His Gift Read online

  “That’s enough for now. Come to your room,” he said, dismissing my garbled questions. “You must sleep for a while.” He moved nearer to me and held out his hand.

  It wasn’t a friendly gesture or a helping hand being offered. I might still have been groggy, but I recognised a command when I saw one.

  And I obeyed, instinctively. I stood and placed a shaking hand in his, trying desperately to ignore the warm thrill that shot through me as I touched his cool palm.

  He shivered very slightly, looking down at our joined hands. He looked both shocked and excited.

  And me? When he folded his hand around mine, it felt like a trap closing. “No, wait,” I said.

  His eyes shifted up to meet mine. “Eliot, I ought to call someone…you know. Where’s the phone?”

  “Phone?”

  I frowned at him. “Someone will be worrying about me. I should call them.”

  “Who will that be, Steven?”

  I paused, and in that moment I realized I didn’t really know. I knew I must have a home and friends and family…everyone did, didn’t they? A job, a car. Places to go, likes and dislikes, hobbies and sports and parties to enjoy. I was young, and I was sure that kind of life appealed to me. But, to my horror, I couldn’t remember anything specific.

  My heart thudded again in my chest. When I faltered, trying to calm myself, it was enough of an advantage for Eliot, and he tugged me forward, toward the door. “Enough for now, I have already said so. Follow me. It’s ready for you.”

  * * * *

  Such strange speech, I thought, as I stumbled after him, out of the living room, across the hall and up wide, carpeted stairs to the second floor. Very old-fashioned. A bit like his clothes, in fact. He wore a loose-fitting shirt that was made of cream-coloured silk, with an open neck and a few buttons fastening it on his torso, running down from the middle of his chest. It had long, flowing sleeves, and the generous fabric was caught in at his waist with a wide leather belt. The buttons must have been gilded like the metal of his belt buckle because they glinted as he moved, reflecting the muted light source that followed us along the way. His pants were also of a soft, flexible fabric, moulded tight against his thighs and tucked into knee-length boots. The leather of the boots looked soft, yet well worn. Bloody expensive, I thought, suddenly very conscious of my sodden, scraped sneakers.

  The whole setting had the air of an idle country life, a privileged family riding to horse and hounds, a faded elegance. My stomach clenched again. I’d never been relaxed in the presence of either aristocracy or wealth. Call it jealousy; call it inverted snobbery; call it lack of my own confidence. Call it whatever you fucking well pleased, that was how I felt.

  Yet Eliot’s hand was secure around mine and I followed him willingly enough. He led me along a silent corridor, its windows draped with similar curtains as before, the doors of the same smooth wood, all tightly closed. There was no movement from the other rooms, and no sign of any other people that I could see. I fell a little way back, but never far enough to lose him: I never managed to break free of his grip. I was unnerved to realize I had no desire to.

  I watched his back as he moved—he was graceful, but not in a girlish way. Instead, he was stealthy and lithe. Feline. Or feral? His legs were lean and he took a long stride. His butt was something else, rounded and muscled inside the close-fitting pants. I wondered what the hell I was doing, watching that.

  He stopped at one final door and pushed it open. The room he showed me into was another large one, with a high ceiling like downstairs, but furnished more warmly, with velvet drapes, a thick brocade carpet, and an over-sized four-poster bed. A decorated bedspread lay over it, and many thick, plumped pillows were piled on top. I’d never seen such a thing outside of the cover of a romance novel. This was some kind of a joke, surely? Or a wild, baroque dream.

  Suddenly, it was as if the room around me slipped into a different focus.

  The whole damned place was out of the wrong time! There were lights in this room, but they were a type of gas lamp—no switches on the walls, no electrical points at the skirting board. The furniture was made of heavy wood, ornately carved. There was no sign of modern heating, just another fireplace, and this time a working one with ashes in its hearth and logs piled in a copper-plated bucket to the side. There was a large porcelain bowl of water on the bureau at the side of the bed, and I just knew it was for washing. Shit, I thought, there was going to be a chamber pot under the bed if I dared to look.

  “Clothes…Eliot, my clothes are wrecked.”

  I didn’t really know what I was saying. The fear was back. I didn’t want to stay here, but damned if I could remember what I should do about it.

  Eliot moved closer, his face now in front of mine, inches away. I couldn’t smell much sweat or cologne from him, but my skin prickled with goose bumps at the mere thought of it. I imagined I could feel the heat of his body against mine, and that warmth crawled over my battered body, binding us together, seeping slowly yet inexorably along my swelling veins. How bloody ridiculous! How unsettling.

  “You don’t need clothes,” he murmured. The smile was back on his lips, the plump, arrogant lips. I couldn’t tell if they were sneering or sympathetic. I couldn’t make sense of any of it, and I opened my mouth to protest.

  “Sleep now,” he whispered.

  And then he was gone, just as strangely and as suddenly as he’d arrived.

  * * * *

  He came back, in the middle of the night.

  I’d obviously settled well enough into that luxurious bed, because I awoke suddenly from the depths of dreamless sleep, cushioned on a mattress that was thicker than any I’d ever slept on before. I was aware of Eliot, standing at the side of the bed and watching me. The lamps were all extinguished and he was a different shade of shadow in the dark room, backlit by a sliver of moonlight from a rare opening between the curtains. His eyes shone in the gloom, a dark, brittle gleam.

  “What are you doing in my room?” I gasped. Stupid thing to say, when there were so many other things crowding my disoriented mind.

  “It’s my room as well,” he replied, his voice sounding disembodied in the darkness, only the silhouette of his body in clear sight, only the white teeth of his smile glinting. “You’re my gift, so I keep you in my room.”

  What? Had he been sleeping here as well? Underneath the sheets, I stretched out a hand, wondering if I could feel the evidence of another body beside me—and the mattress was warm. I realised that I was nude; I could feel the cool linen sheets clinging softly against my skin. All of it.

  Oh shit, what was going on here? I felt thick-headed, as if I’d been drugged, but as far as I could remember I’d taken nothing but water since I arrived. For the first time, I wondered if this place was as unfamiliar to me as I’d originally thought. Had I been on my way here, in the first place? It would explain how Eliot seemed to know me, to expect me, although I had no recollection of him. And what was this thing with the bedroom? My skin crawled with a mixture of astonishment and excitement. He undressed you. Undressed you, and lay beside you in this huge bed.

  I need some bloody answers, I thought, with a flash of spirit that I dragged up from somewhere in my bemused brain. I need to know where the hell I am, who this guy is, what he wants with me, what he’s done with my clothes!

  Eliot smiled again. I felt the heat of his gaze on me, and somewhere along the way I lost the will to ask any of my questions. It was like he knew exactly what I’d been thinking, knew exactly how I was feeling. I felt stripped bare of far more than my ruined shirt.

  “You don’t need clothes,” he said softly, confirming my suspicions. “You’re rested now.”

  “What the hell’s happening?” I moaned, my hands tightening on the edge of the sheet. I struggled to find the energy to get up.

  He leaned forward and his face came into focus, the eyes as fascinating as before, his skin dappled with the shadows. Stretching out a hand to my face, he sighed, the soft
pads of his fingertips pressing my lips, hushing me. “I want you. I asked for you, and you arrived. Someone beautiful, I said—someone I can love. Just for me. Someone like you. Someone I can touch.” His eyes glistened, as if with tears. “And now you’re rested and ready for me.”

  He climbed onto the bed beside me, the mattress dipping beneath his weight.

  I saw he was naked as well.

  The world spun like a drunken top. My whole body flushed. My throat dried up and my hands clenched. Only the thin sheet draped across my lower body protected my cock, which was waking up as swiftly as I had, swelling with a painfully fierce arousal.

  His body was as gorgeous as his face! I hadn’t seen such a provocative sight in all my life. Long, lean limbs and a skin that was rich with a dusky hue. His torso was smooth like his jaw, but the muscles flexed in his shoulders and neck with an innate, very masculine sensuality. He leaned back on his heels as he knelt on the bed, and the muscles of his thighs tightened. At his groin, rearing up from a nest of crisp, dark curls, was his cock, jutting up toward his belly. It was thickly swollen, and rich with a damp sheen that glinted in the dim light. It was proud with luscious promise and hungry for attention.

  Mine.

  And I knew instinctively I welcomed it. Whatever my confusion remembering what had happened to me, I realized I had no such problem recalling what kind of man I was. The memories flooded back at the sight of Eliot’s fabulous, predatory body.

  But I hadn’t had the time or the enthusiasm to gaze at other young men for a long time—every nerve in my body told me this, as well as the echo from my dusty memories. I’d known I was gay from a young age, of course, and I had no problem with that, but I’d always been fairly circumspect about my sexual preferences in front of others. Not everyone can cope with it being heralded from the rooftops. I’d always been content to keep my private life to myself, and to wait to judge whether I wanted someone in my life that way. I couldn’t recall any details, but a stab of anguish in my belly told me I’d been disappointed one too many times in that department.

  I didn’t think I was unattractive; I was pretty sure others had told me I was okay looking. I didn’t think I’d been unsociable, or unwilling. I just knew that I was cautious. With men, with sex, with love. I didn’t often encourage it.

  But I couldn’t remember the last time there’d been such a welcome as Eliot’s! My blood rushed down my body, far away from any sense left in my head, and my fists clenched to keep my hands from eager wandering. I knew that any man in his right mind would be horny, faced with this man. This was unreality at its height. And yet…it had echoes of familiar fantasies. I was terribly excited, despite myself. “I don’t know who you are, or what the hell you think you’re up to…” I began.

  It was as if he hadn’t heard. He leaned forward again and placed his hands on my waist, just inside the sheet, and he pressed gently into my flesh. It was right on the place I’d been injured, and I winced. “Hey, watch it—”

  “You’re hurt, Steven. I’ll be gentle this time. It will heal soon.”

  The touch of his fingers on my wound should have been hideously painful, but somehow it wasn’t. I twisted in the dark, leaning so close to him that I saw the gentle throb of his Adam’s apple. A drop of sweat shimmered on his throat. Why didn’t I push him away?

  “How do you know my name?” Had I told him, perhaps in my sleep? Yet now I remembered how he’d called me Steven downstairs last night, even before I slept. With him. I wondered where my wallet was. Had he been through my meagre belongings, spying on me?

  “Open your mouth,” he whispered. “I want to kiss you. Give me your tongue.”

  “Are you insane?” I cried out, startled and shocked, and I tried to wriggle away from him. But his hands weren’t just caressing me, they pinned me to the bed. My strength had deserted me, was slumbering somewhere else. Instead, to my horror, my body was surrendering to Eliot, alert to every breath from him, reaching for him instinctively and aching in long-neglected places. “Leave me alone!”

  Eliot laughed softly. “If that’s what you want, but I know it’s not. You don’t want to be left alone. You’re ready for me, as I am for you.” His words were gentle, but to me they were like snakes, slithering softly around me, teasing and flicking their quick tongues within my mind. “Your body is hot, but it’s lonely and neglected. You are lost. You need me, and you want me to fill you.”

  That bloody arrogance again! He knelt up and slung a leg over to straddle my hips. His hands were still gripping me, hard. He pushed the sheet away from my legs with his knee, and there didn’t seem to be a damned thing I could do about it. But why wasn’t I trying? “Who the hell are you?” I groaned.

  He frowned. “I told you, I’m Eliot. Your resistance is unexpected, Steven. This is still new to you, I know, but not for long, you should realise that. Now be ready for me.”

  “No.” Even I could hear how weak my protest was. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, off his fabulous body. My eyes had grown accustomed to the dark so I could see much better. And I was mesmerised. The sexy, athletic way he moved over me, the possessive trail of his fingers down my naked skin. He no longer held me down but I didn’t resist either.

  There was no ignoring my response now. I couldn’t see down my body because Eliot was pressed so close to me, but I could feel the heat from my erection, heavy against my thigh, bobbing up toward my belly. Aching, begging. Or maybe some of the heat was from his body, from his own arousal, nudging against my leg, damp with pre-come on my skin.

  And—oh God—I wanted him! Instinctively, I knew I’d never been into casual sex. I was a man who’d turned down opportunities in the past, though I couldn’t recall when or where. In all honesty, I was looking for something that touched my heart as well as my body. But now I felt as if I’d die if I didn’t have it, didn’t have Eliot. I shivered with the emotion. I was chillingly hot with lust and swamped with the humiliation.

  But I no longer had any protests left to save me.

  * * * *

  Eliot bent over me, his hot breath at my neck. “Steven. Oh, Steven.”

  He’d slipped onto the mattress beside me, moulding his body against mine. I arched beneath him, fitting myself to him in return, barely fighting the desperate ache of my need. “I don’t know who you are, Eliot. I don’t know why I’m here.”

  “You’re here for me,” came his relentless reply.

  His lips dipped to my chest now, and my lungs quivered under the ribcage. My breath shortened fiercely at the touch of his mouth. I let out the softest moan as he suckled on my nipple. “Eliot—oh God. Isn’t there anyone else here?”

  “Hush.”

  “No.” I was stubborn, still. “Are you alone?” Were there others like him, hiding somewhere in this huge, weird house? Would we be disturbed? Challenged? Was I in even more danger? “Tell me, for God’s sake.”

  He sighed and paused in his kissing. “Please be calm. I am, as you say, alone here. It’s been many months since they left, and I have had no word from them. All I can do is survive here, alone and patient.” He dipped his head again, dragging his rough tongue across my flesh. “That’s why I asked for you. To be with me, to give me company. For me.”

  Who were they? There was no sense in his reply, yet I didn’t have the energy to question further. There was no logic, no reason to this situation. There was only stimulation and flesh and desire. His fingers stroked softly against my stomach, and his mouth continued to suck. His tongue flicked at the erect tip of each of my nipples in turn, sending golden threads of almost painful pleasure through my upper body and inexorably to my groin.

  “What the hell are you doing to me?” I groaned and slid back against the pillows, knowing all too well the answer. I waved a hand at his head, whether to strike him away or to drag him nearer, I had no idea. My limbs felt insubstantial and no bloody use.

  “You speak very strangely, Steven,” he murmured. “But you’re the most beautiful person I’ve eve
r seen. I couldn’t be more pleased with my gift. I won’t be alone now. But you must relax.” His mouth was back up against my ear, and the hot, domineering breath brushed over my neck and my cheek, making me moan aloud with pleasure. “You want to relax, don’t you? You want me. You want to be mine.”

  God forgive me, but I do! I don’t know this man, this strange, anachronistic man. But I’m naked in bed with him beside me, hornier than I’ve ever been in my life before. He intends to do God knows what, and I want it—

  He kissed me then. It was inevitable, it was sweet, and it was the most indescribably delicious feeling I had ever experienced. When his lips pressed against mine, I felt my whole spirit consumed. When his tongue slid between my lips, I felt my whole body open up to him. Eliot gasped with delight, as if he might have doubted it, just for a second, but now he was proved right. My cock jerked as if it wept for him. I felt the damp trails of come on my skin, and the ache as my balls swelled and tightened between my thighs.

  And I kissed back. My tongue thrust into him like we were battling; at least, that’s how it started between us. But the difference now was that I wanted to lose. I smelled every inch of him, savouring it, the unfamiliar yet tantalising aroma of his skin. I heard his breath panting in my ear, and felt the grip of his hand on the hair at the back of my neck, pulling me close to him. In some strange, inexplicable way, he tasted of things I knew I’d never had in my life, not for any length of time—passion, devotion, obsession.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered into my mouth.

  For the first time in my life, I felt that I was. He made me believe it. I reached for him then, and took hold of his shoulders, tugging him even closer.

  “You want me.” He sounded relieved, his voice low yet vibrant. It stroked at my nerves, as if trying to hypnotise me. “I’ve been waiting a very long time for you to arrive. Hold me, Steven. Suck me.”

  I scrambled up onto my knees, turning to face his groin. He stretched his legs farther apart, and his cock bounced eagerly on his thighs. It was magnificent. Even as my mouth watered, I felt the nerves return. I couldn’t remember if I had much experience of going down on anyone. I felt clumsy; I was scared of disappointing him. Performance anxiety? Shit, I knew I had more confidence than that…just not tonight.