Chapter Seventeen #3
James flicked the back of his ear, and Cassian let out a soft “ow” before they both erupted with laughter.
Afterward, James resumed the massage. Luckily, Cassian kept true to his word and refrained from moaning.
Several minutes passed. James’s mind circled back to the conversation he’d overheard between Cassian and Mr. Calbot in the lounge.
“Cassian?” James asked.
“Hm?”
“Why’d you mention my pirate story to your friend?”
“Because I’m proud of you, obviously.”
“Are you really?” James asked. “Because I feel like you’ve insulted both me and my romantic tale a fair bit.”
“What? When?” Cassian rolled onto his side and looked at James, who had stopped massaging him. “I’ve never insulted you. I insulted your story that one time out on the promenade, but I thought I’ve made my admiration of it—and you—clear ever since.”
“You keep insinuating that I need to work on my craft,” James said.
“Only because I know what you’re capable of.”
“Which implies that right now, my writing isn’t what it should be.”
“It’s precisely what it should be,” Cassian said.
“James, your writing is exquisite.” James only narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
Cassian sighed. “Look, I never meant to imply that your writing is anything but exquisite. I only want to encourage you to continue with it, not only to improve your craft—which, in my opinion, isn’t in need of improvement in the sense that it isn’t lovely enough; only that, following what I’ve been taught, one should always strive to do better, regardless of the level of one’s skills—but I want you to continue with it for selfish reasons, too.
I like your writing, James. I rarely read for pleasure, but I would read your writing for pleasure.
And I hope that I can. For the rest of however long we have together. ”
James’s heart fluttered. Cassian found James’s hand and kissed it.
“Keep writing,” he said.
Cheeks warming, James said, “That’s not a request, is it?”
“It is not.”
Cassian smiled at him, and James smiled back.
“Thank you, Cassian,” he said.
Cassian responded by peppering a flurry of soft kisses on James’s hand—one on the back and then one on each of James’s fingers—before releasing it.
Then, the man rolled back onto his stomach.
Chest still fluttery with fondness, James resumed the massage.
He found himself thinking of the conversation he’d overheard once again, but this time with a new perspective.
Cassian really loved him, didn’t he? He was proud of him.
Cassian loved him and was proud of him and believed in him.
James’s throat constricted a little, emotions welling inside him.
He couldn’t remember the last time someone had said that they were proud of him.
His parents certainly had never been proud of him. God, how cherished he felt.
Moving his hands up to the back of Cassian’s neck, James began to rub his thumbs in little circles. Cassian hummed happily. Everything was . . . oh, it was perfect.
Minutes passed like this, with James making sure that the fee Cassian had paid for the bath complex was money very well spent.
All the while, James continued to think about how lucky he was to have found someone who could make him feel like this.
Not only loved but beloved. Treasured, even.
James smiled to himself when that word popped into his head, and he wondered whether he could work it into his pirate story somehow.
Cassian would probably like it. He seemed to like cleverness in every form.
“Thank you for encouraging me,” James said, moving his hands to Cassian’s lower back.
“Anytime, my James.”
Fondness pulled at James’s heart. He found himself pondering how Cassian expected to receive James’s stories once their voyage ended.
And he wondered if it was time for him to broach the topic of their future together.
“After we reach New York,” James began, “how should I get my stories to you? Not only the, uhm, the one I’m working on now, I mean, but the others that I might write, too.”
Cassian looked over his shoulder.
“Might?” he said, his tone that incredible mixture of playful and chastising.
“Will,” James corrected with a chuckle. “Others that I will write.”
“Hmm . . .” Cassian rested his chin on his forearms. “I’ll have to keep traveling to Europe, I’d venture. You can share your latest stories with me on each of my trips.”
“Will that be often?” James asked. “Because I’ll miss you.”
“Often enough, I hope. Or, well, nothing could be often enough for this, perhaps, because I’d prefer it if I could see you every day.”
James shut his eyes. If only.
Oh, how he wanted so fervently to let himself hope for such a thing.
Cassian continued. “Still, I’ll come as often as I can. And with the White Star Line whenever I can secure a room on board. I’ll have a believable enough excuse should my latest business venture succeed. One that ought to appease my future wife. Hopefully, anyway.”
Future wife. James’s stomach curdled upon hearing the words.
“You mean Ethel?” he asked. “I thought that you and she weren’t engaged anymore.”
“Oh, no, not Ethel,” Cassian said with ease.
“I could have never betrayed Ethel like that. Besides, Ethel is free to marry whoever she wishes. I’ll obviously still have to find a wife, though.
I haven’t the slightest clue who she should be, but I’ll consider the matter further once we’re on land.
I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea of marrying some relatively random woman, as you can imagine, but I’ll have to pretend otherwise.
It isn’t as though I’m not used to pretending one thing or another for the sake of meeting certain expectations. ”
James staggered back a couple of steps, bile creeping up his throat as his stomach churned harder. Unaware of James’s plight, Cassian heaved a sigh, one that was intermixed with a defeated-sounding laugh.
“Hopefully she won’t require more than a couple of children.”
Jealousy and unease settled in James’s stomach, and he felt as though he truly might retch.
“James?”
But James couldn’t bring himself to speak. Rolling onto his side, Cassian looked up at him.
“Is something the matter?”
James’s breath shook on his next exhale, and he managed a nod, pressing his lips together to keep his heartache from spilling forth.
“You aren’t really surprised, are you?” Cassian asked, sitting up. “Surely you must know how important appearances are for someone like me. I can’t not get married.”
Eyes filling with tears, James turned away, the pain he felt intensifying as he struggled to hold his emotions back. Cassian still wanted to be intimate with someone else?
“Don’t be like this,” Cassian implored from behind him.
“You know how these things work. Men like me are expected to find a woman to marry. I’d merely be following the path that’s been laid out for me.
I mean, you heard Mr. Calbot in the lounge when he was blathering on about his flower collecting.
He couldn’t have continued to indulge in that kind of thing once he became a man.
Or, maybe he could have, in private, but he knew how his father felt, and so, he made the sensible choice and stopped engaging in his unconventional pastime in favor of other pursuits. ”
James swallowed past the lump in his throat.
“But you want to be intimate with her,” he choked out.
“Not want to, exactly. But I’ll likely have to be.” He paused. “James, we’ll still have our time together. It’s not like I won’t be excited about you anymore.”
“Will your wife know, though?” James asked. “Will she know that you love me and not her? Or, hell, will she even know that you’re only marrying her out of obligation in the first place? Or that you’ll be bedding someone else on your trips to Europe?”
James’s slightly irrational, but still maybe somewhat rational questions hung in the air for a long couple of seconds. Finally, Cassian spoke.
“No, James, she wouldn’t. Obviously she wouldn’t,” he said, irritation in his voice.
James hated that he could hear it. “I could never tell her about you. You know that. Don’t pretend that we’re living in some romantic fantasy of yours.
” James shut his eyes and winced at the ire in those words.
“And I couldn’t tell her that I was marrying her out of obligation, either, whoever she is. I could never be so cruel.”
“It’s crueler to lie,” James said.
Cassian let out an exasperated-sounding breath.
“I think that most of the women to whom I’d consider proposing will have at least a vague sense that our marriage might be more like a business partnership than a romantic entanglement,” he said. “I’d never explicitly say that to her, whoever she is, but—”
“I can’t do this.” James inhaled another uneasy breath and prayed that he’d muster up the courage to continue as he turned around. “I want us to be together, but I can’t hurt some poor woman like that.”
“I promise you, she won’t be poor,” Cassian said, very clearly trying for a bit of levity.
It only made James’s stomach churn harder.
“It’s not funny,” he said. Another image of Cassian bedding some faceless, nameless woman popped into his head, and his heart cracked in two. “Cassian, I love you. I love you, and I want to be the one to please you.”
“You will be.”
“I want to be the only one to please you. I want to be the one who pleasures you and serves you and spoils you. I want to be . . . God, I want to be everything for you.”
“And I will let you be that person. Whenever I manage to see you, I’ll—”
“You’re not listening to me. I want to be that person always. Only and always.”
“James,” Cassian said through a breathy half-laugh. “You know that’s not how it can be. It’s not how the world works.”
James’s bottom lip trembled, and he shrugged.
“I’ll have to live in my fantasies, then,” he said, “if that’s not how the world works.
” He sniffled and blinked back a few tears.
“Do you know how I said that you were entitled to me?” Cassian’s brows pinched, but he otherwise stayed quiet.
James shook his head. “You’re not entitled to me like this, Cassian.
I want to feel special. I want to feel cherished. Not used.”
“I’m not—”
James held up his hand, wordlessly cutting him off in the exact manner Cassian had done so many times before. Cassian looked stunned—his eyes widening and eyebrows shooting up—but complied.
“I know I’m asking a lot of you, and I .
. . Jesus, I hadn’t even realized that I needed to ask it.
Not before we started having this conversation.
But now I do know that I have to.” James shut his eyes for a moment and sighed.
“I can’t pretend to know what our future should look like.
Or even what it can look like. But I do know that I can’t only be some man who you see once in a while, one who you take whenever it fits with your schedule.
I can’t be here, at sea, knowing that you’re there, in New York, spending most of your time with someone who isn’t me.
Someone who might be in love with you. Someone who at the very least hopes to have children with you.
I want more than that. I’m worth more than that.
And you are, too, Cassian. You deserve more than that.
I want us to figure out how to be together.
Really, truly together. I want a life together. Somehow.”
Cassian stood, clutching the towel. “James—”
“I know it’s a lot to ask for. But I still hope that you’ll consider it.
I hope that you’ll consider what it is that you really want, not what’s expected of you.
Because I know what it is that I want. And it’s you.
All of you.” James paused, and a few tears fell from his eyes.
“I won’t settle for less. And you shouldn’t either.
” He sniffled and wiped his wet cheek with his sleeve.
“Soon enough, we’ll reach New York. And I’d like to know your answer by then.
Come find me when you . . . God, fucking hell, come find me when you get your head out of your arse, Cassian. ”
He stormed out of the room.