Conscious Decisions of the Heart (25 page)

Ben stepped a little closer and brushed his lips against Nikolas’s ear. “If it wasn’t for all these people, I would say that word in another context—right here, right now.”

They stared at each other for a while, the rest of the room entirely forgotten, then Nikolas shook himself slightly and moved back toward the group.

§ § §

“Fuck me, it’s true, isn’t it? That look was about fucking sex, right? Bloody hell, but it’s not fair.”

Ben shook his head despairingly at Squeezy’s outrage. Squeezy was watching Nikolas closely. “He’s not really a fucking banker or a art dealer, is he?” Ben shook his head. “He’s one of us in some fucking way I can’t put my finger on…but I’d like to.” Ben punched Squeezy’s arm. “Oh, come on! There’s enough of him to go around, Diesel. No? Fuck me. It’ll be the fucking hand again tonight then. So, he all healed and shit?”

Ben wobbled his hand. “I think he still gets headaches from the skull fracture, and it hurts when he breathes too hard—where she stabbed at his kidney.”

“Breathes too hard? Oh, fuck me…don’t say it…! No fucking breathing too hard where I am, mate,
that’s
for fucking sure.” Squeezy stared gloomily into his glass. “I should’ve gone fucking gay years ago. All that wasted opportunity in all those fucking showers. So…is it true what Katie was saying…about that bitch’s throat?”

Ben frowned and turned to him, giving him proper attention for once. “What about her throat?”

“That it wasn’t Daddybark who did most of the fucking damage. That they found human bite marks.” He grabbed his throat and widened his eyes theatrically.

“Merry Christmas to you, too, you bastard. No, that’s not true.”

Nikolas came over to join them. He eyed Squeezy speculatively. “I think you should have your Christmas present now.” Squeezy’s eyes widened hopefully, but Ben elbowed him. He knew very well what Squeezy was hoping his present might be. Even more annoying, he knew Nikolas found Squeezy’s new gay obsession extremely amusing and had even suggested they include him in a threesome one night. Fortunately for Nikolas, Ben knew he was only joking. Nikolas gave Ben a private quirk of his lips at this shared joke between them and nodded toward the patio doors. “Outside?”

Parked in Ingrid’s back garden was the state-of-the-art snowmobile Nikolas had bought for Squeezy. As Nikolas had told Ben, it seemed a very small gesture to thank him for a life. They all eyed it together, Squeezy slightly speechless. “Perhaps don’t set fire to this one?”

“No, fucking right you are. It’ll…I’ll maybe take it to Scotland—if I ever go…Very handy. Ta.”

Ben sighed. “Just tell him. I can’t stand the suspense.”

Nikolas laughed and handed Squeezy an envelope. “We’ve also bought the lodge we’re currently staying in from the lecherous doctor who owned it. As I’ve made you an honorary Dane, you must have a retreat on Aeroe. Here, it’s yours as well. You don’t have to take the machine to Scotland to enjoy it.” At Squeezy’s expression, he added, “Of course, we’d always welcome an invitation to join you next Christmas. Although…there’s only one bed…”

Squeezy was too overcome to hear this or take immediate advantage of its implication. He swallowed. Ben began to shiver, and Nikolas immediately urged, “Inside. You can swear some thanks at us then.”

They’d brought presents for Kate and her parents. Nikolas had left Ingrid’s present to Ben, and he’d remembered something she’d once confessed to him; she’d like to see London again and the friends she’d made there. It was an easy present, therefore; two weeks in Claridge’s hotel in the late spring with shows and trips and first class travel everywhere.

§ § §

By the time midnight had passed, Nikolas was very tired. The effort to be normal after such abnormal events had taken it out of him. Ben drove the three of them home, the sound of distant church bells reminding them of the arrival of Christmas Day. They secured the lodge, something they did methodically now every night, and went up to bed. Radulf was happy to stretch out on the sofa and enjoy the light he could see from the fire. They showered together. Nikolas needed help peeling off some of his bandaging and then replacing it, and he knew Ben just liked having him there alongside him. Ben washed Nikolas’s hair for him, carefully avoiding the stitches in his shaved, golden hair. “You’ll have to grow this out. Cover this scar up.”

“Maybe I should grow a beard. Cover the rest, too.”

“Maybe not.”

Nikolas stepped out and took two towels off the rack, passing one to Ben. “You look better.”

“I’m just fatter. I can’t believe you made us go out and eat steak before a Christmas party.”

“And I’ll continue to do so until your fatuous belief you’re stronger than me has at least some validity. But you are looking better.”

Ben climbed into bed and turned on his side, waiting for Nikolas to join him. “It seems like that was the dream now. I can’t believe I actually—” Nikolas’s fingers were on his lips, preventing him saying more about that terrible event.

He smirked. “So, it’s Christmas.”

“You don’t like Christmas, and you insisted we wouldn’t buy each other presents. Please don’t tell me you’ve bought me something anyway.” Nikolas grinned at the slight sound of panic in Ben’s voice. Things were returning to normal.

“All right, I won’t.” He pulled Ben closer, studying where he intended to kiss, building the anticipation for both of them, and then he brushed his lips over Ben’s, pulled his bottom one gently with his teeth, licking it before letting go and murmuring into the warm, eager mouth, “Do you remember the house at Horse Tor?”

Ben pulled away, sharply. “Oh, fuck, don’t tell me you’ve bought me the house!”

Nikolas frowned. “I shall curtail your friendship with Squeezy, I think. He’s a bad influence. I can’t tell you I’ve bought it, for it wasn’t for sale.”

It was Ben’s turn to frown uncertainly. “So, not such a great Christmas present then?”

“I can’t buy it for you, because you own it already, apparently. You inherited it from your real father, John Redvers, when he died.”

“Huh? Wh—? Huh?”

“Coherent to the last.” He propped himself up on one elbow, and Ben did the same, so they were facing each other, cocooned in the warm bed. “I’ve had Kate working on two things for me for some time; trying to discover your mother’s life before she arrived with you in the north of England, and discovering the provenance of the old house so we could enquire, as I promised we would, if it was for sale. She told me tonight these two strands of inquiry had merged.” He gazed at Ben. “Your mother was Elizabeth Redvers, John Redvers’s wife. When they were married, she was only seventeen and possibly pregnant with you already. He was fifty-eight. She left him four years later and took you, their only child, with her. You remember nothing of this?”

Ben shook his head. “I remembered the house—the sound of the rooks. The smell. I thought it was—”

“Your annoying and totally ridiculous belief in fate?”

Ben gave him a curious look. “And that from the man who sees and talks to ghosts.”

“Don’t change the subject, child. So, John Redvers died early this year. He spent the last three years of his life in a nursing home near Exeter. He was eighty-eight when he died. He lived at the house until he could cope no longer. He was very clear and specific in his will. He left the house and all his property to his son, Benjamin Redvers, Benjamin Rider. There’s no doubt it’s you, and I’m willing to have a DNA test done on his exhumed remains if anyone questions your rights.” Seeing Ben was not listening to him anymore he added, “I could provide your sample myself, perhaps. I often contain a great deal of your DNA these days…”

“Redvers. Rider. That’s so weird.”

“Perhaps the similarity of the names was one inducement for her to stay with your adopted father—and the proximity of the moors, which reminded her of home? At four, you’d be less likely to find the change so hard to grasp?”

“I don’t remember.”

Nikolas watched Ben carefully as he absorbed this news. He’d been in two minds on the drive back to the cabin whether to tell Ben all he’d discovered from Kate. He’d not yet told him John’s relatives were disputing the will, and this process might drag on for some time. But in the end, he’d decided it could only help Ben’s recovery to at least be given the basic information. What had happened in the bathroom two nights previous should not be forgotten by either of them, but they could move on from it—recover. Even in Nikolas’s more prosaic mind, the weeks they’d spent camped out in the old manor house on the edge of the moors now seemed like an idyll of warmth and bright colour. He could picture Ben stripped to the waist, building a dam in the stream, vital and strong; Ben running to the top of the tor every morning; Ben pressing his heavy, strong body into—

“What’s wrong?”

Nikolas swallowed. “Nothing. I was just thinking.” It had also occurred to him much of what the police had insinuated, things that’d clearly affected Ben deeply and had greatly contributed to his diminishing, would now be healed by seeing himself in this new light, the legitimate owner of an ancient name and house.

“Redvers. Ben Redvers. I can’t—”

“You’re maybe fixating on the wrong thing? The house? Your inheritance?”

Ben shook his head, wonderingly. “It took us there, Nik—the sat-thingy, when you put in a completely different address, it took us there.”

Nikolas stared at him. “You’re not going to recruit me into your twilight-world beliefs, Ben. It’s a far more rational explanation that, by mistake, I happened to put that address in because I’d maybe heard you mumble it one night.” He pursed his lips. “But even I think that sounds unlikely.”

“It was fate.”

Nikolas groaned and fell onto his back. Ben slid carefully on top of him, eyeing the bandages around his ribs. “This okay?”

Nikolas nodded. “It’d be okay even if it wasn’t.”

“My house.” Ben frowned. “It’s mine.” He swooped down and kissed Nikolas, opening Nikolas’s mouth with his tongue, tasting him, moving up to kiss his scarred nose—one of his favourite places on Nikolas’s face now after the rakish scar on his cheekbone, which was kissed next. Nikolas laughed into the feel of Ben’s soft lips and the feel of other things much harder. “You’re getting better. The restorative powers of inheriting money are impressive.”

Ben put a hand down to Nikolas’s entrance and teased him with a finger. “How well are you feeling?”

“I wasn’t injured there.”

Ben grinned and proved that, indeed, Nikolas’s injuries didn’t extend to his insides. He lifted one thigh and pushed his slick, needy cockhead against the tight entrance. They both hissed in expectation, and then Ben entered. He arched back; Nikolas let out a sigh of great pleasure. Very gently, far more gently than they usually played out their passion, Ben skilfully brought them much desired and much needed release. Nikolas let his milky fluid jet up onto his belly and felt Ben shudder above him. It was the old Ben he heard and felt. When he opened his eyes, other than the ridiculous shorn hair that would grow once more, he saw the old Ben, too, wide-set green eyes and a face almost too beautiful for a man. Ben stayed in and lay down on Nikolas’s spill. “Too heavy?”

“Never.” He put his hands up and began to stroke Ben’s soft scalp. The bandage on his wrist shone white in the gloom, and he peeled it off. He was healed enough. When he was done, he picked up Ben’s wrist and did the same, more carefully, for his cut had been far deeper. He examined it, running his thumb over the stitches he’d put in, then placed both scars carefully together as they drifted to sleep, still joined.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“When can we go to the house? Nik? Are you awake?”

“I am now.” He glanced at the clock. “Fucking hell, Ben, it’s two a.m. I’ve been asleep for approximately half an hour. Fuck off.”

“Did you just swear at me?”

“I never swear, as you know. Get off me and go to sleep.” Ben dutifully rolled off Nikolas, easing himself out as he did. He was hard again, but although Nikolas had obviously noticed this, he turned on his side away from Ben and pulled the covers over his head.

Ben lay thinking things over, his head buzzing, totally unable to sleep. After a while, he got up, but a hand snaked out from the covers and caught his wrist. “Where’re you going?”

“Just down to get some water! I’m okay, Nik. God, you’ll be following me to the bathroom…” He trailed off and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “Sorry.”