The Wages of Sin [The Mysterious] (10 page)

But the moment passed. He drew on a dry shirt and a pair of canvas breeches, both much too large for him, and shrugged the quilted banyan over the top, uncertain whether he felt disappointed or relieved.

Jasper gathered up the wet garments and, opening the door, passed them out to one of the servants, receiving in exchange a tray of bread and butter, plates and glasses, claret and porter.

Jasper put the tray down before the fire, looked up with a smile Charles hadn’t seen before; purely happy, with none of the undertones of cynicism and oppression he was wont to use. “Father believes that toast is medicinal after a chill. I’ll just…” he returned to the door and turned the key in the lock. Charles’ heart fluttered in his throat at the sound of it.

“It was George,” said Jasper, moving through the intimacy of the candlelight with a soft tread. “No that’s not… I mean…” He knelt down before the hearth, speared a slice of bread on the toasting fork and held it out. The yellow flames had died down, and their warmth had barely begun to reach the coals, crackling and hissing beneath them. “We grew up together, as he said. He was so beautiful. Indeed, he looked like you, though his eyes were never quite so candid.”

Charles perched on the edge of one of the chairs, threw its two velvet cushions onto the floor and looked down at Jasper’s bent head. Wigless, his drying hair was springing into tight black spirals touched with a hint of red. Ruby port and dark chocolate. Charles caught himself wondering what it would taste like and said “Go on.”

“I thought myself very much in love with him, but he thought of us—and there were many of us, youths and maids—as a sort of convenience. Like a chamber pot into which he could void his bodily waste. I contrived to ignore this. I was very young." Jasper looked up, his gaze the same as it had been at supper when George refused him permission to leave, like a slave bowing beneath his chain.

"But when he went away to Cambridge and I to the seminary in Douai, my heartbreak transmuted very rapidly into a feeling of relief. Freedom."

Drawn by the melancholy of his voice, Charles pushed the chair away, settled himself cross legged on the hearth rug, put out a hand to touch Jasper's bare ankle and drew it back at the last moment. Jasper threw down the fork and caught his hand. "But of course, there was his grand tour. He called upon me expecting to be obliged. I… could not think of an excuse. You must understand; I'm the bastard son of an upstart, and he's the son of an Earl. So I yielded, and we were caught."

"George had it covered up. His allowance was ample and his connections the most exalted. The seminary allowed it to pass this once on the grounds of my youth, and George's high birth, but my superiors were told."

His fingers tightened on Charles', and the little rub of his thumb across the back of Charles' knuckles tightened his belly and balls. Terrible to sit here and watch the bowed, bitter expressions flit like shadows across Jasper's eyes, and still be able to feel desire. Did it make Charles a very evil person to find the bitten down anger handsomer on the man than his smile?

"George returned to England and fell in love with Emma, whom he married. I became a priest and was sent as a minister to the Irish community in St. Giles. All was very well, for a number of years, until Emma fell ill. Then George, feeling that he had a right to comfort, sought me out once more."

Charles covered Jasper's hand with his own. In the fire, the coals settled and a faint warmth drifted over the side of his face. "And it happened again?"

"He's not," Jasper smiled, slid his fingers up beneath the wide cuff of the banyan to stroke the inside of Charles' wrist. Charles closed his eyes against the rush of guilt and need. "He's not very good at secret trysts, your brother. Too certain of his immunity, I suppose, to feel the need for caution. But yes… I told him no, he kissed me, and we were caught."

The caressing thumb stilled. Jasper drew back his hands into his lap, knotted them together, huddling over them as if they hurt. "Because I had said no, George settled for having his own name removed from the affair, left me to be punished. I was tried, convicted, defrocked. I stood in the pillory two days, and the whores threw bricks at me for undercutting their trade."

The frown scored a deep arrowhead of grief between his brows. When Charles touched his shoulder he found it tensed against blows, the memory of pain stored even in the muscles. Charles turned away, blew up the fire until the coals caught and glowed cherry red. "I'm sorry."

This time he could fully appreciate the little chuckle for the gesture of bravery it was. "Not your fault. But my broken bones had scarcely healed when I received my father's letter asking me to come home because he was dying." Returning the bread to its plate, Jasper pushed the tray aside, pulled the cushions from his own chair and hugged the last one to him. "I didn't wish to lie to you, Charles. I forget that my vocation has been cut away from me like a limb. I feel its phantom presence and I cannot believe it's gone."

The picture above the mantel was of St. Sebastian, tied to a pole, pierced all over with arrows. Jasper smiled at it, his eyes mercury with tears. "I grew up with that picture. I thought it so romantic; martyrdom. Jesus Christ, I had no idea!"

Charles tried to shift position, got tangled in the overlarge folds of the banyan and shucked it off. It was warmer now, much warmer. The beeswax candles above the fire gave out a thin, sweet smell of honey.

Jasper soaked the tears into his cuffs, pressed his lips together firmly. "And I have been dressing as I used to, playing the part since I came home, because I didn't want father to know. He has at most a month to live and he's made peace with that. This… no. How could I possibly burden his last days with this?"

"You couldn't." Charles reached out and took the other man's face in his hands, brushing away the faint dampness with careful fingertips. Leaning in, he touched his lips to each eyelid, and then to Jasper's lips; little butterfly touches, barely more than a breath and a brush of warmth against his mouth. "I'm so sorry."

The overlarge shirt slipped on Charles' shoulder. He gave a little twitch to encourage it to fall down entirely, pool in worn, soft folds in the bend of his elbow. "No." The breeches had already slipped to his hips, were barely clinging on there. He got to his knees and made a little shuffling step forward that made them slide lower until they outlined the curve of his buttocks through the thin shirt. "I want you to do this out of your own free choice. Please?"

"About who?" Jasper grinned. He touched his finger to the butter in the butter dish and traced the line of Charles' exposed collarbone with it, making it glisten. As Charles watched curiously, thinking how strange this was, he leaned in at one end of the line and sucked the butter off. Charles yelped with surprise, clutching involuntarily at Jasper's wide, silk clad shoulders, his prick alert and throbbing, as a fever of pleasure burst from the bone. Jasper licked and sucked his way along the line and Charles wriggled beneath him until the breeches were around his knees and he could shift forward and sometimes, just occasionally brush his prick against Jasper's kneeling thigh.

His hands felt their way down the slopes of Jasper's back, his flanks, hot beneath a single layer of linen, fumbled with breeches buttons, just as Jasper leaned away, lips glistening and that big cat smoulder back in his whiskey coloured eyes.

The next line, gleaming gold in candlelight, he drew slowly down from the row of bruises across his chest, pressed two dripping fingers to Charles' nipple, circling it, rubbing the oil in. The burst of pleasure built from fireworks to a constant rushing tingle. Charles leaned back onto the scattered cushions, bringing Jasper down with him. Now he could arch up into the mouth that seemed intent on marking him all over with little bruises. Jasper's hair trailed over his sweating skin, making him shiver with delight, and his nipple drew up tight, peaked with anticipation. When Jasper closed his teeth over it, the tug and nip were molten gold down his spine.

Kicking his loose breeches off, Charles pulled the shirt up, over his head, and lay back down, completely bare, rolling the bigger man back on top of him. Silk and thin linen dragged hot and soft against that abraded nipple. The rougher canvas of half buttoned breeches teased his belly and his engorged cock. And the weight! God! The weight of Jasper drove all the breath out of him, filled him with a black ache of need that he had to have satisfied now or he would die.

He thrust up almost painfully against the rough canvas, but Jasper drew away, gave him that lion-eyed look again and growled "I'm not finished," in a voice that dragged up his cock like a tongue.

Sitting back on his knees, Jasper drew his own shirt over his head, and even in his need-drunk state of abandon Charles breathed in sharp at the sight of him. He felt like Pygmalion; he had fallen in love with a Greek statue of an Olympic wrestler, and here it was, brought to life, pale as porcelain. He lifted his hands to worship the curves of shoulder and bicep, feel the sculpted column of his throat, the strong heartbeat beneath a powerful chest, and the arrow of dark hair that led down beneath the slipping waistband of his breeches.

The hard-scrabble, greedy need abated slightly at the sight. Yes, he wanted… but slowly. After he'd felt every inch of that skin against his, sucked those brown nipples into hard pebbles against his tongue, until he couldn't tell whose sweat drenched him, whose spit filled his mouth. "You… are a paragon," he said.

Jasper laughed and stepped out of his breeches. Heavy hips, ridged with muscle, and a cock sized to match him. Charles' mouth went dry, and prickled. He couldn't tear his gaze away.

Jasper nudged Charles' thighs further apart and knelt down between them. "If you're still using words like that, I'm not doing my job." Though the words were challenging, his hands as stroked them down Charles' sides were gentle, brushing over his hips, ghosting soft fire across the curve of his backside. Reaching for the butter again, he wrote a word on the inside of Charles' thigh, and leaned to kiss it away.

Charles scrabbled to find more cushions, propped himself up so that he could watch the dark head dip between his legs. Jasper's rough hair teased the base of his prick, a thousand little licking sensations a chorus to the slow lap of Jasper's tongue across the hollow of his thigh. The sensations welled up the great vein there, hit him in the small of his back and his belly. His prick hardened and swelled until it was almost painful, the thin skin pulled tight. A drop of pre-come fell into his belly button and a wave of shudders swept over him as if he was cold. He reached down and pulled at Jasper's hair, trying to get him to look up so that he could say “please!”

But Jasper just shifted forward a little and closed that clever mouth around the tip of Charles' cock, licking the slit clean. Charles bent like a bow, arching up, his shoulder blades digging hard into the hearth stone, small pain subsumed in this rush of red, astonished bliss. He gave a strangled cry, half shock, half keen of ecstasy, and it stopped. It stopped!

"Sssh!" said Jasper, straightening from his crouch. His right hand rolled Charles' balls gently, his fingers slipping every so often behind to stroke the flesh there with a deep pressure that aroused even the marrow of his bones.

Jasper’s swollen lips twisted in a self satisfied smile. He reached out and clamped his left hand about Charles’ mouth before bending back to his work.

Charles’ whole world narrowed down to the hand on his balls, the hand over his mouth, his own little gagged whimpers making him tremble harder with desire. And his prick, surrounded in wet heat. It was too much, all of a sudden. A black, ravenous need swept over him, he reached down, grasped Jasper’s head, held it steady and thrust. Jasper’s hands got underneath him, lifting his arse from the floor, and Jasper matched his strokes, pulled him closer. The need in him built like anger, like fury, like—
oh God! He was going to spill into someone else’s mouth!—
and then it broke, came pouring out of him in a huge cleansing, purging rush, and joy came after it.

Jasper licked him clean. Pulling up the two robes he covered Charles with them and wriggled beneath. They fitted themselves together; Charles arm beneath Jasper’s neck, Jasper’s thrown over him, pulling him in tight so that at last he felt the velvet luxury of touching Jasper’s skin with his whole body. Some panic, some dogged haunting cloud he had scarcely been aware of had gone out of him with his seed, and he fitted his head beneath Jasper’s chin and kissed the hollow of his throat in sodden, golden content.

The fire gave a comforting crackle and settled a little. Jasper’s prick, still splendidly erect, burned against the soft, sleeping form of his own. “Forgive me.”

Jasper chuckled, the deep reverberations shaking his chest, shaking loose something in Charles too. Jasper’s big hand closed about the curve of his arse, stroked it firmly, making the skin there come alive, new tingles of interest stirring in his stomach. At the second stroke, the sensation was stronger. He shifted closer, tightening his grip, so that he could press his trails of throbbing bruises against the damp silk skin of Jasper’s chest. Jasper curved his fingers and drew his nails gently down one arse cheek and then the other, and by the next stroke Charles found his hips moving of their own will, pushing back to intensify the caress like a cat arching up beneath the stroking hand.

Leaning up on his elbow, Jasper put his mouth to Charles’ ear, the soft movement of lips against the skin making him shiver with delight almost as much as the whispered “I hope to have my revenge.”

At the flare of intimidation and lust, his prick twitched, half filled. He put down a hand and closed it about Jasper’s cock, feeling the length and weight of it, the heat, the skin satin smooth. The head of it rested in his palm like a heart. “Do your worst,” he said, with only a tiny quail of nerves, and Jasper closed his eyes and murmured “mmm.”