Page 8 of August’s Thief

CHAPTER 8

I drove Dawson and Mikey via the back way into the estate, too embarrassed by the overblown majesty of the place to bring them up the long sweeping drive. Even so, Dawson’s eyes were as big as dinner plates by the time I switched off the engine. As he clambered out of the front seat, surveying his lush surroundings—and by that, I mean the huge bloody mansion passed down several inbred generations of my family and sitting on a plot of land roughly the size of Gibraltar—he performed a ridiculous curtsey.

I frowned. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Doffing my cap and tugging my forelock. This gaff is awesome!”

He beamed; it was infectious, and I found myself grinning back. “Idiot.”

Sliding my arm around his waist, I tucked him into my side. He fit against me like a hand in a glove. “This gaff is a million times nicer with you here.”

“That’s good because you’re gonna have to crowbar me out!” He wriggled from my grasp. “Somebody else is very impatient to see it. Let’s get his things out of the car and explore. Me and Mikey want a tour of everything, even the parts you haven’t discovered yourself yet, seeing as this place is so effing big!”

Our first stop was an urgent assessment of the cows. Dawson displayed a hidden talent for mooing; Mikey’s attempt to copy him had all of us rolling around. After that, we waved to the sheep, who scampered away in a fluffy, panicky flock, as sheep are wont. Then we visited the ducks, feeding them breadcrumbs specially prepared this morning, and counted how many were paddling on the pond, how many were hiding in the reeds on the far side and pondered whether any, in fact, were cygnets masquerading as ugly ducklings. For all I cared, we could have been cataloguing pterodactyls because all I saw were Dawson and Mikey. As if I was discovering the estate with them for the first time.

By the time we finally headed back up to the house, Dawson’s pale cheeks were flushed with ruddy good health. The weather gods had blessed us with a cool wintry sun and nothing but a light breeze, and we took it in turns to push the wheelchair over green lawns mown especially short in preparation for this visit. For a few minutes, Mikey hummed with contentment before nodding off. I had reels of photos of the two of them, Dawson’s grinning face pressed to Mikey’s against a backdrop of pale blue skies, then more snaps of Dawson affecting a ridiculous lord of the manor pose.

“We need a picture of us together now,” he insisted as we laboured over the gravel drive. I added an all-terrain wheelchair to my ever-expanding shopping list. “Come on, cuddle in for a selfie.”

“I’ll break the camera,” I joked, my stock response over the years. Two photos of adult me were in circulation: one my passport, the other my driver’s license. “Let me have another of you instead, next to the ivy growing up the house.”

Dawson waggled an indignant finger. “Absolutely not. I need a pic of you holding the key to this huge fucking front door to show Eileen. She won’t believe it otherwise.” He laughed and tugged me down to crouch behind the wheelchair with him. “And I want my beautiful boyfriend as my screensaver,” he added just as the camera clicked. “Because although he doesn’t realise it, he’s effing perfect.”

After wolfing down his dinner, an exhausted but happy Mikey fell asleep again. We ate in the kitchen of my first-floor apartment, the only part of the house in regular use. A simple bolognese prepared by my housekeeper followed by chocolate ice cream. He didn’t stir as we carried him upstairs, nor as we undressed him, not even when we tucked him under the covers and arranged the pillows just so. I’d learned the routine: one behind his back, another between his knees, and a third under his left shoulder. Only then did Dawson give him a light peck on the cheek and step away.

“What job would you do if you weren’t caring for Mikey?” I asked as he folded Mikey’s clothes.

“Dunno. I’ve never given it much thought.” He smiled down at his twin fondly. “This is it for me. I’d rob a bank for him if I had to.”

“You’ll never need to,” I promised. “And this court thing will be over before you know it. Believe me.”

He blew out his cheeks as rare tension crossed his face. “I do,” he acknowledged. “But I’ve been an idiot, thinking I could get away with pinching stuff indefinitely. It was always going to catch up with me in the end. I deserve a few days in the nick, to be honest.”

He fell into my arms, exactly where he belonged. “No, you don’t. You did what you did for Mikey. He’s special, and if anyone deserves the best, it’s him.”

He twisted so his mouth could meet mine. “Thank you for saying that. Most people just see someone in a wheelchair who can’t do anything for themselves. Who can’t talk or eat or use a toilet. Totally dependent. And those things are true. But he’s also my twin and my best friend, and I hate that people with severe disabilities like him aren’t seen. Because Mikey’s his own person; he’s sometimes funny and sometimes naughty and thinks Peppa Pig is the best TV programme ever. And he knows the difference between Tesco’s Weetabix and the real stuff. And little details like that are nothing in the grand scheme of most people’s lives; they’re not very important at all. But they make up Mikey’s whole world. And that you understand that makes you pretty special too.”

We left the room, leaving the door ajar. “But I’m warning you now,” he added, “he’s not going to want to go back home tomorrow.” Dawson turned out the dressing room light. “Not now we’ve named all the cows. Prepare for World War Three, getting him back into the car.”

I was still trying to recall the daft names Dawson had given the cows when he let out a screech. “OMG, you have a four-poster bed! An emperor-sized four-poster bed!”

“I do,” I agreed, trying to visualise the stupidly ornate walnut monstrosity through Dawson’s eyes. And for the first time in living memory, I didn’t hate it. “It’s for entertaining emperors, should one ever drop by.”

Wiry arms wound around my neck. “No emperors.” His lips latched on to mine, and as my hands automatically found his arse cheeks, he pressed up against me in one of his hugs that any minute now would turn into sex. “Just me to entertain. And Gussie, I know we haven’t talked loads about this, but I’ve been… preparing.”

Giddiness fluttered through my belly like a first taste of champagne. At last, with Mikey safely ensconced next door and a bed to ourselves, I had privacy and space to explore Dawson’s body properly. To make love to him properly. Or, as my delightful boyfriend (between noisy sucks on a humbug) so eloquently phrased it in the car on the way over, fuck his brains out. Needless to say, I drove the remainder of the journey uncomfortably hard, and it had nothing to do with the humbug in my mouth.

“I… um… I’m not very good at it, just so you know,” I confessed because obviously, seduction was my middle name. “Haven’t had many opportunities to practice.”

With an odd smile, almost self-conscious, Dawson unfastened the top buttons on my shirt. “Shush. I’ve not exactly been out clubbing and shagging every night for the last few years either. Who cares? We love each other, Gussie, so it will be amazing anyway.”

As Dawson’s violet-hazed eyes met mine, my heartbeats somersaulted over each other. We love each other. Never mind belly flutterings and champagne, I had my mouth open heavenward and was tasting stars. I scrambled for something to say, but my mind had emptied of every single coherent thought except the only one that mattered.

We love each other.

Dawson loved me.

“We do, don’t we, Gussie?” his sweet voice questioned, a little anxiously, from somewhere back on earth. I kissed his sweet lips.

“What do you think?”

With Dawson’s love in one hand and newfound confidence in the other, I walked him backwards until his knees met the bed. He melted into it, arms pillowed under his head and a crazy grin stretched wide across his face as I eased off his shoes and socks. The soft grey sweater, now belonging to him, came next; I buried my nose in it before tossing it aside. After that his jeans, boxers too, chased down milky white limbs still dangling over the edge of the bed. And then I stood to admire him, my Dawson, naked on my four poster and smiling up at me as if he was tasting stars too.

“Your turn, Gussie.”

He played with himself as I unbuttoned the rest of my shirt, thighs spread wide, lazily stroking his rigid cock. I was surprised I still managed to undress myself.

“You’re all fingers and thumbs,” Dawson observed as I made a hash of unzipping my trousers. “Wow! And dick!” he added with a huff of laughter as I finally wrenched them down. A pearl of precum glistened at his slit, and my mouth ran dry. Sinking to my knees between his parted legs, I slid my hands up his smooth thighs, leaned over and sucked it off.

“Oh fuck,” he breathed.

I peppered his shaft with small kisses and licks. God knew I was no expert, but for all expertise was a wonderful thing, a wordless voice inside me instinctively knew how to please Dawson, and I listened to it now as I lapped at him with my tongue. As I sucked one of his tight balls into my mouth, a whimper escaped his throat. His hands twisted in the short strands of my hair, and boldly, I hefted one of his legs onto my shoulder, running my lips up the silk of his inner thigh.

“Gussie,” he moaned.

Fuck, he had a tiny little hole. Furled in a tight pink bud. On my knees and buried between his thighs, this was way beyond anything I’d ever done before. I had the urge to press my tongue against it; I tapped it with the pad of my thumb instead. He arched off the bed.

“Shit, that’s so nice.”

“I want… I want to lick it. Can I?”

He snorted, thrusting up at me, his legs impossibly wide. “Fuck, yeah. It’s not going to lick itself, Gussie.”

God knew whether I was doing it right, but from the filthy sounds Dawson made, his enjoyment was on par with crunching humbugs. As the tight bud opened up, I became bolder still, steadying his hips, burying my tongue deeper until he pushed me away. “Gonna have to stop, Gus, too good. Come up here.”

He dragged himself up the bed, bringing me with him. The need to be inside him grew, and I fumbled for some lube. “Can… can we?” I panted as I coated myself and dribbled some more over his wet hole.

“Please.”

“Like this? Facing?”

“Yeah, I want to see your beautiful face, Gus.”

My boy was limber; one leg returned to my shoulder, and the other squeezed my waist. Dawson dragged his mouth across mine again, then gasped, sharp and sweet, as my tip breached his entrance.

A flash of pleasure filled his eyes. His slack lips parted as I inched forward into the clinging, vice-like heat of him. Then stuttered, marooned somewhere between giggling and sobbing and trying not to come. As those beautiful eyes stared up at me, I swore I caught a glimpse of a doorway through them to the rest of my life.

As if I was born to be there, I slipped inside him a little further. Like we were perfectly matched.

“Can I…?” I shifted my hips, earning a hungry sound from Dawson.

“I reckon.”

My gentle thrusts turned to bigger ones. We found a rhythm. This was no choreographed routine. Neither of us had much experience in how to make it good for the other. I wanted to come straight away; I wanted to make it last. I wanted Dawson to scream my name; I wanted to render him silent. I wanted us to cover every inch of this stupid fucking four poster and to take him fifty different ways on it. And I also wanted to stay like this, kissing and whispering and making quiet, passionate, tender love.

We chose the latter.

Dawson came first, with his hand on his dick and his lips on mine and those brilliant eyes shuttered closed. I didn’t think I could ever love him more than I did in that moment. As his channel spasmed around me, my own release followed, filling him up in a rush. Unexpected hot tears spilled from my eyes, landing on his nose and his cheeks.

“Are you always going to cry when you come inside me, Gussie?” Laughing, he kissed them away, his tongue licking across my scarred cheek. The thrill of that would never grow old. “Because we’re going to need a whole lorry load of boxes of tissues if you do. Maybe even a few more tonight.”

Softening but still inside him, I thrust feebly, making him wince. “Or maybe leave it a few hours.”

“Yeah, I’d like that, Gussie. Perhaps me and Mikey could be persuaded to stay another night.”

I grinned. “And the night after that?”

He pretended like he was contemplating it. “Yeah, perhaps. I mean, I’ll have to check with Mikey because, you know, he might prefer a view of a boarded-up petrol station from the sitting-room window instead of, I dunno, fifty acres of woodland and a million cows. And perhaps he really likes being serenaded by Yoz’s boombox thingy outside his bedroom at four a.m.; he might prefer that to birdsong and the rustle of falling leaves. And would Eileen still be able to visit him? No one sings Humpty Dumpty quite as well as Eileen.”

My heart clenched. Oh bloody hell, he was really going to do this. “I’ll send a car for her every day if you’d like.”

“Christ, he don’t like her that much. Once a week will be more than enough.” He threw me a naughty look and gave a wriggle. “I’d like this more than once a week though, Gussie.”

“We could go out on a date when she comes to visit,” I said, carefully gauging his expression. “Just the two of us. Not every time, of course.”

I knew Mikey would always come first, but Dawson was more than only a carer, like I was more than a saviour. Despite our comfort in both of those roles, we were partners, too, in bed and out of it. And I never wanted to lose sight of that. “I’d like to take you places and show you off.”

He smiled at me with his whole face, a little sleepily. “Like the Tesco café?”

“If that’s where you want to go. Although I was thinking maybe a little more upmarket.”

Chuckling softly, his lips found mine. “I’d like that, Gussie. Very much.”

We took a while to part. This was more than sex, more than making love even. It was a laying down of our combined future, and we were both a little shy, a little scared, a little daunted. And a few minutes later, as Dawson’s gentle snores lulled me to sleep, I was more than a little excited too.