“You ought to write plays, not act in them,” Titus said. “Good heavens, Nico. Did you come up with all that on the spot?”
“I have seenmanybad melodramas.”
Titus started laughing, in the helpless sort of way of a man who might cry. “Oh God. It’s a marvellous idea, though I’m very glad I didn’t have to do it, and—thank you, Nico. Thank you again. I don’t know why you do so much for me.”
Nico’s chest clenched viciously. “It is nothing.”
“It is everything. And I should have told you about him, because of course you would know what to do. I just—I didn’t want him here. I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.” He swallowed, watching Nico as he knelt by the chair with so much yearning in his eyes. “Nico, about earlier—”
“Mon coeur?”Please say the kiss was a mistake, Nico thought,a misjudgement, one you would rather not repeat. Please say that, because if you don’t, I can’t.
Titus was watching his face. He moved his mouth silently, trying out words, then simply reached out, his stained hand turning palm up in appeal, invitation, an offer Nico couldn’t refuse.
He took Titus’s hand.
Chapter Fifteen
Nico had taken his hand. He didn’t do anything else, though, kneeling and looking up at Titus as if he were waiting for something, and Titus stared down at him for a frozen moment, unsure what to do.
He wasn’t inexperienced. He’d had two perfectly reasonable lovers, plus Henry, who had been almost uncomfortably uninhibited in bed. He knew how to fuck; what he lacked was a way to say,You are absurdly beautiful, and I think I have been falling in love with you since we met, but there is no reason at all you should be interested in me, and I’m paralysed with fear of doing something wrong.
Maybe he should just say it. Then again, he already must look quite enough of a pathetic specimen at this moment without begging for reassurance.
He took a deep breath. “You kissed me.”
“I did.”
“Would you do it again?”
Nico was still and silent for a long second. Then he moved with that astonishing grace of his, sliding up and forward so he was sitting on Titus’s lap. Their hands were still entwined.
Titus’s breath caught. He’d thought about something like this a great deal, but for it to be happening, to have Nico’s bronze-and-fire eyes intent on his own, smiling…
He leaned forward just a little, and Nico leaned in, and their mouths met.
And he could savour it this time, not overwhelmed by panic and distress. Feel Nico’s lips, the faintest prickle of beard because he always had a touch of shadow on his chin by evening, his clever hand running up Titus’s back and into his hair. He dared reach with his own free hand, sliding it around Nico’s waist, just skimming his taut arse, and Nico made a little purring noise and shifted forward, fingers tightening.
Oh God, Nico did, actually, want this. Titus groaned, and that must have opened his mouth because Nico’s tongue met his, and then it was all kissing, and Nico’s weight on his thighs, Nico’s smell in his nose, Nico. They were kissing greedily now, open-mouthed, Nico straddling him, Titus arching into him, hot breath and panting, free hands groping.
The grandfather clock whirred and struck, a jarring chime. Titus jerked upright, dislodging Nico’s grip on his mouth, and they both laughed breathlessly.
“Merde,” Nico said. His eyes were dark-bright. “Mon ami, it is seven. We will be expected at dinner.”
“Already? How? Blast it.”
“Let us not trouble to dress,” Nico suggested. “Here.” He finger-combed Titus’s hair rapidly and tweaked his neckcloth. “That will do. So now we go through and eat like civilised men, hmm?”
“And after dinner?”
Nico’s eyes crinkled. “We could be less civilised?”
“An excellent plan,” Titus said hoarsely.
They both needed a moment to restore themselves to decency, letting swollen lips and unruly bodies subside. “By theway,” Nico remarked, adjusting his own cravat in the mirror, “the good Thorpe was aware you had a problem with Morris—not its nature, just the fact of it. He pointed me in your direction for rescue. If he seems to be considering you, that will be why.”
“Oh. Er. That was… good of him?”
“He protects his employer,” Nico said. “I like him.”