chapter 7

Wednesday evening

Nick reached across to the switch above the bedside table and dimmed the lights in his bedroom. He made himself comfortable in bed and resting against the pillows he watched his naked lover of five years walk from the en suite bathroom to the bed. He cocked his head appreciatively and couldn’t help smiling at Gabriel’s Greek god-like form of broad shoulders and narrow hips as he lifted the deep red cover and got in beside him.

Nick lifted his arm and Gabriel moved up to lay under it and rested his head on Nick’s chest, he wriggled and shifted a bit getting comfortable, their legs entwined and Gabriel’s arm rested on Nick’s abdomen.

Nick stroked the back of Gabriel’s neck, squeezing it a little to ease the tension of the day, his fingers playing with his hair, winding it around his fingers, Gabriel sighed, it was so soothing.

“What did Claire say about Amelia?”

Gabriel stroked his hand down over smooth skin and hard muscles, his palm gliding over Nick’s hip bone, he could feel him tensing his muscles, hip bones were a super-sensitive area for Nick. Gabriel couldn’t resist dragging the back of his fingers lightly over it again, causing Nick to jump and tighten his muscles again.

“She said...” Nick let out a deep sigh as Gabriel finally slid his hand around his shaft

“Gabe,” he started to laugh “for god’s sake! I can’t talk about my mother while you’re doing that.”

“Sorry,” he said letting go of him, “hurry up and tell me, ” he dragged his fingers up a muscular golden thigh, “hurry up so that I can hold you again.”

Nick scowled, he knew Gabriel was taking the piss and he could feel Gabriel’s mouth moving against his skin as he smiled.

Gabriel looked up at him, “don’t pout baby, what did Claire say?”

“That we will lose Amelia if we ask her to be with both of us.”

“Do you think that will happen?” Gabriel held his breath. It couldn’t happen, he - they wouldn’t let it happen.

“Dunno, it’s a big ask to be with both of us. We just need to take it very slowly with her.” Nick lifted his head from the pillow and looked down at Gabriel, “Hey, we’ve finished talking about my mum.”

“Hmm, so we have,” Gabriel moved his head and kissed and nuzzled along the smooth golden plane of Nick’s magnificent chest.

Gabriel ran his pointed tongue around the copper discs and the hardened buds of his lover’s nipples. He was always surprised at how much he loved this, loved the sounds that Nick made, the whispered words of love and exclamations of delight as he writhed under him. Nick’s skin was fever hot under his lips. He moved down the bed and lay spread-eagled beneath him, as Gabriel lay half spread over him.

Gabriel curled his fingers around Nick’s rock hard shaft, the pad of his thumb gently grazing over the silky head smearing the wetness across it. There was a low hiss from Nick, and he shivered under his touch.

Gabriel was still thinking about Amelia, “Do you think she’s...untouched, a virgin?”

Nick’s head shot up to look at him, his eyes opened wide, “of course she is, I’d be shocked if she wasn’t”

“So you think it’s just the ugly sisters who’ve got her into this state? You don’t think she’s had some...pillock boyfriend who tried it on with her?” Gabriel let go of Nick and moved further down the bed so that he could rest his head on his hip.

Nick relaxed again, “No, Millie’s never had a boyfriend, she turns a very pretty pink whenever she comes within two feet of us, she’s just adorable.”

Gabriel took hold of the beautifully sculpted erect penis in front of his eyes, “Maybe we should just let her be for a couple of days, keep out of her way for a while.”

“Do we have to?”

Nick conjured up Amelia in his mind’s eye when he had put his arms around her. She had fit against him perfectly even though at the time it was like holding a plank of wood. She refused to relax against him, and that was okay for now,"

“You said to take it..” Gabriel tightened his hand and pumped him slowly.

Nick grinned and tangled his fingers in Gabriel’s hair “it’s Thursday tomorrow it’s Jasper’s painting day lets go and see him. Maybe if the arch bitch is there, we could find out a bit more about the ugly sisters.”

“Okay.”

Nick put his hand on top of Gabriel’s “don’t stop.”

Gabriel kissed his stomach, “don’t stop...?”

“Please... don’t stop, sir,” Nick whispered.

“Good boy,” he kissed lower “my beautiful boy,” his lips moved lower still kissing “keep still Nick,” Gabriel murmured as he moved further across Nick, pinning his body to the bed. Gabriel sighed in the utmost contentment as he brought his lips down in a gentle kiss on the tip of his shaft and then opened his mouth to take him in.

Millie lay in the dark. She had tossed and turned for most of the night. Before she got into bed, she had opened the curtains, she didn’t like the dark, too many nasty things happened in the dark. Even though it wasn’t dawn yet, there was some light outside as the moon shone on the clouds, turning them misty white. It was quiet though, and Millie knew she must have fallen asleep at one point because she didn’t remember the radio turning itself off.

She had certain rituals that she had to adhere to before she went to bed. The curtains would be opened, and the radio would be put on, only very quietly, but the noise was essential. The wardrobes had to be opened and checked to make sure that there was no one hiding in them. She knew it was stupid, but it had become a habit, and she did it without even thinking about it anymore.

Millie shuddered, she drew the blind down in her mind’s eye and locked the thought of her troubles away. Instead, she thought of something pleasant, and the most satisfying thing she had done lately was when Nick had put his arms around her.

She wished that her head could have rested on his chest, she knew he wanted her to, but she didn’t dare.

She still had the faint scent of his cologne in her nose. It had made her knees go weak at the time, and now all she wanted was to smell it again. Would it be too creepy if she went to fetch one of his dirty shirts from the laundry basket in the utility room, she could hug it like a teddy bear, maybe that would help her to sleep?

“For heaven’s sake!” She muttered, “get a grip Amelia, your not five years old anymore wanting a blankie to sleep with.” She turned over, thumped her pillow into shape and pulled the quilt up. She closed her eyes and started counting. She would see if she could fall asleep before she reached one thousand.

By three thousand, Millie was tearing her hair out. It was no use. She would just get up. The radio alarm at the side of her bed said five past four, and she pressed the button to turn the radio on. The news was just at an end, and the next song was ‘Love To Be.’ Millie listened carefully to the haunting melody of lost love, a man who found his true love and lost her to a silly argument. The voice sounded familiar, and she wasn’t too surprised when she heard who it was.

“Oh that Nick Henderson certainly knows how to break hearts,” said the radio presenter “that’s our record of the week, and now this is another fabulous singer and” the presenter giggled “another gorgeous hunk, this is Hozier and Take Me To Church.”

Millie got out of bed and shrugged her dressing gown on. The emotion of Nick’s song tore at her heart, it was so different from how she perceived him to be. She couldn’t help but hum along to the song playing in her head as she filled the coffee machine.

Determined not to deviate from her plan of filling the freezer with food, Millie got on with her cooking.

************************

Friday morning came in a flash. Well, it did according to Millie. One minute she was eating dinner with the guys and they were reassuring her that they would sort her sisters out, and the next it was Friday morning, and she was staring blankly into her wardrobe wondering what the hell she could wear for dinner that evening.

Her usual evenings out had not been dressing up events, she loved going to the cinema, and once, she had been out with a boy who she had been at school with for a pizza, but they were very casual events. She had worn jeans and a pretty top for the pizza, and she certainly didn’t get dressed up for the cinema. She couldn’t possibly go out to dinner in jeans or her interview skirt.

She wondered if Gabriel was alone. She could find out what she was supposed to wear. He was much easier to talk to than Nick. She would just fall apart if she had to ask Nick what she should wear. Knowing him, he would expect her to lay her wardrobe out in front of him so he could choose her outfit. She gave a wry smile. Even Nick would have a job finding a decent going-out outfit from her clothes.

She had spent the last two days cooking up a storm, and the freezer was full, the men would be able to eat for at least two weeks before they ran out of food. She only had to get through today and then tomorrow morning before they surfaced she would write them a note and leave.

In a way, she was looking forward to it - not so much leaving this lovely room and the men, but knowing that her sisters wouldn’t be able to find her. Could she have a life of her own when they were consistently tormenting her and wanting her to do things for them without regard to anything else in her life? It had to stop!

She had been left alone yesterday and had only seen the men for breakfast. They were off out to see someone, but before they went, Nick had asked her for the twin’s phone number. She had no idea how something so simple could become such a traumatic experience.

“Have you got your phone, Amelia? I need your sister’s phone number to send to Claire so she can make arrangements for tomorrow.”

Millie pulled it out of her pocket and flicked through until Pearl’s name came up.

Nick looked at the phone, “Is that antique, does it still work?” He teased with a puzzled grin on his face.

“It’s dodgy,” she smiled. "But it works most of the time you have to hold it on the corner and press down to make work properly."

Nick shook his head and got up from the table, taking her phone with him, he ran up the stairs “two minutes,” he called.

Nick returned a few minutes later, “There you go,” he said, handing her a brand new iPhone.

“Oh, no...no I can’t possibly take this...” Millie pushed it back to him.

“Of course you can, it’s part of the job.” He pushed it back to her.

“Amelia, we get given things like this all the time, we just give them away, it’s just a perk of our job,” Gabriel explained. “The same as you getting a new phone is a perk of your job.

“It really isn’t necessary, honestly...” She pushed the phone back to Nick. If she took this phone, she would owe them for something, and she was leaving early Saturday morning. She had done everything she could, cleaned everything, cooked. The laundry room was cleared. She didn’t need any contact with them afterwards. It would hurt far too much.

Nick glared at her, his eyes half-closed. He chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully. He stood up and pulled the crystal forfeit jar from the shelf.

“You either take the phone, or you take a forfeit.”

Millie gasped, “b.. b.. but you can’t make me do that, I’ve done nothing wrong!”

“If you refuse the phone, you have done something wrong, that’s part of the job. I’ve already told you that we need to be in touch with you.” Nick knew he was pushing it, knew he was persistent and probably overbearing, but she had to know who was in charge in the working relationship, and in any other relationship they might - no, not might - they would have.

Millie looked at Gabriel. She hoped he would intervene and tell Nick to back off, but all he did was smile at her. For god’s sake, he wasn’t helping at all!

Taking a deep breath, she reached for the jar.

“I can live with or without rubber gloves, I don’t watch much TV, and I can read by candlelight,” she snapped. She just prayed that she didn’t get one that would make her ‘specifically interact’ with them. If she did, then she would leave as soon as they had gone out. At least that would get her out of this awful dinner.

As she pulled the lid off, she became aware that they were all holding their breath. Millie reached in and took the first one she touched, a black square of folded paper. As she pulled her hand out of the jar, Nick held his hand out.

Amelia was surprisingly quite calm as she handed the black square over. She had her plan, so it didn’t really matter what the forfeit was. Nick never took his eyes off her as he unfolded the paper. It was going to be so hard to leave them, if she had a choice she would never leave them, she could quite happily stay in their company forever, Millie blinked away the tears starting to form.

For a moment Nick looked down at the forfeit and grinned. He handed it to Gabriel who let out a little chuckle.

“What? Tell me for god’s sake!” Millie’s air of calm was vanishing rapidly.

“You have just opened many possibilities.” Gabriel gave her a very cheeky grin, and Millie blushed her heart racing. She didn’t dare glance at Nick, she knew, she just knew that he would have the biggest smirk on his face.

“Amelia,” Nick dropped the paper onto the table, stood up and walked around to her. He picked the phone up from the table and put it into her hands. “Your forfeit says that you have to do exactly as you are told, and that means, that you do everything that we tell you to do from now on.”

He clasped her hands around the phone. “You be a good girl and have a great day, we’ll probably not see you until tomorrow now,” he leaned in and kissed her cheek. That was very brave of you," he whispered in her ear.

Millie watched him run up the stairs and then looked back at Gabriel. He was still smiling.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded as he came towards her and slipped his arm around her waist “Amelia as long as you are with us, we’ll look after you and if it means giving you things, that we think will help the situation, then we will, and you will just have to learn to accept it.” He pulled her towards him and kissed her other cheek. “Nick was right, you were courageous to take the forfeit.” He winked at her and followed Nick up the stairs.