The Sugared Game - K.J. Charles Page 0,35
them want to bend. I consider and reject joining a gymnasium.” He stroked a very light finger over the ridged line on Will’s belly. “I wonder how close you came to not being here.”
“That wasn’t the bad one.”
“Which was?”
“My leg. If it hadn’t been for the bravest stretcher-bearer in Flanders, I’d have died out there. A month in hospital.”
Kim’s fingers trailed down over his hip, to the gnarled skin on his thigh. “This?”
“Mmm.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not any more.”
Kim’s fingertips were skimming the rough surface of the scar, round and over. “Beautiful.”
“The scar?”
“Yes.”
“You’re bloody odd.”
“Scars are always beautiful,” Kim said. “They’re proof we lived.” He ran his fingers back up to Will’s stomach, skirting his groin in a way that made Will very aware of it. “What was this one?”
“I walked into a bayonet. What are the ones on your arms?”
“I walked into a razor.”
Will looked at the thin white lines. “A razor?”
“I used to cut myself,” Kim said, quite calmly. “When I was fourteen, fifteen. It...how can I put this? It let certain feelings out that would have been worse if they stayed in.”
Will had no idea how to respond to that. He’d known a fellow in the trenches who’d taken to pinching himself viciously, so his wrists were a constant mess of half-moon nail marks. He didn’t want to think of a young Kim hurting his body to escape his mind, or of these scars as proof he had lived through whatever it was. The idea gave him a vast, aching sorrow too big for him to contain.
“I thought you got them when you learned knife fighting,” he said, inadequately.
“Don’t be absurd. I used wrist protectors.”
Will opened his mouth, looked at the thin, faint scars again, and said “But—”
Kim gave a sudden choke of laughter. Will caught his eye and spluttered, and then they were both laughing, stupidly because it wasn’t funny, and gloriously because it was.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” Kim said. “Shut up.”
Will wanted to hold him, to wrap his arms around him and find out what was wrong and make it right. That wasn’t in his power and Kim probably wouldn’t have welcomed it anyway. He said, instead, “Come to bed,” because he didn’t know how to say anything else, and took Kim’s hand.
There was no hurry. That was important, somehow. He took his time, kissing and touching, and Kim did the same. Hands over each other, using touch because words were large and frightening things. Forgetting about scars, for now.
After a while Kim sat up on Will’s spread thighs, took his left hand, and very slowly took a finger in his mouth. Will sucked in a breath. Kim drew the ring of his lips steadily up and down, with obvious symbolic effect but also providing a world of sensation in itself. Will had no idea his battered hands had so much feeling left in them; his prick jerked painfully. Kim seemed in no hurry, taking each toughened finger in turn, running tongue and teeth over the knotty joints and hardened skin, drawing his manicured nails across Will’s palm, slow and lingering and making his toes curl.
“You have beautiful hands,” he murmured. “I’m sure I mentioned this.”
“You did. You’re wrong, but you did.”
“I’m not wrong.” Kim kissed the inside of Will’s wrist. “I’m never wrong.”
Will managed a snort that turned into a yelp when Kim leaned forward and captured a nipple with his mouth. “God!”
“You’re remarkably sensitive tonight,” Kim purred. His teeth rasped over the nub, hardening it. Will squirmed under him, the more when Kim’s hand slid down his side, over his hip, between his legs. Kim’s mouth and hand moved together, sending pleasure spiking up and down, his cock rubbing hot and hard against Will’s leg in time with the movements.
Will moaned. Kim lifted his head away. “Can I suck you off?”
“No. Don’t.” He didn’t want Kim kneeling between his legs, face hidden, feelings unreadable. He reached for the dark head. “Stay up here with me.”
Kim’s lips parted a little. Will pulled him up and wriggled down to kiss him, cupping the back of his skull to keep him there, thighs and hips and pricks bumping beautifully together. Thank God for being the same height. He clamped his other hand on Kim’s smooth arse, feeling the muscle work, the vibration of his groan. Kim shifted over him, clamping Will’s cock between his legs, his own rubbing between their stomachs, and they rocked and kissed, kissed and rocked, fingers gripping and tongues