There Will Be Phlogiston (5 page)

He was standing close enough to her now that the
scent of wood and smoke and jasmine was drowning in the scent of
him. Nothing she could quite describe—just the purity of skin—but
somehow it made her tingle in unsuitable places. She tried to
distract herself by looking at his lips instead: their generous,
mobile curve, harsh and tender at the same time. “How will I know
when I’ve been kissed properly?”

“Miss Wolfram—”

Heavens, but the man had no idea at all. “Lady
Rosamond to you, sir.”

“Do you want me to kiss you?”

Her gaze swept up slowly to meet his eyes. Absurd,
appalling creature, with his too-wide mouth and his too-long
lashes, sun-streaked like his hair. “And what if I did?”

“Well,” he said slowly, “Arkady told me it was bad
etiquette to ever say no to a lady.”

She didn’t really have time to wonder what it meant
that he called Lord Mercury by such an intimate diminutive, because
suddenly his body was pinning her against a trellis, and his
frankly unnecessarily large hands were cupped against her jaw, his
fingers sliding behind her ears into the tiny, shivering hairs left
exposed by her clustered ringlets. Pleasure slid all the way down
her spine, hot and cold and bright at once, and she heard herself
make the oddest noise.

Strange things, in general, were happening to her
body.

She felt heavy and light at the same time. And oddly
. . . awake. As if every single bit of her was coming slowly alive,
filling her with wildness and wild things, hissing snakes and
clawing cats and
hunger
. Her hands reached for him almost
instinctively, and so she rested them against his hips, relishing
the taut, angular line of his flanks and waist. Her boredom-driven
experiments at Miss Githers’s had lent her some appreciation for
softer bodies, but this hard strength, she decided, was more to her
natural taste.

Lifting her chin, she leaned all the way up his
body—close enough to feel the hot, heavy thump of his heart through
his clothes—and put her lips against his. His fingers tightened in
her hair as though he couldn’t help himself. What a mess she was
going to look when he was done, and it felt so good.

Power over a man. This man. So tall and strong and
free.

Though his mouth was surprisingly gentle, sweet
beneath the last traces of smoke.

The marquess had kissed her swiftly and quite hard,
stamping her with his seal of ownership. Duty done.

But Anstruther Jones was in no rush to claim
her.

He was . . . simply exploring her. Not conquest but
seduction. And it was working.

She could feel the seam of her lips surrendering to
nothing at all but the desire to draw him deeper, to have more of
this. This and him, and everything. This spangling, restless joy
that made her bold and rough and eager.

Things she had sensed, but only playacted at Miss
Githers’s.

His tongue, at last, entered her, warm and supple
and not invasive at all, but when she pushed back, he yielded back,
and suddenly she was deep in his mouth, and oh,
oh
, it was
hot in there, hot and soft, all clinging velvet. This secret,
waiting place inside him, like delving into the heart of a fig. So
different to his body, which was nothing but hard lines pressed
against her, and his hands, one tight in her hair, the other
splayed possessively over her back.

The width of his palms, the strength in his arms,
the slowly developing crick in her neck all reminded her how big he
was, how small she was in comparison. But she had been right in the
ballroom: it didn’t make her feel fragile at all.

Especially not when he gasped
.
Then groaned.
This deep, harsh, entirely unabashed sound. Lust and longing and
all for her.
Because
of her. And she was left shivering like
a harp string, tuned to a perfect note.

She never wanted it to end. Never wanted to play any
song but this.

They kissed like signalmen, messages written in
flame passed back and forth between them. And when at last they
stopped, surely hours or possibly days later, it was all Rosamond
could do not to dig her fingers into the top of his buttocks and
drag him back for more.

Damn the man for being right.

Kissing was not supposed to be nice.

She drew in a few sharp, shallow breaths. She felt
hot and squashed and dishevelled and . . . wonderful.

And she had left his lips all wet and shiny—
hers
hers hers
.

He stepped away, leaving deep creases in her skirts,
and smiled. Eyes never leaving hers. The dark slashes of his brows
lifting devilishly. “You kiss by the book.”

Laughter—utterly unladylike, utterly
unnecessary—burst out of her before she could moderate or suppress
it, and she clapped a hand across her mouth, banishing the last
traces of his taste, the echo of his stubble. “If that is true,
sir—” she gathered what was left of her dignity as she pushed past
him “—you must favour exceptionally improper literature. Good
night.”

His answering laugh, just as warm as his embrace had
been, curled around her as she made her escape.

Anstruther Jones was in a queer mood that night.

He accepted an invitation to Lord Mercury’s bed
willingly enough, but once there, his behaviour was erratic at
best. He was unnecessarily touchy, unnecessarily talkative, and
kept trying to have Lord Mercury in positions in which he didn’t
want to be had.

It was increasingly hard to tell if they were
fucking or fighting. And, while there was something a little
thrilling about being overpowered and wrestled onto his back by
Jones, there were some kinds of surrender he absolutely could
not—and would never—allow himself to give.

Jones’s grip tightened around his wrists. “Won’t you
even look at me?”

Lord Mercury shook his head as best he could with
his face hidden against his upper arm.

A sigh, and Jones let him go, cold spaces on Lord
Mercury’s skin where his fingers had pressed. The bed springs
creaked as he rolled away, and Lord Mercury opened his eyes to find
the man sprawled out naked, his usually rather impressive cock limp
between his legs.

“I’m done,” said Jones.

Lord Mercury groped for his dressing gown. He kept
it close to the bed on the nights Jones visited. It was one thing
to be naked when one fucked. Very much another to stay that way
voluntarily, vulnerable and intimate with another man. “I thought
you might be.”

“Why?”

“I saw you on the terrace with the Wolfram girl.
Quite a seduction you mounted.”

Jones watched him with eyes washed silver in the
half light Lord Mercury preferred for his assignations. “You won’t
let me seduce you.”

“I’m a man. I don’t need to be seduced. I know what
I want.”

“Really?” Something—sharp as lightning—flickered
over Jones’s face. “Because I don’t think you have a bleedin’
clue.”

“Oh, go fuck your wife.” Lord Mercury got his arms
into his dressing gown and swept rather magnificently off the
bed.

He wasn’t entirely sure where he was going, since
they were in his room, but
away
would serve his purposes
adequately. Once he was alone, he could safely tend to whatever
nonsense lay beneath his anger and felt too much like pain.

As he crossed the room, Jones caught him by the
elbow and spun him round. There was purpose in the touch, but not
violence. He should have looked ridiculous, standing there and
still naked, but he didn’t.

And Lord Mercury should have pulled away, but he
didn’t either.

“It’s not about fucking.” Like his hand, Jones’s
voice was steady, certain. “It’s about family. Companionship.”

Lord Mercury flinched away from the look in the
man’s eyes. “I told you, I am not your mistress, and I certainly
can’t be your wife.”

“Would you? If you could?”

The silence was sudden and so deep it roared in Lord
Mercury’s ears. “I . . . I . . . That is, such a thing would be
impossible.”

“Why?” Jones’s hand slid down Lord Mercury’s
forearm, until his fingers encircled his wrist, skin to skin.
“You’re always telling me what you won’t, and aren’t, and can’t. I
don’t know anymore if it’s me you’re ashamed of, or you.”

How could anyone be ashamed of Jones? Clever,
fearless, laughing Jones.

Who Lord Mercury had tried so desperately to
despise.

And instead . . .

“Men,” he said, wishing his voice was firmer, “do
not form those kind of intimate relationships with other men.”

Jones reached out, claimed his other wrist, and Lord
Mercury still wasn’t struggling. He let Jones press him to the back
of the door. Pin his hands against the wood, their fingers all
intertwined. “Just fuck them?” he asked.

“That’s merely an aberration of the body.”

Jones blinked.

“It means a pervers—”

“I know what it means.” There was an odd little
silence, pulled tight somehow between them. “I’ve been to the
deepskies, Arkady. I’ve seen—” he shook his head, and Lord Mercury
felt the sweat gather on the man’s palms, turning his grip slippery
“—things. Fact is, I’ve a sound notion about what’s aberrant, and
what isn’t, and liking a cock in your body doesn’t even come
close.”

Lord Mercury turned his head away, hiding his face
in the prison of his upraised arms. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Say what I see? The only thing aberrant
here is you not letting yourself have what you need.”

“I don’t need what you’re offering.”

“Is that so?”

There was a note in Jones’s voice Lord Mercury had
never heard before. Something dark and hurt and ragged that
frightened him far more than anger would have done. He felt the
heat of the man’s breath graze his jaw, like the ghost of an
ungiven kiss. It curled across his earlobe and spilled decadently
down the exposed length of his throat, raising a telltale trail of
goose bumps. He opened his mouth, hardly knowing what he was going
to say, but all that emerged was a breathless moan, as shaky as his
frantically beating pulse.

“Are you sure?”

Oh, how could he answer? He had never been more and
less sure of anything in his entire life. All these things Jones
said and did and took for granted, Lord Mercury had so long
believed impossible—had refused to even let himself yearn for—that
they were meaningless now.

Words spoken in another language.

Far easier to understand was the pressure of Jones’s
fingers on his wrists. The carvings in the door digging into his
spine. The familiar weight of the other man’s body. His own
helplessness, the potent sickness of mingled desire and shame.

If Jones kissed him . . . If Jones kissed him like
this, then it wouldn’t be . . .

Choice. It wouldn’t be a choice.

Lord Mercury let his body turn lax and supple in
Jones’s grip.

Please
.
Please take this from me.

“Fuck this,” said Jones, letting him go so abruptly
he almost slid to his knees. “I’m done with your games and your
cowardice.”

He turned to gather up his scattered clothes,
pulling them onto the body Lord Mercury had craved, and surrendered
to, and barely dared to look at. Dazedly, he lowered his hands, and
stared longingly after the long, clean sweep of Jones’s spine all
the way to—

He gasped.

“Phlogiston burn.” Jones yanked up his trousers,
hiding the mottled brown and white scarring that covered the left
side of his body, and the top of his muscular buttocks.

That was another impossible thing: the idea that a
man like Jones could be hurt. It had never occurred to Lord Mercury
to touch much of Jones beyond his prick, but perversely, he wanted
to touch that rough, ruined flesh. Soothe old pain with new
pleasure.

When Jones faced him again, his eyes were splinters
of broken sky. “Next time you want something from me, you can
fucking ask.” He strode across the room and, when Lord Mercury
wouldn’t move, leaned over him, light and shadow, and strength and
hurt, and a mouth full of harsh shapes. “You can fucking beg.”

Lord Mercury slid slowly down the wall in a billow
of brocade. He curled his hands into fists to hide their shaking.
His face in his knees to hide that too.

He heard Anstruther Jones open the door.

Close it again.

He heard his footsteps recede.