Much of the plans for their vacation had changed following Beth's arrival. It was Kurt's and Blaine's evenings out that were mainly affected. Their trip to the theater and the opera had been postponed since Beth was still not comfortable with the maids, and Kurt had no wish to leave her alone in the house if she was scared. Kurt devoted himself to his new daughter - reading her books, playing games with her, taking her for walks in the park, even touring the city in a rented barouche. Kurt dressed her to the nines and took her to meet all of the important families in their social circle, and it was agreed upon by all that Lord Anderson's new daughter was as fetching as his new husband. Kurt and Beth became a fixture in high society – going to tea and playdates, attending book readings. Blaine made arrangements to extend their stay in London to accommodate all of Kurt's plans for Beth. The pair of them went everywhere. They had even managed to get their picture featured in the society pages as the father and daughter to see and be seen with around the city.

Kurt was determined to see Beth accomplished, and Beth, for her part, soaked up all of Kurt's teachings and attentions like a curly-haired little sponge.

Kurt did his best to persuade Blaine to join them on these outings, but Blaine never took Kurt up on any invitation – not one. Kurt dismissed Blaine's disinterest in their activities at first as being due to the harrowing discomfort of his joints as the colder weather set in. Then Kurt thought it was Blaine slipping back into his old reclusive behaviors considering he never was one for crowded, big, showy events with all the grandeur (and people) that went along with them. But as he observed Blaine's behavior more closely whenever Beth was near, Kurt began to see that maybe there was something else behind his detachment around the girl.

Beth began to notice, too. He had seemed so set on caring for her when they first met, sweeping in to rescue her from that horrific orphanage, but time seemed to harden him towards her. It saddened her to see Blaine leave the room almost the minute she entered into it, how he avoided her questions, or didn't comment on the pretty dresses Kurt made for her, or the way he put her hair up out of her face to show off her eyes.

Blaine barely even looked in her eyes any more.

Blaine took his meals with them, but he spoke very little. In the evenings, he bid her a quiet good-night with a kiss on the forehead, but otherwise he would wait till Kurt read to Beth and she fell asleep before joining his husband in his room to read, or talk, or listen to Kurt and Marley jabber like old biddies while Kurt sewed new dresses for Beth or new suits for Blaine and himself.

They put forth the appearance of a happy family, except that if one looked closely, there was a hairline fissure forming between Blaine, and his husband and daughter.

And Kurt refused to let it continue.

Kurt made an effort to read the book in his hands. Kurt could expertly pass as a man engrossed in reading a novel. He was sitting up straight in bed, his book open, his lamp lit beside his him, but he could find no interest in the words. He snuck peeks now and again at Blaine in bed beside him, reading a missive sent to him by his steward. It looked to be the fourth or fifth time Blaine had read the letter, and his brow furrowed as he re-read the same passage over and over.

He heard Blaine huff and then sigh, finally folding the letter and setting it aside.

“Is there something wrong, my darling?” Kurt asked as Blaine lowered the flame on his lamp.

“What?” Blaine asked, his mind coming back from elsewhere, summoned by the sound of Kurt's voice. “Oh, nothing for you to worry about, my love.” Blaine patted Kurt's leg, but with an agitated smile on his lips.

Kurt caught Blaine's hand before he could pull it away again.

“Please,” Kurt said, “tell me what it is.”

Blaine sighed. He had always said that Kurt was as much ‘lord of the manor' as he. Now he had to prove that there was bearing behind those words.

“It seems there has been a spot of vandalism at one of my estates…not the manor in the country,” Blaine amended when Kurt's eyes went wide, “and not where your sister resides. A smaller one. One that my father had purchased for what he claimed were sentimental reasons…” Blaine made a face, putting bitter emphasis on those words. “But it has always remained empty. No one actually lives there.”

“That's a relief!” Kurt gasped. “Less of a chance of anyone getting hurt.”

“Yes,” Blaine agreed. The conversation dropped when Blaine didn't readily continue.

 “What happened?” Kurt asked, trying to prise the information out of him.

“Minor, silly things, really,” Blaine said, though a cloud in his eyes told Kurt that Blaine felt something more sinister might be afoot. “Some game animals on the property have been poached – throats cut, bodies left to bleed out all over the ground. Some windows had been broken. That kind of petty damage.”

“Well…what will you do, my lord?”

“I'm afraid there's nothing to be done about the vandalism,” Blaine said. “We can't determine when the damage took place. The perpetrators could be anywhere by now. I am going to sell the property anyway. It was never on any favorable land. It is kind of a deficit to maintain its upkeep anyway. Best be rid of it, and the vandals, all in one fell swoop.”

Kurt nodded. Maybe Blaine had seen something in this deed that Kurt did not, but it seemed like he had a handle on it.

“How is your book coming along?” Blaine asked to lighten the mood.

“Dreadful,” Kurt answered hastily, his mind also occupied elsewhere.

“Really?” Blaine said, looking surprised. “I thought you had been enjoying it.” Blaine's eyes darted to the volume in Kurt's hands. “You've gotten so far into it already.”

"My lord,” Kurt started since he had the benefit of his husband's attention, “I have been wanting to talk with you.”

“Yes, my love?”

Blaine held Kurt's hand tighter, but it felt as if he was squeezing at Kurt's heart.

“We need to talk about Beth," Kurt said, speaking the words quickly lest he lose his nerve, or put it off for one more day due to his husband's obvious weariness.

“Why?” Blaine asked, looking down, suddenly interested in their joined hands on the bed. “Is there something the matter with her?”

“Wouldn't you know, my lord?”

“Why should I?” Blaine asked.

“Exactly, Blaine. Why should you?”

Kurt had set a trap and Blaine had walked right into it.

Blaine closed his eyes, putting his free hand to his forehead.

“Kurt, I don't have the energy to…”

"Why do you not spend time with her, my lord?” Kurt asked. “Why do you not play with her, or read to her, or show her love and affection?"

“Kurt…”

“She wants your attention, Blaine!” Kurt pleaded. “Desperately! Please, do not deny her.”

“It is not my intention to deny her,” Blaine said, the harsh tone in his voice one of frustration more than anger for want of squelching his own desperation instead of letting it flourish. “I have a good number of reasons why I don't burden her with my affection.”

“Burden her, my lord?” Kurt asked, aghast. “How can affection be a burden?”

"Because, Kurt, I…I cannot…” Blaine's voice shook but he continued on. “I cannot look at her, Kurt.”

“What a horrible thing to say!” Kurt gasped. “And what a horrible thing to do, punishing that poor girl because she reminds you of her mother!”

“It's not because she reminds me of her mother,” Blaine said between clenched teeth.

“Then why, my lord?” Kurt pressed. “If you will not confess it to her, please, confess it to me so that I may know what to say when she asks after you over and over!”

“I cannot look at her, Kurt,” Blaine said, his entire body shrinking beneath Kurt's gaze, “because she reminds me of...her father..."

Kurt fumed before the words truly hit his ears.

“Well, I think it is awful that you would…wait…what?”

Blaine took a deep breath, filling his lungs to bursting, and then let it out slowly. He turned to face his husband fully.

“There is something that I've been meaning to tell you, my love,” Blaine began, “about Beth.”

Kurt closed his book and set it aside, turning to his husband, giving him his undivided attention.

“What is it, my lord?” Kurt asked, his body crippled with a sudden fear that he might lose this little girl. It was irrational and unfounded, but it was the first thing that leapt to his mind, and he was not sure that he could stand to hear any truth from Blaine's lips that would steal his Beth away from him.

“She is not mine,” Blaine confessed.

Kurts heart stuttered, and then seized.

“But…what?” Kurt asked, horrified.

“She is not mine,” he repeated softer.

“B-but…she looks exactly like you,” Kurt sputtered. “In another life, you and that child could be twins.”

“I know, Kurt,” Blaine said with unspoken apologies in his voice.

“But…then, who does she belong to, Blaine?” Kurt asked in a panic. “Are they…are they going to come and try to take her away from us? Because they can't, Blaine…”

Blaine held Kurt's hand and tried to calm him, pulling his worried husband into his embrace.

“Shhh,” Blaine said, running a hand through Kurt's hair, “shhh, worry not, my love. There is no one to take her from us.”

Kurt settled down, but shook his head against Blaine's chest, not quick to believe that someone wouldn't be out scouring the streets for that beautiful little girl.

If he had lost Beth, there wouldn't be a force in this world that would keep him from her.

“Why, Blaine?” Kurt asked. “Why should no one come to claim her?”

“Because she belongs to my brother, Kurt…my late brother.” Blaine's words stopped Kurt's struggling. He lifted his head from off his husband's chest and stared at him, his expression disquietingly blank.

“Explain,” Kurt said, his voice tight. “Explain this to me.”

Blaine looked to where Kurt had rejoined their hands, despite his mixed feelings of anger and distress.

“It seems that I have been telling you a lot of tales lately,” Blaine said sheepishly, “and none of them happy.”

“Maybe there wouldn't be so many, my lord, if you had told them to me from the start.”

“I know, I know,” Blaine said, bending to kiss Kurt's hands in an offer of apology, “and I am so sorry.”

“Tell me the tale, Blaine,” Kurt said, his body's trembling shaking the bed.

Blaine sat and looked straight into his husband's eyes since he knew Kurt needed to see his conviction, to see that the story he was about to impart was the whole truth as he knew it, with nothing left out.

“Beth is my brother's daughter,” Blaine said, “by a dear, dear friend, Miss Quinn Fabray.”  Blaine paused for a moment to gather the memories clearly in his mind, so he would leave nothing out in the telling. “My brother met her while he was away at university, and they became close very quickly. She was such a wonderful woman, and as beloved to me as Rachel is to you.” Blaine saw Kurt swallow hard and he knew Kurt understood. “They were so much in love, and even though my father did not approve, they became engaged, in secret. I did not know that she was pregnant until after my brother had died.” Another pause as Blaine took another deep, strengthening breath. “Distraught and depressed to the point of almost hurting herself, she took up with a man of ill-repute, who abused her horribly. I offered to take the child immediately, but she refused to be parted from her. Instead, I gave her the means to run away from him and hide, which she did. So well, in fact, that she and her daughter have been gone from me for all these many years.”

“But, how did you find her?” Kurt asked, relieved that his Beth was safe from all the horrors of the world as long as she lay in bed but feet away from where he sat.

“Quite by accident, I assure you,” Blaine said, the chuckle accompanying that statement dry and humorless. He looked into his husband's eyes, reluctant to tell, but he needed to stop keeping secrets from his beloved. “Brittany told me one night when we were…”

Kurt put a hand up. He knew where this was headed. He didn't need it spelled out.

“I…I was drunk,” Blaine stumbled, avoiding the parts of the story that would be painful for Kurt to hear, “and rambling on about Quinn and Beth and my brother, and Brittany mentioned knowing a woman who fit her description, who had a little girl, whose tale mirrored mine but with the exception that she did not call herself Quinn. She called herself Lucy.”

“Did Brittany ever tell Quinn that she…knew you?” Kurt asked carefully, but for his own sake.

“I think the discussion came up,” Blaine answered, having the sense to look contrite, which he was, wholeheartedly.

He knew that he needed to be honest with Kurt, but he wasn't sure if he would ever find the courage to tell his husband that many a time he spent with those disreputable men and women were to fuck his memories of Kurt away.

“I was arranging to move her to the house. She said she had had enough running, enough of being afraid and poor. Her money was spent, mostly in an effort to keep this man from ever finding her. Running from him took her to places - made her do things - that she was not proud of.”

"I cant even imagine," Kurt said sympathetically, frightened to think of what a woman on the run might be forced to do to survive.

“Before I could move her, she disappeared again,” Blaine said, “and I didn't hear anything about her till the night of our ball.”

“You said she died,” Kurt said. “What of?”

“I am not sure,” Blaine said with a shrug. “The note I received from Brittany didn't indicate a cause, but I have my suspicions.”

“You don't think…” Kurt's eyes became watery and he shook his head, “that…he killed her?”

“That's precisely what I think,” Blaine admitted.

“Who is he?” Kurt asked. “Do you know?”

“He calls himself Puck,” Blaine said, spitting the name from his lips like a curse. “That's all I know.”

“But…why didn't you tell me she was not yours?”

“Because I was beside myself with the news of Quinns passing,” Blaine said, “and when I came home with that poor girl, all I wanted was you, but you were so cruel, I was so stupid, and we're both so…so pigheaded…”

Kurt thought Blaine's story over, repeating passages of it in his head, conjuring images of a young woman who looked like Beth but with golden blonde hair and fair skin, and her exact green eyes, caring for that child, alone and frightened, forced into an acquaintance with a world that treats unmarried young women savagely - that chews them to pieces instead of offering them any protection – especially ones with an illegitimate child.

“That is all the more reason for you to go to her,” Kurt said, “to love her and protect her, and tell her about her father and the wonderful man he was, and what a great father he would have been!” Kurt swallowed the start of what would be inconsolable grief over this entire situation. “You could be that wonderful father in absentia, Blaine. You have it in you. I know it.”

Blaine shook his head at Kurt's passionate appeal and exultation of his character.

“You, my love, have been an incredible father to her thus far,” Blaine said. “I couldn't have asked for a more competent surrogate. You are loving and attentive…”

“Do you think I come to that naturally?” Kurt argued. “I had wonderful, loving, attentive parents…”

“Exactly, Kurt,” Blaine cut in. “You had the kind of parents that every child should have. So did my brother. But me…” Blaine shook his head. “I did not.”

Kurt was too overwhelmed by Blaine's admission to speak, slowly shaking his head with his lips parted should he think of some appropriate way to respond, but every word had inexplicably failed him.

“By the time I came along into my parents' lives, my family was a wreck. The only thing the two of them could agree on was that they loved my brother, that he was an excellent child, and that he would someday make an exceptional earl.” Blaine almost didn't continue. He felt drained of his energy. His emotions had sucked him dry. But the husk of a human that he was knew he had to finish.

Kurt needed to understand all of it - this messed up man that he married and this insane family name that he now bore.

“It had long been suspected by my mother that my father had been cheating on her. He took long trips to France and would be gone for months at a time. But there was nothing my mother could do. She was told on several occasions to expect it. It went along with the territory of being a countess – unfaithful husbands. She couldn't leave him, but she wouldn't have anyway. She loved him.”

For lack of words, Kurt nodded – a repetitive bobbing of his head, a lame response that offered no solace.

Blaine looked up at Kurt with eyes that had suddenly become young and careworn.

“My father loathed me, Kurt,” Blaine said, his voice fracturing. “He thought me a weak, incompetent fool.”

Kurt surged forward and threw his arms around Blaine, unable to bear hearing more if he didn't have Blaine in his arms.

“Why?” Kurt asked.

“Because I didn't want to have a title,” Blaine said. “I wanted nothing to do with being a lord.”

“What did you want to do?”

“I wanted to be a musician,” Blaine said, “but that was not smart enough for my father. He would not have it. He went to great lengths to destroy my love of playing the pianoforte.”

Kurt didn't feel it right to ask. Blaine would tell him in his own time, but for now, that explained his hatred – or was it fear? – of the pianoforte downstairs.

“So, you see, Kurt, I cannot be a father to Beth. I do not know how.”

“Yes, you can,” Kurt said. “I know you can.”

“I don't…I don't want to end up treating her the way my father treated me,” Blaine said.

“Why do you think you will, my darling?” Kurt asked, certain that this was an easy problem to solve.

“Because I did it to you,” Blaine said quietly. “Because I treated you that way. I ignored you, and was cruel to you, and took away things that you loved.”

Kurt wanted to object – strenuously object – but the words caught and he sobbed. He could not help it when the tears began to run down his cheeks.

“Oh, Kurt,” Blaine said, pulling back to look into his husband's face. “Please, do not cry.”

“How can I not?” Kurt asked. “How many times do you intend on breaking my heart in one lifetime?”

“I'm sorry,” Blaine said, raising Kurt's hands to his face and laying kisses across his knuckles. “I truly am. I cannot even tell you how sorry…”

Kurt felt silly crying. So very little of this was Blaine's fault. Here he was being honest, making amends, and Kurt was weeping like a child.

But he wept not for himself. He wept for a much younger Blaine who didn't have his father's love. For Cooper, who had a daughter he would never know. For Quinn, who died too young, and so far parted from the man she loved.

And Beth – sweet, innocent Beth. Her story was the most heart-wrenching of all.

“Oh, Blaine,” Kurt moaned, tears rolling hot down his cheeks. Kurt put up his hands to hide his face, but Blaine wouldn't allow it.

“Do not hide your face from me,” Blaine whispered, kissing each tear as it broke free from Kurt's eyes and carrying it away on his lips. “Please…not ever…”

Blaine put a hand on the small of Kurt's back and drew Kurt to him. He felt Kurt melt against him as he ran his lips and his tongue down the length of Kurt's throat, attempting to pull Kurt back from the past and into the present, where his husband waited, hoping to relieve this woeful sting. A moan escaped Kurt's throat. Blaine quickly captured Kurt's lips, greedy for it. Another followed - the sound entering Blaine's body through their joined mouths and settling in his chest, folding over his heart.

“I wish I could un-break your heart, Kurt,” Blaine said between kisses. “I do.”

Before Kurt relinquished Blaine's lips, he felt Kurt take his hand.

“Maybe you can,” Kurt offered, his skin coloring from his cheeks down his neck.

Pulling Blaine forward, he boldly lay Blaine back on his bed, locking Blaine's gaze with his own, enticing Blaine with sad but hungry eyes. Kurt raised Blaine's hands to his waist in a silent request to undress him. Blaine attempted to oblige, his fingers tripping over themselves as he fumbled with the ties and buttons on Kurt's pants. Kurt pulled them down and kicked them off, tossing them uncharacteristically to the floor. Blaine immediately attacked Kurt's shirt. He slipped his hands underneath the silky material to caress Kurt's silkier white skin, bringing his hands up to toy with Kurt's nipples. Blaine watched Kurt arch his back, a contented sigh issuing from his pursed lips. Kurt's eyelids fluttered closed as he enjoyed the attentions of Blaine's hands against his skin. Blaine bucked up beneath him so that his husband could feel how much he wanted him, how quickly something simple like undressing could stoke the fire within him.

Kurt opened his eyes, and Blaine pulled Kurt to the bed, pushing him forward to lie on his stomach. Kurt turned quickly, taking Blaine's face in his hands.

“No,” he said. “Not like that. I want to see your face.”

“Kurt…” Blaine protested, his face crumbling. 

“No, my lord. I don't give a damn about the leg,” Kurt said, interrupting Blaine's protestations. “I just…I desire to make love to my husband. I need to see your handsome face.”

Blaine swallowed and nodded. Between a rain of kisses, Kurt started to undress Blaine, taking care as he lifted his shirt over his head. With an insistent hand to his shoulder, Kurt pushed Blaine down upon the mattress.

Kurt leaned over him, well aware of Blaine's eyes raking shamelessly over his body, his undershirt the only piece of clothing left to be removed.

“Show me what to do, my lord,” Kurt whispered into his ear. 

Kurt's breath on Blaine's skin almost unraveled him completely. He put his hands to the hem of Kurt's undershirt and began to lift the fabric from his skin. Kurt put a hand over his, removing the fabric from his fingers.

“Like this?” Kurt asked, relieving Blaine of his task and pulling the white undershirt over his head to reveal his naked body.

“Yes,” Blaine nodded, unable to dislodge the words forming in his throat and speak them correctly. Blaine lay stunned, paralyzed by the image of the angel sitting naked above him, drinking in his beauty.

Kurt took advantage of Blaine's stupor to start removing his pants, steeling himself now that the moment had come. They had been lying in bed reading in preparation for sleep so Blaine's prosthetic was an obstacle that Kurt didn't have to concern himself with. Kurt began to peel the pants from Blaine's body. He felt the moment when Blaine's breathing stopped. Kurt concentrated on his own hands working above Blaine's flat stomach. He pulled the pants down an inch and halted.

Marks and scars covered the skin just above Blaine's hips. They crossed the flesh in horizontal lines – dug in deep, old marks under new ones, none given the chance to properly heal.

“My lord,” Kurt said, running delicate fingers over the angry marks.

“It's from…the straps,” Blaine explained. “They're a little too tight…”

Kurt nodded and didn't linger. He knew that he could probably fix the straps for him. He would have to find a way to get his hands on Blaine's false limb without him objecting too vehemently. Kurt bent and kissed the marks. Blaine moaned at the touch of his husband's soft caress on his stomach.

“Kurt,” he breathed, begging him as much to continue as he was asking him to stop.

But Kurt wasn't about to stop. He had come too far. This wasn't about Blaine's leg. The leg didn't matter. This was about making love to his husband – about seeing his face, about touching his body, about having him – all of him.

Further down Blaine's hips Kurt moved to give himself room to remove Blaine's pants. He pulled them off quickly, not giving Blaine a chance to change his mind and stop him. Kurt tossed Blaine's pants to the floor and there it was – Blaine's severed left leg. He looked at it, scolding himself if he felt he was staring, locking his jaw to keep it from dropping.

Blaine was right – it looked dead. The stump of his leg – what there was to see of it – was ghostly. Parts of it were red, rubbed raw by the fake limb and however it connected to the stump, but otherwise it was just white skin over a section of his body that looked like a normal leg with not enough to it. Kurt looked from it to Blaine's face, but Blaine had averted his eyes to the ceiling, and he still held his breath.

Kurt climbed over his body, letting his half-hard cock slide alongside Blaine's flaccid member, and leaned low to kiss Blaine's neck.

“Breathe, my darling,” Kurt whispered. “Look at me. I'm still here. It's all over now, and I'm still here.”

Blaine turned his face while Kurt kissed him - mimicking Blaine's practice of kissing a trail up the column of his neck followed by a sweep of his tongue. When Kurt caught sight of Blaine's smoldering golden eyes, they were wet with tears – a sign of his self-conscious rearing its ugly head to tell him how mortified his young husband would be to see this part of him. Kurt smiled.

“Hello, my lord,” he whispered.

“Hello, my love,” Blaine returned, not yet able to find his smile.

Kurt reached between them and took the length of Blaine's desire in his hand, coaxing it to hardness with careful strokes. He stopped a moment to reach over to his bedside and grab his ampoule of oil. He had taken to keeping it there so that trips across the room to the vanity at crucial moments were no longer necessary. He coated his hand, coated Blaine's cock, and kissed Blaine's hateful thoughts of himself away.

“Can you guide me, my lord?” Kurt whispered. “I'm not sure how I am to do this.”

“I think you are doing fine so far,” Blaine said, content to allow Kurt to explore the realms of this particular sexual pleasure on his own for a while. But Kurt was as shy as he was daring, and committed to making love to his husband this way even though his hands shook. Blaine stopped Kurt with a gentle hand, grabbing his hips and pulling his husband on top of him. He positioned the head of his cock at Kurt's breach and held it so that Kurt could slide down upon him. Kurt hummed and moaned as he inched down, moving slowly more for pleasure than to avoid pain, because each time more of Blaine's cock entered Kurt's body, it opened him up to new sensations. Kurt's knees wobbled. Blaine filled him more at this new angle, touching new places that made him weak.

Blaine felt the warmth of Kurt's body engulf him. Kurt was so hot and so tight it was almost painful when they began, before Blaine got used to the intense squeeze around him. Kurt settled in Blaine's lap and threw his head back at the thickness of Blaine inside him. His legs shook and he fell forward to Blaine's chest.

“Oh my…” Kurt eeked out, unable to move for a moment while his body got used to this position.

But Blaine couldn't keep his body still. He held Kurt's hips and rocked beneath him, and Kurt was content to sit in Blaine's lap and ride the ripple of Blaine's movements. Several times Kurt tried to rise up and take control, but it was too sublime making love this way – laying on Blaine's chest, his cock wedged between their bodies, bathed in friction every time Blaine's body bucked up and down, up and down. The slow drag and Blaine's cock moving in and out of his body was relaxing – their bodies swaying as one, not coming apart and then crashing together. Blaine made no demands on him, didn't ask him move or change positions, and Kurt felt himself slip into a place where time began to slow, and then stop. 

“Oh, Blaine,” Kurt mumbled, “why did we not do this before?”

“Because I am a dumb man, my love,” Blaine grunted, moving a hair faster as constant waves of pleasure rolled through him. “A dumb, dumb man.”

Kurt laughed, and he sat up in Blaine's lap to look at him. Kurt took over as much as he was able, rising up on his knees until he felt his husband's cock almost leave him, and then sitting down slowly to enjoy all the places in between that his length could touch. Blaine's hands left Kurt's hips to explore his body all over – climbing up his stomach and his chest, scratching lightly back down the way they came. He stroked Kurt's cock, his fingers fondling at first just the head, then working down to the base, up and down, twisting slightly, taking the advantage to pay special attention to his husband's cock in ways he hadn't done before. Ways that made Kurt writhe uncontrollably, made it almost impossible for him to keep moving when all he wanted to do was sink down and concentrate on Blaine's hands roaming over his body.

“Oh, Blaine,” Kurt moaned, his hands reaching out, grabbing restlessly at anything that he could touch. It was so much, it was too much, it was not enough. He didn't know how it could possibly be all three at the same time. He stared down at Blaine, meeting his gaze – smoky and dark, their raw edge slicing straight through Kurt, leaving him open and bare. He was naked, writhing, begging in ways he didn't understand for his husband to own him, to control him, to make him feel. Oh, the amount of immoral things he'd be willing to do if his husband could make him cum at this point were astounding when he thought of them. That heated look in his husband's eyes made Kurt feel different, beautiful in ways he didn't know he could be beautiful. Blaine licked his lips, and Kurt had to kiss him. Bending over changed all the sensations, changed everything, made them more intense. His husband's tongue licking his lips, slipping inside his mouth, stole every inch of willpower he had.

“Blaine,” Kurt exhaled into his mouth and he came, chanting Blaine's name against his lips. As Kurt shuddered through his orgasm, Blaine held Kurt's hips and pounded up into him. Kurt groaned. It was sadistic in the way it made Kurt over-sensitive, bordering on the point where it hurt – until it didn't, and while Blaine came, Kurt moaned again – moaned so loud he was fit to wake to whole household, and Blaine laughed, burying his head into his husband's shoulder to muffle the sound.

“Are you laughing at me, my lord?” Kurt squealed in horror.

“No, my love,” Blaine choked between laughs. “Not at all.”

“Ah!” Kurt exclaimed, swatting at his husband's chest with his hands as he tried to pull himself away from Blaine's iron grip around his waist. “You incomprehensible ass!”

“I'm sorry,” Blaine said, unable to stop chuckling as Kurt squirmed and struggled. “I am so sorry. It will never happen again, my love.”

“You're damned right it won't,” Kurt said, starting to chuckle himself, “because I am never having sex with you again!”

Blaine grabbed a hold of Kurt's midsection and rolled Kurt on his back, pinning him down and looking into his red face.

“Don't say that,” Blaine whispered, pecking kisses along the contours of Kurt's mouth, kissing his ire away.

“Why not?” Kurt asked, feeling his body relax beneath Blaine's.

“Because I do not think I could live a life where I did not have the privilege of making love to you,” Blaine said, covering Kurt's mouth, stealing the breath from his lungs with his next kiss.

The air between them grew tense as the kiss ended, charged and electric with the things hovering in it, left unsaid, and for some reason Kurt suddenly preferred the laughing, playful Blaine. He wanted him back.

“So, is that the way you prefer for your men to make love to you?” Kurt purred into Blaine's ear with a wicked grin. Instead of discharging the tension with his ribald comment, it seemed to ratchet it up. Blaine ran his nose down the length of Kurt's neck, breathing his husband in, losing himself in the fragrance of his husband's hair, the feeling of his body pressed against him. 

“No man has ever made love to me that way,” Blaine muttered.

Kurt looked into Blaine's face and his smile fell.

“Is there something wrong, my lord?” he asked. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No, Kurt…I…” Blaine shook his head and chuckled, his emotions too mixed for him to explain even one of them to Kurt. “I'm tired…that's all.” Blaine's hand went to his cheek and caught a tear before it had the chance to fall. “I think we've enjoyed enough emotional upheaval for this evening, don't you, my love?”

“Absolutely. In fact, I have decided not to cry again for the next fifty years!” Kurt said, slipping privately from confusion back to lighthearted jesting, to bring his husband back from wherever it was that his mind wandered off to when Blaine looked at him that way.

Kurt cleaned them up this time, hopping out of bed before his husband could even think of it. He filled up the basin with water, soaking a clean cloth in it until it was saturated. He bathed Blaine lazily from head to toe. He combed pomade through his raven locks with his fingers until they gleamed. It wasn't something Blaine would normally use on himself, but he had no intention of saying no to Kurt's insistence on pampering him. Kurt tended to the bruises on Blaine's stomach, using a special oil he had bought in London years ago. He had fallen in a brier patch chasing Marley during a game of tag. He got a cut across his cheek that he was afraid would be permanent, and purchased the oil at great expense in the hopes that he wouldn't be scarred for life.

Luckily, it worked like a charm.

After he had treated those cuts, he moved on to the sores on Blaine's leg. Blaine stiffened when he saw what Kurt intended to do, shaking his head without speaking, but a single touch of Kurt's hands to his skin wiped every fear he had away.

Kurt held Blaine in his arms and rubbed his back, and without knowing, they fell asleep naked, entwined in each other's arms.

In the middle of the night, Kurt woke to a warm, gentle pressure on his chest. Fearing that little Beth had suffered one of her many nightmares and climbed into bed with them, he opened his eyes, focusing in the dim light of the room around him. It wasn't Beth's small frame he saw cuddled beside him, but the head of his husband resting on his chest as though he were a pillow. Kurt smiled, thinking that maybe Blaine was trying to lure him out of his sleep to make love to him again. But Blaine wasn't kissing him. He seemed to be whispering against his chest, over his heart.

Kurt thought momentarily of letting Blaine know he was awake, but then he realized that whatever it was Blaine was saying might not be for him to hear. He lay back and fell quickly asleep with a smile that now his heart was the keeper of Blaine's secrets