Chapter Fifteen #2
They went up in silence, each with his candle. Perreau was in the corridor; Nico said something rapid in French, and the valet bowed impassively, murmured, “Good night, sir,” and disappeared.
Titus led the way into his room. Nico slipped in after. The candles were burning, the curtain closed. The room felt very small with Nico in it. “Perreau will not be back,” he said. “I felt we did not need a valet. If I may take your coat?”
He moved forward as he spoke, reaching up, sliding the coat off Titus’s shoulders. “Hmph. Too easy. The next should be cut a little closer.”
“I like being able to move my arms.”
“One must suffer for beauty.” Nico hung the coat on a chair and leaned back, assessing Titus. “That waistcoat is excellent, but I want both more and less.”
“Of what?”
“More colour. You looked at a cloth in shades of purple and violet—”
“With gold thread.” He had rejected it as far too gaudy, those few weeks ago, and a tiny regret had stayed with him since.
“We go back,” Nico said decisively. “I want you in purple, as befits a Caesar.”
Titus choked a laugh. “And what clothing do you want less of?”
“Now? All of it,” Nico said, and stepped forward.
Titus met him in the middle of the room.
Mouths colliding again, familiar, astringent with port.
Both Nico’s hands on him now, and his own hands roaming with the daring a glass or two of wine gave him.
Stripping each other slowly—nobody could accuse Nico’s coat of being easy to remove.
Bare skin in the candlelight; Nico’s compact body, more muscled than Titus had expected; Titus’s own gangly frame rendered beautiful under Nico’s touch.
And God, he touched, hands skimming skin like a blind man trying to learn his lover with fingers alone, and Titus, who hadn’t been touched in so long, felt his knees weakening under the onslaught of sensation.
“Lie down,” Nico said softly.
It was a big bed. Miss Whitecross’s once.
Would have been Nico’s except for the vagaries of Fortune.
Titus’s now, and as Nico crawled over his supine form, he could have cried for the chance that brought them both here.
He could have cried anyway as Nico touched and stroked and kissed, and he let his own hands and mouth roam, glorying in the magnificent physicality of touch and closeness.
“Mph,” Nico said at last. He was sprawled over Titus and between his legs. He was startlingly heavy, considering. “Titus. Do you know what you like?”
“That’s … an odd question?”
“Well, if one has not had a considerate lover…”
“Oh. I see. No, Henry wasn’t unkind to me in that way, don’t think that.
” Henry had liked to fuck, and done so in inventive ways, some of which had been to Titus’s taste and some not.
“I don’t really care for chastisement—spanking and insults and things,” he said, thinking it through. “But if you do, I could—”
“I have never welcomed chastisement in my life,” Nico assured him. “I resist it strongly.”
That was a relief. Titus had spanked Henry and called him a naughty boy on demand, and felt an absolute fool doing it.
“Oh, good. Well, then, what I like … I love this. Touching you. Kissing. I could do that forever. I’m happy to consider anything you care to propose, as long as we can do this too.
Erm, and if you like to be fucked, apparently I’m quite good at it.
It was probably the only thing Henry never complained about, which must be an endorsement. ”
Nico stared at him for an astonished moment, then the laugh exploded out of him. He lay over Titus, shaking and spluttering, and Titus found himself laughing too, for the absurdity and the joy, and the very fact that he could laugh about this.
“You continually amaze me,” Nico said, once he had a grip on himself. “And I would indeed like to sample your prowess, but perhaps not tonight. Here.”
He propped himself up on an elbow, straddling Titus, his strong thighs gripping Titus’s leaner ones, and his hand slid between them. Circling Titus’s prick, pressing his own to it, kissing Titus’s neck as he did it so pleasure squirmed up and down his body.
“Oh, yes,” Titus whispered. “Oh, this, Nico.”
Nico’s prick was so warm and hard against his, ridged flesh rubbing deliciously.
Nico’s hand was tight, his mouth devouring, the whole bare length of his hot, heavy, perfect body kissing Titus’s skin, and Titus arched helplessly into him, squirming, thrashing, spending in a glorious confusion of feelings.
He flopped back. Nico gave a long sigh and flopped over him, and Titus wrapped an arm over his shoulders. “Do you think you can stay?”
“Nobody will be lighting the morning fire in this weather. When does eve come?”
That was a bewildering question. “It’s already dark? It’s about midnight.”
Nico stilled a second, then shook himself. “Of course it is. I am confused, and half asleep. I will remove myself before Perreau brings your tea, but it would not be a disaster if I did not.”
“Really?”
“You can trust Perreau’s discretion. Don’t forget, the laws are different in France.”
“They are?”
“Bien s?r: Thank the code of Napoleon. Love is not criminal for men, any more than it is here for women. It is not a thing one advertises in the street, but the state does not insert itself into a citizen’s private affairs as here.”
“I didn’t know,” Titus said. “Really? No law? One could simply … go about one’s life?
” To live without fear, not to have someone like Henry attempt to use his—their—nature against him.
He felt suddenly, desperately bleak, that old Christmas Day sensation of watching Augustus receive gifts and wondering, Why not me?
“You could move.” Nico snuggled closer. “I could take you to France. You could learn the language and leave this miserable land behind.”
Titus felt a pulse of alarm. “Are you thinking of going back?”
“I have no plans. It depends on, oh, a variety of factors.” Nico yawned abruptly. He was a handsome, sophisticated, highly competent man, and he yawned like a kitten. It was adorable. “Let us sleep, mon coeur, or I will never wake in time. Good night.”
“Good night.” Titus kissed the top of his head. Nico made a small, pleased noise.
He proved as good at going to sleep as everything else, and was breathing softly within a few minutes. Titus lay awake, luxuriating in Nico’s warm body and thinking of phrases like A variety of factors and I could take you to France long into the night.