Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Nicholas: Part One

England, 1841

Sometimes Gideon Hartwright thought there might be something wrong with Nicholas Smith. In the five months that he'd known the other man, Nicholas had never eaten or drunk a single thing. He didn't seem to like the sun, and avoided it when he could. Sometimes he'd go so still, it was as if there was no life in him at all.

And sometimes, when Nicholas kissed him, Gideon could have sworn he saw a spark of red in Nicholas's eyes.

But then Nicholas's kisses would grow fiercer, more urgent, and Gideon would forget ever thinking there was anything strange about the man who was stealing his heart.

"Is this alright?" Nicholas whispered, pressing his hips against Gideon's.

Gideon could feel him through his trousers, rock-hard, and the breath rushed out of his lungs.

"Y-yes," he managed to say.

Nicholas grinned – and there, Gideon was sure he'd seen his eyes flicker red. He shook his head. Nicholas's eyes were as blue as ever, warm with desire. His hands roamed over Gideon's chest, lingering on the buttons of his vest.

They were hidden in an empty stall in the Hartwright family stable. The house was empty but for the servants, and even if they caught Gideon and Nicholas, they wouldn't breathe a word of it to his father.

He was as iron-fisted with them as he was with Gideon himself; the servants had no love for him.

On either side of them, horses stamped and snorted. The air was rich with the smell of leather and hay, so familiar to Gideon. As a boy he'd hidden here when he wanted to avoid his father. Now, at twenty-one, he was still hiding.

He couldn't often risk coming here with Nicholas, only when he knew no one was around to catch them. The memory of the last time his father had caught him with a boy was still too fresh in his mind, even though it had been five years since the injuries from that beating had healed.

Nicholas unbuttoned Gideon's vest and pulled open the neck of his shirt. His lips pressed against Gideon's throat, lingering. His tongue flicked over Gideon's skin and he shuddered against Nicholas.

That was another strange thing about Nicholas – his hands were always cool. He never felt warm, no matter how passionately they kissed.

Nicholas let out a little groan, burying his face in the hollow between Gideon's neck and shoulder.

"Come back to London with me," he said.

"I can't," Gideon whispered.

He wanted to.

Since meeting Nicholas, he'd become more and more aware of his own body, and the way it reacted to this man, and he wanted more. He wanted to take off Nicholas's clothes. He wanted to kiss him somewhere other than his mouth.

But that would be going so much further than he'd ever gone, and he was afraid. Godric, his older brother, had told him how things occurred between men and women in the marriage bed, but Gideon had no interest in lying with women.

He wanted Nicholas's hard chest and square shoulders. He wanted Nicholas's large hands and narrow hips. He wanted the hardness he could feel through Nicholas's trousers.

Nicholas had talked to him of what men could do together, and the thinking of it left Gideon flushed and breathless, waking up in the night, aching with need, relying on his own hand to ease that ache.

He wanted more with Nicholas. But he didn't dare take him into the house, and Nicholas didn't have a home of his own, only a rented room in a London boarding house two miles away.