What Happens in Vienna {ManxMan}

CHAPTER 16 (Tobias)

Carter's lips were as soft as I'd always thought, warm and delightful. Kissing him had opened doors I never thought existed. With his hands in my hair and my shirt, mine holding his face, neither of us had made any move to show we wanted to stop, and if I'm being honest I wanted to put him on the bed then and there to take him hard and fast, but Bryn interrupted before I could. Evidently a few of the younger soldiers were getting into a fight, god knows what about, but me showing up had stopped them successfully, letting me return to Carter's side where I wanted to be.

Unfortunately, by the time I got there, he'd fallen back asleep, so I just laid down with him and pulled the covers over his body. It gave me time to think, and to go over what Carter had told me about his group. They were this twisted organization of psychos bent on world destruction, not world domination, and Carter was stuck in the middle of it because of his loyalty to his brother. I hated it, the fact he was basically a prisoner, all I wanted to do was keep him safe, but as I thought more about it, I realized it may not be possible.

I didn't know enough about these crazy people to even attempt something drastic, like stealing one of their people. What made that worse was the fact Carter was their leader's younger brother. If he had been anyone else, just a foot soldier, it probably would have been easier, but he wasn't. Carter didn't want to go back, I didn't want to give him up, he could always just stay and see what happened, but the consequences of that could be destructive.

Thinking about it made my head reel, and with the newly embraced reality that I was ridiculously in love with this man made it even harder, so I just pushed it to the back of my mind and enjoyed his presence.

When he woke up later in the day I held him in my arms before kissing his lips and his face until he was conscious enough to react, cheeks red and gorgeous eyes wide in surprise, like he wasn't used to being kissed or hugged romantically. He didn't argue or try to pull away though, he stayed in the same position held against me, hands pressed to my chest and playing with the fabric of my shirt as he stared at what he was doing and let me scatter kisses all over his face.

"Don't you have work?" he asked me when I'd finally pulled away to look at him, and I smiled.

"A bit, but it's fine. I'd rather not leave you alone."

He shrugged, quickly averting his eyes, "I'll just come with you then. I can walk now if I use crutches, remember? Besides, I want to see all those books you talk about."

My heart was thundering in my chest at the idea of how his face would light up seeing my collection, and I quickly left the bed to grab the crutches Adalwolf had left leaning against the wall. Carter didn't use them much, mainly because I hated him putting stress on his body, but they had been adjusted for his height already, all he had to do was stand up so I could help him.

A big part of me wanted to just sweep him off his feet and carry him myself, but I held back, instead staying just in front of him so I could lead him from the infirmary and down the hall to where my study was located. Just like I'd been hoping, his face lit up in excitement the moment he walked into the room, holding both crutches in one hand and limping over to the wall located to the left when you walked into my study.

The entire wall had shelves built in and against it, filled with books, first edition and everything in between, all of them in pristine edition. Of course, I coveted knowledge far too much to let the novels wither away. I went to great lengths to keep them all safe.

"This is way more than I expected," Carter admitted breathlessly, leaning the crutches against the wall so he could run his hand over the spines of my books, "What do you even have here?"

"Just about everything you can think of. Some of them are printed in different translations, to keep my mind sharp and fluent. Forgetting the languages I spent years learning is not something I plan to ever do. You should see my room."