Clockwork Tangerine (8 page)

A basket that previously had been filled with picnic foods they’d shared by a small creek and splashed in like children before shaking themselves off in the afternoon sun.

“Yes,” Robin repeated. “I trust you.”

“Good, because I need to do something. Something I should have done a long time ago.” Marcus set his cigarillo down on a pot metal Chinese dragon dish he’d found during one of their meanderings at the local bazaar. Turning around, he reached for Robin and slid his broad hand under Robin’s hair to cup the back of his head. “Come here.”

Marcus’s touch was a familiar one by now, but the feel of the man’s work-roughened fingers against his scalp brought life to Robin’s cock. His skin tingled, much as if he had licked a current or spelled an arcane node wrong. Marcus’s hand guided him closer, and Robin leaned in, perplexed at what the man was intending, but when Marcus slid over the davenport’s cushions, Robin nearly pulled back in surprise.

Then he gasped with shock when Marcus’s mouth touched his and the man’s lips stole the breath from his body.

The tang of cherry and light wood lingered on Marcus’s tongue, a strong perfume of tobacco that bled away to a more intriguing dusky taste of
man
. To be specific, a single man… one Robin often pondered over and fantasized about tasting.

It was much better than he’d ever imagined, and Robin now knew he could die happy with the flavors of Marcus Stenhill in his memories.

Marcus pressed in, pulling Robin into his arms before leaning them both back onto the davenport’s arm. The heavier man’s weight spread over Robin’s legs and chest, distributed carefully so as not to crush, but Robin still felt the heft of him along his body. It felt as wonderful as Marcus’s mouth.

The mouth that continued to explore his own until he whimpered from lack of air. Their lips parted briefly… long for Robin’s liking, but it was enough for him to exhale and breathe before Marcus descended again, his hands clenched in the strands of Robin’s black mane as they skillfully guided Robin into a deeper kiss.

If his breath was stolen by the first one, the second clearly abducted his reason, because Robin’s world became a speck of cushion and the length of hard muscle, sinew, and bone lying on top of him. His hands couldn’t find enough of a purchase on the man holding him down. There didn’t seem to be one spot he could stop and say this was perfect, because in a few inches, another area lured him in. The breadth of Marcus’s shoulders begged to be explored, and the line of his throat needed to be licked, but he only had his fingers, as his mouth was still enraptured by the viscount who’d rescued him.

Then Marcus pulled away, just enough to stare down at Robin’s besotted face, and he was left gasping again, gulping at the blend of tobacco and Marcus left behind on his ravaged lips.

“Do you still trust me, little crow?” Marcus whispered. “And will you let me give you more?”

T
HEY
BARELY
made it upstairs. It was a near thing. Between dodging a wide-eyed maid carrying towels into Marcus’s room and accidentally frightening Robin’s hairless gargoyle of a cat when they came in, Marcus thought he’d die from anticipation before the first button on Robin’s shirt was popped from its prison.

The cat screamed her displeasure, probably calling down the fury of all cat gods on their heads, but she slipped out of the room in a high temper, and Marcus kicked the door shut behind them.

He’d slammed it hard enough to rattle the glazed glass windows, but he kept Robin busy enough the man didn’t notice the noise. Marcus’s hands were hot from running over Robin’s slender torso, and he could taste the brandy on Robin’s tongue, flavored with a hint of the cigarillo smoke he’d blown into the man’s mouth.

Beneath that was the sweetness of Robin, a blend of man, lemon soap, and a hint of arcane―a tingle of erotic strangeness he’d had no contact with until he’d met his bespectacled inventor.

It was a taste as addicting as fine chocolate or rich coffee, and Marcus was quickly surrendering to the power of its lure―of Robin’s lure.

And Marcus wanted to die drowning in it. In the man himself if God was willing.

From the way Robin tore at the buttons on Marcus’s waistcoat, God wasn’t the only one who was willing.

Marcus moved forward, backing Robin into the room. Their tongues did battle, a furious dance then a slow engagement, feeling one another out. Marcus marveled at the texture of the man’s mouth, the smooth ridges at the roof and then the silken roughness of his tongue. The sweetness of Robin’s kiss stilled suddenly when the man’s legs struck the edge of the bed and Robin’s soulful eyes flew open, startled at the sudden impact.

“If you tell me to stop, I will,” Marcus promised, his hands poised at the ready to undo the line of buttons closing the front of Robin’s linen shirt.

He wasn’t unaware of the horrors perpetrated on New Bedlam Island. If anything, what little he knew only fueled his imagination, and suddenly the slender, beautiful man he longed to bury himself in seemed to need more than lust and desire to stoke his arousal. Perhaps even to know that Marcus would pull away, hurting with want, if Robin couldn’t dip down deeper into their intimacy.

But then Marcus also now feared any sexual encounter Robin might have had came at the cruel and brutal hands of uncaring men who only sought to show their dominance and slake their own desires.

“I want you to want this, little crow.” Marcus couldn’t seem to shake off using his nickname for Robin. The man bore little resemblance to a small, twittering brown bird. He was sleek and glossy, with black as a raven’s wing hair and the sculpted strong features of a Roman emperor. “I am serious. I want you to want this. To want me….”

“You have no idea how much I want you.” Robin’s hands stole up the inside of Marcus’s waistcoat, straining the buttons in their fastenings. “I just… don’t really know how to do… this. Everything I’ve done, the men before—they weren’t—they weren’t like you, Marcus.”

“If I do this right, there will never be anyone for you but me.”

It was a heavy promise, one laden with complications, but the words… the sentiment of it felt right. No matter what the next day would bring, Marcus would do everything in his power to ensure Robin’s safety and happiness.

“You can’t say that.” The man he’d nursed back to health paled to an alarming white, and Marcus wondered if Robin was strong enough for anything other than a kiss and a tuck into his bed. “What we’re doing here… it has to be kept secret. I’m branded as a sodomite. Even your visiting me—staying here—puts you in danger. Your title won’t protect you from that, Marcus. You have to know that what we have… what we share… could ruin you. It could ruin your entire family.”

“I know what I’m doing, Robin. I know what I’m risking.” He sat Robin down on the bed, studiously examining a button at the man’s collar he longed to undo. Marcus knew what awaited him under the shirt’s fabric. He’d seen enough of Robin’s delectably naked body while he’d been in recovery, but the time they’d spent together had added a bit more muscle and flesh onto the man’s slender form, and Marcus ached to explore every inch of skin he could.

“You know but you persist in this?” Robin put his hands over Marcus’s to hold him still but stopped short of removing Marcus’s hands from his body. “Do you want to spend two years on the island? Do you want to dream of smelling your own flesh cooking? Because I can tell you, I don’t want that for you. I would spare you that.”

“And I would spare you the fear of being attacked in the streets while you’re trying to make a little boy’s life better.” Marcus pushed Robin down onto the mattress and straddled his legs to keep him there. “Listen to me, love.”

“I can’t. There’s too much danger—”

Marcus cut him off. “Too much danger? How so? Do you know how many bachelors have their friends living with them? In my world, it’s as commonplace as having tea in the afternoon or riding with the hounds. No one will think anything of you coming to live at Westwood. And if anyone asks, I will tell them about your work and how I want there to be a safe place for you to develop those legs or that eye. This isn’t just about my loving you. It’s about redemption, Robin Harris. It’s about taking away the scorn and derision heaped upon you by people who did not know better. You were taken advantage of. My God, man, you were fourteen years old! You should have been in London and having your brilliance nurtured instead of being a scapegoat in a failed uprising.”

“History is written by the victors,” Robin reminded him softly. “I certainly did not win in that conflict.”

“No,” Marcus agreed, saddened by the shadows in his lover’s eyes. “But I can ensure that you will win in its aftermath. I refuse to let you go, my mad scientist. I would rather live as a Bedlamite with you than as an aristocrat with an empty soul. I told you, I
know
what I’m risking. And that is you. If I don’t do this―if I
don’t
spend my life listening to you, breathing you in… waking up next to you, then I’ve lost
everything
.
That
is what I am risking―a life without the man who makes me feel alive.”

For as long as he lived, Marcus would remember the kiss Robin gave him in that moment of declaration. It was far from passionate. This was not a torrid meeting of tongues and a battle for dominance. Instead, they met in a light skim of their lips, a tentative touch of Robin’s tongue against the plump of Marcus’s mouth before he parted his own lips and moaned for Marcus to take him.

The man could have meant anything by those words. To deepen the kiss. To lay Robin out on the bed and savage his body with a fierce lovemaking. Instead, Marcus took it for what his heart needed it to be: to envelop Robin into his life and make the man his.

“Mine,” Marcus whispered in promise. “Just as I’m yours.”

Their clothes would not survive the encounter. Marcus was sure of it. He heard something rip and then a longer tearing sound, followed by the ping of buttons striking wood. One must have hit the mechanical miniature peacock Robin had left on the side table, because a soft chiming filled the room, eventually stilling to a murmuring jangle.

“I should move that.” Robin briefly glanced toward the complex automaton, but Marcus caught him up by the chin.

“Really, if the peacock is what you’re focused on right now, then I’m doing a piss-poor job of seducing you, Dr. Harris.” Marcus nipped at his lover’s mouth.

“Maybe you should increase your efforts, Viscount Westwood,” Robin teased. “Because I’m sure you can come up with another cock I’d be more interested in.”

“I am certain I could.” Marcus nearly spilled his seed at the sight of Robin’s milky skin on the bright white sheets. “My God, Robin. Just… look at you. You’re beautiful.”

That got a blush pinking the man’s cheeks, and it worked down over his chest, even pooling over his flat stomach for an instant before fading away. Turning, Robin reached to extinguish the light from the nearby lamp, but Marcus stopped him, grasping the man’s wrist and guiding Robin’s hand up to his mouth.

“You’ll… see… everything,” Robin whispered hotly.

“Exactly.” He kissed the rise of flesh on Robin’s palm. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

R
OBIN
HAD
no words for the sensations filling him. He tried to find some. Anything to anchor himself into the moment, but the feeling of Marcus’s blunt fingers pushing into him stole everything he had away.

There’d been other men—other encounters—but those were hurried and shameful groping in alleys and the back rooms of pubs. And every time the man Robin chose to breech him spilled his release too soon, either on his leg or even his unfurled hole. No one had ever pushed past the tightness of his clenched ring.

No one until Marcus.

The torture of it was exquisite. The aromatic oils were a spicy blend of orange and a hint of clove, which Robin suspected added to the tingling burn of the intrusion. He would have to experiment later… perhaps using different oils with Marcus to see how they felt.

If he survived the first experience intact, because something the man touched inside of him lit his nerves on fire, and Robin’s limbs tightened and shook from the shock.

“There we are, darling,” Marcus murmured gently.

He stroked Robin’s temple while his other hand kept busy delving deeper and deeper into Robin’s core. The press of the man’s fingers against his ring left Robin gasping and then mewling when Marcus slid them free and poured more oils against his now pouting hole. The sheets on his back were smooth, a satiny silken blend he could clench his fingers into when he braced himself for Marcus’s hand to reenter him, but instead, his lover took up the vial of oils and filled his palm with a dollop.

Then Marcus slicked the hard length of his cock, ruching back its cowl, and Robin’s mouth went dry with apprehension.

It seemed nearly as wide around as his wrist, and while Robin knew muscle and skin had elasticity, the give of his body seemed barely enough to allow Marcus to push two fingers into him. Certainly they were wide digits, but not in comparison to the heft Marcus sported between his legs.

“Marcus, you’re too―” Robin swallowed, his mind racing to do spatial estimates based on what little he knew about his muscled ring. He’d touched it rarely, only exploring its satiny edge when he imagined Marcus touching him in the middle of the night.

Now Marcus was nearly finger-deep into his channel, and the burning sweet of it nearly made him lose his load. Being stretched out by the thick length of meat jutting up from Marcus’s crotch was too much for him to wrap his mind around.

“It’ll fit,” Marcus assured him, apparently reading the shock on his face. “Just remember to breathe, little crow. Breathe and let me pleasure you.”

Pleasure wasn’t what Robin felt.

Robin felt combustion would have been a better choice, especially with the slow burn of Marcus’s cock head as it strained Robin’s entrance. Tight was a concept long forgotten beneath an alarmed panic, but the slithering feel of Marcus’s hands on his chest took the fluttering away. And when the man’s head lowered and his lips closed over one of Robin’s nipples, Robin finally found the pleasure Marcus spoke of.