Page 87 of Thief Taker

Elias sighed, laid a kiss against the bare skin of Kit’s shoulder. And Kit reached for him, turning in the circle of his arms until they were chest to chest. He was beautiful and raw—angry, desperate, hungry for comfort. Elias caught his breath.

And then Kit’s hands were on him, pushing off his coat, undoing his neckcloth, the buttons at the top of his shirt. “I’ve wanted this,” Kit said as he pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat. “I’ve wanted you like this.”

Elias had too. He touched Kit’s face, lifted his chin so he could kiss his mouth again. The slide of their lips, slow and exploring, reached down deep inside him and hauled his soul to the surface. Emotions he couldn’t contain, feelings he shouldn’t have, wants he could never sate—they were all pounding in his ears, in his chest. In his heart.

Kit ran his hands down Elias’s body, across his back, and tugged at his shirt. “I want to see you,” he said. “I want to see all of you.”

Elias had to close his eyes against a sting of shame, because what Kit wanted was impossible. Until there were no secrets between them, part of Elias must always remain hidden. And it hurt, deep in his chest.

A better man would stop this now. But Elias was not a better man. He could more easily stop breathing than prevent this moment from unfolding. And so he tugged at his shirt, pulled it over his head and threw it aside, hardening at the sight of Kit’s hunger.

“You too,” Elias said gruffly, reaching for Kit’s shirt. Kit tried to help, but Elias pushed his hands away. “No, let me,” he said. “I want to.”

His heart was pounding, breath short as he ran his fingers lightly down the bare skin at the neck of Kit’s shirt. Kit shivered, and Elias trailed his hands over his shirt to his stomach, to either side of his waist. He wanted to touch Kit’s skin, to press his lips to the ink over his heart. Swallowing hard, he tugged at Kit’s shirt, pulled it free of his breeches and up over his head.

Kit lifted his arms and for a moment all Elias could see were the planes of his muscles, the shape of his ribs, the concave fall of his stomach and the hard lines of his arms held above his head.

And then the shirt was off and drifting to the floor and Elias was reaching out to press his palm flat against Kit’s chest. He was glorious. The way he shivered under Elias’s fingers, the goose skin that rose in the wake of his touch, the hard peak of his nipples when Elias brushed his lips across them: he was glorious. Kit stifled a gasp as Elias traced the initials inked over his heart, and then Kit’s hands were at Elias’s waist and he was pulling them together.

The sensation was incredible, bare chest to bare chest, one of Kit’s strong arms around Elias’s back, his other hand in his hair, tugging his head to one side as he pressed a kiss beneath his jaw.

“Oh God …” Elias wanted to go to his knees. He wanted to press his mouth against Kit’s skin, follow the ink with the tip of his tongue. He wanted to take him into his mouth and make him come apart right there, with his fingers in Elias’s hair and crying his name. He started to move, to sink down, but Kit caught his arm.

“No,” he said, his voice no more than a breathy rasp.

Elias looked up and Kit smiled. He smiled and his heart was in his eyes. Everything was there, nothing held back. Elias was certain of it.

“Come to bed,” Kit said, pulling on Elias’s arm until he was standing again. “I want to do this properly.”

It would ruin him forever. Even so, he let Kit lead him to the bed and, together, they slowly freed themselves from the last of their clothing. He would never recover, he thought as Kit drew back the covers and, with a smile that was charmingly shy, tugged Elias into the huge bed with him.

The linen was warm beneath his back when he lay down, the pillows softer than anything he’d known. Luxurious as a dream. Perhaps it was all a dream. Kit, naked and willing, pressing him into the mattress with another deep kiss and Elias letting his fingers meander across his back, down his flank and over his hip to his thigh.

How could it be anything but a dream?

“Elias,” Kit murmured, kissing down from his lips to his jaw, his throat, his chest. He flicked his tongue across a nipple and made Elias jump, the sensation arrowing straight to his aching cock. Kit laughed and did it again. And again, until Elias grabbed a fistful of his hair—that thick, wonderful hair—and lifted his head.

“You like that,” Kit said with a smile that was downright wicked.

“I like a lot of things,” Elias said, and hauled him back up far enough that he could flip him over and hold him there, one leg sliding between his thighs and his cock trapped perfectly against the hollow of Kit’s hip. “I like this,” he said with a grin.

Kit swallowed, his throat working and his eyes dark as a night sky. “Yes,” he said and rolled his hips up, pressing himself into the hot space between them. “Lord, yes.”

Sensation arced from one to the other. It sparked from the base of Elias’s spine right down to the tips of his toes, a rolling liquid ecstasy.

Kit moved again, another grind of his hips, and this time Elias moved with him. Kit hissed, tipped back his head as his eyes fluttered closed, exposing the long column of his throat that glistened in the lamplight with a thin sheen of sweat. Elias’s heart stammered as he pressed his lips against Kit’s skin, licking a salty line from the hollow of his throat to the edge of his jaw. Kit groaned beneath him, jerked his hips up, breaking the building rhythm. Smiling, Elias kissed him there again, nipped at the skin, rolled his hips hard against the slick heat of Kit’s cock, pressing like iron against his stomach.

His head was beginning to float now, everything slipping free except for this moment. Kit’s hands were on his back, his nails scraping across his shoulder blades, down to the small of his back, clutching at the flesh of his arse and pulling him down as his hips rocked up. Kit made a sound in his throat, beyond words, and Elias pressed his mouth to his shoulder, skimmed it with his teeth until Kit stifled a groan into Elias’s hair.

“God,” he breathed. “God, Elias, I—”

Elias stopped his words with a kiss. He couldn’t hear them, whatever they were; once spoken, there was no going back. Everything would be harder.

Kit had both hands on his arse now, grinding up into the space between them with a stuttering rhythm, his back arching as his head tipped back. “Elias…”

Christ, but he was beautiful. Elias’s heart was melting, beating out of his chest, flying away from him. Oh God, it was too much.

“I’m—” Kit choked. “I’m going to—Ah, God!” On that cry, he spent hotly between them, shuddering and gasping with his eyes closed and body straining.