Saving Mr. Bell

Chapter Ten

Arlo

Three items of clothing! Was that all that stood between me and a naked Rudolf? God help me. That quip from Rudolf about being overcome by lust at the sight of his naked torso hadn’t helped either, my denial a lie, when that’s exactly what had happened when he’d stripped off earlier.

Before I could think of a suitable excuse not to play, Rudolf dealt a hand with a flourish that dared me to protest. He eyeballed me as I slid the cards off the table, fanned them out in my hand, and studied them. “I’m going to win anyway,” he said with a smirk. “So it’s you who should worry about being naked.”

Funnily enough, that didn’t make me feel any better. The cards were part of a set, complete with plastic poker chips to use as a stake. Rudolf won the first hand with a king to my ten, my left boot the sacrifice. My right boot went the following round to a pair of threes.

“See,” Rudolf boasted. “Told you I was going to win.”

Cocky little shit! I jerked my head toward the piano only a few meters away. “Are we going to talk about that?”

Rudolf’s gaze couldn’t have moved any slower if someone had tied ropes to his eyeballs and dragged them there. It lingered, though, the first time I’d seen him even look at it. “Not tonight.”

“Fair enough. Just... I’m here, you know, when you want to talk about it.”

Rudolf’s nod was jerky, and I felt bad for bringing it up. Whether what I’d said had distracted him, or he was due a loss, anyway, he lost the next round. Which meant being subjected to Rudolf dragging off his T-shirt like he spent evenings moonlighting as a stripper. “Just… take it off,” I begged when the elaborate act strayed too far into titillation that I was a long way from being immune to.

Rudolf winked. “I thought you might appreciate a bit of a show.”

“I don’t.” I do. Too much.

Rudolf pulled the T-shirt the rest of the way off and flung it in my direction, forcing me to catch it before it hit me in the face.

“Idiot!” My irritation might have been convincing if I hadn’t laughed, Rudolf joining in.

The next two rounds saw my socks reunited with my boots.

“Three, two,” Rudolf announced.

“What?”

He grinned. “I have two items of clothing left. You have three. Assuming you’re wearing underwear, that is?”

“I’m wearing underwear.”

“Glad to hear it. I’d hate to be sitting here with a man with loose morals.”

I shook my head. “I think I liked you better when you were drunk.”

“No, you didn’t. No one likes me when I’m drunk.”

So why do it? The question hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I pulled back from asking it. I had a feeling we’d get to that when we got to the piano. “You’re right. I don’t like you better drunk.”

Rudolf won the next round, propping his chin on his hands and leaning forward as I removed my T-shirt. “Nice body,” he said as I pulled it over my head, “for a documentary maker.”

“Shut up!” My cheeks flamed as the scrutiny continued. I’d assumed the papers had done their usual hatchet job when describing Rudolf’s supposed promiscuity, but the man in front of me was a world away from the way he’d been at seventeen. But then, who didn’t still have an awful lot of growing up to do at that age? I know I had.

“You’re not shy, are you, Arlo?”

I gestured at the cards. “Are we playing or not?”

Rudolf waggled his eyebrows. “And now he can’t wait to get the rest of his clothes off. Or…” He left a deliberately long pause. “You can’t wait for me to get the rest of mine off. Which is it?”

“Neither.”

“Hmm…” He kept his gaze trained on my face as he dealt another hand. After blushing like a teenager, I had my poker face in hand, though. Which was handy, given we were playing poker. The problem was that come the end of this hand, one of us would strip to our underwear, and I couldn’t decide whether it would be worse if it was me or him.

Rudolf threw in two cards, raising an eyebrow at the two he picked up. Pleased, or a carefully orchestrated bluff? I threw in three cards, picking up the five of spades to go with the pair of fives I already had. The three of a kind left me in a strong position unless Rudolf had something better. I studied his face, but he wasn’t giving anything away. If only we weren’t in a remote cabin in the middle of nowhere, and I could rely on an interruption.

Rudolf looked up from his cards. “Why did my father pull the plug on the documentary?”

The abrupt change in subject matter had me reeling. “What?”

“You heard.”

I cast my mind back. A lot of water had passed under the bridge in the last six years. “He decided he wanted to restrict your public profile. That making you so accessible that early in your career would be counterproductive. The whole everyone loves a mystery thing.”

“Right.” Rudolf lay down his bet, and I matched it. “So, it wasn’t because he was concerned with how friendly we were getting when he still had illusions about me being straight?”

I froze. I’d always suspected that was the real reason, but it wasn’t the one I’d been given. “He told you that?”

“Of course not. He told me the same thing he told you, but you saw his face on the night when he came in and found us both laughing.”

He was talking about a night where Rudolf and I had holed up in a comfortable lounge room away from the rest of the crew and spent the night watching goofy comedy films about as far from the documentaries I made as it was possible to get. Jeremiah Bell had walked in, taken one look at us sitting close enough on the sofa that we touched, when there’d been plenty of room to avoid that happening, and laughing together, and hadn’t bothered to hide his displeasure. It wasn’t the first time we’d spent the evening alone together, but it was the first time anyone had witnessed our growing camaraderie. “Nothing would have happened.”

“Because I was eighteen?” Rudolf pulled a face. “Nearly eighteen.”

“That, and I was working, and it would have been hugely unprofessional of me.”

“But you wanted something to happen?”

My fingers tightened around the cards, and I had to force them to relax. Rudolf’s gaze was like a heat-seeking missile trained on my face as he waited for me to answer. “It was a long time ago.”

“So you don’t find me attractive?”

How was I supposed to answer that? “I’ve told you why I brought you here.”

“You did, and I believe you.”

“Good. Because it’s the truth.”

“But that doesn’t mean you don’t find me attractive. It’s a simple enough question that only needs a yes or no answer.”

Simple? Right. For him, maybe. I should never have told him Bruno and I were done. I could have used my still-husband-in-a-legal-sense as a buffer. I met his gaze. “I’m not attracted to you,” I lied.

Rudolf shrugged. “See. That wasn’t so hard, was it? I can cope with a man not finding me attractive, you know.”

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“I’m not that fragile.” He lay his cards down to reveal a pair of jacks. In any other round, it would have been a great hand. He mistook my silence. “Time to get your gear off, Arlo. Let’s see what type of underwear you wear.”

I lay my cards down with painstaking slowness. “Afraid not.”

He sat back with a look of surprise at being bested. “Huh! I stand corrected.” He rose from the chair and hooked his thumbs in the waistband of the borrowed sweatpants. “Good job you’re not attracted to me or this could get awkward.” He gave them a little tug, the fabric lowering an inch. Not enough that I could see anything, but enough for the promise to be there. “I lied, by the way.”

“About what?” The words were a rasp, but I refused to clear my throat.

“About wearing underwear. You forgot I don’t have any on account of you snatching me from the middle of my night out.”

I stood so fast the table rocked and the cards slid onto the floor. “Time for a drink. Maybe some toast as well while we’ve still got fresh bread. Do you want some toast?” I headed for the next room with Rudolf’s laughter ringing in my ears.

“Arlo, come back,” he called after me once he’d stopped laughing. “I was joking. I am wearing underwear. I borrowed some of yours. Let’s finish the game.”

I put the kettle on, expelling a breath as I did so. “The game’s finished.”

“Why?”

“Because… I never wanted to play in the first place and I let you talk me into it.”

Silence. No crack about bingo being more my speed. No jibe about being too scared of losing. Nothing. I scratched at my bare chest while I waited for the kettle to boil. I hadn’t thought to grab my T-shirt during my hasty departure from the other room. There were plenty in the bedroom, even with Rudolf wearing them like they were going out of fashion. It was a good job the cabin came with a combination washer/drier, especially if we were sharing underwear.

I really should have considered Rudolf not having clothes when I’d hatched my crazy plan to rescue him. In my defense, I’d never envisioned us being snowed in. Without the weather causing mayhem, I could have asked him for a list of stuff he needed and driven to get it. Who was I trying to kid? Without the blizzard making the roads impassable, I would have been driving Rudolf back to Salzburg. He was only being so accepting of his fate because he recognized we were both stuck.

The kettle finished boiling, and I got two mugs out of the cupboard. I turned so my voice would carry in the right direction. “Rudolf, do you—?” I didn’t get any further because he was right there, employing a stealth the SAS would have been proud of. I only realized it was intentional as he pressed me back against the counter and his lips came down on mine.

I’d never given thought to how Rudolf Bell kissed. Why would I when I’d never expected to be on the receiving end? But if I had, I might have realized he’d go about it the same way as he did his music: teasing and tormenting, only with his tongue instead of his fingers. Both parts were equally talented. Desire throbbed through me as he kissed me so thoroughly that it felt like I’d never been kissed before. Our bodies pressed together from crotch to hip, and I felt an answering hardness meeting mine as the kiss continued.

When he pulled back, he was smiling. “You, Arlo Thomas, are a liar who lies.”

“What about?” I sounded like a man who no longer knew which way was up. Which was an accurate reflection of how I felt.

By shifting his hips slightly, Rudolf reminded me he might have stopped kissing me, but that our lower bodies were still glued together. “About not being attracted to me.”

I could hardly deny it when my cock told a different story. “I thought it was best.”

“Why?”

I shook my head, words eluding me for a few seconds. “Circumstances.”

“Ah, yes, circumstances.” Rudolf sounded amused by my answer. He backed off to lean against the counter diagonal to where I was, arms crossed over his bare chest. “We’re both adults, Arlo. I’m not seventeen anymore. And as you keep pointing out, there’s only six years between us. Neither of us are virgins, so if something happens, you’re hardly corrupting me.”

“You’re more likely to corrupt me.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Don’t believe everything you’ve read about me. A tabloid once had me attending orgies in Amsterdam.”

“Did you?”

“No!” He sounded outraged that I’d even asked. “I’ve never even had a threesome. I’m not going to claim that I’m shy when it comes to sex. I’m not. But absolutely all of my sexual interludes have only involved one other man.”

“How traditional of you.”

He shrugged. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with people who are up for that sort of thing. I’m just not. Maybe it’s a selfish thing and I prefer my partner to focus entirely on me.”

“Understandable.”

He levered himself away from the counter and crossed the room to stare out into the dark night. “Just so we’re clear, that was more than an honesty test. I’m attracted to you too. I was attracted to you when I was seventeen and I’m still attracted to you.” He turned back to face me, his lips curving into a smile. “And to think I thought there wouldn’t be anything to do in this cabin.”

I was still trying to think of a suitable response when Rudolf turned away from the window and headed for the bedroom. “No tea for me. Bed calls. See you tomorrow, Arlo. Sleep well. Dream of me.”

Dream of him! I expected I would, the taste of him still on my lips.