Bad Boy's Bard, page 13
“Gareth. There’s something I must say. I—”
Gareth stopped him with another kiss, this one so full of passion that Niall moaned into his mouth. Passion. It had always been the tenet that had gotten him in the most trouble.
When Gareth pulled back and Niall opened his mouth to try again, Gareth put a finger across Niall’s lips. “Shh. No talking. We’re making new memories, remember. No apologies. No regrets. No talking about the past. New memories.” He stroked down Niall’s chest to his groin and cupped his bollocks, giving them a squeeze. “Now come to bed.”
All the way down the hall—which felt like a journey of miles instead of yards—Gareth vibrated like a plucked guitar string. Niall’s hand was in his, warm and firm. How many times had he woken from a dream, believing he’d found Niall at last, only to discover it wasn’t true, his heart plummeting like lead?
But this time—this time it was real. He knew it, because this time he wasn’t completely overjoyed. This time, they both had baggage on board that hadn’t been there before.
When they’d first met, Gareth had been so turned inward everywhere but onstage. Mal had accused him of locking everyone out, but really it was the opposite. He was trying to lock himself in so he didn’t fly apart at the Voices’ poisonous prompting.
Niall had opened him up at the same time he’d held him together.
Gareth paused, the guest room door suddenly looming as if it were the maw of the underworld. So many years he’d dreamed of this. What if it had all been for nothing? What if when he had his chance to make love to Niall, he remained as unmoved as he had been by everyone else before and since?
Or worse, what if Niall decided Gareth wasn’t enough, couldn’t measure up to whatever had made Niall follow Eamon through the threshold and then kept him in the Unseelie realm for centuries? He’d been tortured, yes. But had there been some other reason for him to stay there, to not try to escape and return to Gareth? Someone he missed—that he loved more than Gareth?
“Gareth.” Niall’s voice, although it carried a rough burr as if he’d broken it through screaming, nevertheless stroked Gareth’s nerves like velvet. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t like. If you’d rather—”
“No.” Gareth shook his hair back and brought Niall’s hand to his mouth for a kiss. “If you’re ready, I am. I’ve been waiting for this for two centuries.”
“You missed sex that much?”
“No.” He dropped his gaze to their joined hands. “I missed you. I know you don’t remember, that you didn’t miss me, but—”
“Shite,” Niall muttered. He put a finger under Gareth’s chin, raising his head until their gazes met. “Don’t think about that, all right? New memories. Starting here.” He leaned in for a gentle kiss. “Starting now.”
He tugged Gareth into the room and then dropped his hand. Gareth would have protested the loss of contact, but Niall removed his shirt and Gareth’s breath stalled in his chest. Then he shucked off his sweatpants, and Gareth had to steady himself against the wall.
He’d seen Niall naked when he and David had stripped him to treat his wounds, but at the time, Gareth had been nearly frantic with worry, and only David’s practical, matter-of-fact nurse’s attitude had kept him grounded. Besides, Niall had been unconscious, and Gareth had never been attracted to bodies alone. It hadn’t been Niall’s body that had drawn him in—although he’d appreciated his beauty, and later reveled in the sensations of touching and being touched. It had been the way Niall’s personality, his life, had felt almost too big to be contained in even a body as fine as his.
As a musician, it was Gareth’s job, his calling, to understand beauty and sorrow and joy, transform them and deliver them to his audience. But no beauty had ever touched him the way his music seemed to touch others, not until Niall.
So now, the sight of Niall’s skin affected him on both a physical and a visceral level. His cock hardened in response. How many years since it’s done that?
Then Niall bent over to turn down the sheets, and Gareth saw the scars peeking out from under the dressing on his back.
Niall’s body was like the moon: His chest was all smooth skin and sculpted muscle. His belly was taut, with a dark treasure trail arrowing to his groin. But his poor back . . . It had been the same as his chest before, all honey-gold skin and flexing muscle. But now it was as scarred and pitted as the moon’s hidden dark side.
Niall looked up, and his smile faded when he got a look at Gareth’s expression. “It’s too much for you, isn’t it? The ugliness?”
“Not that. No. You could never be ugly to me. But, Goddess, Niall. How much you suffered under that bastard—”
Niall took one giant step forward and stopped Gareth’s diatribe with a finger across his lips. “We’re not thinking about that. We agreed. Nothing in the past. If my body disgusts you, that’s one thing. I won’t ask you to force yourself. But if your only concern is my comfort?” Niall threaded his fingers in Gareth’s curls and snugged his naked body against Gareth’s unfortunately clothed one. “You’re all I need for that.”
This time, the kiss was more heated. Gareth grasped Niall’s forearms above the shackle galls and held on while his skin tingled and his cock hardened, a thrill buzzing in his veins greater than anything he’d ever felt onstage.
Niall didn’t pull away from the kiss, but he pushed Gareth’s jacket off his shoulders and fumbled with the buttons of his shirt.
Gareth broke the kiss this time, suddenly remembering that he’d been drenched in performance sweat not two hours ago. “Goddess, I’m sorry. I must stink. I should shower. You don’t want to smell me—”
Niall grinned. “Are you barmy?” He nuzzled a spot under Gareth’s ear and inhaled. “That’s the perfume of an artist. Honest sweat, earned in your true calling. It’s intoxicating. Besides, we’ll both be sweatier and smellier by the time we’re done here—at least if we do it right. Showers can wait.”
He leaned back and began unbuttoning Gareth’s shirt, a frown of concentration pleating his forehead. “This is our first time, remember? I should take care of you. If I had done it right before—” He glanced up, his cheeks unaccountably pink. “And since I don’t remember, I can’t say. But if I’d known it was your first time ever, I’d have made sure our first time together was a slow build. A tender rush. Like this.”
He slipped his hands under the collar of the shirt and eased it off Gareth’s shoulders and down his arms. “I’d have taken the time to learn what you liked, what touches made you gasp, where my tongue made you moan. But since I didn’t then, I’ll do it now.”
He licked a slow path from Gareth’s collarbone to his sternum. “You taste like salt and music.”
Gareth laughed, but caught it when Niall circled his nipple and nipped it lightly.
“I’d have drawn you to the bed,” Niall said, his lips grazing Gareth’s skin, “like this.” He stood up and captured Gareth’s hands, then walked backward until his calves hit the mattress. “Although I think I’d have made you take off your pants, so I could watch.” He grinned. “I believe I might have mentioned that I’m not a nice person.” He sat on the bed and leaned back on his hands, legs splayed—naked and gorgeous and a more than a little bit wicked. Gareth couldn’t breathe, let alone move. Niall tilted his head, eyebrows quirking. “Well?”
“I’m not sure—” Goddess, he sounded more like a bullfrog than a bard. He tightened his belly and tried again. “I’m not sure I remember how. Maybe you should . . . tell me.”
This time, Niall’s grin went past wicked and into delicious sin. “Play your pants like you play your guitar, my bard. Slide.” Niall ran two fingers up his own cock, bollocks to tip. “And pluck.” He added his thumb and gave the head a twist, his eyes heavy-lidded. “And strum.” He grabbed the shaft in his fist and gave it one swift stroke. “Now you.”
Gareth swallowed against his mouth gone dry. “Slide.” He eased down the zipper on his jeans, reveling in the way Niall focused on his every move, lips parted. “And pluck.” He popped the button so the pants sagged on his hips. “And strum.” He tucked his hands into the waistband and shucked them to his feet in one go.
Niall groaned. “Goddess strike me blind, Gareth.”
The same sense of power that possessed him in performance, when he knew he held his audience in his palm, filled Gareth like warm honey. He toed off his shoes and kicked off his pants, then swaggered forward until his legs bracketed Niall’s, his hips level with Niall’s head.
He smoothed Niall’s hair off his forehead. “Now what would you have done.”
“Well . . .” Niall’s breath gusted warm against Gareth’s cock—they both shivered. “If I hadn’t passed out already from sheer lust, I’d have laid you down on the bed.”
“Like this?” Gareth swung his leg over Niall’s lap so he could crawl up the mattress, slowly, Niall’s gaze on him like a fire in his blood. He flipped over onto his back, head propped up by a pile of pillows. From this angle, he could see the ruin of Niall’s back, his dark side, but it didn’t matter. Those scars were part of Niall now. “Or have I done it wrong?”
“Oh no,” Niall growled. “You’re perfect.” He scrambled onto the bed and kneeled astride Gareth’s thighs, gasping as their bollocks collided. “I’d have held you . . . like this.” He wrapped his hand around Gareth’s cock, causing Gareth to whimper. “And this.” He lined his own cock alongside it. “And then we’d move together.”
Niall’s eyes were half-lidded, his breath coming in gasps that matched Gareth’s own as he rocked his hips, sliding his cock against Gareth’s in the tender prison of his fist. “I’d have made sure . . . that you . . . unnngh!” Niall gritted his teeth, and his motion stopped.
Gareth flexed his own hips and wrapped his hand over Niall’s, swiping his thumb over the head of Niall’s weeping cock. “I would have too. Exactly.”
“It’s been too long, Gareth, I can’t hold out.”
“Then don’t.” He rocked against Niall, faster, faster. “It’s our first time. It won’t be our last.”
Niall threw his head back, eyes clenched, and spent—over their joined hands, over their cocks, over Gareth’s belly. At the sight, Gareth’s own release sparked low in his spine and, vision whiting out, he came for the first time in two hundred years.
With Niall warm against his chest, Gareth sighed. He’d slept well for the first time in forever and he didn’t want to move—he might never move again.
“You may not want to move, but you think he won’t? Didn’t promise anything, did he?”
Damn and blast. He’d been so sure that once he and Niall were together again, the Voices would shut the hells up. Why had that happened before, but not now? Were they right—that Niall was planning to bolt again? Had Niall really wanted to go with bloody Eamon all those years ago?
After all, he’d tried to cross the threshold in the park.
He’s here. We’re together. Consequences could take care of themselves.
As Niall stirred against his chest, Gareth was careful to stroke only his arms, his hair, the back of his neck. His arse. Goddess, Niall was still beautifully made, despite the marks of his captivity. His biceps were, if possible, even larger and more defined than Gareth remembered.
Gareth dropped a kiss on Niall’s hair and was rewarded with a chuckle that vibrated his bones and thickened his cock. Goddess, he hadn’t had the least inclination to bed anyone since Niall had disappeared, but now he was ready to go again. Apparently a good night’s sleep would do that.
Or else I only needed the right person. Like Josh.
Niall raised himself up on his elbows and gazed down at Gareth, a smile playing on his full lips—lips that were still a little red and swollen from their kisses. “I must be crushing you. You’ve not put on any more weight since—” Niall’s eyes widened, panic flickering across his face.
But Gareth’s heart bounded in joy. “You remember? You remember what I looked like then?”
Niall rolled off of Gareth onto his side and propped himself on one elbow, tracing patterns on Gareth’s belly with the fingers of his other hand. “Told you I remembered that song—and you singing it naked.”
Gareth scrambled up and sat gazing down at Niall, capturing his roving hand in both his own. “Yes, but is there anything else? Did . . . what we just did . . . anything jog free?”
“I thought we agreed—only new memories.”
Gareth sighed. “I know. But something in me really wants to believe that I wasn’t so forgettable.”
Niall clenched his eyes shut for a moment. “Shite.” He opened his eyes again and pushed himself up so he faced Gareth on the mattress. “You are more memorable than anybody in the world.”
“Except to you.” Goddess, could he sound any more sullen?
“You know. You know he remembers his captor perfectly. What does that say about you?”
Niall waved it away. “Don’t judge by me. I told you, I’m not the best measure of a man.”
“If we—”
“Gareth!” Bryce’s voice echoed down the hall, followed by the slam of the front door and the murmur of David’s more modulated tones. “Where the fuck are you?”
Gareth grinned wryly at Niall. “I’ve heard that Bryce was shy and retiring before he met my brother. Sometimes I wish he was still the same.” He turned his head so he wouldn’t shout into Niall’s face. “Be out in a minute. Keep your drawers on.”
When Gareth would have slid off the bed, Niall grabbed his hand. “But that’s all you wish, right? Only that he wasn’t so bold?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t wish he’d never met your brother, do you? That Mal was still alone?”
Gareth opened his mouth to retort, but thought again. Did he? Mal had never shown the least desire to settle down before Bryce, flitting from one bed to the next—usually in the Outer World. Gareth had kept a close eye on him, though, and he’d never dallied with a human more than once.
“He showed more self-restraint than you, boyo. Or maybe you put the fear of the gods into him and kept him lonely so you wouldn’t be the only one.”
“I didn’t.”
“‘Didn’t’?” Niall’s eyebrows bunched together. “Didn’t what?”
“I mean no. I don’t. I suppose— Mal always seemed content with his life before. He was famous for his fickleness, to be honest.” But when Gareth had seen him in Faerie before the Convergence feast, he’d seemed. . . content. At peace. Considering that Gareth now had the only one he’d ever wanted—and again, he’d chosen outside of his own species—he could hardly fault Mal for his choice.
“That never stopped you before, though, did it? Face it, boyo. You’re a fecking hypocrite and always will be.”
Call it a throwback to his old rebellious days, but Niall purposely delayed Gareth from rushing out at Bryce’s command, drawing him into the bathroom and sending him into the shower with a heated kiss. Unfortunately, Niall couldn’t join him there, blast his still unhealed back. Although he should be grateful for it, as annoying as the awkward sponge bath was. If he’d been healed, he’d never have had a chance for that interlude with Gareth—lovemaking, in keeping with Gareth’s worth. Slow, careful, cherishing—the way he should have done it their real first time.
By the time they got to the living room, early morning sunlight slicing through the windows, Bryce’s pacing had probably worn a path in the wood floor—:Sustainable! Bamboo!:—while David was huddled in the corner of the sofa with his knees tucked against his chest.
Bryce glared at Gareth, then his eyebrows climbed up his forehead as he glanced between Gareth and Niall. “It figures.”
David looked up and smiled at them, although it didn’t completely banish the misery in his eyes. “Congratulations. I guess you worked things out.”
Bryce crossed his arms. “I hope it was the most spectacular fuck in the history of the world, because otherwise it wasn’t worth it.”
Gareth’s fists clenched. “Just a gods-bedamned minute—”
Niall put a hand on Gareth’s arm. If anyone was going to punch Bryce, it would be him. Nobody talked to Gareth like that. “It’s none of your business.”
“No? I just got back from a joint session of the supe council, including all the druid circles in the Pacific Northwest. From everything we can tell, that Convergence spell is completely fucked—some twist in the Unseelie side—and unless it’s miraculously repaired, Faerie is going to collapse. Implode. And take everyone inside with it.” When David’s breath hitched on an unmistakable sob, Bryce winced and ran a hand through his hair. “Damn it. Sorry, David. But pretending this isn’t a disaster won’t help us solve the problem, and we’ve got a limited amount of time.”
Gareth sank down on the ottoman, eyes wide, apparently unable to speak.
Niall turned to Bryce. “How long?”
“Forty-eight hours. Maybe seventy-two if we’re lucky. It depends on whether the collapse gathers momentum as Faerie deteriorates or if it’s a straight linear progression.”
“Then what can we do?”
Bryce fixed his basilisk stare on Gareth again. “Gareth needs to figure out what the hell he did to that gate and open it up again so we can get inside.”
“‘We’? Druids aren’t allowed in Faerie.” Gareth looked up at Niall’s testy words, confusion in his face. Shite. “I mean, that’s what I was told.”
“Normally no. But that’s more a druid restriction, a part of a treaty, so we wouldn’t run power-mad and enslave the whole population. I’ve got special permission to enter, but I can’t open a gate. I still need a fae escort.”
“I’ll escort you,” Gareth said. “Of course I will.”
“That’s mighty big of you, but where? You broke the fucking gate!”
Gareth frowned, and to Niall’s relief, he started to get angry instead of devastated. “Wait a minute. Why did we go back to the park anyway? Don’t you have a gate down in that swamp of yours?”
