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nape on. "You're distracting me again!" he accused. "We need to talk, not engage in sexual activities." "I agree. However, we can be comfortable while we talk, can't we? I promise you& my pantaloons are soaked to the skin and chafing me raw. I won't touch you at all. Just let me get them off and we can crawl up in the bed and talk this out." Reluctantly, Harry nodded. To make his point more clear, he left his robe on as he climbed into the bed on the far side. Pulling the coverlet up from where they'd kicked it to the bottom of the four poster bed the night before, he tucked the fabric tightly around his lower half, pretending he didn't notice Martin laughing softly at his behavior. The bedpost was a thick, hand carved piece of oak and he trained his gaze on it, following the carved vines and flowers with his eyes to the top newel and back down in order to keep from looking at Martin who was grunting and muttering through the onerous task of peeling down his damp pantaloons. Misery twisted and wound through him. It squeezed the joy he'd experienced at Martin's greeting in front of his brothers out of his heart, leaving the confusion he'd almost always felt in the company of others. Love& if there was anything more unreliable upon which to base a liaison, he couldn't imagine it. The bed dipped as Martin climbed in opposite him, wearing only his linen shirt. He burrowed his bare feet into the bedcovers until he worked them under the barrier Harry had built. Harry continued staring resolutely at the foot of the bed. Icy toes brushed along his calf and Harry gasped. "Martin!" His gaze jerked to the left and locked with Martin's warm brown eyes. He had the eerie sensation that he was doing something that he'd done before, staring into gold flecked brown eyes, unable to tear his gaze away. Of course you've done this before! he chastised himself. You've looked into his eyes innumerable times in the past month! This time though, he was haunted by the certainty that if not the last time, then it was close to it. "I love you." Harry heard the words. His body reacted to them. Strange sensations whirled and whipped through him, joy and dread and terror and ecstasy and& "It'll pass." "I beg your pardon?" Affront caused Martin's mouth to tighten, his brows to knit. Harry regretted the pain he'd evidently caused, but he couldn't regret his words. "I said it'll pass. Emotion doesn't last. Love isn't reliable or quantifiable. One replaces another as easily as men change their shirts. You love me today, you'll love another tomorrow." The mattress shifted under Martin's weight as he twisted to face Harry. "That's not the proper response to a declaration of love." "I've never been one for doing the proper thing. I thought you'd realized that. Telling you I love you is redundant. Perry has already said as much." "It would mean a great deal more to hear it from your lips." "Fine. I love you." "And will you love me tomorrow?" Harry pretended to think it over, though he knew the answer already. "I believe so. Will you love me tomorrow?" "Yes." "You can't know that." Harry debated how to explain his feelings to Martin, who seemed strangely capable of just accepting the turmoil of love. Or maybe, for him it wasn't a turmoil? "Indubitably. I cannot imagine a time when I will not." His tone was steady, his presence a solid warmth beside Harry in the bed. He wanted to lean into that warmth and ignore all the logical reasons why counting on a future with Martin was silly. "What if you can? What if I go with you to Scotland and beyond, and you wake up one morning and decide that you don't love me anymore. What then?" The gaping maw of his childhood rose before him, haunting images of icy silences between his parents, of dinners and outings fraught with tensions, of realizing at a very young age that his parents had very little real affection for one another. "Are you asking me to guarantee the future?" Martin cupped his jaw and brushed his lips over Harry's. Harry caught his breath at the gentle touch. "I can't guarantee it." "Exactly. So it's better just to say goodbye now." "Why? Why shouldn't we indulge our emotions while we can?" "Because I can't. You don't understand. My father left home a few months ago to go find the man he'd been in love with before he married my mother. He waited he said, until we were all old enough and set on lives of our own. Then he left us." "But Harry," Martin whispered softly. "That's not an argument for the weakness of love. Your brother Perry is thirty if he's a day. Your father& he's been in love with this fellow for thirty years. Doesn't that tell you that love can last?" "On the one hand, it does. But it also tells me that if my father, who was everything a gentleman could be, couldn t love me enough to stay, then why should anyone else?" He cringed inside at the pathetic sound of his own argument. "I'm not your father, and if you think on it long enough, I'm certain you'll realize that his love for the other fellow has nothing to do with his love for you. He's not gone forever, and he did indeed ensure you could take care of yourself." The gentleness of Martin's voice was Harry's undoing, and he gave in to his desire to inch closer and rest his head on Martin's shoulder. "I won't be an unwanted burden, a stone tied round your neck by Perry's machinations." He was weakening. He wanted very badly to stay with Martin, even though he couldn t quite banish the feeling that he was courting pain in the future. "I could say the same." Martin's breath was warm on his face, and his feet rubbed soothingly along Harry's limbs. "I'll go with you," he declared abruptly. "On the condition that you do not distract me from my work, and that if you do wake up one morning and realize that you do not love me any longer, we separate." How it happened he couldn't quite explain, but he found himself lying on his back, being pressed into the mattress by the weight of Martin's body. His lips were seized in an all-consuming kiss; a tongue swept in and dueled with his own. Heat rose between them in waves as sensation and emotion combined in a rush of arousal so intense he was left breathless. The scent of smoke and the taste of tobacco reminded him of something else. "One more condition." Martin grunted, shifting so that he kissed Harry's jaw. "Very well. But if this contract has many more points, I'll have to get a solicitor to go over it!" "This one is simple enough. You must give up smoking those cheroots." Martin stilled, then his shoulders began to shake as he muffled his laughter against Harry's skin. "It's just that after the explosion& " He broke off when Martin raised his head. "Jason said I'd meet a man one day who'd care about the taste of smoke. It appears he was right. For you, I will give up cheroots." In the spirit of fairness, having made several demands of his lover, Harry hesitantly offered, "Is there anything you'd like me to do, or to not do?" He held his breath as he waited for a suddenly sober faced Martin to answer. "I'd like you to admit that it was never about experimenting and always about wanting." Blushing again at how easily Martin had seen through his ruse all along, Harry ducked his head in an effort to hide his thoughts. Martin tipped his chin back up though, refusing to allow it. "It's not too much to ask, is it?" Remembering the journal he'd filled with more romantic drivel than scientific data, Harry shook his head. "No. I always knew it wasn't about experiments." Martin stared at him expectantly. "It was about wanting. At first, after the alley, it was about [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |