Page 118 of Thief Taker

“Perhaps I should have done,” Kit said. “Perhaps it would have been wiser.”

“Your associate left? Or is he still—?”

“He left.” Kit sounded rueful. “And not best pleased with me for abandoning him to the voyage alone. But, as the moment approached, I found that I simply…couldn’t.”

When Elias turned, he found Kit watching him carefully. “Couldn’t what?”

“Leave.”

“England?”

“England,” Kit conceded, “and what it contains—my father and Charlotte. You.”

They regarded each other across the small room; it felt to Elias like an ocean. “Kit, what I am, what you are… This was never wise. Now it’s even worse.”

Kit moved closer; Elias could feel the heat of him across the few inches that stood between them. “Why did you come to find me at the docks? The truth, now. All of it.”

The truth? Madness had driven him to the docks, the same madness that threatened to take him now: need, desire, yearning. God save him, love. “Because I lied to you,” he said. It was half the truth.

“I lied to you, too.” Kit reached out and took hold of Elias’s arm. “I knew who you were and pretended otherwise. I seduced you…”

“Did you?” Elias couldn’t help a slight smile. “I recall it was the other way around.”

A breath of soft laughter. “We seduced each other, then. We lied to each other.”

Elias tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. “I’m not talking about Wessex,” he said, “or about how I earn a living…”

“No?”

“I lied about this,” he said, “I made you believe I felt nothing. God, I made you fear me. When the truth was that this is the only thing between us that wasn’t a lie.” And there it was: the truth at last. He found himself unable to meet Kit’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

After a long pause, Kit said, “That night, perhaps, I believed you. But not for long.” He gave an incredulous laugh. “Do you think I don’t know you, Elias? Do you think I couldn’t feel that what we shared was real?”

Elias shook his head. “I’d hardly admitted it to myself, so how could you—?”

“Christ, Elias!” Kit exclaimed, seizing his shoulders. “Am I the biggest fool in England? For God’s sake, tell me you still feel as I do, or tell me to leave!”

Elias caught his breath, a tingle running the length of his spine—fate, perhaps, making her presence felt. “I can’t say you ain’t the biggest fool in England,” he said at last, watching the shifting expression in Kit’s eyes. “You probably are, next to me. But for God’s sake, Kit, of course I feel the same. How could I feel anything less?”

A wondrous smile transformed Kit’s face, and then his arms were around Elias, gathering him into a fierce embrace. For a moment they simply clung together, breathing hard, and then Kit was kissing him. Soundly. There was nothing hesitant about the kiss, nothing uncertain. It took Elias a moment to respond, to curl his hands into Kit’s hair and to kiss him in return. Finally.

Thank God!

Everything but the feel of Kit’s lips beneath his own faded away, every objection, every danger, every difficulty. This was all there was, this eternal moment with Kit in his arms once more as they kissed and kissed until there was no breath left.

Panting, Elias pulled back enough to rest his forehead against Kit’s. He needed to breathe, he needed to think. “God, this is madness,” he murmured into the tiny space between them, “but I thought you’d gone, Kit. I thought I’d lost you. And I couldn’t bear it—”

“Never,” Kit silenced him with a gentle kiss, both hands cupping his face. “I’ll never give you up. Never.”

The raw honesty of it pierced his heart. It terrified him and awed him.

“Elias.” Pulling him closer, Kit nuzzled his ear. “My dearest Elias…”

With a soft sigh, he tipped his head sideways so Kit could press his lips against the skin of his neck, against the slice of collarbone revealed as his shirt fell open. Everything felt heightened and perilous, Elias laying himself bare to the world.

“You’re shaking…” Kit said, caressing his hair. “Are you afraid?”

Elias shook his head, touching his lips to Kit’s. “No,” he murmured, a gentle lie. “Yes. Maybe. It’s just that—I’ve never done this before.”