“I’m not afraid of the bloody Armstrongs.”
“This is not about fighting. This is about evidence, and how we transfer it from them to us, so that at the end of this farrago, they are arrested and we are not. If the Armstrongs destroy everything in that cabinet before the authorities see it, we’ll have failed. If they use those damned photographs against us, you’ll be looking at a scandal at best, two years hard at worst.”
“And if the Armstrongs or those men of theirs catch you sneaking around?” Curtis demanded. “What about that shallow grave under the redwoods?”
Da Silva winced. “I shall attempt to avoid that. This isn’t worth the argument. Just go to London and leave the rest to me.”
“The devil I will.” Curtis took a furious stride forward. “If you think I’m coward enough to hide behind your skirts—”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I will not protect my honour at the risk of another man’s life,” Curtis gritted out. “That is not what honour means. Do you understand that?”
“In fact, despite being a mere dago, I understand very well what honour means.” Da Silva looked rather white around the mouth. “I forced you into that encounter last night. I’ll deal with the consequences.”
“I’m not a bloody woman and I don’t need your bloody protection from a compromising situation, like some tart in a melodrama!” Curtis glared into his face. “Who the hell do you think you are to give me orders?”
“Dear sweet heaven. This is not the moment to reclaim your masculinity.”
“What?”
He was right up against da Silva now. The slighter man had his back to the wall, and there was alarm in his dark eyes, but no sign of retreat.
“I’m sorry I infringed your manliness last night,” da Silva bit out. “I apologise for sucking your cock. I realise you would prefer to act the noble hero after such an unmanning experience, but I am more concerned with getting the Armstrongs to the gallows without either of us suffering in the process. Understand?”
Curtis was choking on everything he wanted to say. Angry denial jostled with the desire to put the bloody encroaching sod in his place, to stop him talking. And worst of all was the awareness sparked by da Silva’s crude, shameless words. He wanted to hit him. He wanted to grab him and drag him forward, as da Silva had seized him back in the library last night. He had no idea what he’d do when he got hold of him.
“I apologise,” da Silva hissed, sounding more like a Cape cobra than a man expressing regret. “I abase myself, I grovel, is that what you need to hear? Would it help if I fell to my knees?”
Curtis’s heart stopped. The image in his mind was all-consuming. He couldn’t speak, and he knew his face must be betraying him but he couldn’t seem to control it. There was a tiny, ringing moment of silence.
“Ah,” said da Silva.
Curtis couldn’t quite breathe through the tightness in his chest. Da Silva’s eyes were unreadable, and his lips were parted, and very close.
“Is that it? If I went to my knees, is that what you want?”
This was outrageous. Unjustifiable. No excuse now. Curtis was as stiff and hard as a gun barrel, and he was quite sure that da Silva knew it.
Da Silva straightened away from the wall so that he was no more than a few inches from Curtis’s face, his body a whisper away. “Conditions, Curtis. If I do this, it is because you want it. You ask me for it. You do not accuse me of forcing anything on you against your will.”
Curtis made an inarticulate noise of protest at the very idea. Da Silva’s eyes were dark on his. “I mean it. If it would salve your bruised manliness to have your cock sucked, then say so.”
Curtis had no idea why da Silva was accusing him of feeling unmanly. He hadn’t felt so masculine in years. Desire was another thing Jacobsdal had taken from him, along with fingers and career and friends; he had barely summoned up the energy for the relief of his left hand in months. Now, as he stared at those parted lips, knowing what they could do, he felt as though da Silva had blown up a dam and set a torrent thundering through a long-dry course.
But he wasn’t a poet, so he didn’t say that.
“Tell me what you want.” Da Silva’s voice was tight, breathing hard.
“I want…I want you to do it.”
“Do what?”
“On your knees,” Curtis said. “Suck me.”
Da Silva flicked a handkerchief from his pocket and spread it on the floorboards, kneeling on it. Curtis watched his movements, frozen with incredulity and need. Then da Silva, without looking up, took hold of his waistband. Buttons flicked, cloth was pushed aside, and his rigid cock was out, achingly hard. It looked huge next to da Silva’s handsome features.
“What do you want? Do you want to come in my mouth?”
“Oh God, yes. Please.”