“Help yourself,” Nick said.
The steam helped, or maybe it was just the soothing warmth of the water. Guiltily, Perry lingered longer than he should have, using all Nick’s hot water, but when he left the bathroom in a cloud of steam, he felt much better -- though exhausted.
They had breakfast -- pancakes that morning -- spread with real butter and drenched in the rich maple syrup for which Vermont was justly famous.
They talked desultorily, and then Nick said, “I’m going to grab some rack time. Why don’t you go back to bed for a while?”
Perry opened his mouth to suggest that if Nick wanted to keep an eye on him, they could share the bed -- that quick hug earlier and the way he’d caught Nick looking at him lately made him hopeful that Nick might be more receptive than he’d originally thought --
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but Nick was wearing his tough guy face, his thoughts clearly elsewhere, and Perry wasn’t sure he was feeling up to that particular rejection.
It occurred to him that he had managed to go over twenty-four hours without even thinking of Marcel. But if the solution for Marcel was Nick, the cure might be worse than the disease.
Perry slept uneasily -- he was never one for taking naps or sleeping during the day --
and he woke from a dream that he was back in the passage facing down that blazing light.
Only this time the light was followed by a gunshot.
He sat up.
Rising from the bed, he went into the living room. Nick was wrapped in a blanket. His face was smooth and enigmatic in sleep. His arms were folded across his chest -- as self-contained as one of those ancient Egyptian kings settling down for a long winter’s nap. Perry studied him curiously.
Nick’s eyes snapped open, and he reached for the pistol beneath his pillow before he realized it was Perry standing over him.
“What are you doing?” He lowered the pistol.
Feeling like a fool, Perry got out, “I was just checking to see if you were awake.”
“Next time try, ‘Hey, Nick, are you awake?’ You’re less likely to get your head blown off.” But despite the growl, Nick didn’t really seem annoyed. He yawned hugely and sat up.
Perry was still standing there uncertainly. “Couldn’t you sleep?” Nick asked.
“I don’t sleep in the day unless I’m sick.”
“Okay. Well…” Nick yawned again and shook himself. “Why don’t we go outside
before the rain starts again and try some target practice.”
“What?”
Nick’s deep blue eyes met the younger man’s. “I want you to be able to defend yourself if you have to.”
Perry was instantly on defense; Nick was beginning to recognize the signs. “From what? Miss Dembecki? I don’t think I’m going to get in an extended firefight in this house.”
Nick uncoiled in one of those swift moves. “Look, two people have been killed. What do you plan on doing if this asshole comes after you again? He could just as easily have --”
He broke off as someone knocked on the door. “Hang on,” he said, and moved to answer it. Mr. Teagle stood in the doorway, looking uncomfortable.
“I was looking for --” Seeing Perry, he broke off. “There you are, son. I was worried about you. No one seemed to know where you were.”
“He’s staying with me for now,” Nick said.
Mr. Teagle looked even more uncomfortable -- and unhappy. Instead of answering Nick, he said to Perry, “Could I have a word in private, son?”
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Perry, feeling harassed on all sides, managed not to sigh -- which was more than Nick managed as he stepped aside to let Perry pass into the hall with Mr. Teagle. He closed the door politely and pointedly on them.
Perry controlled his impatience. “What’s wrong, Mr. Teagle?” he asked politely, shoving his hands into pockets.
Mr. Teagle cleared his throat -- a less-than-charming sound. “I’m just not comfortable with this arrangement of yours, Perry,” he said earnestly, turning the thick horn-rims on Perry. “What do you know about this young fella, Reno? There’s some mighty peculiar things been happening in this house lately.”
Of all the things Perry had expected…
“Nick isn’t responsible for any of the weird things happening,” he assured Mr. Teagle wearily. “This all started long before Nick arrived here.”
“How do you work that out? Since that young fella arrived we’ve had two murders.
Now it doesn’t take a genius to see that there’s more to all this than meets the eye.”
Perry puzzled over that comment for a moment. Wasn’t it a given that there was more than met the eye to any violent death?
He said, “I think whatever is going on in this house has been going on long before Nick showed up.”
Mr. Teagle licked his lips. “You’re too trusting, Perry,” he said quite sternly. “I feel responsible with your parents so far away. I want you to come and stay with me until we get this all ironed out. I’ve got a bad feeling about that young fella.”
Perry felt an irrational rush of anger. Irrational because Nick would just laugh this bullshit off; he didn’t need Perry running to his defense. In fact, for all Perry knew, Nick might be only too happy to foist him off on Mr. Teagle.
He said stiffly, “Thanks, Mr. Teagle, but I feel perfectly safe staying with Nick. We’ve already worked everything out.” Which meant pretty much nothing, but Mr. Teagle’s face got red.
“I don’t think you understand about men like that,” he said with uncomfortable urgency. “They prey on youngsters like yourself. They take…advantage. They
don’t…cherish innocence.”
Perry started to point out that at twenty-three he was hardly a youngster, but as he stared at Mr. Teagle’s anxious face, the light began to dawn.
“Uh, thanks for your concern,” he said awkwardly, “but it’s not necessary.” He was tempted to shock the old man and say he wasn’t all that innocent, but unfortunately that wouldn’t have been true. And Mr. Teagle meant well. Maybe he wasn’t even completely aware of his own motives.
Compelled by instinct he hadn’t had time to explore, he said, “Mr. Teagle, you knew all about the hidden passages in the house, didn’t you? You’ve known for years.”
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Mr. Teagle turned the color of his freckles and then went white.
What on earth…? And then Perry knew. All those times he’d had that uncomfortable feeling of being watched, of being not alone --
His mouth dropped open, and he stared at Mr. Teagle. There was no concealing his honest shock and dismay, and the old man said quickly, querulously, “It’s nothing like that, nothing like what you think! I have a responsibility to keep an eye on what happens in this house. That’s all.”
“You were w-watching me!” Perry stammered.
Mr. Teagle blustered out something else about Perry’s imagination and having a duty to make sure people were behaving themselves, but Perry missed it because by then he had retreated into Nick’s apartment and slammed the door.
Nick was in the kitchen sipping his coffee when he heard the door slam. A moment later, Perry walked in. One glance at his face told Nick that he still had his bunkmate. He didn’t analyze his pleasure in this because he noticed that Perry was quite white.
“What’s the matter? What did he say to you?” Nick was on his feet, ready to do battle -- another feeling he didn’t dare explore too carefully.
“He’s been watching me,” Perry said, and he sounded genuinely shaken. “He knew all about those hidden walkways, and he’s been using them to keep track of everyone. He’s some kind of a Peeping Tom.”
“He admitted that to you? Did he say he killed --”
If Teagle was their killer -- Nick considered that objectively. The old man had knowledge of the tunnels. He wasn’t in good health and couldn’t lug a man the size of Tiny or the unknown corpse in the icehouse far, but he wouldn’t necessarily have to since he’d know how to play Chutes and Ladders through the mansion. He was also related to the family that now owned the Alston Estate, which meant there was a very good chance he knew all about the Alston sapphires and Shane Moran.
And to top it off, he was a creep.
But Perry was shaking his head. “No. Nothing like that. He just admitted he knew about the passageways. He gave me some bullshit story about having a duty to keep an eye on everyone…but… Nick!”
The youthful protest in that got Nick like no righteous indignation would have.
“Don’t worry, I’ll have a word with him,” he said grimly, on his way to the doorway.
“That shit stops here and now. And when I get done with him he can explain to the cops what he was doing prowling around --”
But Perry grabbed his arm, and somehow Nick couldn’t pull away from him. Instead, he returned Perry’s hug, putting his arms stiffly around him.
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“I knew it,” Perry said. “I knew there was something weird. I could feel it sometimes when I was getting undressed or” -- he moaned -- “when I was jacking off.”
The picture that conjured raised an entirely inappropriate response from Nick’s body.
A response that was pretty damn difficult to hide what with Perry clutching him and inarticulately mumbling his embarrassment into Nick’s neck.
If Teagle wasn’t a murderer, then in the greater scheme of things it wasn’t really that traumatic -- some lonely old perv copping a peek through the bathroom wall -- but Perry was about as sheltered as they came these days, and clearly he felt violated on all kinds of levels.
So Nick tried to ease his erection out of Perry’s groin while not actually breaking free, because Perry apparently required a hug, and it was unexpectedly important to Nick that Perry get what he needed when he needed it.
“Yeah, I know. But it’s done and you’re okay,” Nick told him. He meant to say it bracingly, but it came out soft and coaxing. It was a tone he couldn’t remember ever having used before on anyone -- certainly not with Marie, certainly not in the rough and mostly silent encounters with his occasional casual lovers.
Perry raised an indignant face. “And he had the balls to tell me I should stay with him, because we didn’t know anything about you!”
Nick laughed and gave in to the urge to brush Perry’s fair hair out of his eyes -- his fingertips sensitive to the silky texture of eyebrows and hair, warm skin, eyelashes.
Perry’s lashes fluttered down, concealing his eyes.
“Hey,” Nick said huskily.
Perry gave him an uncertain look.
It was a mistake, of course. A huge mistake. But suddenly, urgently Nick wanted to taste Perry’s mouth, so he bent his head. Perry’s eyes widened, then their faces bumped, and his mouth found Perry’s.
It was a gentle kiss, because Nick was thinking what a stupid thing this was to do, and that Perry, being inexperienced, would probably expect songbirds and firecrackers.
Perry tasted like hot chocolate and something warm and young and male. It was unexpectedly erotic. He responded sweetly, opening right up, and Nick’s heart turned over in his chest.
His hands slid down Perry’s back, feeling delicate bones and tension, warm nakedness beneath too many clothes. And, without thinking anymore, his hands went to Perry’s waistband. He was amused and titillated to feel Perry’s hands mimicking the motions of his own. The kid’s knuckles felt feverish against Nick’s belly as he fumbled with Nick’s belt. His expression was dead serious, which touched Nick in some unused corner of his heart.
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“Let’s take this below deck,” he said, and he scooped Perry up over his shoulder. Perry burst out laughing, head dangling down at Nick’s waistband. He tried to raise up, and Nick smacked his ass.
Nick carried him into the bedroom and flung him down on his back on the bed. Perry was still laughing, a kid’s untroubled laugh. There was trust in the fawn eyes that pierced Nick right through some vulnerable piece of his anatomy there really wasn’t a name for.
Perry was nearly his own height; small framed but not badly built for being so slight.
His cock sprang up like a cadet eager for training.
“At ease, son. You don’t have to salute,” Nick told him, and Perry gave that endearing giggle. Nick pounced on the bed and crouched over him. Perry reached up and ran his hand through Nick’s crisp, short cut.
“Like porcupine quills,” he said. “Only soft.” He smiled. “You have the bluest eyes I ever saw.”
“The better to see you with.”
Perry’s lips quivered. “My, Grandma, what white teeth you have.”
“The better to eat you with,” Nick said and proceeded to demonstrate.
Perry was…delectable. Sweet and shivering beneath Nick’s onslaught, moaning softly as Nick nibbled and nipped, keeping him writhing in desperate pleasure. But Nick miscalculated Perry’s excitement -- and experience -- and the sudden eruption of slippery hot silk between their bodies took them both by surprise.
Nick drew back to study the mistimed fusillade.
“Goddamn it!” Perry said, sounding so chagrined that Nick laughed.
“It’s all right. Plenty more where that came from.” And at Perry’s age, it was true. As Nick’s tongue traced the damp pulse of Perry’s femoral artery, Perry was gasping, his body already beginning to respond in slow, sensual movements.
Nick took his time -- anything worth doing was doing right -- and he wanted Perry’s first real experience to be the very best it could be, so he applied the tactics he’d learned with Marie. Little tricks with tongue and lips he’d never have dreamed of using on another guy --
not in the kind of impersonal sexual encounters he typically favored -- but they made Perry wild.
Something to make note of for another place and time, but oddly enough, Nick didn’t want to consider another place and time. Right now, showing and sharing with Perry seemed the only thing that really mattered.
Perry’s thin, artist’s hands clutched Nick’s shoulders, and he was getting hard again, moving against Nick in urgent little thrusts -- surprisingly, enjoyably uninhibited.
Nick took the head of the kid’s cock into his mouth, tasting that salt and sweet, and Perry arched up, making inarticulate sounds Nick unexpectedly found exciting. He drew the The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks