Page 51 of King's Man

“Hush.” Sam took firm hold of his arm. “It’ll help. My mother swore by it.”

“Hurts like the pissing devil.”

“I know.” Leaning down, he succumbed to temptation and pressed a kiss to Nate’s shoulder, then ruthlessly applied the tincture, took lint from his bag to pack the wound, and covered it all with a strip of bandage.

Sam was sweating by the time it was done and sat back on his heels in relief. Nate turned to look at him through a fall of damp hair. “I’d make a terrible soldier.” He managed a wan smile. “Not very brave about pain.”

Sam’s answering smile felt equally shaky. “You had a terrible nurse.”

He put out a hand for Sam. “I had the only one I wanted.”

“Lucky for you, then.” He took Nate’s hand in his, threading their fingers together. “Nate, this bullet was meant for me.”

“For you or me,” he agreed, softly. “What’s the difference? Amicus est tamquam alter idem.”

A true friend is a second self.

Sam nodded, his throat tight, and gave Nate’s hand a squeeze. Then he picked up the tincture again and cleared his throat. “Let me see to your back, there’s a couple of grazes…”

With a groan, Nate dropped his head back onto his knees and Sam moved behind him, dabbing at the scrapes, feeling Nate flinch at each touch. “Shhh…” Sam set his hand on Nate’s shoulder, running the pad of his thumb over the top of his spine to sooth him while he worked.

But he didn’t stop once he’d finished, kept his thumb moving back and forth, back and forth. Then he spread his palm flat and smoothed it across Nate’s shoulders, listening as his breathing slowed, feeling Nate’s knotted muscles relax beneath his hand. In the firelight, Nate’s skin gleamed golden, still kissed by the American sun. Three freckles, like beauty marks, ran in a line down his back. Familiar to Sam as the constellations, he let his fingers follow the path from one to the other and back again, and then all the way down the curve of his spine and up across the cage of his ribs. Touching him like a lover would, like he had when they were lovers.

Sam found his breath quickening and Nate gave a low sigh, curling further forward. In the grate, the wood shifted, sending a flurry of sparks floating up the chimney. The firelight was dimming but that didn’t matter because dawn already grayed the sky. Barely four o’clock in the morning, but English summer nights were fleeting. They would have to leave soon; MacLeod would still be looking for them.

Nate’s hair had dried into clumps and Sam reached out to thread his fingers through it, revealing the soft spot at the nape of Nate’s neck that Sam longed to kiss once more. He looked to the window, to the paling sky, and took his hand away. He shouldn’t —

“Don’t.” Nate glanced over his shoulder, dark eyes gleaming. “Don’t stop.”

“You’re hurt.”

“I don’t care. Sam —” He turned around so that they were face to face. Nate’s ring rested against his breastbone, at once standing between them and binding them together. “God knows what’s going to happen next, Sam. Can’t we just have this?”

“It’s not safe here.”

Nate laughed. “When has it ever been safe for us?” Lit by the dawn and the dying fire, he appeared once more that dazzling young man Sam had fallen in love with so many years ago. “I could have died tonight. Either of us could. Or we might both, tomorrow.” He looked reckless, wild in a way that fired Sam’s blood. “Sam…” Nate reached for him, fingers grazing his chest, bare where his neckcloth should have been. “Now. While we still can.”

While we still can…

His heart sank. Nate might have been talking about MacLeod’s pursuit, but Sam suspected he meant something greater. Whatever else lay between them, they still stood on opposing sides of history and this thing — this glorious, aching love — would always be sacrificed to that greater story.

He wanted to sob. Instead, he reached out with both hands and captured Nate’s face, pressing their lips together. They kissed like the world burned, like floods were rising and the heavens falling. Like nothing else mattered but the slide of their mouths, the slow exploration of lips and tongues. And then Nate sank back onto the hearthrug, bare-chested, with his hair gleaming copper in the firelight. “Sam,” he said again, in invitation, in offer, and held out his good hand. “I want to feel you everywhere.”

With a wordless noise, Sam stripped, his gaze never leaving Nate’s watchful eyes. And then he did the same for Nate, fingers unsteady as he undid the fall of his breeches, exposed his glorious stand, the lean expanse of his thighs, the sharp curve of his hipbones that Sam so loved to kiss.

“God, Nate, you’re…”Beautiful. Glorious. Mine.He couldn’t find the word.

“Impatient.” A slow smile curled Nate’s mouth and he held out his hand again. “Come here.”

Sam lay down next to him, afraid of hurting his arm, and leaned over to kiss that smiling mouth. The rug was rough beneath his skin, but Nate was all warm lean muscle and soft skin and Sam lost himself in sensation and memory. They kissed as Sam ran an expert hand over Nate’s chest, skimmed a nipple and felt him gasp, followed the line of muscle to his waist and lean thighs, fingertips trailing across the softness of his belly to the rigid silk of his cock.

They kissed on, an endless slow delight. Sam swallowed Nate’s whimpers of desire, propped himself up on one elbow and slipped one leg between Nate’s, groaning into their kiss as his cock met Nate’s hip and Nate’s stand pressed into his belly. They started to move, the rhythm easy and familiar, their bodies working together without conscious thought.

“Sam…” Nate pressed up into him, head thrown back, and face deliciously flushed. His eyes were shut, his lips parted. Breathtaking.

Sam hid a kiss beneath Nate’s jaw, licked his tender skin and felt Nate buck and groan. “Still like that, huh?”

“Christ, yes.” He clutched Sam’s back with one hand, fingernails scraping his skin.

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