Page 44 of Milo
“Hmm,” he says in a contented voice, his arms tightening to stop me moving. “Not for a second,” he chides.
“Are you acuddler?” I ask in an amazed voice.
“No shame in this bed,” he says darkly and pauses. “Don’t tell anyone, though.”
I sink into his embrace, inhaling the acrid scent of sex and sweat happily.I did that, I think, feeling one hundred feet tall.I made us come. Then I stiffen. “Sorry it didn’t take long,” I whisper, feeling heat on my cheekbones.
“It was just right,” he mumbles. “Not tortoise slow and not hare fast.” I laugh and his grip tightens. “It was perfect,” he says slowly. “Absolutely perfect.”
There’s a weight to his voice I can’t work out. “Really?”
I feel his nod against the side of my face. “Absolutely perfect.”
I take his words in and let them settle inside me and ease the sting of a cut I didn’t know was still there.
“Perfect,” I echo and snuggle closer.
Chapter
Nine
Your pertness is quite frankly over the top nowadays.
ONE WEEK LATER
Niall
I lean against the fence that surrounds the bottom field, watching the tractor plough the ground. Neat lines draw back from it, like the tracks on a railway, and it’s oddly fascinating. I hear the crunching of leaves and even before Boris, the golden retriever, bounces up next to me, I know it’s Silas.
“Took you long enough,” I say wryly. “I was expecting you a few days ago.”
“Blame getting settled back into work and home life again or I’d have been out here within half an hour,” he says, standing next to me and leaning against the fence. For a few minutes there’s a companionable silence that’s as familiar to me as the image of my childhood home.
I’ve known Silas for nearly all my life. We met at boarding school at the age of seven when we were set to room together. Within minutes of meeting the gentle dark-haired boy I’d known we were going to be friends, and it’s a conviction that’s never waned. We’ve lasted through schooldays, university, different partners on his part and hook-ups on mine. With both of us being bisexual it’s amazing we’ve never hooked up, but I think there’s always been this tacit understanding that it might wreck us, and thatuswas far more important than a singular.
He’s my closest friend in the world. I can and do tell him everything, knowing he won’t judge because that quiet boy has grown into an honourable and warm man. It’s why I’m amazed we haven’t had this discussion yet. It’s also why I’m hiding out at the bottom field watching Phil plough a field when even he could do that in his sleep. It’s why I’m ignoring my paperwork which is at Mount Etna proportions and just as ready to explode devastation all over my office. My secretary Barb has taken to leaving waspish messages on my mobile and I know she’ll force a reckoning soon.
I just don’t want to talk about Milo. I want to keep it to myself. Part of that is a vague feeling that Silas will not approve of what we’re doing, and despite my casualness with people, Silas’s good opinion matters to me. However, the largest part is that I can find no words to describe the last week. They come to my tongue, fumbling and hesitant, but then die away instantly in the maelstrom that is Milo.
That first night with him was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. He might have been a bit awkward and fumbling, but the awe with which he touched me brought moisture to my eyes, and I’ve never felt so wrecked by the sexual act. I don’t bottom easily. I find it difficult to give someone that trust, and it wouldn’t have been there with any of my hook-ups because I hardly knew them. Yet with him I did it, because adeep-seated part of me trusts him. I feel like I know him on some sort of cellular level, and that hesitant man had taken me apart so thoroughly that when I came, I had tears in my eyes.
He’s no longer hesitant and he seems to have woven a spell on me. Normally the daylight hours find me at work where I can easily blot out everything and get through the jobs of four men. This week I’ve hardly been there because of the temptation of Milo in my home. He never went back to the main house. Instead we brought back some of his equipment from his studio and he ensconced himself in my study, his wavy hair pulled back in a bandanna and his face lost and dreamy as he worked on the portraits.
The knowledge of him there has drawn me back constantly and as soon as I walk in, I know that his dreamy expression will clear instantly and he will walk towards me, his movements sure and languid now like coloured dye moving through water. He will take my hand and we’ll vanish upstairs to the bedroom.
Up there it’s as if time stands still, as if I’ve become trapped in a magic house in the woods, locked in a room where sensual pleasure is paramount and where the air echoes to the sounds of our moans and cries.
I shake my head to try and dispel the flowery images, but they linger there where I know they will grow in intensity and I will once again find myself on the threshold of my own house, shaking like a heroin addict and blowing everything away for the sake of a few fevered hours.
Silas’s voice breaks into my thoughts and I turn to him, grateful for the intervention. “So, I can’t help noticing that Milo isn’t in his room at the house. Do you know where he is before I contact the emergency services?”
I shake my head. “You know where he is.”
“Hmm.” He leans on the fence with his chin resting on his hands, looking like the teenager I knew so long ago. “Then I suppose my question iswhatis he doing?”
“I’m pretty sure you know the answer to that too. One more question and you’re done.”
He gives me a swift grin that quickly dies away to concern. “Then I have to ask, what are you doing?”
