An Unseen Attraction Read online

  “I had no idea.” Clem looked round at the rows of little bundles, skins like fat cigars on shelves, or out to dry. “There are so many.”

  “Most mounts don’t sell for much, so you have to do plenty.” Rowley took a yellow-feathered skin from a hook. “This is a canary. Always popular.”

  “It’s very bright. Stuffed ones usually look so dusty.”

  “Washing again.” Rowley went to a drawer, picked out a small egg-shaped bundle of something like jute, and compared it to the skin he held. “I insist on it. It doubles the preparation time with a small bird, but I think, if you’re going to do anything at all, do it with due care and attention.” He eased the ovoid into the canary skin and ran a wire into it, working it into the bird. “And, not to boast, but my canaries look better than the general run.”

  “Yes.” Clem watched his sure fingers. “I wish—” He stopped himself.

  “What do you wish?”

  “I wish I had your fingers,” Clem said on a breath.

  “As your own?” Rowley asked. “Or”—he gave a bright glance up—“for your benefit? Because you are absolutely welcome to the latter.”

  Clem wasn’t quite sure what that meant for a second, and then all became clear. “Oh!”

  “Not that my fingers are terribly appealing at work,” Rowley added, as calm as if Clem weren’t blushing dark. “I interrupted you. What did you mean?”

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just that you’re so competent.”

  “I am, yes. I could stuff a canary in my sleep. But you have such…” He paused, considering. He never seemed to feel bad about looking for a word, or to expect anyone to shout at him to spit it out. “Such a gift for people, for friendship. I wish I had your heart.”

  Clem didn’t think he’d ever blushed so hard. “I don’t think I do anything special.”

  “I dare say you don’t,” Rowley said. “I think you’re quite exceptional. Will you dine with me this evening?”

  “Yes.”

  “And…perhaps a cup of tea, afterward? That’s a hint, to be clear. I’m rather hoping for more than tea.”

  “Yes, I thought you probably were,” Clem said. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure I have biscuits.”

  Rowley opened his mouth, caught Clem’s eye, and went off into such a fit of laughter that he almost dropped the canary.

  —

  They did dine together that evening, quietly. Clem had wondered whether to take Rowley to one of the places his friends from the Jack and Knave frequented, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to meet anyone else. He just wanted to spend time with Rowley. And of course neat, intense Rowley might well catch someone else’s eye—Nathaniel, say, who was equally intense, intelligent, and a handsome man to boot. Not someone who’d drop his fork twice at the dinner table out of nervous excitement, cut with apprehension, as to what might lie ahead.

  Rowley didn’t seem to care about Clem’s accidents with cutlery, certainly didn’t comment. He talked in his usual way, discussing Dickens, asking about the Tennyson lectures Clem was attending, smoothing Clem’s nerves as deftly as though they were pigeon feathers.

  They talked about their planned piece, the London piece, as they walked back. It was fully formed now, though Clem wasn’t sure how Rowley or anyone could turn what he saw in his mind into reality. If he’d been able to paint he’d have shown the rooftops of London, all wet slate and mildewed tile, with chimney pots bumping up through them like mushrooms. Here and there, birds: flashy, oily, sharp-beaked starlings stabbing at each other; the strut of puffed-up pigeons; house sparrows hopping through it all, just getting on with their business. And above the scene, blotting out the sky, a great broad-winged rook casting its black shadow over the rooftop, waiting to descend.

  That was what Clem would have painted, if he could paint, or written, if he were a poet. He was neither, but when he talked about it to Rowley he almost felt like one, so he had nearly forgotten what they were doing when they came back to his room. That was, until Rowley locked the door.

  He evidently saw Clem’s face as he turned. “Ah—was that presumptuous?”

  “No. I’m glad you remembered that, I might not have.”

  Rowley exhaled. “Would you talk to me?”

  “About what?” Clem asked with a pulse of panic.

  “I don’t know. You’re nervous, you have been much of the night. I’d like to believe that was happy anticipation but I don’t think it is. I’m a little worried I’m doing something wrong.”

  Clem shook his head. Rowley frowned and walked up, closer, close enough to touch, so he had to tilt his head back a little for their eyes to meet. “If you don’t think I’m doing something wrong, do you think you are?”

  That was painfully acute. Clem swallowed. “I’m afraid I might.”

  “You don’t mean morally, do you?”

  “Good God, no,” Clem said wholeheartedly, eliciting a snort from Rowley.

  “I’m glad to hear it. Then what? Is it like the breathing again?”

  “I’m not very good at, at order,” Clem blurted out. “I—it doesn’t work, always. Doing things properly.” His tongue was really tripping now. “I know, or I would, the things I want to do but I get flustered, or clumsy, and it annoys people. I know it does.”

  Rowley looked up at him a little longer, silent, then removed his spectacles and held them out. “Here.”

  “What?”

  “My spectacles. Take them.”

  “Uh, why?”

  “Because I can’t see without them,” Rowley said. “Because without them I should blunder around bumping into furniture, unable to find my way in the street or tell where I was, and everyone would laugh at me for a fool. They don’t make spectacles for you, do they?”

  Clem heard the noise he made in his throat but he couldn’t stop it. He did manage to stop his hand tightening on the fragile glass and wire with which Rowley had entrusted him.

  “But if they did, if you had lenses to make things come into focus—that’s it, isn’t it?” Rowley went on. “Something’s out of focus. It’s not you any more or less than my eyes are me. And just as without my spectacles everything is blurred, for you it’s…?”

  “Loud,” Clem said. “Confusing.”

  “If you took away my spectacles and pushed me out into the streets, I should be terrified. I’d be so vulnerable, and it would be so hard to achieve the simplest things. It makes me feel ill to think of it.”

  Clem fumbled for Rowley’s hand with his own free one. “Take your spectacles back before I break them.”

  “No,” Rowley said. “The least I can do is leave them off. Although, if you wouldn’t mind putting them on the mantel, I’d be happier.”

  Clem did that with a long stride and a long arm and returned, tugging Rowley closer. “I can see your eyes better without them.”

  “I have the better of that bargain.” Rowley reached up, brushing his thumb over Clem’s jawline, soothingly, along the grain of his beard. “Your eyes are astonishing. And if at any point you should wish to kiss me, feel free.”

  Clem followed that suggestion, dipping his head. Rowley’s mouth was warm and firm, set in smooth skin, receptive and still without being soft or slack. He was waiting, holding back. Clem breathed in and out, relaxing into him. He wanted…

  He wanted to kiss Rowley’s hair and neck, and Rowley had said from the start that he was to lead. So he did, tentatively, trailing his mouth over Rowley’s skin to taste his jawline and feel his ear, moving over the barely-there lobe and the firm edge of cartilage and up to the flattened, unfurled top. Rowley kept still, but he was breathing hard now, and the hand that clutched Clem’s was tensing and flexing. Clem pushed his face into the fine tow-coloured hair and rubbed against it, felt the responsive movement of Rowley’s head.

  “Clem.” Rowley’s whisper was ragged. “May I touch you?”

  “Mmm.” Clem couldn’t help stopping his own movements and bracing himself a little, but Rowley’s hands were very
slow and sure, just closing on his hips. No grabbing, nothing he couldn’t accustom himself to. He let out a breath and trailed his mouth back down past the flat ear and back around to Rowley’s lips.

  He had no idea how long they kissed for. Long enough that he felt used to it, long enough that it was the only thing in his mind and Rowley’s hands had moved with painstaking care onto his arse, long enough that his own breathing was coming hard and fast. And talking of long and hard…He bumped his hips forward, sending waves of sensation through himself, and heard Rowley whimper.

  “Clem?” Rowley mumbled against him. “I’ll wait as long as I need to, I promise, but I would love to feel your skin just now.”

  “Can I touch you?”

  “Oh God, yes, please.”

  Clem only ever wore his neckcloth in a simple knot, one end pulled under the other, but even that seemed beyond him to undo now, with all his fingers feeling like thumbs. Rowley began to lift his hands as if to help, and stopped himself almost at once. Clem got the cloth free at last and threw it at the back of a chair, missing, not really caring. Pushed the coat off Rowley’s shoulders, then the neat brown waistcoat, then the braces as Rowley stood, eyes closed, letting him work. Clem tugged the shirt free of the waistband of his trousers, began to pull it upward.

  “Neck buttons,” Rowley said.

  Clem looked at the two small, tight buttons. Rowley would wait while he unfastened them, he was sure, standing there as long as he needed while Clem fumbled, and that certainty allowed him to say, “Would you do it?”

  Rowley unfastened the buttons—one, two, done—and dropped his hands again. Clem hauled the shirt over Rowley’s head, turning it inside out, trying not to think about pigeons. Rowley opened his eyes as Clem tossed the linen away. He looked a little nervous himself now, between the missing spectacles, whose absence seemed to reshape his face, and the vulnerability of nakedness. He had a narrow chest, with sparse blond hairs over the pectoral muscles and the lightest of trails down from his navel, and a couple of long white straight marks standing bleached against his skin. Clem flattened his hand on Rowley’s pale chest and felt as well as heard his inhalation.

  “Is this all right?”

  “Mmm.” That sounded rather high-pitched.

  His nipples were pink-brown, and tight, despite the warmth of the room. Clem wanted to taste but was inconveniently tall. He ran his thumbs over them instead. Rowley made a sobbing noise, so he did it again, feeling them harden, enjoying the sensation of the little nubs under his skin. It was a distractingly pleasurable sensation, distracting him both from his own rigid arousal and from Rowley’s moans, which came harder and quicker as he pressed and circled and rubbed both nipples, lost in the feel of them and the look on Rowley’s strained face, and the pulse of Rowley’s blood in time with his own.

  “Please.” Rowley sounded like a stranger. “Please, please. Too much.”

  Clem stilled at once. He wanted to ask if that had been wrong, but it hadn’t, any fool could see. Rowley looked like a stranger as well now, face naked in desperation and flushed with arousal. “What shall I do?”

  “Uh.” Rowley didn’t seem quite capable of speech.

  “I’d like to bring you off,” Clem said, in case that was in doubt. “Can you tell me? I mean, I know how to do that. But how you’d like.”

  Rowley blinked a couple of times. “Anything. Anything that you want to do.”

  “I’d like to touch you, I think.”

  Rowley nodded, fumbling for his buttons, hands a great deal less sure than usual, prick jutting hard against the cloth. Clem ran a hand over the length and Rowley—no other word for it—squealed.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Clem said, grinning. “Was that unhelpful?”

  Rowley mumbled something incoherent. Clem tugged at his trousers, pulling them over his lean hips, and then his drawers, pushing them down so Rowley was exposed. His prick was so hard, flushed, wet and shiny with need, jutting from a wiry tangle of straw-coloured curls, and Clem wondered about taking it in his mouth. He’d tried a couple of times, with Gregory, and it had not gone well. That had been embarrassing, and he didn’t want to make a fool of himself now.

  “Clem?” A little thready whisper.

  He wasn’t, still, entirely sure, but Rowley had said he should do whatever he wanted, and that had worked so far. Clem moved a little closer and to the side so he could feel Rowley’s warmth and skin, ran his thumb over the head of Rowley’s prick, felt him buck, did it again.

  One thing at a time. Clem moved one hand back up to Rowley’s rigid nipple first, taking hold of it in a gentle pinch, squeezed a little harder, and left his fingers there as he wrapped his other hand round Rowley’s cock.

  “Oh Jesus Christ,” Rowley said on a breath. “Oh God’s teeth, please. Sweet Jesus, Clem, you beautiful bugger.”

  “Is that good?”

  Rowley moaned a response. His head was tipped back, mouth open and wet. Clem explored with his fingers, delving between Rowley’s legs, careful to keep the touch light because he’d at least once ruined the moment with a hard prod in the wrong place. He brushed Rowley’s balls with a fingertip, closed his hand round them with a ridiculous feeling of possession, and heard a sound like a sob. “Clem!”

  Clem ran his fingers back up to Rowley’s length. It was in proportion to the rest of him: no more than medium-sized, a little curved, very neat and elegant in its way, and just right for Clem’s slim fingers and welcoming palm. He pressed against the shuddering body next to his, rolled the tight nipple he still held in the other hand, and began to stroke Rowley in earnest.

  “Oh God,” Rowley whispered. “Oh God, oh Clem, I won’t last. Harder, a bit harder, oh Christ—” And there he was, spending in spurts that hit the floorboards at least a foot away, two, three times, and sagging at last against Clem as though his knees were buckling. Clem grabbed his shoulders, feeling his own prick rigid in his confining clothes, with a sense of overwhelming satisfaction soaring through him.

  “Oh God,” Rowley managed at last. “Oh God. That. You.”

  “You looked wonderful,” Clem told him.

  “I felt wonderful. Don’t ever wish you had anyone else’s hands again in your life.”

  “You like—” Clem gave his nipple an illustrative tweak.

  Rowley yelped. “Ooh. Very much. As you see.” He pulled himself straight. “And right now I would very much like to return the favour.” He darted a look up at Clem. “Will you tell me what’s right? Or say if anything is wrong? Promise? You won’t offend me and I want this to be, oh, at least half as good for you as that was for me.”

  “Half?”

  “Well, I’m not a miracle worker.”

  They grinned ridiculously at each other. Clem leaned in to nuzzle Rowley’s flyaway hair. “I promise.”

  Rowley moved, muttered an oath, and tugged up the clothing tangled around his knees, then gave Clem’s hand a gentle pull. “Take a seat by the fire?”

  Clem did. Rowley straddled his lap, watching his face, and leaned in for a soft kiss. Clem relaxed into that for a moment, then sat back as Rowley began exploring with his hands. “You don’t have to do anything,” Rowley murmured. “Let me touch you, and tell me how it feels.”

  It felt good. It felt marvellous. Clem loved being touched, and touching; the problem came when he was trying to get his hands and knees and mouth and prick all doing the right things without jamming something bony into something sensitive. He hated being a clumsy oaf at all times, but especially in front of someone he wanted to please.

  But this was Rowley pleasing him, and all Clem had to do was sit back. He let his head drop against the antimacassar as Rowley’s hands slid under his shirt, across his skin, beneath his waistband. Slow, sure, confident movements of infinite patience, until he brushed his fingers over the front of Clem’s trousers, and Clem found his own patience running out. “Touch me?”

  “With pleasure.” Rowley shifted back, unfastening buttons as he moved. “Sit
up a bit. Shift your weight up.” He tugged at Clem’s clothing, curled his neat fingers around Clem’s stand and worked him free of the cloth, then nudged Clem’s legs a little further apart and dropped to his knees between them.

  Clem swallowed, taking in the picture of Rowley between his legs, hair wild, eyes bright and intent, mouth open and ready. Then he leaned forward, just touching Clem’s prick with his mouth, and that was so much. Clem’s whole body clenched, his toes curling.

  “All right?” Rowley whispered.

  “Yes, but go slowly? Please.”

  “Slowly is very nearly my name,” Rowley assured him. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on Clem’s thighs, touching once more, but so very lightly, hardly moving now, merely the tiniest strokes of his tongue, until Clem felt his impending climax recede a little. He took a deep breath. Rowley made a questioning noise.

  “Wonderful,” Clem assured him breathily. “More?”

  Rowley gave him more, moving no faster, but firmer, deeper, using only his mouth still, but tightening his lips till Clem was jerking with uncoordinated movements, hopelessly aroused and needing. Rowley’s hands covered his own on the arms of the chair, and he leaned forward, taking Clem deeper still, so he could feel the ridged skin of the roof of Rowley’s mouth rubbing against the head of his prick, and that was it, he was spending, hopelessly lost in the climax flooding his senses.

  He slumped back against the chair as the pleasure ebbed. Rowley still had him in his mouth, head bowed, not rubbing against Clem’s now exquisitely sensitive prick but with tongue and throat touching him, holding him close, like a hug.

  At last, and with care, Rowley raised his head. “Good?”

  “So good.” It had helped so much to be sitting. One less thing to think about. He looked, puzzled, at Rowley’s flushed, bare face. “How did you know?”