Page 29 of Oz (Finding Home #1)

Chapter

Twelve

I’ll warm you up

Silas

I stand at the window looking down at my land.

It’s still dark and the sky is that clear deep blue that presages a hot day.

There’s a hint of lemon light showing across the horizon and a cooling breeze is blowing off the sea, lessening the sticky heat.

Usually I can stand here for ages because I love my home with a passion and fervour that I’ve never felt for a human being.

But today there’s a major distraction, and I turn away from the view and pad silently back to the bed and Oz.

It’s draped in shadows but the lessening in the darkness reveals him.

He’s lying on his side, his head cradled in the pillow and his body a graceful italic in the bed.

I smile because he’s patently unused to sharing a bed.

No matter where I lay on the bed, and it’s big, his sleeping body would find me.

We’d ended up in a half sprawl with the sheets tucked around us, his head on my chest and his legs entangled with mine. It had been surprisingly comfortable.

The sheets have come away from him and I pause for a second.

I feel like a bit of a creeper, but I can’t help staring.

This is Oz in my bed. Beautiful, complicated, tart-tongued Oz with the badly hidden soft centre.

His fierceness and energy are shuttered in sleep and I can see the soft fullness of his lips and the shadows that his long sooty lashes leave on his cheeks.

The long line of his body is on show and his pale skin glows in the dim light.

He’s a true Celt, my Oz. No matter how much sun he walks about in, it doesn’t touch the white skin.

Unlike me his chest is hairless, the only hair on his body the thin happy trail under his belly button leading to the black bush of his pubes.

His cock is lying soft on his thigh and his hand lies outstretched across the mattress as if reaching for me.

I dismiss the silly notion of putting my hand in his and instead climb onto the bed behind him and cuddle up to his warm body.

He nestles back against me, pushing his arse into the cradle of my groin and murmuring sleepily.

I curl closer and inhale his cologne which smells of ginger.

Now, it’s mixed with the smell of sex and musk.

It smells warm and safe and happy and I’m so tempted to stay here, but I’m on a timetable so I move back and push my face into his neck.

Inhaling the scent of his shampoo, I murmur, “Wake up.”

He moves his head on the pillow and his nose wrinkles like a hamster, although I’d never dare tell him that.

I nestle my face into his shoulder and kiss him there gently, and he mutters indignantly and reaches up a hand to smack me away.

Unfortunately, he misses and smacks himself in the face, and I try hard to repress my smile as he bolts upright, looking around crossly as if someone has dared to sneak up on him and kiss him.

“What the hell?” he mutters, and then I see memory and recognition creep back into his eyes, replacing the soft sleepiness of before.

I can more or less see the exact moment that Daytime Oz appears.

His expression becomes intent as if he’s mentally running through the list of offenders he’s going to deal with, mountains he’s going to scale, and fires he’s going to put out.

It’s peculiarly fascinating and gives the already intimate feeling of waking up in the same bed a deeper and more privileged feel.

It’s like I’m watching a small mythical creature donning its armour.

He tilts his head and looks down at me where I’m lying.

His eyes flick down my body and seem to linger on my chest. I hope he likes hairy men because I’ll never be a twink, and there isn’t much refined about me despite the efforts my mother made.

I feel a flicker of worry, but it vanishes when I see heat fill those pretty gin-bottle eyes.

“Hmm. This is definitely a better way to wake up,” he says, and the Irish lilt is heavy in his early morning hoarseness. It makes my dick stir and he grins evilly and reaches for me, but I suddenly remember my plan and scoot back.

“Hands off,” I say smartly. “Get dressed quickly, Oz.” He looks befuddled and I gesture with my hands. “We don’t have much time and I want to show you something.”

With other lovers I’d have had to go into lengthy explanations and with a few of them I’d have had to wait another hour while they got ready.

Not Oz. That ready-for-anything wicked smile appears and he throws the covers back.

With a quick pitstop in the bathroom, he’s dressed and ready by the door in a few minutes.

“Come on then,” he laughs. “Hurry up.”

I shake my head and, grabbing the bag I packed with one hand and his hand with my other, I pull him after me.

I open the door and come to a stop. Chewwy is lying across the doorway.

When the door opens he looks up almost accusingly.

“You do know the dogs live in the kitchen, don’t you? ” I say wryly.

“It isn’t my fault,” he says indignantly. “Your dog’s stalking me.” The way he reaches down and coos and pets my dog slightly belies his words and I grin.

“I think he’s switched his allegiance.”

He immediately looks worried. “Are you bothered?”

I smile. “Of course not. I can’t blame him. I’d follow you everywhere if I could too.”

I watch with interest the flush on his cheeks, and when he captures my gaze, he grimaces and elbows me.

“Weren’t you showing me something?”

I nod and whistle for Chewwy to follow us.

We creep down the gallery in the dark hush.

I’ve done this so many times that it’s almost muscle memory to avoid the creaky plank outside my mother’s old room and to know that the first stair is uneven, but somehow with him it’s brand-new and everything seems more colourful and real.

I can smell the scent of beeswax in the air and feel the breeze from an open window wash over us as we walk by. I can feel the rough calluses on his palm against mine and the blue of his eyes looks almost neon in the dim light.

I pull him down the stairs and through the kitchen and out of the back door, clicking my tongue for Boris who rises from his bed near the Aga and frolics around Chewwy as if he hasn’t seen him in years. We walk over the grass and we’re silent as if by mutual consent.

The early morning is cool and fragrant while the dampness of the dew wets our trainers.

Boris and Chewy race around tracking scents excitedly and raising their legs against handy trees and bushes.

I’ve always loved this time of the morning when everything is fresh and new, like when you open the first exercise book of the school year.

No blots or ink stains. Just a fresh start.

The sound of the sea gets louder, and I tug him after me towards the entrance to the cove which is partially concealed these days by a rhododendron bush that’s bigger than me. I push the blowsy flowers to one side and reveal the steep steps.

“This is the entrance to the cove?” he says. “Milo told me you could get down there, but I couldn’t find it.” He looks at me. “Going to murder me and chuck my body in the sea?”

I blink. “Well, I wasn’t intending to. It’s a bit warm to be murdering people. If you don’t mind, I thought we’d just watch the sunrise.”

He grins, but there’s a softness to his smile and a warmth in his eyes that I want always to be there when he looks at me.

I don’t know what’s happening here, but I’ve never had such an intense reaction to a man or woman.

There’s just something about him that seems to call to something in me.

Something that echoes and matches him. That makes us kindred spirits in some strange way.

I become aware that he’s staring at me, and I shake my head at my silly thoughts and smile. “Come on. We need to be on the beach before the sun rises.”

The dogs bound ahead of us as we make our way down the steep steps and I’m gratified that he doesn’t become self-conscious about his shorter stature. Instead he seems comfortable, his eyes darting here, there, and everywhere, taking in one of my favourite places on earth.

It’s part of my land and it’s typically Cornish, being rocky and practically inaccessible. Trees line one side and the rest is high rock and stone and a small sandy beach. But the water is a clear turquoise in the sun and a soft navy in this light, and I love this small spot with a passion.

My parents would never come down here because of the steepness of the steps.

Our nannies always hated it too and invariably would sit at the top while Henry and I ran wild on the sand.

I’m not sure what they’d have done if we’d had an accident, but we never cared, loving the solitude and the wildness.

As I grew older my love for it deepened. Here I could hide Henry away when my father was on a rampage. Here was where I came to be alone with my thoughts and to walk the dogs.

We step down onto the cold damp sand and he pushes his messy hair back from his forehead, those piercing eyes everywhere. He turns to me and I tense slightly but relax as he smiles.

“It’s amazing, Silas. Like a magic cove.”

I grin at him and for a second, he looks almost befuddled, but he snaps to and helps me with the blanket I pull out from my bag. I sit down and pat the space in front of me between my legs. He looks at me, almost confused, and I smile.

“Come and sit down. The sun’s about to rise and you don’t want to miss it.”

He lowers himself gracefully in front of me and I’m not imagining the contented grunt he gives when I draw up my knees and wrap my arms around him.

He rests against me and I tighten my grip on the warm strength of his body, breathing in the scent of shampoo that clings to the messy waves of his hair.

It gleams in the light like the wing of a blackbird.