His Heart's Obsession by Alex Beecroft Page B

the bottle back, decided he did not.
    He untied the bow of his cravat with a scratchy, hissing noise and unwound it. The leather soles of his shoes squeaked when he shifted his weight to take them off. They landed beside the washstand with matching raps loud as gunfire. While he struggled with the breeches’ buckles—who would have thought that they too squeaked like little mice?—the humour of the situation struck him unexpectedly.
    I spoke though I might have done better to refrain. Little point in coyness now.
    So he sighed, stripped off his breeches and stockings, leaving them in a heap that he kicked into the dust under the bed. Flicking the faded yellow coverlet down, he was pleased to find clean sheets and a scent of hay from a mattress newly filled for market day. When he wriggled in, he thought he detected a slight movement of Hal’s head, as if Hal watched him, brooding. At the thought, Robert grew acutely aware of where the other man sat—the shape of his weight on the mattress. Would he sit there all night, fully clothed, honing his resentment and getting more and more murderously drunk?
    “Morgan,” he murmured, reaching out and touching one unresponsive ankle. “I did do it for you. You heard what Hamilton said. He will never love you. I do. But even if you won’t have me, you deserve someone who will make you happy. And it’ll never be him.”
    “Shut up, Hughes.”
    “It could be me.”
    “Just shut the fuck up.”
    * * *
    Robert was drifting, in languorous warmth, in the twilight state between waking and sleep when the bed dipped and a blast of cooler air hit his overheated back. A body insinuated itself into his solitary darkness. In the borderlands of dream, he turned to meet it with confident welcome. His outstretched hand touched Hal’s chest, feeling thin linen and warm skin beneath it. After that, nothing would have stopped him from drawing closer.
    Dream and reality tangled. But this improved on dreams. He had never imagined the texture of that shirt, the smooth resilient feel of Hal’s skin against his palm, the hollow of his throat, the scent of him, the movement of his Adam’s apple when he swallowed against Robert’s lips.
    Full of accepting delight, he murmured “Hal…”
    This was no dream. The moon shone bright in the window like sudden hope. Hal, his eyes closed, sought Robert’s mouth with the desperation of a newborn child seeking out his mother’s milk. Oh, God, the taste of him! The soft, needy, broken noises he gave when Robert pulled his shirt over his head and laid him out, arms trapped in the sleeves, pinioned and primed and begging for touch.
    “He doesn’t love you,” Robert whispered, ripping his own shirt off between kisses. “He doesn’t love you. I love you.”
    Hal whimpered at the words, kissing him to keep him silent. Wriggling his arms out of his shirt, Hal grabbed Robert’s shoulders and twisted until they lay together belly to belly.
    The thrust of that big body against his, the feel of muscle and bone and hard prick against his prick, burned the twilight of Robert’s dreams away, left him gasping. Moonlight sifted over them both, and Hal’s pale skin glowed. The golden hair of his arms and chest gleamed like a haze of fire over him. Robert wanted to burn to death in that flame, be lifted out of himself and consumed. He filled his mouth with Hal’s shoulder, bit down hard and groaned aloud at the answering surge of power.
    He worked his way back to Hal’s mouth, kissing, licking. The words tumbled out of him like an erotic litany—foul, dirty, arousing words. “He doesn’t love you. He can’t give you this. He’s just a dream. I can give you reality.”
    One of Hal’s hands twisted in his hair. The other clamped around the curve of his ass, drunken-clumsy, holding on so hard it hurt. Every word and every kiss increased their mute ferocity. Hal kissed like a boy trying to swallow a hated taste, eyes scrunched tight, face contorted in