlier, he was not certain that he would have been as quick to trust him again.

  His stomach growled again as fat spattered in the pan. “I hope you like to cook. Because I have never spent any time in a kitchen except to steal sweets or ask for a refill on my tea. I’m afraid I’ll be quite useless to you.”

  “That’s fine. I’m no culinary genius, but my mother taught me how to cook when it became evident that if somebody didn’t, I’d starve to death. Just so you know, I have a girl, Emilia’s sister Alma, who picks up my laundry once a week. She also takes care of any mending I might have. But other than that I don’t have any domestic help.” Jefferson looked up with a quizzical frown. “Where’s Ewan?”

  “In Boston.” Sobering, Micah sat at the small table and sipped at his coffee. “I have some funds of my own, so I can live quite comfortably without needing to rely upon my father, but not enough to hire him for myself and keep him in the lifestyle to which he’s accustomed. I did not think it fair to put him in the awkward situation of having to turn down an offer to come with me.”

  “What about the lifestyle to which you’re accustomed?” Jefferson asked gently. “Are you going to miss it?”

  It was a question he had considered for long hours before making his decision to leave Boston. “I’ve never had to worry about mundane issues such as where my next meal is going to come from, or what to do if I stain my cuffs with ink. I have been spoiled with choice my entire life, and yet, except for my verse, I can honestly say I have never been as happy as I was last night.” Micah offered what he hoped was a placating smile; he did not want Jefferson to fret over whether he would leave because he feared a bit of laundry. “I will adapt as I must. I do not regret the choice I have made in the slightest.”