A Collar and Tie (Ganymede Quartet Book 4) (64 page)

Henry blinked against threatened tears, his face hot.
Gruffly, he said, “All right, then. I suppose I ought to find a partner.”

Ginevra Collingsworth, the quadrille partner whose position
Abigail had usurped, was standing idle with her slave near the doorway to the
ballroom, and she graciously accepted Henry’s invitation to dance. She was a
good dancer—Henry thought her best of all the girls, actually—and he did enjoy
the opportunity to show off a bit with a partner who was up to the challenge,
but he couldn’t help remembering how it had felt to dance with Martin, so
responsive and musical, strong yet yielding. Miss Collingsworth smelled faintly
of lilacs, and it was quite pleasant, but it simply didn’t compare to the
grassy, masculine enticement of vetiver.

As he circled the room with Miss Collingsworth in his arms,
Henry looked to Martin as often as he could without colliding with other
dancers. Martin stood with his friends, a convivial circle, but his eyes were
on Henry, mouth quirked in an enigmatic smile, and it seemed possible he, too,
was thinking of how he’d abandoned himself to Henry’s lead at the men’s ball.

When the tune came to an end, Henry rid himself of Miss
Collingsworth as quickly as he could without being rude, reuniting her with her
waiting slave and making his excuses. Martin caught up with him at the ballroom
door.

“Did you want some punch, Sir?” Martin cocked his head,
alert and attentive, ready to provide whatever Henry needed.

“No, not now. Come on. Come with me.” Henry coaxed him with
impatient hand gestures, waving him forward. He headed for the entry hall and
the staircase, Martin following close behind.

The crowd thinned out, just a few strangers strolling in and
out of the front parlors. Henry was only concerned about being seen by Father,
but Father wasn’t loitering in the entry hall; he was probably smoking up a
blue cloud with Timothy in the privacy of his office.

“Where are we going, Sir?” Martin asked in a loud whisper.

Henry pulled him toward the stairs by his wrist. “Hurry,
before someone sees us.”

Martin hurried, but he asked again, “Sir, where are we
going?”

Henry led him upstairs. “If anyone asks, we went looking for
liquor.”

“Liquor, Sir?”

“It’s an excuse.” Henry tugged him toward his bedroom door.
“People will believe it.” He opened his door, pulled Martin inside, and locked
the door behind them.

“Henry?”

Henry pushed him up against the door, took his face between
his hands, and kissed him. “I couldn’t stand not kissing you a minute more,” he
murmured between kisses. “Down in the ballroom, I was smelling your vetiver and
wanting you so badly. I’m crazy about you, Martin. I love you so much.”

Martin laughed. “I love you, too. What are we doing, Henry?”

Henry snorted. “I think you know.”

“Henry, you have
guests
!” Despite his protests,
Martin was putting up only token resistance.

“It doesn’t have to take long,” Henry said. “It doesn’t even
have to be mutual. I just want to make you come.” He touched Martin through his
trousers and found he was already hard.

Martin considered this offer a moment, his regard fond and
indulgent, and Henry knew he was going to say yes. “We’ll have to hurry,” he
decided. He leaned forward and kissed Henry while they shed their jackets,
letting them fall to the carpet. Henry reached for Martin’s buttons, but Martin
stayed his hands.

“Wait,” Martin said. “Not here.” He took Henry’s wrist and
pulled him toward the connecting door.

“Where—?”

“My room,” Martin said, tugging him past the bathroom.
“We’ve never done so much as kiss in my room and…we should change that.”

They stood facing each other at Martin’s bedside. Martin’s
furniture was not quite so grand as Henry’s, but it was very elaborate for a
slave’s room. His coverlet matched Henry’s. It was a nice room, especially for
a slave, but Henry felt guilty that he’d made Martin sleep here alone for so
many weeks. Martin belonged at his side so long as he wanted to be there. Henry
would have to be good to Martin to ensure Martin would want that, too.

Martin folded his glasses and put them on the nightstand,
then kissed Henry and smiled, playful and conspiratorial, and made short work
of his own buttons. “You look so serious.” He parted the fly of his trousers
and showed Henry his pretty cock, fever-pink and wet at the head.

Henry shook off his melancholy. “I’m serious about making
you come.” He reached for Martin’s cock and wrapped his fingers around its hot
length.

Martin’s laugh modulated into a shaky moan and he leaned
into Henry’s touch. He rubbed his face against Henry’s neck, arching into his
grip. “Oh,” he said, “we shouldn’t get our clothes messy.” He took a half-step
back, though not entirely out of Henry’s reach.

“We could get undressed,” Henry suggested hopefully.

Martin shook his head. “We can’t take the time. If we’re
gone too long, someone will come looking. And your father would
definitely
guess what we’ve been up to.”

Henry blushed at the thought. Father would not look kindly
on Henry leaving to have sex in the middle of his own birthday party, and he’d
blame Martin for allowing it.

Martin sidestepped and sat down on the bed with a bounce. He
held out his hand in invitation. “Come here, Henry. Lie down with me. We’ve never
done anything on my bed before.” As Henry sat beside him, he flopped down on
his back. The rumpled tail of his shirt hid his cock and Henry reached to push
it up and out of the way.

“Lie down.” Martin tugged on his shirt sleeve. “Lie down on
my bed with me.”

Henry lay facing Martin and touched his face as they kissed.
“I didn’t know you wanted to have sex in here. We could have done it before,
you know.”

Martin laughed, his breath hot against Henry’s cheek. “I
didn’t know I wanted to, either.” He gave Henry a lingering, honeyed kiss, his
tongue tracing the shape of Henry’s lip. “What do
you
want to do?”

What Henry wanted was to kiss Martin and stroke his cock, to
kiss him until the last possible moment and then take him in his mouth as he
broke open. He wanted Martin’s sighs and throaty moans, Martin’s scintillating
breath in his ear. He wanted Martin’s cockhead wet and insistent against his
palm, sliding through his grip. He wanted the taste of Martin’s semen spreading
over his tongue, Martin’s raw cries abrading his nerves. He wanted to hear
Martin call his name with the inflection that made ‘Henry’ sound like an entire
heartfelt language unto itself. He wanted to make up for all the weeks he’d
denied them both this closeness and pleasure.

But he said only, “I told you, I want to make you come,” and
wrapped his fingers around Martin’s cock.

Martin moaned into Henry’s mouth, clinging to his shoulders,
and thrust into his tight fist, slick and silky, thrumming and urgent. The
smell of him was intoxicating, grassy vetiver over the salt and milk of his
skin and the sharp, bright tang of arousal. His kisses were greedy, his cries
wanton, his body hot and lithe and strong. He was overwhelming, more than Henry
deserved, all Henry would ever want.

Martin broke off kissing. “
Henry
. Henry, do you know
what I remember?” he asked, pressured and low.

“No, what?” Henry barely had the wherewithal to say that
much. All of his effort was focused on Martin’s straining prick and trying to
ignore the insistent messages from his own, strangled and stifled in drawers
and trousers.

Martin’s rough whisper sent sparks along Henry’s nerves. “I
remember dancing with you, and I remember you going to your knees for me. I
remember coming in your mouth with all those men watching. I remember you
coming in your trousers, Henry. Are you going to do that now?” His cock flexed
against Henry’s fingers.

Henry shuddered and groaned. God, he hoped not! He should
undo his buttons, he should prevent a disaster, but he didn’t want to stop
touching Martin, who arched into his grip with voluptuous abandon, pushing
through his fingers.

“You can’t do that this time, Henry. We can’t make a mess.”
Martin shivered, lip held between his teeth, forehead pressed to Henry’s as he
fumbled in his waistcoat pocket. His voice thin with strain, he said, “I can’t
find my handkerchief. Henry, stop, I can’t—”

“It’s okay. You can come in my mouth,” Henry said, sliding
his thumb across the wet slit of Martin’s cockhead. “Tell me when—”

“I’m close, Henry, so close.” Martin kissed him, a
nectar-sweet sweep of tongue and a sharp nip tasting of copper. He thrust
against Henry’s fist, ragged jerks, just short of frenzied. “Oh god, Henry,
Henry
,
I—”

Henry hurriedly hunched down to take Martin into his mouth,
but he wasn’t quick enough and caught the first spurt on his face, a hot splat
beneath his left eye, and the unfamiliar sensation startled him stupid so that
he almost missed the second pulse, too, splashing his cheek and the corner of
his mouth. He managed to cram Martin’s cock into his mouth and suck it deep for
the rest of Martin’s spasms, wrenching jerks that filled his throat with spunk.

His own cock throbbed almost painfully, but he hadn’t come
in his drawers, not quite. Martin’s mess slid down his face; he put out his tongue
and licked up a bitter-salty drop.

Martin sighed and went limp under his mouth and hands. He
petted Henry’s head. “Oh, Henry. That got you, didn’t it?”

“A little bit,” Henry admitted. “It’s all right. It won’t
hurt me.” He unfolded himself to lie beside Martin again and searched his
pockets for his own handkerchief.

“No, let me.” Martin leaned over him and bent to lick his
face clean, lapping like a cat. When he was done, he kissed Henry and smiled at
him, so loving and warm, and Henry felt forgiven all over again.

“What should I do for you?” Martin asked, reaching to
squeeze him through his trousers.

Even though Henry’s spine stiffened in outrage as he spoke
the words, Henry said, “Nothing for now. We can’t be gone too long. You said it
yourself.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.” He squeezed again, and Henry’s
prick gave a hopeful throb.

“You can make it up to me later,” Henry said with a shrug,
even though he knew full well that
he
was the one who needed to make up
for things. “Now stop touching me, all right? I’ll stay hard forever if you
keep touching me.” He laughed and pushed Martin’s hand away.

Henry sat on the bed waiting for his cock to go soft and
watched as Martin stood and put his clothes back in order. He was such an
elegant young man, a refined creature, and Henry wished yet again that he could
dress Martin in a free man’s garb. He wished that Martin would enjoy it.

“Months ago, I had this idea that I’d get you something new
and I’d dress you up for our birthdays,” he admitted. “I tried to tell myself
that you’d enjoy it, too, but you wouldn’t, would you?”

Martin smiled down at his waistcoat buttons. “You know I
don’t want to do things differently than the others, at least not in public.”

There was a loophole there, but Henry’s sex-dimmed brain did
not quite apprehend it.

“But in private…” Martin said, smoothing the chrysanthemum
waistcoat against his torso. “With how interested you are in dressing me up,
I’ve often wondered why you’ve never asked me to wear
your
clothes when
we’re alone.”

“
My
clothes?” It had never occurred to Henry. He’d
dressed Martin in his clothes out of necessity when they’d run away, and he’d
liked the effect, but he’d still thought in terms of Martin’s own wardrobe,
expanding Martin’s sartorial choices to include color and pattern. However,
Henry’s clothes did fit Martin, and they were certainly to Henry’s taste.

“Yes,
your
clothes.”

“But I know you…you don’t want to play at being free. I know
this, Martin, and I said I wouldn’t make you do—”

Martin shook his head. “This is different, Henry. A game we
play at home, in private, will be fun for both of us. I don’t want to go out
into the world pretending to be someone I’m not, but I’m happy to do it for you
here in your bedroom with the door locked. Just us.”

Henry began to consider the possibilities. Martin
did
like games. “You’d really do it? Wear the whole outfit?”

Martin laughed and bent to kiss him, brief and sweet. “Of
course I would.”

“Plaid suit?” Henry asked. “Paisley waistcoat?” And, most
importantly, his voice trembling a little as he asked, “Collar and tie?”

Martin smiled. “Most certainly a collar and tie.” Martin
leaned in, lowering his voice, “And I’ll introduce myself to you as Mr.
Durant.”

“Oh…” The idea made Henry weak and hot, shifting restlessly
to take the pressure off his cock.

Martin laughed again. “You’re imagining it, aren’t you? Stop
thinking about it, dirty boy. We need to go downstairs.”

“Can we play later?” Henry asked. “After everyone leaves?”

Martin grinned. “I look forward to it.”

Henry was quite overcome with the mental pictures, so much
so that he asked Martin to leave him alone in the room to calm down, and this
brief, embarrassing period of solitude did help temper his physical excitement.
When he joined Martin again out in his own bedroom, he blushed to look at him,
imagining him dressed as Mr. Durant. Oh, there had to be something wrong with
him that he found this so arousing!

Downstairs in the crowded party rooms, they hadn’t been
missed much.

Louis asked, “Where were you, anyway?”

Henry shrugged and said, “I had to use the toilet.”

Louis seemed to accept this explanation without reservation.
“You know, Henry, you should have introduced me to your cousins a long time
ago.”

“You like them? I’m glad.”

“Eli’s a good guy. That Jesse, though…” Louis thought about
what he would say. “He’s different. Exciting. I don’t know how to describe it.
Anyway, you’re lucky. All my cousins are boring.”