Chapter 2
Gabby didn’t need praise for helping. “I work here, as an entertainer.”
The man nodded slowly. He had an earthy ruggedness about him, something that screamed country boy, which was so different to the city folk who inhabited The King’s Book Club.
“I’ve just had a promotion to help with organising events,” Gabby was rambling to fill the silence. He’d known to wait while the man composed himself, having seen his aunt through this many times, and now the man looked him with such big brown grateful eyes that he started to babble.
“Lord Bennington is upset with me.” He really shouldn’t have said that, and he clamped his mouth closed to stop any more words from flowing.
“With you? How could anyone be upset with you?”
Gabby smiled. “That’s very kind of you, but I’m kind of failing at my job.”
The man raised one eyebrow. “I don’t understand.”
“Having a job or being bad at it?” Gabby had been so pleased to get the promotion, to become more than a dancer, which had been a step up from his last job. This way he got all the perks of his last job and had his choice of clientele, unlike before when he’d done anyone for a bit of coin.
“How could you be bad at anything?”
Gabby frowned. “I don’t know what I’ve done to inspire such confidence in you.” A stranger who thought the best of him. He breathed out slowly, it’d been too long since that had happened. The intensity of the man’s focus reminded him of his aunt Mei.
“You rescued me. I wouldn’t put much faith in what Bennington says about you. He told me this was a book club and I’d enjoy it.”
“It’s not a book club. It’s The King’s Book Club, a meeting place for those who don’t conform to society’s rigid rules.
And it’s why I’m failing at my job.” He’d been working here, as an entertainer, since just before last Christmas and he’d wanted this promotion to run more events. It was just that he was bad at it.
“Why?”
“I...” He gasped. He couldn’t tell a stranger that he wasn’t organised enough to run events, that the first one he’d done last month had nearly been a complete disaster.
He had no clue on how to budget, he kept getting distracted and even with all the lists in the world, he couldn’t stay organised.
He didn’t want to go back to his old work; that’d been fine when he was young and horny and no good at anything else, but he’d outgrown all of that.
“I have to plan the Christmas spectacular, and Bennington hates all my ideas.” It wasn’t precisely a lie, but it didn’t go anywhere near the whole truth.
“What ideas did you have?”
Nothing useful. “Last year we held a boxing match and it raised money for charities that Bennington likes to support.” He wasn’t sure why Bennington couldn’t just toss some of his own money that way, but maybe he already did, and their events forced their rest of their clientele to cough up for a good cause.
“People pay good money to see the best fighters.” The man nodded, as if to himself.
“Yes. And this year... I was promoted only a month ago and Bennington hates all my ideas. I have only two weeks to come up with something good.”
“All?”
“I was going to do a play, but Bennington said it would take too long to do rehearsals and a month wasn’t enough time so we will do one next Christmas, and then I said I could perform, but he said people already see me perform most nights here and he wanted something different, and so I said what about getting all the Lords to paint a picture and selling those.
Who wouldn’t want an original from a Lord and wouldn’t it be funny if they were bad, and Bennington didn’t like that idea either. ”
Laughter filled the room. “You didn’t say that?”
“Which part?”
“You can’t ask the ton to do something they are bad at. Their egos wouldn’t cope. Heaven forbid that someone might seem them as flawed.”
Oh. Oh no. It was the first rule of performance, and of his old job, never to upset the client. “Then I’m back where I started with no ideas and only two weeks to figure out something amazing.” And organise it.
“Was the boxing a success?”
“Yes, although it was advertised as a fight between two champions and neither of them fought.”
“Was that not a failure then?”
Gabby paused to consider this. “It should have been but the audience only cared for the fight, not the fighters. I think...”
The man, Lord whoever, stared at him with wide brown eyes, a brown almost as dark as his own, with an expression that seemed to say that whatever Gabby said next mattered to him.
“I think it was the novelty of it that drew a crowd. Whoever thought to have a boxing match in a club like this?” Gabby knew the answer was so close, just out of reach, like a little taste of lemon on his tongue.
“Or any club, really. Imagine a boxing match at Whites. It would be the most unmitigated scandal.”
Gabby gasped. “Of course. I need to do something that no other club would do. A scandal making event.” It made complete sense but also was unhelpful as the very existence of The King’s Book Club was a scandal, but a .
.. different sort of scandal. Something that would thrill his audience by being unexpected.
Lord Bennington was correct when he couldn’t dance; that type of scandal was an every day ordinary occurrence for this club.
“Why not just have an actual book club?”
Gabby laughed. “We could read passages from banned books. Or I could find an inventor to do a demonstration.” Those were popular with society.
“I wish you all the very best with it. I’m certain you will deduce an idea that will wow your audience.”
“Why does that sound like a dismissal?” Bloody Lords.
“I am conscious that I’ve taken up a lot of your time and you sound like I’m distracting you from your work. I should let you get back to it.”
“Actually, you’ve been very helpful. Please stay for a while.”
“Here, or out there?”
Gabby bit back a sigh. Perhaps he was being foolish.
The man’s rugged beauty and na?ve innocence wasn’t enough to recommend him; he was a Lord and Gabby would be well-pressed to remember that fact.
He could so easily sink to his knees for this man.
He’d bet he had a fantastic member to match the rest of his broad body.
“I am not good with crowds, the noise is overwhelming, and I am taking up too much of your time. I should go.”
Gabby nodded. Aunt Mei was the same, although she used her bad hip as a reason to never leave the house. This man, this Lord, didn’t have the same. “You are not a burden on my time. Entertaining guests is part of my job.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It is late. The club will close soon and people will head home to their beds.” Well, someone’s bed anyway.
Gabby should not be thinking about this man and bed in the same sentence.
Desire roared to life, and he realised it’d been humming under his skin since the moment he first saw him.
Had he rescued him to have him all to himself? Was he that selfish?
“I am unaccustomed to town hours.” The corner of the man’s mouth trembled and his nostrils flared as if he were supressing a yawn.
“Nor the crush of society, I bet.”
“No. I thought a simple book club might help calm me.”
Gabby giggled. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“I’m sorry that this wasn’t what you needed. Let me entertain you.” Gabby deliberately looked the man up and down, letting his gaze focus on his groin. He stepped closer, licking his bottom lip, and fluttered his eyelids a few times. The man swallowed. Yes. He still had it.
“What are you doing?”
“Entertaining you. You do know why this club exists.”
The man swallowed, his face flushed a delightful pink. “Yes.”
Gabby’s skin came alive at that simple word and he sank to his knees, staring up at the man.
“What are you doing?”
“I think you know what I’m doing. It’s why you are here.” He reached out and started undoing the man’s trouser fall.
“I ... I can’t pay you. My brother hasn’t given me my allowance yet.”
Gabby stood up, careful not to trip on the fabric of his dress, and touched the man’s cheek bone.
He wasn’t offended at the statement; being paid to suck cocks had been his job before he’d come here.
The man’s skin was softer than Gabby imagined a country boy’s skin to be.
“I don’t need to be paid. I want you. It’ll be my pleasure. ”
“Your pleasure?” The words shook a little.
“Absolutely.” He kissed his own fingertips and pressed them against the man’s lips.
All he needed was consent. His mouth was already watering at the idea of having this man’s cock in his mouth.
Moments like this were the biggest benefit of this job at the King’s Book Club; he wasn’t paid to suck cock anymore, now he did it for fun on his own terms with people he picked for himself.
“Me? You want me?”