Cold Fusion (19 page)

An instant later he erased my doubts. He rasped out my name and reached for me. “Please,” he said, awkwardly wrapping his arms around my shoulders and drawing me down. “I don’t want all night. I want you to show me what to do right now.”

I leaned over him. I kissed him once on the mouth, then dipped to the hollow of his throat, the sides of his neck. He shivered hotly under me, pressing against my touch, so I ran my lips across the lovely expanse of his chest, trying to show him that it was good to be smooth and ivory-clad, just as good as inhabiting the hide of a furred beast such as myself. The sensitivity of that skin, where it lifted and stretched over his collarbones, his ribs… He gasped each time I paused to explore a protrusion of bone with my tongue. His skin was prickling up into gooseflesh, and when my mouth closed round his nipple, he gave an uncensored moan.

I glanced up to check on his progress. “Feels all right?”

“Oh, God. I wish you could wrap my whole body in your mouth that way.”

“In a minute I’ll wrap it round a bit of you that’ll feel better still, I promise.” I didn’t give him time to think about that—dived down to kiss his midriff, sank my hands beneath his waist and raised him a bit, holding him in place while I sucked and probed at his navel. Even two days unwashed, his taste and scent were all-consumingly fine to me, a distant echo of his posh shower gel and the great oncoming tide of the essence of the man. I smiled into the hollow of one hipbone—if my unadjusted fragrance was
particularly Mallory
, a thing to dab behind the ears on dirty wildcat nights, his—
particularly Vivian
—would do for more elegant occasions. He was delicious.

I undid the top button of his jeans, hitched the zip down an inch and then the waistband of his thermals. I pushed my tongue into the gap. “Okay, gorgeous. You’re rock-hard down here. Mind if I take a look?”

The only answer I got was a cut-off groan. He’d thrown one arm across his eyes. A flush of arousal was painting his chest, and he’d broken a fine sweat. When I hesitated, though, his hips bucked up under my hands, a message for me to get on with it even if he couldn’t say the words. I eased his zip down all the way. I should have known that beneath them and the leggings I’d find a pair of little briefs so neat and finely made they’d probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. They smelled fantastic too, musk and crisp cotton, making my scalp prickle with desire.

“Lift up,” I commanded, muffled against his skin, and at the next powerful lift of his hips, I skinned him, all his layers down around his hips. His cock sprang up against my cheek, big and long, rooted in its swatch of sable hair. “Oh, God. You beauty.”

He shoved himself up onto his elbows. His breath was coming shallow and fast, his eyes wide. “Am I all right for you? Is it a good cock?”

“A good one?”

“Yes. Normal?”

He was serious. Anxious bordering on desperate. I couldn’t laugh. I pressed my mouth to his denim-clad knee for a second to get control. “Viv, you went to a boys’ boarding school. You have to have seen other lads’ cocks.”

“Not erect. I told you, they called me the Ice Man.”

I held him. I pushed his knees a little way apart so he couldn’t avoid the sight of himself, taut and rosy as he was, big enough to reach just shy of his belly button and finely laced with blue veins. “Nobody would ever call you that now. It’s a perfectly normal, bloody beautiful cock. Okay?”

“I wish I could see yours.”

I shuddered. “Oh, mate. I can’t give you a hairy chest or fisherman’s muscles, but as far as that’s concerned, your wish is my command.” I pushed down my orange thermals. “See? Matching set.”

Almost matching. He had an inch on me lengthwise, the bastard, then a bit less as the sight of him seeing me made me swell and stretch. Oh, dear God, I wondered if I would ever persuade that hot shaft past its shyness and into my body. My blood leapt at the thought, and I helplessly jetted pre-come onto his belly. “Oof. Christ, sorry.”

“What was that? Did you…? Are you…?”

“No, I didn’t. Yes, I’m about to, if you don’t stop looking at me like you want to eat me. Shut up and lie back down.”

He obeyed, but not before he’d dipped his fingers into the trace of fluid on his stomach, raised it to the light—if we’d been in the lab he’d have reached for a test tube, I was certain—and examined it. He subsided onto the sleeping bag, and to my astonishment put his wet fingertips into his mouth.

That did for me. I crouched between his thighs, wrapped a hand around his cock and guided it into my mouth. I breathed through my nose as best I could as my airway filled, deep and regular, trying not to go off like that teenage rocket of a decade ago, although I felt about as far out of control, climactic spasms racking me. Viv bumped his hips, jerking his shaft into my throat. He recoiled with a sound of horrified apology, and I couldn’t have that—relinquished my grip and took him by the backside instead. Both hands, no escape, holding him so tight he couldn’t worry about choking me to death. My suffocation would be joyous, self-inflicted. Thus trapped, he had surrendered himself—stretched out to grab at the legs of the chair behind him, letting go one wild cry after another.

He went still at the pitch of his thrust, and I thought I had him. For myself, I would have to shoot in freefall. A blade of loneliness touched me—to come with no warm flesh on mine, empty air—but I couldn’t hold off, and I’d have done anything to get him where he was going. Hard and fast now, his cock head ramming deep…

“Mallory,
stop
.”

I almost dropped him. I slammed back onto my heels, nearly losing a tonsil as his shaft fell back out of my throat. Stop meant stop in any language, any time or circumstance, but I couldn’t fucking believe it now. I coughed and found the raw tatters of a voice. “Are you…kidding?”

He sat up. “No,” he said, with the same vibe of command I’d heard back at Spindrift when he’d ordered me not to question him about his father. “This isn’t the right way to finish. Come here.”

He took me in his arms. He rolled me down onto the hearth, moved powerfully to lie on top of me. I groaned in relief as our bodies met, his cock driving deep between my thighs, mine finding clench and friction at last against his firm belly. I shook with a short fit of laughter-racked sobs—I would take it in memory to the end of my life, this night when a terrified virgin had found his wings and his mojo and soundly topped me in front of Aunt Lilian’s stove. He started to move, breathtaking, powerful strokes. All I could do was hold on. He looked straight into my eyes.

I was still half-tangled in my bloody thermal pants, but I raised my legs as far as I could to clasp him. “Vivian. Ah, Viv!”

“Yes.” His eyes glowed with discovery. He put one hand round the back of my skull, tenderly raised my head and kissed me as I started to come. “Mallory, this. It’s this. Just…
you
.”

He buried his face against my neck. His spine rose sweetly like the breach of a whale from deep water, and he was climaxing in time with me, spilling hot and hard. I grabbed every part of him I could, digging my fingers tight between his ribs, jolting up against him in ecstasy. My whole body burned in his grasp, orgasm hurling me further than I could bear, lifting me to the place beyond myself where I could throw out a hand and touch the face of whatever creator god or goddess or pure divine thing lay just beyond the edge of reason and sight. I broke into noisy tears. Viv thrust against me one last time then folded down on top of me, his skinny body my salvation. He sheltered me. His bones bruised me, and I wrapped my arms around his waist to draw him in and feel the deeper pain. We lay gasping like half-drowned sailors barely out of death’s reach, sea water still lapping round our thighs.

After a nameless interval, Viv raised his head. His eyelashes were wet and caught together, his mouth swollen, his curls a tangled mess. “Mallory,” he whispered.

“Yes. Still alive. You?”

“So alive. Did you say…your first boyfriend, Billy…?”

“What about him?”

“Did you say it took twenty minutes?”

I started laughing. I could see what was coming. “Give or take a few.”

“Tell me…” He dropped his brow to my chest, came up smiling. He was breathless, quivering with exhaustion, but I felt his spent shaft throb against my thigh. “Tell me when we can do it again.”

Chapter Twelve

Just before dawn the wind dropped, and spectral light began to steal through the room. The stove had banked down to a heap of rose-grey ashes, still glowing from below. In the whispering silence, the new light coaxed a gleam from the tarnished brass rail above the fire and cast a pale luminescence over Viv’s exposed skin.

We’d almost worn each other out. He was lying in my arms on the sofa. I’d bundled the sleeping bag around both of us after our last tussle. His hair was in sweat-damp tangles, and two explicit bite marks marred his shoulder. I grunted in concern and examined them. No broken skin, but… “Sorry. Shouldn’t have gone so hard.”

He rubbed his brow against my chest. “You didn’t. I bruise easily.” He heaved a great sigh and continued the raise-the-dead movement of his hand between my legs. “You bit me while you were coming. You looked so beautiful, like a hungry tiger finally getting its meal.”

I gave a shuddery laugh at the image he’d conjured. Face down, up to the chops in blood. Speaking of which… “You can’t get it out of a stone, Viv.”

“You want to bet?”

I let my head drop back against the arm of the sofa. The ancient horsehair stuffing prickled my bare backside—both sets of jeans and orange thermal pants were in a heap on the floor—but even that felt good, a kind of divine scratch. I’d hauled Viv up here about three hours ago, curled up with him and showed him the uncomplicated joys of a hand job. God, he was quick to learn. His fingers closed around my balls hard enough to send a wave of anguished pleasure through my weary flesh, and he was right—there
was
blood left in the stone, enough to lift my cock one more time into his ready grasp. He stroked me from root to tip, slowly at first then faster as I writhed and moaned. His thumb skimmed the head, pressed as I’d demonstrated on him into the sensitive underside dint. He jerked at me with careful power, held me still and bit me in his turn.

The bright splash of pain brought me over, yelling hoarsely. He’d already wrung from me most of the seed I had to give—the sleeping bag was damp with it, mingled with his, giving off a scent of hot life. I came in a near-dry heave. I thrust a hand down, got a grip round the base of his shaft and rasped out encouragement to him, to do it, to finish, to let go. He got there with a desperate effort. We were both exhausted, but I felt the hot splash against my thigh, and I buried my fingers in the hair at the back of his head.

“Vivian. Viv.” I kissed him roughly on the brow. “You bloody gorgeous bastard. I think you’ve killed me.”

He had gone down like a sack of coals onto my chest. “What a way to go it would be,” he observed, when he’d recovered enough breath to speak. “I might ask you to love me to death, Mallory.”

I was done, squeezed blissfully empty. “Not right away, I hope.”

“No. Not even in twenty minutes’ time.” A huge yawn shook him. “I’ve never wanted to sleep more in my entire life.”

“Thank God, you insatiable monster.” I settled him more comfortably, tangling my legs with his. “I think you broke my dick.”

At least he’d learned not to take me literally about everything. Laughter rippled through him. “Sorry. Well, it’s only fair. You certainly broke my…my duck, was it?”

“Mm-hm. A pity we don’t have some bloodstained sheets to fly from the windows.”

“Maybe we could mark out a message in the snow.”

“For passing helicopter pilots? Aye, maybe we could.”

He wrapped an arm around my waist, nuzzled sleepily at my ear. “What would the message say?”

“We’ll keep it simple. Vivian Calder—not a virgin anymore.”

* * * * *

The next time I surfaced, the room was full of sunshine and the smell of fresh bread. If I was still asleep, the dream was a pleasant one, and I lay contentedly, letting it play on. No such savoury aroma had ever drifted from Ma Mallory’s kitchen. I’d picked it up when passing a branch of Greggs, or in one of the supermarkets where they cunningly blew it through the vents to make you hungry while you shopped.

It was potent stuff. I sat up, my stomach yowling. The kitchen was empty. It was also extremely tidy. Everything we’d dislodged in the course of our nightly collisions had been put back into place. The sleeping bag had been tucked around me with precision, the top turned down in a smooth fold.

I hadn’t for a moment thought I’d cure Viv of his habits by taking him to bed. I’d accepted that he wasn’t in need of curing. Some expectation in me had been foiled, though. I couldn’t match up my passion-racked lover of the night before with the man who obsessively lined up tables, chairs and shoes. That odd creature was still alive and well. I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear away my cobwebs and assumptions. Viv Calder, not a virgin anymore, was still his own sweet self, and apparently he really could make bread. A big shapely cobbler loaf, tawny gold, was cooling on a tray by the stove.

The door from the hallway swung open, admitting the man himself and a few wisps of steam. He stopped short at the sight of me as if he hadn’t expected to find me there. He was dressed for day, and if his jumper had allowed for buttoning up, he’d be buttoned.

“Good morning,” he said, with an unconvincing smile. “You’re right, there is some hot water. I’m running a bath.”

I pushed back the sleeping bag from my sticky skin. “I could really use one.” Stiffly I got up and stood naked in front of him. His expression didn’t change, and on instinct I covered up, grabbing my discarded T-shirt. The love nest was decidedly chilly this morning. My heart sank. Had I pushed him too far? The strands that bound us together were new, fragile, and the weirdest bloody weave I’d ever encountered. I couldn’t bear to think that we’d torn them for the sake of a fuck, no matter how good it had been.

It had been so damn good, though. Were his limbs still vibrant with the aftermath? Was his skin aching and tingling like mine in all the places it had been squeezed, bitten, caressed? “Viv, are you okay this morning?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Why would I not be?”

“Well, last night was…” I shook my head. If he didn’t know why I was asking, there was little point in trying to explain. “Never mind. A bath sounds great. I doubt there’ll be enough in the tank for two, so you go first.” I tried for a morning-after intimacy, a joke between new lovers. “Or hop in with me. I’ll scrub your back for you.”

The sea-grey gaze went blank, remote as an eagle’s. “Thank you, but I washed when I got up. I was running the bath for you.”

“Great. Thanks. Then can we have some of that beautiful loaf you made for breakfast?”

“Oh. I still have flour on my hands.” Apparently that was intolerable this morning. He went to the sink and turned on the tap. I decided not to tell him he had a streak of it in his hair too. He scrubbed his hands ferociously. “The bread is yours too. Help yourself.”

“I’d rather wait and share it with you.”

He snapped off the water and stood with lowered head. “I need to be by myself for a while. Is there anywhere I could go for a walk?”

I glanced out of the window. There hadn’t been much more snow, and the gale had dropped after carving the drifts into yet more fantastic shapes, as if Salvador Dali and Gaudì had spent the night out there directing operations. “You won’t get very far in this, but my aunt had a place she used to like to sit, up among the pines at the back of the house. You’ll see the track behind the garage, if it hasn’t been snowed over.”

“All right. Thank you.” He turned away.

“Viv?”

“Yes?”

“Hat. Scarf. Jacket.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” He paused in the doorway, his back to me, head down. “This isn’t how I’m meant to behave, is it? It’s not what a lover does.”

He sounded miserable. I wanted to stride over to him, pull him back into our warm, firelit night world, but his barriers were up, ice and steel.

“I haven’t had enough of them to lay down the law,” I said quietly. “I don’t mind how you behave. Just wrap up warm, and don’t catch your death while you’re doing it.”

I waited, still clutching the T-shirt to my vitals, until the outer door clicked shut. Then I padded through to the bathroom, feeling new aches at every step. God, we’d done nothing more dramatic than thrust at one another, offer hands and mouths for consummation, but I felt as if I’d spent a night in a small boat on rough seas. I’d strained every muscle to hold him, lift him, get him where he was going and keep him safe afterwards, bringing him painlessly down.

And none of it might ever happen again. I stifled a cry at the thought. Well, he’d been clear with me, as clear as he could. He’d wanted to try sex. That was no guarantee that he’d like it once the experiment was done, or feel strongly enough about it to climb his inner walls and come back to me.

I slid into the hot water, shuddering. The bathroom was a tiny afterthought tacked onto the rear of the house, and the electric heater had never worked even when the mains had been connected. The embrace of the water was so nice I feared I’d fall apart in it. I held my nose and submerged myself completely. Stayed under as long as I could, letting my own reactions to the night we’d shared roll through me.

I sat up, shaking my head. Self-pity was making me stupid. I should have warned him to take care outside, to watch out for vehicles, not to venture too far into the woods. Surely common sense would warn him to stay alert and close to the house, but more and more I was getting the idea that self-preservation wasn’t his strong suit. And if he was unhappy, distracted…

Sheeting water, I hauled out of the bath. The towels I’d bought in Loch Dubh were folded nicely over the rail. I dried myself off and went in search of clothes, although sharing quarters with Viv meant never having to search for long—once a place was established for a particular item, there the item would stay. I was glad I’d invested in more T-shirts and underwear. There they were, precision piled on the radiator in Aunt Lil’s bedroom. I dispensed myself a clean set of everything, pulled on my top layers and coat and ran outdoors.

Viv was nowhere to be seen and didn’t respond to my shouts. I followed his footprints through the new blanket of snow as far as the track behind the shed, but the pine trees had sheltered the needle-strewn ground, and I quickly lost his trail. I couldn’t see him up by the larch with the low horseshoe-shaped branch where the old lady had liked to sit on warm autumn evenings. Shading my eyes, I swung around, scanning the landscape for movement.

There, but so far away it couldn’t possibly be Viv. Right across the valley, on a stretch of hillside as snowbound as our own, something flickered against the dazzling white. A man-sized shape, I thought, but it vanished before I could focus. Probably just a deer. There was another ruined croft up there, though, nothing more than two house ends and a pile of rubble. If anyone had succeeded in following us here, that would be the place to set up camp.

Paranoid, maybe, but I was ready for a good adrenal surge. The night had wrought changes in me. I’d already done my best to take Viv out of harm’s reach, but our flight from Spindrift had been little more than a feckless dash to higher ground. Now we were here, in the last and only sanctuary I could provide for him—now that I knew how he felt and sounded when he gave himself over to climax in my arms—I wasn’t sure there were any limits on what I’d do to protect him. I could start by finding out if Lilian had left her shotgun behind.

She’d been so in the habit of living alone that the gun had been lying in the open, on top of her sideboard, when I’d first arrived. The second she’d seen me taking an interest, she’d put it away in a cupboard behind the sea-creature hatstand. This time I approached the prongs and hooks with caution and avoided a poke in the eye. Her other deterrent had been to tell me the cupboard was full of spiders, something I discovered had been more than a cautionary tale when I yanked the door open and a wide selection in all shapes and sizes ran out over my boots. Wherever Viv was, I hoped he was far enough away not to hear my reactive yell, pitched at a height I hadn’t been able to reach since my voice broke. I composed myself and breathed deeply for a few seconds, then reached into the cupboard.

The rifle was there, and several boxes of cartridges. Lilian’s dislike of society had bordered on survivalism, and I couldn’t help but wish she’d been armed and ready when my dad had turned up that day. That old wound had found its salve, though—I had her note safely folded and tucked into my coat’s inner pocket, along with the blue seashell. Tokens and talismans… I lifted the shotgun out and carried it carefully into the sunlit yard, where I could see what I was doing.

I knew enough to be able to break it down and insert the cartridges. Beyond that my expertise stopped, but what more did I need? Tucking the gun beneath my arm, I trudged through the snow to the western boundary wall and scanned the far hillside again. No sign of movement now. A pity, because I could have used a good reason to shoot something. I’d told myself that I could cope with Viv’s retreats as well as his spectacular advances. Out here in the merciless light, I knew I’d been wrong. I’d have expected anything this morning other than finding him cold.

I rested the barrel of the shotgun on top of the wall. In the shelter of the clearing, a few of Aunt Lil’s plump rabbits had emerged to sunbathe and pick at what nourishment they could. Viv had come through on the bread, so maybe I could offer my rabbit stew to go with it. Maybe I could feed him up, fill out the hollows between his ribs and warm him back up from within. I raised the rifle, tucked the barrel against my shoulder and took aim.

“Are you any good with that?”

“Holy fucking God, Viv. I nearly shot the car.” I fumbled for the safety catch, clicked it into place and turned around, heart beating hard enough to jump out of my mouth. “Don’t creep up on me like that.”

“I didn’t mean to creep. What were you doing?”

“Finding us some supper that hasn’t come out of a tin.” I surveyed him, trying to get my breathing under control. He was pale, and his eyes were red-rimmed, but his lights were back on. I felt their heat on my skin. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I can see why your aunt liked it up there. It’s very peaceful. Are you a decent shot?”