The lights were off, the house was in darkness. I didn't pay attention to where we were going. Compared to the steam filled bath, the rest of the house must have been cold, but I didn't notice it. I felt the firm arms that carried me. I was aware of where his bare hands touched my skin - one just above the bent of my knees, the other one around my back - and of the warm, hard chest under the soft robe that they held me against. My fingers were caressing his face and neck. I kissed his wet hair, his cheek, the tender skin behind his ear.

We passed through a door into a hallway or maybe an antechamber. Through floor-to-ceiling windows, the lights of Neverland outside filled it with the shadows of trees and a bluish twilight. Somewhere in a far corner of my mind I noticed life-size human figures in various costumes lining the hall, their still shapes black against the windowpanes. But they didn't mean anything to me. Nothing meant anything to me - except Michael. I pulled his mouth to mine. He responded to my kiss briefly, then turned away. I pulled his face back to me. This time he didn't withdraw. His mouth was hot and deep. His steps slowed, then he stopped walking. I felt his grip on me tighten. His breathing escalated. Kissing became feverish. My hands were in his hair, playing with his curls. Then I stroked his jaw line, his chin, his throat, going lower, down to his chest, sliding my hand into the bathrobe and feeling his fast, heavy heartbeat.

He sighed against my mouth. "You need to let go of my head. I can't see where I'm going." His voice was strained.

"You don't know the way blind?" I whispered but loosened my hold on him.

"Right now I wouldn't bet on it." He still pressed against my mouth, but was forcing deeper, calming breaths now. "I really wouldn't!"

Still breathing heavily he resumed walking, briefly glancing down at where my hand was on his chest inside the robe.

At the end of the hall was a double winged door made of the same dark wood that had found use all over the Neverland main house. "That's my bedroom," he said, his voice low and suddenly husky. "Open the door."

I reached for the doorknob, turned it, and felt it click. For a moment I held it turned looking at Michael's eyes knowing that he had heard the clicking, too, and felt his fingers press more firmly against my skin. Carefully I moved the wing inward just so that the lock couldn't snap shut again, then slowly allowed the knob to turn back into its original position and withdrew my hand.

It stood open maybe two inviting inches; challenging; the dull light that was filtering through clearly visible against the dark wood.

Michael looked at the crack in the door. There was a movement in his mouth, then, with something between a smile and a laugh, he gave me a sideways glance, set his shoulder to the door and gently but surely forced it open.

He laid me down where a maid had opened the bed for him. My mouth was on his. Whatever might have been going on around me, I wouldn't have seen it. I didn't care. Pushing the blanket aside, touching his head and neck and shoulders, I pulled him into bed with me. I wanted him closer - he couldn't come close enough. The body under the robe was hard, all muscles tight. I undid the belt that held it and peeled it down his back and off his arms, revealing the beauty of his dark skin. I didn't notice the bathrobe slip off the bed and fall to the floor. Lying on the sheet that he had slept on the night before, I felt his bare, hot skin against mine as he lay over me. He was looking down at me, breathing hard, his soft fragrance filling my mind. Then he moved forward. His head and shoulders blocked out what little light there was. It became dark where I lay under him.

When I felt his presence, sweat rose on my skin immediately. His forehead touched mine, his eyes pitch black in the light that wasn't any. His hot breath hit my face. His tongue filled my mouth. The world stopped existing. If he hadn't known what he was doing on the carousel earlier that night, it was obvious that now he knew full well. A thin film of cool moisture covered the skin over the tense muscles in his back. I wrapped my legs around his bottom, holding him to me, my toes touching the sheet between his thighs. There was nothing else. Just us. Breathing. Kissing. Holding each other, and moving in the slow rhythm that he set.

I woke up to the dark room with its odd light. Coming to slowly, I watched the same shadows of leaves and tree branches, that had filled the hall outside, being cast across the walls and the bed. They were moving dreamily in a soft wind. I heard Michael's slow, deep breathing close to me. My limbs and body still felt loose from being with him. Under the covers his arm and hand were lying over my abdomen. Their warm weight on me, and the fact that in his sleep he was lying so close, gave me a feeling of utter security, and for a while I just lay between the sheets indulging in it.

Then I looked at him where he lay on the pillow, deep in the dreamless sleep induced by lovemaking, slowly breathing, vulnerable and human. Sheet and blanket covered him up to his shoulder, but as he was turned to me I could see part of his naked chest under them. Him being unaware of me watching, I studied the pattern the disorder had left in his natural pigmentation. Especially on his chest the feeling of looking at an injury that I wanted to treat so it could heal, was overwhelming. There was nothing that could be done to make it better, and the knowledge left me miserable. Carefully, trying not to wake him, I turned to him, but he sensed my movement under his arm being deliberate and not in sleep. His head rose a little, and his eyes opened slightly. Unfocused and not awake they looked in my direction, scanning for possible dangers.

"It's okay," I said in a hushed voice, smiling gently. "Go back to sleep."

His head sank back down; his eye lids closed, his breathing deepened again. I watched him as sleep seemed to take him back, the long lashes resting on his cheeks, the full lower lip that gave his relaxed face a boyish, almost pouting expression.

Suddenly his eyes opened again. Still small from sleep, they were like two shiny, black beetles, repeatingly closing in an effort to wake up. A soft smile spread across his face.

"It's okay," I repeated in a soft whisper. "Just sleep."

He made a small noise that sounded like a denial, but he wasn't having access to his voice, and I felt his hand on my body move. Warm fingertips lightly touched my face.

I leaned forward, brushed his nose with mine and kissed him, gently pushing my lower lip against his. Still half asleep, his response was slow, his heavy eye lids thankfully falling shut while his soft, warm mouth drowsily returned my kisses.

As his consciousness surfaced, his movements became more focused. His hand rested lightly in the hollow of my neck, his thump tracing my jawline and feeling the tender skin under my chin. Then he slowly turned on his back, pulling me with him. My mouth still on his, I leaned up and over him, feeling the firm side of his body, while sheet and blanket slid off my shoulders. My hair fell over his face. He started to giggle as both his hands came up trying to gather my hair at the nape of my neck. The low sound was oddly infectious. I started to laugh. Not because it was funny, but because it was joyful to have his hands in my hair and to have his beautiful face so close displaying the same joy, my body lying against his.

The dancing shadows of the trees drew their playful patterns on the sheets, on us, and on the room all around us, and we were laughing at each other's faces in the privacy of his bed.

His head lay relaxed deep in the pillow, his black eyes in the half-light still sparkling with laughter.

"I'm sorry, I woke you up." My fingers ran down the side of his face feeling his bone structure.

He smiled, shaking his head slightly. "I'm not," he said in an innocent tone.

"No?"

"No."

Softly smiling I kept looking at him where he lay under me. After a moment his smile broke into a shy laugh, and he turned his head to the side, away from me. The move exposed his neck and the blood pulsing in his throat. I watched how his life beat through him, strong and fragile at the same time, just below the thin cover of his skin. Then I bent down and kissed the tender area of his neck, feeling the precious rhythm under my lips, my hair spilling over his chest as he let go of my head.

There was a small sound that I didn't hear but only sensed the vibrations it caused in his voice box and a moment of delay before his hands touched my shoulders. Then they pushed the covers down to my waist caressing my naked body, while I traced kisses down his throat to his collarbone, over his shoulder and his chest, along his costal arch, and across the vulnerable stomach area. His skin was hot from sleeping under the covers.

When I came up to him again, his hands dug into my hair and he turned his face against mine searching for my mouth with tender, begging kisses, his chest under me rising and falling fast with accelerated breathing. A strong arm closed around my back, and he gently turned us over, burying me under him.

His body was lying tight on mine. It was pleasurable to feel his weight. But there was something else. He was aroused. And he was pressing against my skin. A rush went through me at the realization. It was the unmistakable promise of his body of what was about to happen. Chest to chest, his heart beat fast and heavily into me, forcing it's rhythm on mine. As he was taking over, I could no longer tell his heartbeat from my own. His breath came fast and audible. But although the look in his eyes was hazy, there was no tension in his face. His expression was soft, and a gentle smile played around his lips and eyes.

Forearms resting on the bed, his fingertips were lightly touching my temples.

"There is something you said earlier that keeps echoing in my head..." he said, and there was that husky tone in his voice again.

"What did I say?" I felt lightheaded.

He held my gaze for a moment, then his smile widened as he cast down his eyes, and I saw him slightly biting his tongue. I reached for his face and gently stroked his cheek, brushing my thump over his lips. His eyes lifted and met mine, and his voice was low. "You said that you have my sperm inside you."

Him looking down at me with his eyes hazy, being so intimately close, and hearing that line out of his mouth took my breath away.

"Yes..." I looked at his face, at his mouth and his dark eyes, and at the black hair that framed it. "What a precious thing that is - that my body keeps a living part of you." While saying so my attention had wandered off to where my hands touched his neck and the rounded muscles of his shoulders, now I focused on his eyes again. "Do you like the thought, too?"

Intently he looked at me, then slowly nodded his head. "Yes," he said calmly.

I brushed a curl from his forehead. It fell right back. I had known it would. I just wanted to touch his face. What more was there to say? Yes.

Ever so lightly my fingertips touched his face and throat. Then my hand glided into his hair by the nape of his neck. "Come," I whispered, gently pulling him towards me and meeting his mouth half way, softly kissing him, surrendering, drowning as his body kept its promise.

~~~~~

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