Chapter Two #2
in and planted on his mouth a kiss of such tender, carnal passion
that Sasha went still as a startled hare in his grasp.
He had
never done anything like it before, not outside of their Bloomsbury
flat—Sasha’s home and castle, the sanctum where every sexual
delight was not only permitted but pursued, up stairways and down
warmly carpeted halls. God knew there’d been times when Sasha would
have liked such a gesture in front of the glitterati crowd, just a
reminder to them that his beautiful lover was only a public
commodity on stage. He didn’t mind it now. Mind? His spine was
melting. He kissed back, fiercely, proudly, giving it his
all.
He just
didn’t know why Laurie had chosen this moment. He eased away when
Laurie did, watching him intently. Had it been to prove a point to
Arnold? Nothing wrong with that if so, only...
The taxi
roared up over the cobbles, scattering the players, who had enjoyed
this demonstration even better than the news of Laurie’s fan club
and were cheering him on. They were so vivid and lovely in their
designer rags, ready to dance around the neon fires of London until
dawn. Sasha felt the plainness of his business suit, the weight of
his satchel on his back. He grabbed Laurie’s arm. “Look, it’s your
last night. Sure you don’t want to go off and celebrate properly
with this lot?”
“Would you come too?”
“Me—oh, God, no. I just meant...”
“I know what you meant.” Laurie pulled open the taxi’s back
door, blew Arnold a lascivious kiss and waved to his colleagues.
“You meant to deprive me of my Thai green curry, my Netflix and my
Martin Shaw.” He held the door courteously, spoiling the gesture
with a push that sent Sasha tumbling in wholesale, laughing and
swearing at him in Romani.
The
bright crowd receded behind them. At the junction with Shaftesbury,
Sasha caught a glimpse of Laurie’s acolytes—a blur of faces finding
sudden focus at the sight of the cab. Yes, about twenty of them...
Their swift group movement disconcerted Sasha. There was a greed in
it he had only seen in the mahala, when someone tried to sneak a
consignment of black-market food or liquor into that ghetto world.
He was glad when the cabbie found an unlikely gap in the traffic
and pulled away. He turned to Laurie. “Bloody hell. What will I do
now you’re a proper star, with screaming fans and...”
Once more Laurie changed the subject—changed everything—with a
kiss. This time Sasha had no doubt of his motives. He closed a
gentle grip around the back of Sasha’s skull, looked at him as if
he were the only living creature on the planet, feathered his lips
once across Sasha’s in a sweet familiar
question—is it okay,
love?—and because Sasha had never said no
to him, because it was always okay, they drew together hungrily.
Yes, this was just Laurie being his own loving self, lighting the
fires that burned more brightly the longer he and Sasha lived
together. The only difference was the setting—the driver up front,
a thin wall of glass to shield them instead of their own four
walls.
Sasha
tried not to like it. He shouldn’t have, he knew. He valued his
privacy dearly and was sure the cabbie didn’t need his working day
enhanced by such a scene in his rearview mirror. Closing his eyes,
he remembered a shy boy from two years ago who’d knelt over him in
the empty carriage of a westbound Tube, courage clasped tight in
both hands for a first public kiss. Sasha had stopped him
eventually, but only because it hadn’t been safe. The world had
been full of wolves, and Sasha had had to look out for both of
them.
They
were safe enough now. Maybe Sasha’s habit of restraint was only
that—a habit, acquired during dangerous years, surplus to
requirements now. Laurie’s tongue nudged his, and all at once the
driver and the people blurring past them on the streets were no
longer wolves but witnesses. Why shouldn’t the whole world know how
much he loved this man?
Sasha’s
delicate barriers crashed down. From their ruins rose a wild
excitement. When Laurie slid a warm hand up his thigh he writhed to
meet the caress. The lights and faces merged into shimmering
rainbow streaks. The taxi picked up speed and bore them
away.
***
“Ves’tacha, the curry will get cold.”
“I like it cold. I like you hot.”
Sasha
groaned. “God help me, I am. What have you done to me?”
“Backseat foreplay. Never fails.”
“Never...?”
“Well, I’ve only tried it the once.” Laurie chuckled. “Didn’t
fail, though, did it?”
Sasha
couldn’t speak. His mouth was buried against Laurie’s neck. Laurie
was pressing him tight and hard against their own front door—the
inside of it, mercifully, though there had been a moment on the
steps outside when Sasha wouldn’t have cared. Would have done this
by the amber glow of the fanlight, in between the little potted box
trees, shadowed by wrought-iron railings and the elegant terrace
opposite. The fantasy fed into his reality. He stiffened all the
way beneath Laurie’s caressing hand, got his head up for a lungful
of air. “Please...”
“Please what?” Laurie undid the nice belt, the smartly cut
business trousers. Releasing Sasha’s cock from all that formality
was delicious, a primal delight. “Oh, you’re all ready. Come for me
here if you want, lovely lad. It’s okay.”
Laurie
knew every inch of him. Knew how he liked a tender roughness on the
brink—a hand shoved hard into his briefs, deep enough to squeeze
the joyous hell out of his balls, strong enough to lift him a
little so he was riding the pressure. “God! Please,
not...”
“Not here?” Laurie froze, making sure Sash was safely pinned to
the near edge of climax, unable to go further or retreat. He made a
show of thoughtfulness, glancing around him. “No, you’re right.
Anybody would think we didn’t have a hallway big enough to fall
down in these days.”
Sasha’s plea would have been not
now. He’d long since given up caring about
locale. Just didn’t want to go over on his own, not tonight.
Laughing, too far gone to explain, he dropped to his knees on the
mosaic tiles. Yes, they had space to fall down in here. Sasha’s
room in his Birchwood caravan had been smaller. Now the floor was
scattered with takeaway boxes and mail, though, and Sasha made room
as best he could with so much eager strength bearing him down.
“Laurie. Hang on.”
“Long as you like.” Laurie hoped that wasn’t an ambitious
promise. He’d learned all his lessons of control, but with Sash
running at this kind of heat... “Well,” he amended more honestly.
“I’m good for another thirty seconds, anyway.”
But
Sasha didn’t mean that. He’d picked out an envelope from the heap
on the floor. “Don’t I recognise this crest?”
“No idea. Can’t believe you want to find out now.” Laurie
popped a button off Sasha’s best white shirt. “Oops. I’ll sew it
back myself, with my own hands. In golden thread, or a hair from a
unicorn’s tail, or... Oh, hell’s teeth, that’s Sir Ralf
Evans.”
“Yeah, I know.” Handing the envelope over, Sasha subsided onto
his backside. He could wait. Even with a skinful of hormones and a
hard-on so hungry it was making him feel sick, he was willing to
wait—or cancel entirely, go lock himself into the shower—for the
sake of his lover’s career. Laurie had auditioned for Sir Ralf’s
new Barbican production of Romeo and
Juliet, a blindingly prestigious concern.
“Open it, love.”
Laurie
grinned. He turned the envelope over—gave it one more glance, and
tossed it over his shoulder so that it landed neatly in their bag
of Thai Me Down noodles. “Bugger Sir Ralf.”
“What? You told me you wanted that role more than
life.”
“I was being Mercutio when I said that, just for practice in
case I got lucky.” Laurie pressed his mouth to Sasha’s flushed
cheekbones, one and then the other, one then the other and back,
the gesture as sacred as a witch’s fivefold kiss. He was serious by
the end of the process, so utterly focussed that Sasha wanted to
dissolve with pleasure. “Sash, sweetheart. Being different people
hurts. That bastard Bertram really fucked with my head
tonight.”
“I know.”
“I need you to love him out of me.”
Comprehension flashed over Sasha. Laurie always tried to take
the lead when they danced, but that was where his supremacy
stopped. In bed they were equals. Still it put a thrill into
Sasha’s very bones when Laurie went under for him. “I will,” Sasha
told him fervently. “Come here. Kneel on the stairs.”
“Shall I run up and get the lube?”
“No. You ambush me here often enough that I left a tube in the
drawer.”
Laurie snorted. He opened the drawer of their little hall
table and fished out the tube from among the paperclips and postage
stamps. “I can’t help it. L’esprit
d’escalier, n’est-ce pas?”
“Oh, is that what that means?”
“Absolutely.”
“Let’s just blame your French ancestry, then.”
Staircases, here and in a stifling Mayfair mansion two years
before. Sasha caressed Laurie’s back, helping him settle on the
subtly coloured carpet. Different worlds had made them, and they’d
forged a fragile link in the servant’s stairwell of the Mayfair
house. Maybe that was why they found themselves here so often, the
attraction of that connecting space. He stroked Laurie’s ribs, a
bit too close to surface after this long theatre run, and heaving
with an anxiety none of his clowning could disguise. “I’d like to
kill that bloody Bertram,” Sasha told him softly. “Next time choose
someone nice, if you’re going to bury yourself in the
part.”
“Maybe I will. Mercutio is nice.”
“Sure you don’t want to look?”
“Oh, no. No.” Laurie folded his arms on the fifth step up and
rested his brow on them. That signal of surrender, the beautiful
bowed head, finished off Sasha’s chances of control. He took the
lube from Laurie’s sweat-damped fingers, slipped jeans and briefs
down around his thighs. God, the sight of him—neat arse made
muscular by all the hours of extra work he did, the stagecraft