Chapter Twenty-Six #2
What little time remained to them, Valentin used well.
His fingers and mouth were put to good use, too, until Mickey took him into his body, hardness within softness.
At first, Valentin rocked slowly in and out, carefully rearranging Mickey’s limbs as well as his insides.
Taking control as he always did. Mickey liked it that way.
As he continued his loving strokes, Valentin gasped against Mickey’s lips, whispering words in his beautiful language that Mickey barely knew.
He didn’t need to; their meaning was clear and honest in any tongue.
When he drove in deeper, he gripped the back of Mickey’s thighs tighter, the rhythmic pace coaxing Mickey, sending him higher, ruthless and demanding, until all the tense muscles of his body loosened.
Pleasure washed over Mickey in faster and faster rushes, and he spilled hard.
He felt Valentin’s hot release, too, and when the wetness trickled from him, he clenched his channel and thighs to hold it in for longer.
For a short space of time, as they lay curled together afterwards in spent, glowing silence, Mickey let himself forget that Valentin was leaving and a wanted man.
He let himself forget that Valentin might never safely visit English shores again, that their love affair was at an end.
How could he ever contemplate all of that when full of his lover’s seed?
“You could always come to France with me.”
For the second time that evening, Mickey’s heart faltered. For a few of the precious moments remaining, he allowed himself to imagine tossing his scant possessions into a bag and running through the night to the docks with Valentin.
“The invitation is still open,” Valentin asserted.
“I cannot leave Tommy. After all he has done for me, I would never treat him so badly.” Each word stabbed between his ribs.
“He would forgive you. He would understand.”
“Yes, but…”
How could he begin to explain to someone like Valentin, whose horizon was a sweeping expanse, that Mickey’s world was confined within the borders of London’s gritty streets?
For certain, his hoarded books told plenty of tales of distant lands where men frolicked with other men and the sun never set.
But they were just that—books and stories and maps, tales and adventures for other people to explore.
The only life for Mickey was here, at Squire’s: Sidney’s rough hands as he fastened the doors each night, the constant hum of the fine gentlemen two floors below, the flicker of light from St James keeping Mickey company as night crept over his small bedchamber.
He didn’t pick from a buffet of possibilities; the streets that had swallowed his parents and his infancy and his unbroken chain of routine were all he knew.
“Then I shall have to return one day,” Valentin insisted. “When it is safe for me to do so and thieve you away.” He laughed and kissed Mickey’s forehead. “You shall be the jewel in my crown. The devil’s very own diamond.”
God, how Mickey didn’t want this man to ever leave. And how he wished he had the courage to follow him. “You are an excellent thief. I shall hold you to that promise.”
Neglected until now, the priceless necklace lay half in and half out of Mickey’s plain wooden box. He reached for it, rolling one of the cool diamonds between finger and thumb.
“I must return this to Ashington tomorrow.” He pressed the tip of his tongue against one of the chilly gemstones, earning a curious look from Valentin. “It is the real thing, isn’t it?”
“It’s the real thing,” Valentin confirmed. Taking the necklace from Mickey, he secured it around Mickey’s bare neck, the coldness of the stones pebbling Mickey’s skin. “If I had more time, I’d fuck you again, wearing nothing but this.”
Mickey giggled. “Ashington would be appalled.” He fingered each jewel in turn. “You stole it in Florence, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Valentin smoothed his palm down Mickey’s flank.
“Once I’d spied it around Miss Amelia’s neck and deduced who Talybridge was, I had the counterfeit made up.
It was fabricated by an artisan in that city with whom I have had business transactions for several years.
He is one of the finest forgers in the whole of Europe.
” He threw Mickey a wry smile. “Alas, as now, time was of the essence; he had to create it from only a sketch and my hasty description.”
“The counterfeit stones fooled everyone,” Mickey commented.
“Even though you miscounted the number of diamonds. I only stumbled upon the error because the counterfeit parure was on a table beside Ashington’s painting of the original.
” He rubbed one of the real diamonds, marvelling at its solidity.
“Now I have these true ones in my hands, they are far superior.”
“Yes. It is a mercy that Miss Amelia and her father were not as observant as you. Nor Talybridge. Though I daresay he hadn’t removed it from his safe for decades, not since the day he shot the duchess.”
“He barely paid Miss Amelia any attention anyhow. She could have exchanged them for wooden counting beads, and he’d not have remarked upon it. But how did you swap them?”