Page 30 of King's Man

“You know why,” Nate said, wrenching the ring back.

He looked angry and exposed in a way Sam hadn’t seen for a long time. But he wasn’t moving away, staring at Sam in heated defiance, breathing hard. A rivulet of water ran from the hollow at the base of his throat, seeping into the linen of his shirt. Nate swallowed, throat working. Sam tracked the movement, the rapid rise and fall of his chest. His skin smelled like soap and the lingering green scent of the river.

In the moonlight, he was beautiful. Angry and tempting.

Sam couldn’t breathe for wanting him.

With a low growl, Nate moved, and their mouths came together in a furious clash. Less of a kiss than a fight. A flashflood of desire. Legs tangled, bodies tussled, hands twisted into shirts. Wordless, noiseless but for their heavy breaths and Sam’s snarl when Nate’s hand slid under the hem of his shirt to find his prick. His knees went weak and he hated it, hated feeling so vulnerable. Pushing Nate’s hand away, he grabbed him around the waist and ground into him instead, feeling Nate’s rigid length hard against his own and watching with primal glee as Nate gasped, arching backward over Sam’s arm in helpless surrender.

Submitting.

Through the fine lawn of Nate’s shirt, Sam could see the hard nub of his nipples and bent over to taste and bite. Nate’s cry was breathless, his fingers knotting into Sam’s hair as he caught his balance.

But then the tug on his hair became a pull, then a push, and Nate seized Sam’s shoulders, urging him up and backwards until Sam’s legs hit the edge of the bed. Nate felled him with a shove that sent him half sprawling onto his back and was on his knees between Sam’s thighs before Sam had time to catch his breath.

For a heavy moment, they eyed each other. Nate looked wild, loose hair cascading down to his shoulders, eyes wide and dusky, lips glistening. Neither spoke. To speak would break the spell. But Sam nodded once, and then Nate’s mouth was on his prick, eager to please. Christ, he’d always been so eager to please in the bedroom.

Sam let his head drop back, terrified of the darkness boiling beneath his desire. Terrified of the memories it would stir up. But he couldn’t make himself stop, he wanted it too much. “God damn you,” he growled. “Fuckinghell.”

Nate made a noise, soft and desperate with pleasure, as his clever mouth made Sam see stars. God, but this was a familiar dance. Achingly, terribly familiar. Nate’s shirt had slipped down, baring one shoulder, and Sam set his hand there, relishing the feel of smooth skin. Somehow, the intimacy softened him. Then Nate glanced up, eyes gleaming through his long lashes, and for an instant they were connected. Reunited, as one.

Sam’s heart swooped like a bird on the wing.

And then Nate’s eyes fluttered closed and he took Sam to the hilt, pushing him abruptly over the edge. With a cry, Sam’s release swept up and through him, a bolt of summer lightning from a clear blue sky. It knocked him backward onto the bed, blazing white as pleasure overwhelmed him. Amidst it, Nate buried his face against Sam’s thigh, his breath hot against his skin as he smothered a groan, the warmth of his release splashing against Sam’s calf.

Breathless, Sam lay in the dark and waited for the memories to erupt: the tarpit stench, the flicker of the torches in the hands of the mob, and the dreadful despairing darkness of Simsbury Mine.

But those weren’t the memories that came to him.

Instead, his mind drifted back to another night. To the night he’d given Nate the ring…

They’d been in the back parlor at home — what had been his father’s home, before the typhus took his parents — with the fire burned down to ash and a single candle providing the only light. With the servants abed, Nate had lounged in Sam’s arms on the settle and when Sam had fished the rings, a pair of them, from his pocket and shown him, Nate had laughed in delight. When he’d read the inscription — an abbreviation ofamicus est tamquam alter idem — his eyes had turned liquid, lit gold by the dancing candlelight, and they’d kissed until Sam tasted salt tears on his lips. Nate had slipped the ring on that night and hadn’t taken it off again.

“I lost my ring,” Sam said after a while, watching the play of moonlight over the cracked plaster ceiling. “I used it to bribe my way out of Simsbury Mine.” At the time, he hadn’t thought it much of a loss, the ring already rendered worthless by Nate’s betrayal.

“I’m sorry,” Nate said softly.

Just that:I’m sorry.

But for what? The loss of his ring? The loss of his home, his friends, his country? Nate’s silence when Holden’s mob had come for him?

Or for simply not loving him enough.

There was so many questions Sam could have asked that he found it impossible to ask anything at all, the words too heavy in his heart. He simply couldn’t make himself speak.

In silence, Nate got up and washed himself again in the basin. The white of his shirt looked ghostly in the silvery light as, silently, he returned with a cloth and kneeled to clean Sam’s leg.

A simple gesture, but it made Sam’s throat burn.

When he was done, Nate lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Hesitant, Sam collected his pillow from where he’d dropped it on the floor and set it on his own side of the bed, laying down again and mirroring Nate’s position. Sam could feel his quivering tension through the mattress, but bit down hard on his absurd urge to pull him into his arms and comfort him.

What comfort did he have to offer? Nothing had changed; all they’d done tonight was muddy the waters.

Instead, Sam stared at the moon-dappled ceiling until his vision blurred and he sank into a restless sleep.

∞∞∞

Nate woke at dawn to the sensation of fingers in his hair, the lightest of touches brushing strands from his face. Warm, work-roughened fingertips ghosted across his forehead, achingly familiar.

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