" W hy? Or let me answer for you. You don't know." Ethan propped his arms on either side of the tub and cocked his head as he studied the man at the desk whose gaze had not wavered.
"Oh, I know." Dyer stroked the cat's back before he left his chair and prowled across the room in slow languid strides. Speaking of beasts, Fam Dyer was the most frighteningly beautiful beast Ethan had ever seen.
"Makes me want to beat the hell out of you or kiss you or both."
Ethan laughed. "I think I like that."
"Of course you do." He sat in the chair at the foot of Ethan's bath. "You're the very last sort of man I'd choose, and yet here you are--on my mind day and night, when I have much more important things to do."
"The last sort? What sort is that? Someone like Derek at Missus Greene's?
" Ethan picked up the soap that, along with another thick bath sheet, had been placed on a stool next to the tub.
He set to soaping his body to keep himself from staring at Dyer's handsome face.
There was something disconcerting and heated about the way the man looked at him.
"You're nothing like him. You're stubborn, tough, ready to do anything to survive. Even when you're on your knees you kneel to no man. Your brother has no idea the manner of creature you are. He'd better pray he doesn't find out."
"I used to draw his cork at least once a week when we were younger." Ethan shrugged. "Eventually, I decided doing so was not worth the effort. He's a bully, and nothing is going to change him."
"There is a passion and rage in you that would terrify those sheep you dine with in Mayfair. You're not fooling me, Ethan. I see who you are, and it makes me want to chew glass."
"I would apologize, but I don't think I wish to."
"You wouldn't mean it if you did. You are unapologetically you, damn you."
Ethan ducked beneath the water and came up shaking his head like a wet dog. "You're right. I wouldn't mean it a damned bit. Especially not with you." Now it was Dyer's turn to cock his head.
"Is that a challenge, milord?"
Ethan stood and allowed the water to sluice down his body.
"If you like...guv'." He stepped out of the tub onto the thick braided hearth rug and made a very slow business of drying his hair and then his body.
He couldn't decide if the sudden flush of heat that fell over him was the blaze in the hearth or the blaze in Dyer's black eyes.
He wrapped the bath sheet around his waist and glanced back to the other side of the bed at the table where the tray of food sat.
"I'm hungry." He turned and took a step forward.
"So am I." Dyer's voice was a dark growl.
He was on Ethan so quickly it was all he could do to stay upright.
The mouth that slammed down on his showed not an ounce of mercy or tenderness.
He kissed Ethan as if his very life depended upon the crush of his lips and the thrust of his tongue.
Ethan dug his fingers into Dyer's biceps and fought for control.
Their groans were feral and deep. They gasped for breath only to go at each other again with kisses that locked them in a carnal exploration of mouths and clumsy grasps.
Each tried to pull the other closer, as if they might devour themselves and disappear from this world altogether.
Dyer steered him toward the foot of the bed.
The back of Ethan's knees met the wide oak blanket chest and he fell across the cold wood.
With fumbling hands, his captor stripped the towel away and left him naked, sprawled on the chest like some offering on an altar to pleasure.
Dyer came down over him, braced on his hands on either side of Ethan's shoulders.
He thrust his hips between Ethan's legs and brushed his buckskin clad groin across Ethan's aching cock.
The rhythm of strokes he set up had Ethan hard and ready to come almost instantly.
"Clothes," Ethan gasped as he broke their kiss.
"Take off your clothes. I'm tired of being the only one of us naked.
I want to see you." He reached up and began to pull at Dyer's shirt, drawing it over his head.
The other man leaned back enough for Ethan to strip him of the shirt and toss the garment aside.
Whilst Ethan went to work on the breeches, Dyer toed off his boots.
Ethan sat up and dragged the buckskins down Dyer's legs.
He promptly kicked them away and pushed Ethan back down across the blanket chest.
"Jesus at the scars," Ethan murmured and ran his hands across the sculpted belly and chest. He marveled the man was still alive.
"They're nothing." Dyer kissed him again, softly this time and began to rub his thick cock across Ethan's.
"God yes," Ethan groaned. He reached between them and clasped his hands around both their cocks, bringing them together in a hot, hard mesh of pulsing flesh.
Dyer braced his hands on the chest and began to rock back and forth, slowly at first and then with longer and swifter strokes.
Ethan raised his legs and locked them beneath Dyer's arse.
He wrapped his hands around their cocks just enough to keep them together and intensify the slide of thick veins and fevered flesh one against the other as Dyer continued to thrust, his chest heaving in gasped breaths as he increased the rhythm.
Soon, his hips began to buck wildly, and their wordless cries mixed with the sound of the thunderstorm beating against the windows as if the heavens themselves were trying to break into the room with them.
Dyer met Ethan's wide-eyed stare as the two of them neared the edge of the vast precipice they both strained to reach.
Ethan allowed himself to sink into those shadowed eyes.
He didn't want to look away. Whatever dark place Fam Dyer lived in, Ethan wanted nothing more than to join him there.
Lightning lit the room, and their bodies jolted together as if struck.
"Fuck," Dyer groaned as he reached completion.
He continued to thrust until Ethan's body locked and found release.
The supposedly heartless cutthroat collapsed on top of him, unable to speak.
His breath rasped in Ethan's ear. The long satin strands of his hair proved too great a temptation.
Ethan stroked his fingers through Dyer's hair, whilst the man lay there and shivered at each touch.
Those cruel lips pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.
Ethan wanted to weep, but he'd be damned first. Weakness was the last thing Dyer needed from him.
He had no idea how he knew that, but he knew.
They lay on the chest in each other's arms long enough to nearly fall asleep. Finally, Dyer pushed himself up and glanced down to where their bodies met. "We made a mess."
"No doubt."
"Still hungry?"
"Very much." Ethan sat up. Dyer reached down and picked up his shirt. He wiped his hands and then Ethan's.
"Wait here." He padded across the floor and brought the flannel from the tub. Ethan took the warm, damp cloth and cleaned Dyer's body first and then his own.
"Get into bed," Dyer said. Ethan watched for a moment as Dyer went to the table and loaded a plate from the serving dishes.
By the time he returned with the plate and a pewter tankard of ale, Ethan was beneath the sheet and counterpane, propped up against the padded headboard.
Dyer climbed into bed next to him and placed the plate between them.
He offered Ethan the tankard, which he took and downed several swallows.
"I knew you had better sheets than the ones you gave me, you bastard," Ethan said, as he drew the covers halfway up his chest. "Here I thought you must sleep on a stone monk's bed with burlap sheets, not in a bed most dukes would envy."
Dyer laughed and handed him a piece of chicken. "I'm a gutter rat, not a fool. I like my comforts as much as the next man."
"So, I see." Ethan cast a perusal around the room. "I'm stealing your cook when I leave here." His stomach twisted a bit at those words.
"So, you do like the food. You've driven Sullivan mad with your constant complaints. He was ready to pay the ransom himself. No mean feat to get Sullivan to part with blunt."
"I shall add that to my list of accomplishments.
" They ate in companionable silence until the plate was empty and the ale in their shared tankard was gone.
Night had fallen, and the storm continued to rage.
The fire still glowed and provided the only light in the room.
Dyer placed the plate and tankard onto the bedside table and slid down under the sheets and counterpane.
Ethan turned on his side and went to put an arm around him. Dyer froze.
"I don't like to be held," he said softly. "Not by anyone. It is..."
"No need to explain. We all have our odd starts." Ethan turned on his other side and touched his back gently to Dyer's. "Better?"
"Yes."
Ethan lay there wondering exactly what the devil had happened and how he'd ended up in the bed of the man who'd had him kidnapped and might be ordered to kill him at any moment.
Then again, he tended to ignore even the most frightening of people and things.
His entire life had been an exercise in proving to his father that he was every bit the man his brother was, if not more so, in spite of his taste in bed partners.
"Ethan?" Dyer spoke so suddenly he had startled him.
"Yes?"
"What was it like to have a mother?"
"What was it like?"
"You asked what I would know of a decent mother. You were right. What was she like, your mother?"
Ethan took a long breath. "I only remember bits and pieces, really.
I was six when she died." He cast his mind back for a moment.
"She used to sing to me. She had a beautiful voice.
And she'd read to me. I remember that. She'd come to my room and sing to me and read to me before bed.
" He thought harder. "She smelled of gardenias, but she liked all flowers.
I remember helping her in the gardens at Stroud Place, our family seat.
Her hair and eyes were like mine. Selridge took after out father, but I took after her.
She taught me how to throw a punch." He felt a rumble of laughter against his back.
"What? Are you surprised a marchioness knew something of fisticuffs? "
"Your mother? Absolutely not."
"Selridge bullied me even then, and Mama wanted me to be able to defend myself."
"She sounds...like a good woman, a good mother."
"She was." Ethan gulped down the lump in his throat. "I fear I am forgetting what she looked like. Father had her portrait taken down and burned after she died. He'd wanted another son. She died in childbirth and my younger brother with her. It was my fault."
"Your fault? How?" The outrage in Dyer's words made Ethan smile.
"I was a weak and sickly child and too soft to suit my father's taste. He was afraid I'd die and leave him with just Selridge."
"You fucking proved him wrong, didn't you? In spades, I'd say."
"Stubborn, remember?"
"How could I forget. Ethan?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you. For telling me about your mother."
Ethan blinked hard at the stinging sensation pressing against his eyes.
When he was sixteen, he'd thought himself in love.
Just now, in this moment, he knew two things.
One, he'd never been in love before and two, he was bloody well irretrievably in love with Fam Dyer.
How the hell was he supposed to survive an act of utter lunacy like that?