Chapter Fifteen
Nico had taken his hand. He didn’t do anything else, though, kneeling and looking up at Titus as if he were waiting for something, and Titus stared down at him for a frozen moment, unsure what to do.
He wasn’t inexperienced. He’d had two perfectly reasonable lovers, plus Henry, who had been almost uncomfortably uninhibited in bed.
He knew how to fuck; what he lacked was a way to say, You are absurdly beautiful, and I think I have been falling in love with you since we met, but there is no reason at all you should be interested in me, and I’m paralysed with fear of doing something wrong.
Maybe he should just say it. Then again, he already must look quite enough of a pathetic specimen at this moment without begging for reassurance.
He took a deep breath. “You kissed me.”
“I did.”
“Would you do it again?”
Nico was still and silent for a long second. Then he moved with that astonishing grace of his, sliding up and forward so he was sitting on Titus’s lap. Their hands were still entwined.
Titus’s breath caught. He’d thought about something like this a great deal, but for it to be happening, to have Nico’s bronze-and-fire eyes intent on his own, smiling …
He leaned forward just a little, and Nico leaned in, and their mouths met.
And he could savour it this time, not overwhelmed by panic and distress.
Feel Nico’s lips, the faintest prickle of beard because he always had a touch of shadow on his chin by evening, his clever hand running up Titus’s back and into his hair.
He dared reach with his own free hand, sliding it around Nico’s waist, just skimming his taut arse, and Nico made a little purring noise and shifted forward, fingers tightening.
Oh God, Nico did, actually, want this. Titus groaned, and that must have opened his mouth because Nico’s tongue met his, and then it was all kissing, and Nico’s weight on his thighs, Nico’s smell in his nose, Nico.
They were kissing greedily now, open-mouthed, Nico straddling him, Titus arching into him, hot breath and panting, free hands groping.
The grandfather clock whirred and struck, a jarring chime. Titus jerked upright, dislodging Nico’s grip on his mouth, and they both laughed breathlessly.
“Merde,” Nico said. His eyes were dark-bright. “Mon ami, it is seven. We will be expected at dinner.”
“Already? How? Blast it.”
“Let us not trouble to dress,” Nico suggested. “Here.” He finger-combed Titus’s hair rapidly and tweaked his neckcloth. “That will do. So now we go through and eat like civilised men, hmm?”
“And after dinner?”
Nico’s eyes crinkled. “We could be less civilised?”
“An excellent plan,” Titus said hoarsely.
They both needed a moment to restore themselves to decency, letting swollen lips and unruly bodies subside.
“By the way,” Nico remarked, adjusting his own cravat in the mirror, “the good Thorpe was aware you had a problem with Morris—not its nature, just the fact of it. He pointed me in your direction for rescue. If he seems to be considering you, that will be why.”
“Oh. Er. That was … good of him?”
“He protects his employer,” Nico said. “I like him.”
“So do I. Er, on that subject, I don’t suppose you know of Perreau’s intentions towards Alma Thorpe?”
Nico’s eyes widened sharply. “It seems they are walking out,” Titus explained.
“Apparently I had to give my permission for that, which is absurd, but now I feel rather responsible, so if you happen to know of any reason Alma should not walk out with Perreau, I wish you will tell me. If he is married already, or a dangerous rake, or any such thing. Not that I think so at all, but I would be remiss not to ask.”
Nico briefly looked that rare thing, speechless. “I … cannot speak to Perreau’s intentions, but I believe him to be greatly charmed by Mademoiselle Alma, and I have never known him be a cad to a woman.”
“That really is all I wanted to know,” Titus assured him. “Just, I had to ask if he has a trail of abandoned babies behind him.”
“I can say with certainty he does not.”
“Then anything else is up to Alma. Shall we go through?”
Thorpe did indeed examine him closely as they went in to dinner; Titus was grateful for Nico’s warning, and his work on the neckcloth. And for dealing with Henry, and for finding Vespasian, and for so much else, he’d lost count.
He’d intended to broach the subject of gratitude, and if it might take a tangible form, this evening.
Nico had mentioned his lack of funds before moving in, and though he’d claimed he had resources, Titus had seen no evidence of them.
He was fairly sure that Nico had outstanding bills with his tailor and other tradesmen, and he had meant to ask if he could make him a loan (with a repayment date somewhere at the end of the century) before Henry had arrived and thrown everything into disarray.
It was only fair. He had so much, and Nico had done so much for him, and frankly, even if he had come into Titus’s life with one eye on Titus’s bank balance, he had made himself invaluable ever since.
Titus had no objections to paying for services rendered; he just wanted to find a way to make the offer without sounding like he was paying.
He couldn’t possibly broach the subject now. He wasn’t the most socially astute man, but anybody could see the problem with, Since you appear to be willing to go to bed with me, would you like some money?
They sat down to dinner. Once they were served and the footman gone, Nico raised his glass with a smile. His smile was warm and his eyes were wicked, and Titus was hit with a wave of emotion so powerful, his throat closed entirely.
“Titus? Mon ami, what is it?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I just thought … I am so fortunate to know you. You could have consigned me to the devil and walked away when we met and nobody would have blamed you, and instead you have shown me nothing but help and kindness—”
“No, no, no,” Nico said. “Don’t. Please.”
Titus had no idea why he was so very resistant to thanks. “I won’t embarrass you,” he said. “But I have never met anyone like you. The way you listen, your consideration—”
“Has it ever occurred to you that your standards are remarkably low?” Nico sounded quite heated. “You are grateful for the slightest attention, and it is an absurdity! You are too used to standing back.”
“I don’t greatly enjoy putting myself forward.”
“But when you speak, you are worth listening to, and I cannot say that of many. Less of the self-effacement, mon cher. I do not like to hear you be grateful for things you should have by right—to be considered, or listened to, or helped. Bah.”
He looked positively fierce in Titus’s defence. Titus felt positively dizzy. To have gone in the space of a few hours from Henry’s grinding demands to Nico’s kisses …
He didn’t even realise he was smiling until Nico smiled back, and he lost himself in the glory of it.
“Better,” Nico said, reaching over to tap Titus’s glass with his own. “Now, since we are obliged to eat—and the dinner is, as ever, delicious—tell me about your lesson.”
“Oh. Yes. I was trying to paint an egg.”
Nico indicated a question with his eyebrow, while sketching an oval in the air. Titus said, “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“How so?”
“Because it’s not about drawing an outline. Gideon says one doesn’t paint an object, but rather the light as it falls on the object. That’s what you have to look for, the shape of the light—are you really interested in this?”
“You are interested in it,” Nico said. “I should like to know what catches you so.”
“Well, take, oh, your wine glass. What colours would you use to paint it?”
“I scent a trick question. Red for the wine—you are going to ask me which red, and I will say, one that is wine coloured, and probably made of toadstools. And for the glass … merde. I suppose there is not transparent paint. Oh, but you use the colour of the thing behind it, non?”
“No, you see, this is what is so exciting, because you are actually painting the light, and the shadows too. So the wine in the glass isn’t simply red. It’s got lines and patches that look white or gold where the light falls, and parts that look brown or black in the shade.”
Nico turned his glass in front of the candle flame. “But it is red.”
“But if you painted it an even red colour, it would look like a child’s picture. Try to look at how the light falls on the glass. Does it really look all the same, when you concentrate on the light?”
“No,” Nico said slowly. “It does not. So, in effect, you must paint what you see, and not what you know to be there. Because what we see and what is there are not always the same thing. I suppose it is important to learn that.” He stared at the wine a moment longer, then gave a swift smile.
“Nevertheless, it sounds complicated for a first lesson.”
“Well, it’s important to understand the theory.”
They talked through the whole meal easily enough, considering. Titus sipped his wine with care; the world felt a heady enough place without it. And then the plates were removed, and they were left with a decanter of port, two glasses, and one another, and suddenly the air felt thick.
“Would you like port?”
Nico glanced up from under his long lashes. Titus felt that glimmering look in his groin. “We could linger over a glass until the house is at rest?”
“Let’s do that,” Titus agreed.
They didn’t talk much more. Titus couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t a variation on Please come to bed or Are you sure you want to?
and Nico was unusually quiet too, watching Titus with hooded eyes.
Watching his every movement, his sips and swallows, his breathing, until Titus felt naked, and Nico’s gaze felt like a touch.
People moved outside the room in familiar patterns, the clockwork of the house winding down. Titus swallowed. “Shall we—will you come up?”
“Allons-y,” Nico said, and his lips curved like heaven.