Then Jack pushed those fingers between his lips, without warning or ceremony.
Alan made a sound. It was stifled. He knew himself and his desires; he’d walked their boundaries pretty fucking thoroughly after nine years of being the Roman. If he’d thought about it specifically he would have agreed that yes, having Lord Hawthorn’s fingers shove over his tongue and fill his mouth would be likely to send blood rushing to his cock.
He wouldn’t have known the half of it.
He closed his eyes, because he could already feel and taste and smell the man in front of him, could hear the small, wet noises of his own mouth, and sight was going to be—too much. He shrank his world down to the insistence of those fingers and the way it felt to suck them and let his tongue explore. It was as if a string were tied to the base of his cock and the other end tugged hard whenever he swallowed. Brown light gathered behind his eyelids. His breath was hot and then it was forgotten, irrelevant.
“Christ,” Jack said, hoarse. “You want it so much, don’t you?”
Alan coughed as the fingers withdrew. He cracked his eyes open and managed to glare. “No.”
“Nice try, Mr. Ross. I know exactly what sort of man you are. You followed me in here panting for a prick in your mouth, and that’s what you’ll have.”
Alan could have resisted the push to his shoulder, but he let it bear him to his knees, his traitor mouth already watering further. The ugly carpet was surprisingly comfortable. Or perhaps it just beat wet cobbles. Or perhaps the rest of Alan’s body was so warm with anticipation, howling with so much need as Jack took commanding hold of his hair, that he wouldn’t have noticed if he’d been kneeling on spikes.
He let his hands rest on Jack’s legs. The wool of those black trousers was incredibly fine and light.
A tug at his hair raised his face. He wasn’t ready for it. The skin of his cheeks and forehead felt exposed, naked to the elements, to the wild sunlight and strange sleet that was the way Jack stared down at him now.
“Fuck,” said Jack. It was soft and bruised-sounding. It didn’t sound like an act.
Alan swallowed. Waited. Jack’s fingertips rubbed against his scalp, sending a new and delicious set of shivers to join all of those already on duty. His lordship seemed reluctant to release Alan’s hair for long enough to unfasten his own trousers and drawers.
So Alan did it for him. He wasn’t unfamiliar with handling a gentleman’s garments from this angle, though it had been a while. And Christ, he was motivated.
When he drew out Jack’s prick, already halfway hard in his hand, there was a sharp inhalation from above him. Alan wrapped his fingers around the base and thought, hilariously, silk hats.
And then he did what he’d wanted to do since approximately ten minutes after first laying eyes on Lord Hawthorn, pistols and hatred and deadly peril be damned. He leaned in and took the very tip of that prick between his lips, savage pleasure filling him at how warm and vulnerable the flesh was as it filled his mouth.
“Now then, you little tart,” said Jack. “I am going to use you, and I’m going to enjoy it.”
A strangled moan parted Alan’s lips and Jack took swift advantage of it, forcing them wider. Alan took him deep, eager, and gave a few hard sucks with his fingers still wrapped around half the length so he could control how much he took. Those few sucks were all he managed; then Jack tugged him off again. Alan shot a look up in silent query.
Jack looked merciless. He sounded parched. “I said use.”
Because Lord Hawthorn was better than a psychic on a stage. He was something carved to Alan’s specifications; hell, Alan had practically carved this man himself, with his pen, page after page and fantasy after fantasy. Jack had read them all. He knew exactly what Alan wanted. He was exactly what Alan wanted.
So Alan slackened his mouth and released his fingers, and let Jack move him back and forth as though he really were nothing more than a tool for Jack’s pleasure.
Some people fucked to feel more present in the world; Alan, when he let himself fuck, did it to be less present for a while. To allow his grim grip on the world to loosen. He had to concentrate on being careful with his teeth, but the rest of him was lost in a dreamy web of painful pleasure—breathing raggedly around Jack’s thrusts, his chin increasingly wet, his own cock rigid when he pressed a hand against it.
It seemed like no time at all before Jack was spilling into his mouth, with no warning beyond a thickening of taste and the palm behind Alan’s head flattening out to hold him firmly in place.
That was definitely on the side of things that might be labelled perverse.
Alan finished swallowing. The pressure behind his head went slack and Jack’s fingers were slow to unwind from Alan’s hair when Alan pulled away. Pride struck a match in Alan as he tucked Jack’s cock back into his drawers and did up the trouser fastenings, feeling oddly tender and finicky about it. Then he stood. He brushed at carpet dust on his knees.
Business concluded, Alan expected Jack to step back, but he was as close as ever. There was a thick, thoughtful pause while they looked at each other.
“To be fair,” said Alan, “that is more or less why I followed you in here.”
Jack’s lips twitched. “Filthy whoreson brat.”
“Overbred shit-sucking prick.”
Jack laughed.
Some time ago Alan had tripped over the word zephyr in a book. By context it seemed to be a kind of gentle ghost, breathing both hot and cold at once. He felt that, now, in the minuscule space between them. He felt it when Jack ran his thumb over Alan’s tingling mouth.
No kissing. Alan’s own rule. Alan was a cup with water trembling at the brim, his senses were so full.
“How do you smell so fucking expensive?” he muttered.
“I’d tell you how much this cologne cost, but I’m worried we’ll be back at guillotines.”
Alan indulged himself, leaning forward and taking a deep breath. No flowers. Nothing sweet or edible. The layered, complex scent drifted smugly down his airways and made a permanent footprint for itself on his nerves.
“I don’t even know what any of these scents are. It smells like a room in a palace where someone’s just held an orgy.”
“Your narrators stumble into orgies at a rate much higher than the average. The British aristocracy is not running around holding them at the drop of a hat. I myself have only been invited to—oh, four or five.”
Alan stared, then realised he was being teased.
“Fuck off.”
“I did think I’d been invited to one once,” said Jack musingly. “It turned out to be a house party where we were all trapped in a room while the host’s brother-in-law tried to convince us to invest in a terrible business venture.”
“Sounds as though some fucking would have livened things up.”
“It couldn’t have made it worse.”
Alan stopped fighting his grin.
“Speaking of which,” added Jack. “I’m not done with you yet, Mr. Ross.”
Alan’s resigned prick became abruptly unresigned.