Page 26 of The Wrong Rake
And yet Harryhadtouched him, deeply and intimately, and Simon had gasped and cried out and begged for more.
Perhaps he ought to wait for a better moment, for a less public location, but his heart had swelled to bursting, and he couldn’t keep it in anymore.
He stepped closer, drawn as if on a string. “Simon,” he said, very low. “When I speak to you like that, I mean every word. And if you—do you mean to post back to London at once? Because I must speak more to you before you do. I don’t think I can say goodbye. Not if it’s for longer than a short time. I don’t know if you feel the same way. I can’t imagine that you do, you must have had lovers you preferred to me, and perhaps you even do now, but—”
“Yes!”
Harry stopped, the rest of his not-at-all-prepared speech withering on his tongue. “I beg your—you do have other lovers?” The thought stabbed him between the ribs, worse than a knife because one couldn’t deflect it, couldn’t do anything at all to stop the pain.
“No, you idi—no,” Simon cried. “No, I mean, yes, to what you were asking me. What I believe you were asking me. Yes. A thousand times, yes.”
Harry stared, unable to believe that he, rough and unpolished Henry Standish, had rendered the smooth and eloquent Simon Beaumont incoherent. But incoherent or not, Simon had said yes. To him, essentially, for he’d proposed nothing concrete. No real plan. Only the idea of Harry and Simon’s association lasting beyond this jaunt to Bath.
He’d said yes.
And Harry realized that the details truly didn’t signify. All of his fretting over what he’d do in London, or what his family would think of him haring off from Bath after only being home for such a short time, mattered little if at all. If a man of his experience and active temperament couldn’t find a way to conquer those problems, then he didn’t deserve the happiness he was beginning to be rather certain he could find in Simon’s company, and in his arms.
He took one more step, pushing the limits of how near it would be acceptable for two gentlemen, or really two people of any kind, to stand to one another on the street. He could almost feel the heat of Simon’s body. God, but he longed to pull him into his arms.
“We ought to go back to the inn,” he said with some urgency. “Now. Before I do something rash.”
Simon beamed up at him, his mouth quirking in a mischievous little smile. “I’d prefer not to spend my time in Bath before a magistrate,” he replied. “But Harry, that—absurd woman said she’d call on your family. And I think perhaps you must go to them first and prepare them, tell them everything, as soon as you can. And then—if you come to see me in London, perhaps? Soon? Because I’ll return today. I must. Jasper—the third of us, who owns Perdition? He’s been busy of late, and Caesar needs me there.”
Harry ached, bone-deep and soul-deep and also, because he was a simple man, in his half-hard cock, to simply forget his responsibilities and drag Simon back to the inn, there to hold him down and pleasure him until Simon forgot too.
But Simon had the right of it, damn him.
And Harry did want to see Amelia’s face when he related the scene with Mrs. Carlyle.
“I’ll come back to you. I give you my word. Soon, very soon indeed. Don’t forget about me?”
He hadn’t intended to sound so plaintive, but he couldn’t shake the idea that the moment Simon returned to London and Perdition, surrounded by his friends and by men who’d be only too happy to take him to bed, he’d wonder why he’d wanted Harry in the first place.
“I’ll be waiting,” Simon said, and brushed his hand against Harry’s, the only touch they could risk before the whole world. That simple, fleeting contact burned in Harry’s veins, a promise he’d carry with him until he could see Simon again.
And then Simon smiled, turned, and walked swiftly away.
Chapter Eleven
Across the street the door to Perdition opened to admit a group of well-dressed gentlemen, their laughter and chatter carrying clearly to where Harry lurked in the shelter of the same tree he’d stood under the first time he’d come to find “Simon Beaumont.”
And now he knew that the real Simon Beaumont could be found behind those doors, perhaps presiding over the gaming parlor, or perhaps in his office upstairs.
Or in his bedchamber, in the arms of another man.
It had been a week since they parted in Bath, Harry spending the intervening time enjoying his family’s company and escorting Amelia to a series of assemblies, recitals, and card parties. Mrs. Carlyle had been far from discreet, as Simon had hoped and planned, and Bath had been abuzz with the tale of Adam Beaumont, who’d posed as his brother, attempted to impose upon an heiress, and insulted Miss Standish most dreadfully.
Previously shunned, Amelia had now become something of a heroine, nobly bearing up under her tribulations.
She wore a great deal of white, held her head high, and smiled beatifically upon her legions of suitors.
In short, she was reveling in it. And Harry’s mother was beside herself with glee at the prospect of her daughter finding a far better match than she would have otherwise with her very moderate fortune.
Harry had finally managed to tear himself away, pleading business affairs, a friend with an urgent request for his help with a personal matter, and the superiority of London tailors (that one a desperate last resort, as his family knew full well how little he cared about such things), and finally simply telling them he meant to go on the morrow, and that was that.
He’d come up on the stage, and here he was, heart pounding and palms clammy.
With Perdition, and Simon, only a few yards away.
