Page 87 of Milo
He smiles. “I’m a quick study.” He grips the window frame. “I realised that I was only going to prove myself in other people’s eyes when the only person whose opinion was relevant was me, and I’m happy. To others, I might be wasting my talents burying myself alive in the country. But to me, I’m happy and freer than I’ve ever been. I’m at home at the Dower House, atChi an Mor. Ihave friends and a rich, wonderful life and I’m in love. With you. I don’t need anything else.”
We stare at each other for a long second and then he gives that impish grin that I think I’m the only one who sees the wicked edge to it. “I’m also wondering why I’m standing outside in the pouring rain declaring my love to someone who’s dry and warm.”
I jerk and fumble to open the door. “Get in here,” I say hoarsely. He tumbles in, laughing, and my arms are suddenly full of him. The long slender length of him, the wide gawky shoulders and wild, wet waves of hair. I bury my nose in his neck, inhaling the scent of lemon and rosemary and feeling everything settle inside me for the first time in weeks. “I love you,” I say hoarsely. “I’m so glad you stayed.”
He kisses me or I kiss him. I don’t know. All I know is that my hands and head are full of him and that’s the way it always will be.
Finally, we pull back and give each other slightly shaky smiles. “Let’s go,” I say. “I feel like we’ve been separated for years. We need make-up sex and lots of it.”
He palms my cock, giving a throaty moan of appreciation. “Let’s go.”
I smirk. “You do know Oz is going to want his present back, don’t you?”
He laughs. “He’s never going to let me forget this.”
I stick the car in reverse but still in sudden horrified shock when there’s a dull thud as I back out. “Shit!” I groan. “Oh my God, what did I just run over?”
For a second there’s silence and then, incredibly, he laughs. “My suitcase. I put it at the back of the car ready to go in the boot.”
“And that’s what I ran over?” He nods, and I relax and grin. “Just so you know, I’m totally going to go back and forwards over it a few times just to make sure you never leave me again.”
“Never,” he says happily and gives a contented sigh. “Take me home, Niall.”
So I do. With his hand a warm weight on my thigh and his sweet herby scent in my nose, I steer the car towardsChi an Mor. Towards the Dower House. But not towards home because my home is riding by the side of me.
Epilogue
It’ll be epic and romantic as shit and the angels will fucking weep.
THREE YEARS LATER
Niall
It’s cold outside today, which is hardly surprising as it’s mid-October. I stretch my calf muscles idly while listening to the incredibly cheerful woman who is leading the warm-up for this year’s mud run. Silas, who is next to me and attending to the warm-up much more enthusiastically, nudges me.
“You awake yet, son? I thought the cold and that twenty-vat cup of coffee you inhaled when we got here would have done the trick.”
I turn to smile at him. “I’m awake enough to kick your arse on this run.”
He scoffs and smirks. “In your dreams.” He cranes his neck. “What are you looking at so intently?” Then he smiles. “Ah, I might have known.”
I sneak another look at Milo which once again snags and stays on him. He’s talking to Oz with a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and the other hand holding tightly to Cora who is bouncing around more than a Teletubby on speed, her eyes everywhere and mischief written on every inch of her. Milo smiles down at her and says something and she laughs with her curls bouncing around her cute little face like live springs.
My gaze snags on that warm smile on his wide lips. He’s flushed with cold and buried under several layers of ridiculous clothing including skinny jeans, shocking pink wellies, and an old turtlenecked jumper of mine which swamps his slender figure. He’s topped it off with an ancient brown cord jacket and huge green scarf, and with that attire, he should, in theory, look ridiculous. But he has a bohemian flair with his clothes and with his wavy nut-brown hair caught up in a top knot and his thin face flushed with cold, he looks like a model. I look again at his mismatched clothes. A model dressed like a tramp.
Silas nudges me again, disrupting my memory of how that slanted fey face had looked last night in the moonlight while he hovered over me, rising and falling on my cock in some sort of graceful ballet. I turn to Silas slightly indignantly. “Are you quite alright, Silas, or is breaking people’s ribs part of that alarmingly peppy girl’s warm-up act?”
He grins. “No, that’s just making me feel slightly happier about being dragged along to jump through mud and half drown in the freezing cold pond. It’s like going back to school.”
I think back to our school days. “You know, you’re right. That is why I like it. I bloody loved games, especially the cross country.” I smile fondly. “Do you remember old man Mastersand how he used to make us run in the pouring rain in our underwear if we moaned about it? So much fun.”
He shakes his head. “They should have expelled you for severe mental problems.”
I laugh. “It’s not my fault that you ripped your shorts playing rugby once and had decided on that day to act out your inner Jezebel and not wear any underwear.”
He winces. “How many times have I told you that I hadn’t got my laundry back? I had no choice.”
“Four thousand times so far, and it’s never made a bit of difference.”
