Men of London 02 - Sight and Sinners (6 page)

“You are a real shit.” He blew another smoke ring toward Draven, noting with satisfaction as it hit his face and Draven’s nostrils flared. “I don’t talk to dead people, arsehole. That’s not how it works.”

Draven said nothing, just stared at Taylor with flat eyes. Taylor ignored him, watching the people walk out of the chapel and mill around, comforting each other. He caught Lavinia’s eye and she waved. He waved back at her and blew her a kiss.

“You know Drew’s grandmother?” Draven looked surly at that fact.

Taylor nodded airily. “Oh yes, we go way back. She’s a lovely lady.”

“Huh. I never heard her talk about you. Small world, isn’t it, that we keep bumping into one another?” Draven’s eyes were piercing and observing him with keen interest. And in their depths was a definite spark of interest. Taylor had seen that look often enough to recognise it for what it was. Lust. Desire.

Oh really? Mr. High and Mighty Samuels isn’t above a bit of slap and tickle then with someone he doesn’t really like. Interesting.

Taylor filed it away for future use. He shifted on his feet, thrusting his hands into his pockets and drawing attention to the front of his groin as the material tightened. Draven’s eyes flicked down and his face grew still. His tongue came out and he licked his lips, and the sight of that pink muscle and the wetness of Draven’s bottom lip turned Taylor’s insides to mush as his cock began its inexorable rise upward.

Damn, that whole hands-in-pockets thing has bloody backfired on me.

He took his hands out of his pockets as nonchalantly as possible and pulled his jacket over as far as he could to hide the rise of the Titanic under his boxers. Draven raised one very sexy eyebrow and smirked. Taylor wanted to slap it off his face. There was something about this man that made him want to get violent.

“So…” Draven drawled. “How does it work?”

Taylor was taken aback. “How does what work?” At first he thought Draven was talking about his cock but no. That couldn’t be it.

“The whole ‘I see dead people’ thing. How does that work for you?”

Taylor tried to count to five to counter the fury welling up inside him. “I told you I don’t see, talk or communicate with dead people.” He said between gritted teeth. “I simply feel energies and see places in my mind where they might have been. And it’s not just dead people I feel. It’s the emotions of people close to me and who I have a connection with.” He huffed. “So you needn’t worry, because you’ll never be one of them.”

Draven chuckled sardonically. “Oh I think we have a connection all right.” He motioned to Taylor’s crotch. “Just not in the same way.”

Taylor was dumbfounded. “Are you hitting on me at a bloody funeral?” he snarled. “You don’t find that just a little bit sick?”

Draven shook his head. “Drew’s gone,” he said quietly and now Taylor could clearly see sadness in his eyes. “I knew him well enough to know that while he didn’t want to live, he’d have no problem with the ones who did carrying on. He had a favourite quote: ‘The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.’ It’s by Marcus Cicero. He’d expect us to remember who he was and the good times, not the one at the end who chose to take his own life.” His eyes grew far away. “Some of us don’t have that choice; we’re still in limbo.”

Taylor had the distinct feeling Draven was talking about something or someone else other than Drew. He also felt like a fraud. He hadn’t really known Drew to the extent that he could take a favourite quote of his and tell someone about it. Draven had been closer to him than he’d ever been.

Suddenly the secluded copse of trees where Taylor had chosen to come for an illicit cigarette closed in on him. He needed to get away, away from the other man’s knowing eyes and the breathless attraction he felt for a man who didn’t even like him and considered him with contempt.

“I need to leave,” he blurted and turned to go back to the car park, back to his car so he could get home and feel cleaner, to hide away and forget he’d ever come here today.

“You were one of his regulars, weren’t you?” Draven’s quiet voice made him stop. He closed his eyes in mortification but didn’t turn around because he didn’t want this man to see the shame on his face.

Draven kept speaking, his voice low. “I knew about Drew’s proclivities and you’re just his type.” He stopped and Taylor stood stock still, not wanting to turn and see more contempt on Draven’s face. “He was a noble man but in the end, he chose to leave this way instead of facing up to whatever it was made him do it.” There was a short silence and Taylor took a step forward to leave. Draven’s quiet voice stopped him.

“I think he was being blackmailed about it. Just a feeling I have.”

At those shocking words, Taylor
did
turn around and instead of seeing disgust in Draven’s eyes, all he saw was sympathy. He still needed to vent, though.

“Blackmailed for being queer? How do you get to that conclusion? And what the fuck do you know about me? The first time we met, you said I was a fraud. The second time around, you said the same thing. Now I’m a prostitute, a ‘regular’? Well, fuck you, Draven Samuels.” Taylor felt his eyes prickle with hot tears as emotions took him over and he continued his tirade with a cracking voice.

“I cared about Drew, and I’m really sorry that he’s dead. I came here because I felt his death, his pain and I wanted to say goodbye and do the decent thing. Not something you’d understand.” He felt a familiar lightness in his head and the panic that came with it. There were emotions running high at the funeral and he was picking up on them in his own heightened state.

I can’t pass out again; I just can’t be so damn weak. Damn this bloody gift, damn it to hell.

The world went black and once again in Draven Samuel’s presence, Taylor slid to the ground.

*****

Draven cursed as the limp body of the younger man fell like a tree. He had just enough time to catch Taylor before he hit the hard, cold, pebbled surface. He heard a shout from over at the chapel and running feet. As he knelt down, laying Taylor flat and cradling him in his arms, one of Drew’s other friends, Jim Carstairs, came running over, his face pale.

“My God, is he all right?” The man looked panicked at having yet another incident to manage. As if a funeral wasn’t enough for one day.

Draven nodded. “He fainted, that’s all. He’s a bit overwrought. I’ll take care of him. You get back to the family, Jim. Taylor here will be fine.”

Relief crossed the man’s face. “Oh, if you’re sure, Draven. I’ll tell Lavinia he’s okay; she was worried about him. She says to bring him back to the house for the get-together.” He turned and walked back to the chapel.

Draven looked down at the man who seemed to make a habit of fainting on him. He didn’t think he’d been responsible for this one. It had seemed for a moment as if Taylor had gone somewhere, the pain in his eyes evident, and then simply shut off like a candle being blown out.

He patted Taylor’s face gently, worrying about his pallor. He couldn’t help but notice that the man wasn’t as lightweight as he looked, that beneath that coffee-coloured skin was a man of substance, muscles taut and firm. And up close, he was even more beautiful that Draven had imagined. Long, dark lashes lying against smooth skin, full lips that were currently slightly open and very kissable, and curling hair that was the deep, rich black colour of ripe earth. A faint smattering of stubble beneath the classic lines of his nose and around his chin made Draven want to run his face against it. He looked like a decadent gypsy prince.

And isn’t that fucking poetic. Get a bloody grip.

Draven scowled and continued his efforts to get Taylor to wakefulness. Finally, after a tap that had probably been a tad too hard, Taylor groaned and opened his eyes and Draven fell into them. Taylor’s eyes were the colour of rich, baked toffee, with an emerald circle around the pupil, bleeding into the iris like emerald starbursts. The spell was broken when Taylor opened his mouth.

“What the fuck? What are you doing to me? Let me go.” He started to rise and push Draven away.

Draven chuckled. “Calm down, your bloody virtue is safe, I swear. You fainted. Again. I’m going to start thinking it’s me that has this effect on you.”

“You wish.” Taylor struggled to a seated position and looked around with dazed eyes. “Where’s everybody gone?”

“Probably back to Lavinia’s for the wake or whatever they call it. She said I should bring you there when you’d woken up.”

Taylor shook his head vehemently. “I’m not going anywhere. I don’t belong there. You can leave me and go on your own.”

He rose, a little unsteady. Draven held his arm as they both got to their feet.

Taylor was pale. “Thanks for not letting me conk my head on the ground,” he said grudgingly. “That would have been all I needed, a concussion.” He dusted off his suit and grimaced. Draven still held onto him and Taylor looked over at him angrily. “I’m fine. You can let me go.”

Draven didn’t
want
to let him go. The nearness of the man, the scent of his cologne, the warmth of his body heat—it all added up to a sudden spike of want. Draven couldn’t stop himself. He leaned over and crushed his needy lips over Taylor’s soft, full mouth, revelling when it opened and Draven could get his tongue in there to taste the man. Taylor tasted of smoke and need and sin. When Draven finally drew back, his heart was beating as if he’d just run a marathon. He expected to be slapped or punched but nothing was forthcoming.

Instead, Taylor watched him with an expression of pure confusion and yes…there was definitely need and desire in those dark eyes. “I thought you didn’t even like me,” he murmured, his lips glistening.

Draven cocked his head. “I don’t.”

The next action gave voice to the lie in his soul as he pulled Taylor closer to him and took his mouth again greedily, like a drowning man gasps for air, and Taylor melted against him, his arms wrapping around his neck and holding onto Draven as if he was a life buoy.

When they finally pulled apart, both men looked at each other with eyes that asked a myriad of questions.

“This is crazy,” whispered Taylor. “I…” His face darkened and he shot a look at Draven that made his body chill. “Oh, I see where this is going. I’m a ‘regular’ so you think you can take me home and fuck me? That I’m a cheap piece of arse? Well, screw you.” His eyes glittered and before Draven could get a word in to refute that accusation, Taylor raised his arm and the next thing Draven knew, he was being catapulted backward by a fierce punch to his chin. As he staggered back and fell on his arse, Taylor loomed above him, the fire of a thousand flames in his eyes.

“I hope I never set eyes on you again, you bastard. Stay away from me.” He turned and stormed toward the car park, leaving Draven fingering his aching chin and wondering what the hell had just happened.

A few hours later, after fielding some anxious enquiries from the people at the after funeral gathering about his bruised jaw, and eating more cake than he’d ever wanted to, Draven made his weary way to the Royal Hospital. It was one of his weekly visits on his way home to Charing Cross and while it distressed him every time he went, he couldn’t miss visiting his little brother. He walked into the long-term care unit at the hospital and the nurse behind the desk greeted him warmly.

“Draven, it’s good to see you again. How have you been?” Nurse Anita Richards was a stalwart in the unit, one of the long-standing devotees on the ward. She had looked after Jude since he was admitted nearly three years ago. She tut-tutted as she fingered the red bruise on his jaw. “Ran into something, did we? Or was that something obtained in the course of that secret job you do?” She clucked and Draven smiled faintly.

“No, someone got in a strop and decked me one. Not my finest moment. And it’s fine, really. Nothing I haven’t had before. How’s Jude?”

Anita eyed him with compassion. “He’s the same, as always. We’re keeping him comfortable and fairly healthy despite the circumstances. Go on in.”

Draven entered the quiet private room his brother “slept” in. His heart ached not for the first time at the sight of that pale, lifeless body, thin and wasted, eyelids taped down. Around Jude’s slight frame, the machines that currently kept him alive and breathing whirred and pumped and whistled in a symphony of simulated living.

Draven sat down in the chair beside his brother and laid a hand against his cool cheek. Jude’s light blond hair was wispy but well cared for, and his skin dry and pale despite the moisturiser that was constantly applied. He was a spectre of the lively, laughing boy he’d once been. His mother and father had always joked that Jude and Draven were carbon copies despite the age difference. They’d even sounded the same.

Draven’s heart broke every time he saw him. “Hi, baby brother. I’m here, ready to read another story to you. We finished the other one last time, didn’t we? Today we have…” he reached across and took the book off the metal side table, “
Christine
.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. Jude had adored Stephen King novels, and although a psychotic car hadn’t been something Draven had ever wanted to read about, it had been one of Jude’s favourite books.

Just over three years ago, Jude had been injured in the same accident that had killed Draven’s parents. Jude had sustained severe head trauma when the out-of-control truck had careened into their car. Jude had been fifteen at the time, just two months short of his sixteenth birthday. Draven had been in the Ukraine on a case for Mortimer Investigations, ready to come back to the UK. It was the case where he’d met Drew Whittaker and his company, Whittcon.