Page 33 of Two Rogues Make a Right
“Oh, go to hell. Can we talk about something else? Tell me all your masturbatory oddities and I’ll judge you for them.”
Thinking that was a fine segue, Will pulled off his trousers and rolled on top of Martin, taking himself in hand. “I’ll give you masturbatory oddities,” he said, leering down at him. And that made Martin dissolve into laughter, which was rare enough that Will could only laugh in return.
Martin woke with a start. For a moment he didn’t know what had interrupted his sleep, but then he felt Will twitching beside him. As Will usually slept like a stone, this wasn’t a good sign. Martin nudged him. “Will. You’re having a bad dream.”
Will mumbled something garbled and unintelligible. The sharp edge of panic in his voice made Martin shake him more urgently. He remembered those first months after Will had come home—he hardly slept at all, and when he did it was broken up by nightmares.
“Will. William!”
Finally William sat up, gasping.
“You had a nightmare. You’re safe in bed.” Martin sat up beside him, stroking a tentative hand up and down Will’s arm. “You’re in England. It’s 1819. You’re safe.”
Will stared straight ahead of him for long enough that Martin wondered if he had somehow fallen asleep sitting up, with his eyes open. But then he passed a hand over his mouth. “Fuck.” He was shivering.
Martin put his arm around Will’s shoulders and drew him back down to the bed, covering them both with blankets.
“A bad one?” Martin asked.
“Just the usual. I mean, they don’t happen very often anymore, but when they do it’s always the same.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?” He kept his arms wrapped tightly around Will, leaving as small a gap as possible between their bodies.
For a moment there was no sound but their breathing. “It’s the kids.”
“The kids?” Martin repeated, baffled.
“I didn’t care if he wanted to have me flogged, but some of the others were young enough to call for their mothers. Thirteen, fourteen years old.”
“I hadn’t realized.” Martin knew that children of that age were in the navy, and he knew Will wasn’t the only person aboard theFotheringaywho had been tortured—no use putting a fine point on it—by the captain. But he hadn’t thought about what it must be like for Will to have to watch other people enduring the same treatment.
“I’m so sorry,” Martin said. “I’m so sorry that happened to all of you.” He was also sorry that it was his own fault that Will had been sent to the navy in the first place, but he didn’t think this was the time for him to pour his heart out on that topic, not when Will’s heart was just beginning to slow down.
“I really don’t think about it much during the day. It’s just a thing that happened. At night though... well, it helps to wake up next to someone. Especially you.”
Martin stroked and caressed him, whispered soft foolishness in his ear, did whatever he could to help. He wanted to be there the next time, if that would mean Will had it easier. He wanted to be there anyway, beside Will in bed, always, forever.
Right when he thought Will might be about to fall asleep, he felt something press against his thigh. “That thing is relentless,” Martin whispered admiringly. Will had managed no fewer than three orgasms last night. Martin hadn’t known such a thing was even possible, and had been startled when he managed to come a second time. Will laughed, and Martin didn’t think he had ever heard anything that gave him such relief. “What should we do about it?” Martin asked, nudging his own hips forward so Will would know he was interested.
“How’s this?” Will murmured, rolling on top of him.
“I like it when you’re on top of me.” Martin wondered when saying things like that would stop feeling so bold.
“I know,” Will said, with a roughness in his voice that made Martin wonder how many other things Will had guessed for himself. Did Martin have no secrets? He ought to have known that Will would see him exactly as he was. “I like when you’re underneath me,” Will went on, moving his hips. “So I suppose that works out well.”
“Yes,” Martin said. Will got a hand behind Martin’s knee and hitched it up, and then Martin (again feeling idiotically bold) did the same with the other side, so his legs were wrapped around Will’s middle as Will gently rocked against him. They were pressed together, safe and alone in the moonlight, neither of them particularly well but both were something likehappyand it felt like a miracle.
Chapter Thirteen
“We’re getting crumbs all over the bed,” Martin said, tearing off a piece of bread and popping it into his mouth, then doing the same for Will.
“True,” Will conceded after swallowing. “But I’m not moving.” They were reading in bed at an hour they probably ought to be embarrassed to not yet be up. But Will’s head was very comfortably cushioned on Martin’s lap while Martin stroked his hair, and yesterday’s bread had not yet gone stale, so as far as he cared there were very few incentives to go anywhere. If he turned his head just so he could see the cup of primroses on the table. From time to time he caught Martin looking down at him with a sort of dazed contentment that made Will feel smug in about a dozen different ways.
“We could shake the sheets out later,” Martin said, as if puzzling the matter out. Watching Martin discover housework was a source of never-ending delight. “We could even put fresh sheets on the bed.”
“That’s right, love,” Will said absently, and felt Martin’s hand momentarily still in his hair. The word had come out absently, as it had dozens of times in the past. He hadn’t meant anything by it. And of course he loved Martin—he had loved Martin for years, and assumed Martin loved him in return, in the way friends did love one another. This—hair petting and flowers—this was something different, though. This was something both tender and sharp that had been growing and growing in the pit of his belly. He had tried not to think too much about it, afraid that whatever this thing was, it would change his life irrevocably once he acknowledged it. But hearing the wordlovecome out of his mouth had made it impossible to hide from the truth.
Martin’s hand had long since stopped carding through Will’s hair, and when Will sat up he found Martin glaring at him.
