Old Habits Die Hard.

Chapter Five.

"You are not use to hearing the word 'no' are you?" Matthew Daniels was laughing to himself. His face was broke out in a wide grin, which was familiar to his face. Those blue eyes of his were twinkling like the sun on the ocean. Gabriel was watching him stack hay out along the barn.

Gabriel was itching to get back out through the fields of gold behind them, which were resting under the sun as they sat in the shade. Gabriel leaned against the doors of the large barn, half in the shade and half out of it. He did not trust the dark.

"No. Not really." Gabriel sighed. "Come on out in the sun. I could pay for you to have extra work on this farm and we could always spend our days in the sun." He slid back out of the shade and stood in the sun and all its glory as heat enveloped him. Warming his skin and almost warming the chills inside from the night before.

"If someone was to spend their days in the sun everyday, warm sunny days  wouldn't seem so special." Matthew threw the hay into a bundle and travelled deeper into the barn. "And I refuse your money again."

Gabriel understood what he meant by it. He only saw Matthew during the sunny days, and barely at night. It kept him almost as a facade, and liked that he was always associated with the golden glory of the sun.

"You always refuse it."

Matthew Daniels and his family weren't from a rich family, but his farm land was large enough to not be much of a poor family either. He spent his days working on the farm, and his nights in the town. And each day refused Gabriel's help. Peasants had more pride than rich people, and less to be proud of.

"Come on, Matthew. It's almost afternoon and i'm bored."

Matthew came out of the barn holding two horses, a white one and a black one. "You may not hear 'no' too often, but you always seem to win anyway in the end, don't you?" He gave him a defeated smile, one that wasn't so dissapointed with the outcome.

Gabriel raised his head and grinned back at him. "I don't really see your point." and he clumsily pulled himself up onto the black horse, as Matthew jumped on his much more professionally.

The horses began to take off; an experience that Gabriel had only recently began to endure. He looked across at Matthew to make sure he was doing everything right. The air ripped across the plaid shirt Matthew was wearing, and rippled through his short black hair that curled along his forehead and ears like tree branches.

His skin was devoured by the sun, already a sun kissed tan. And his small eyes illuminated in their sockets like blue lights in the dark, beckoning their victims forward to them and to the danger they possess.  Matthew had a prominent square jaw, tight of skin and muscle. He had a small sharp nose and thick red lips that should have been made for a girl, as red as cherries and as addictive as strawberries.

If Gabriel was an artist, he would have sculptured Matthew, hadn't he already been made into an Adonis from divine artistic skills. He held the reigns of the horse which such confidence and strength that eradiated from him, it masked the graceful and quite sensitive nature below.

After a mile of racing across the waves of golden fields, and heading further into the rural parts of the world, Matthew pulled the horse curtly to a stop, to a place Gabriel knew to well.

It had seemed to him a place on earth untouched, unexplored and unfounded by anyone but them. The trees guarded around the entrance to the place that always seemed enchanted to Gabriel. They tethered the horses to a tree and began to walk through the tall grass and thick dark green trees and broke out upon a wide blue lake. A waterfall fell down before them, majestic and glittering like jewels.

They both stood staring at each other with dumb smiles on their faces. Matthew looked to the lake and gave Gabriel a goofy grin. They immediately both began to tear their shoes off, and Gabriel ripped his shirt over his head and raced Matthew to the edge. He got to the first rock that acted as a diving board for the pair, and he dived into the fresh cool waters.

His body skimmed the bottom of the pool and he blinked to peer through the blue waters, just as he began to float up towards the surface he caught sight of Matthew skimming along the bottom under him on his back and smile as he slid inches past him and broke the surface first, moving and cutting through the pool like something born in the waters.

Gabriel popped up and took and easy breath and dunked Matthew back under. He dived back under water and swam away back to the surface choking in the water from laughing.

Matthew landed beside him, onto the grass and rocks, both of them breathing heavily. Their eyes locked as Gabriel sat up and pulled his shirt back over his head. A silence covered them in its hold, a silence each of them was waiting for. An intensity and electricity pulsed through the air, one they were so familiar with which always brought smiles to their faces. Gabriel leaned forward just slightly, as their eyes remained on each others.

Matthew shifted and changed his position. And it struck Gabriel that Matthew was changing him, and sucked on his own bottom lip in wonder, as they cast shadows between each other.

They were interrupted by the heat of the sun, trying to prevent what had already begun. He was close enough now he marvelled at him on how he was just a body. He inhaled Matthews’s scent of warmth.

“Wearing those cheaper clothes, doesn’t hide what you are underneath. You’re still like a wolf in a sheep’s clothing.” Matthew whispered to him, his breath hot and sweet against his cool skin, his teeth gleamed white as he smiled.

“That’s what I think you are. A wolf in a sheep’s clothing…quite dangerous.” Gabriel replied with all confidence in his voice ripped from him each time.

“Not really. It’s me in danger. Putting on your costume doesn’t hide the fact about which family you come from. A much better one than mine.” Matthew replied, as his eyes slipped down to the shirt on Gabriel’s shoulders.

“I’m not better than you…not by nature anyway.” Gabriel almost whispered, as his hands reached out.

And then Matthew’s lips were upon his own. Electric vibrated through his entire body, he could feel it all. He could feel every pulse of energy, as Matthews own electric flooded to the tips of his fingers and ends of his toes like some form of magic.

Gabriel felt his arms fold around Matthew's neck and pull him that much closer, if it was possible. Matthew's lips were soft and his body pressed against his own, warm, soft and firm, and familiar as two pieces of stone. He inhaled every part of him as much as he could, as he cursed the distance that appeared between their lips. The kiss was vigorous and hungry, as they breathed through their nose not daring to part just yet. A fire burned between them as the embers caught the edges of each touch on the skin.

Passion was a monster, a lust and a secret that dared you to just taste it a little bit more each time. Gabriel felt Matthew's bigger and stronger hand on the small of his back as he put one hand through the back of Matthew's hair. He began to fall back, as the world began to fall back. And everything before and after meant nothing. Only this moment, in this hidden part of the world. The heat devoured them. Gabriel thought nothing of the mirage he had seen outside his window last night that dissapeared in an instant. A vision of someone he used to know, who used to share these moments, was gone. At night he had prayed that soon his face would fade away, and the world had brought him Matthew.

Matthew, who was now between his fingers, and whose hands were burning his body, and could burn away all thoughts of evil. His tongue like electric and Gabriel's  wondering eyes like a child.

Gabriel’s back hit the ground and he pushed his body and arched it against Matthews who had stopped for breath.

Gabriel’s reached out for him again. And Matthew bore down upon him again pressing his lips to Gabriel’s again. Each kiss saving his soul just a little each time.