Page 62 of The Fallen
“The world’s a strange place full of all kinds of things, Gil. What’s more, there are worlds beyond this one. They… kind of overlap, and sometimes, one or the other bleeds through.”
Gil sat silent again for several moments. “You let me think you were a cat. You saw me at my worst! Jesus, you watched me take a shit! Why did you let me think that? Why did you deceive me that way?”
“What choice did I have? Was I supposed to transform in the prison?”
“You lied to me,” Gil continued. “God, I laid there whining about what I loser I am, how I’m too scared to stand up for myself…. I thought I was talking to a cat! And then you… that night at the Scallop….”
Bryn reached for Gil’s arm, but Gil pulled away. “Why did you wait so long to tell me the truth?”
“I wasn’t planning ta tell ye at all,” Bryn said.
“Great, that’s great. Why… why now?”
“I don’t know,” Bryn admitted.
“Wait. Why didn’t you transform and help me when theFreyawent down?”
Bryn hissed out a breath. “I can only transform on Fridays. It wasn’t always this way, but back in Scotland, a Benedictine monk called Brother Wilfred thought he’d show me the error of my wicked ways. He cursed me to be stuck as a cat until I conducted myself to his standards for a few centuries.”
“Except on Fridays,” Gil snarled.
“Except on Fridays. Gil, I never meant ta deceive ye, and I don’t understand why you’re so angry. I cannae help what I am.”
Gil turned to him, his gray eyes bright and wet. “Because… because I wanted there to be one person in the world who didn’t think I was a loser! I didn’t want you to know that I let Grady push me around, that I took the rap for that fisherman he killed. That… I’m a big fat coward. I always have been.”
“No,” Bryn insisted. “Yer tryin’ ta do the right thing.”
“No,” Gil said softly. “I’m trying to do the easiest thing.”
“The easiest thing would’ve been joining up with that Nazi gang in prison,” Bryn argued. “The moon and her sisters know they pressured ye, threatened ye, but you wouldn’t give in. The easiest thing would be ta leave yer uncle to Grady and sail off. It seems ta me yer good at lookin’ after everyone but yerself.
“Gil, yer worth looking after.”
Gil shook his head.
Bryn moved in front of Gil and gripped his shoulders. “Damn it, take your place in this world. Stand up proud and take it!”
Their gazes met and held, the firelight reflecting in Gil’s stormy gray eyes. Bryn wet his lips with his tongue and waited; he needed Gil to take charge of his own fate, even if only for a little while.
Gil didn’t disappoint him. He wrapped his thick arms around Bryn’s waist and pulled their bodies tight as he kissed Bryn hard, pushing his tongue past Bryn’s sharp teeth. Bryn straddled Gil’s thighs and grinded against him as Gil’s hands moved up his back, into his hair, and back down to cup his arse.
“What’s your name?” Gil’s breath was hot and damp against Bryn’s ear. “What is it really?”
“You can call me Bryn.”
“Bryn…. Is it wrong to want you?”
Bryn chuckled. “Wrong never much mattered ta me.” He guided Gil’s hand to his erection, only the filmy fabric coveringit. As Gil stroked him, Bryn pushed his hands up under the sweatshirt. It was completely dry now, and Gil’s skin was warm underneath. Bryn worked the sweatshirt over his head and pushed the suspenders holding those rubbery yellow overalls down his arms. Gil’s pink nipples poked against his thin T-shirt, and Bryn bent to suck one of them through the fabric.
“God!” Gil arched off the ground, and Bryn took the opportunity to push the overalls down and start on the fly of Gil’s jeans.
“These are still wet,” Bryn said. “Take them off and lay them out to dry by the fire.”
Gil hesitated a few moments before standing and stripping out of the overalls, his jeans, and his briefs. His T-shirt was tight against his thick torso, and his erection arched up toward his belly button, thick, flushed with blood, and wet at the tip.
Bryn, still on the ground, ran his nails lightly up Gil’s thighs. He cupped his big balls and nibbled at the skin of his sac before burrowing his nose into his red curls and breathing in his scent. Then he kneaded Gil’s arse as he nipped and licked down the inside of one thigh, back up, across his belly, and down his other leg.
Gil knit his fingers into Bryn’s hair and panted as Bryn continued to mouth his legs, his balls, the round curve of his middle. “Are you going to get on with it?”
