Page 21 of To Save a Scoundrel’s Soul

“Yes,” Mickey admitted breathily. “I was younger.” I was starving and had nothing.

“Do you still give it away easily? Or do you only save it for Tommy Squire?”

“Tommy and… We’re not like that. He’s…he’s my cousin. And he has someone.”

“But you don’t.”

“No. I don’t need anyone. And I do not…not…I do not bend over for other men for coin any longer.”

“Mmm.” The fingertip against Mickey’s shaft pressed a little harder. “I think you’ll bend for me however and whenever I see fit, mon cher. I think you’re dripping for me behind here, aren’t you? Dripping for my big French cock.”

Two fingertips, that was all. One at his collar and one at his trouser front, and Mickey was undone.

“Are you sure you don’t need someone, too, not-so-plain Mr Maurice? Your own special friend? Because if that role is vacant, then as I have tried to make clear already this evening, I would very much like to fill it.”

The finger at Mickey’s collar stroked a path up to his mouth. Roughly, Beauregard jabbed two of them between Mickey’s lips. Another finger coasted along the length of Mickey’s throbbing shaft. “Suck, London. Suck hard. Show me how a London molly boy like you might pleasure my cock.”

Mickey’s lips, tongue, and teeth obeyed. The rest of him concentrated on not spilling in his drawers. When he moaned around the fingers, Beauregard added a third, pressing his forehead to Mickey’s.

“Your mouth is lovely,” he rasped, and Mickey’s lower belly clenched. “Filthy. One day soon, I’m going to work myself into this tight, sweet mouth, and you’re going to suck on me for hours.”

Beauregard’s free hand smoothed over the curve of Mickey’s arse, settling at his crease. Thighs trembling, Mickey arched back into it, and a stifled groan choked the Frenchman’s throat. “You like me touching you there, too, don’t you?” Beauregard’s breath was hot and damp across Mickey’s cheek. “You want my cock there? You want me to bugger you?”

Mickey nodded, desperate. He sucked harder, writhing into Beauregard’s hand at his crease as if he could shake his clothing off.

Beauregard’s groan was muddled up in a laugh. He pushed Mickey away, fingers slithering out of Mickey’s mouth. “Mon dieu, that was the right answer. You are…too much, mon cher. This…you…it is not what I came to England seeking. But you are too much.”

With his black-as-night pupils unwavering from Mickey’s, Beauregard urgently unbuttoned his coat. “I’ve been picturing nothing else since receiving Squire’s invitation.” He loosened his cravat. “You do something to me every time you look at me. I cannot explain it, but you make me want you. Everywhere. Across the bed, on the stairs, laid out on the floor, even standing up over there, by the window.” He pulled apart his trouser placket. “If that’s acceptable?”

Mickey’s response was an undignified whine as he dropped his trousers and drawers. The window was closest, a pot of hair oil closer still. He half expected Beauregard to ignore it; not all men showed that level of consideration, especially when the prize was within grasp and Beauregard’s fingers already wet from Mickey’s spit.

But Beauregard made good use of the oil, opening Mickey up with a deliberate, methodical slowness, until Mickey felt the unguent trickling down his thigh and the Frenchman’s fingertips nudging the hidden part that made his body sing.

“Your palms,” Beauregard panted, the man’s breath on his nape and his cockhead at his entrance. “Against the wall. Legs wider. Arch back into me, like so…mon dieu…how you arch so prettily for me. I fear I shall spend before either of us have taken our pleasure.”

And then Beauregard buggered him—standing up—taking something Mickey hadn’t given away in a very long time. Gently at first, almost tenderly, then violently, exactly how Mickey liked it. He talked throughout, French words, incomprehensible to Mickey, but reeking of sex all the same.

Afterwards, Beauregard fell silent, perhaps regretting his frankness. He left Mickey to pull up his drawers and trousers whilst he shouldered on his topcoat. Though Mickey didn’t turn to see it, he wanted to. He had a strange urge to ask the man to stay, to tear off his topcoat, his linens, his waistcoat, his cravat, then beg him to drag Mickey to the narrow bed so Mickey could wrap himself around him and sleep in his arms. Which he’d never experienced with any man—so it might be something he detested once he’d initiated it, but he didn’t think so. Not when Beauregard kissed the back of Mickey’s neck, just once and tenderly before he left, nor when his fingers lingered on the crescent of skin where his lips had pressed. Neither when Beauregard’s forehead rested heavy against his shoulder for the briefest of seconds, and the Frenchman whispered, “You’re beautiful, London.” He spoke so softly, Mickey might have missed it.

And not when the door clicked quietly closed behind him.

*

AFTER CLEANING UP, Mickey tucked himself into bed. Sex usually made him tired, but on this occasion, he lay awake for a long time. Out of practice, his arse was sore, but in a good way. He fondled himself as he replayed things in his head, the usual revulsion that followed his random encounters strangely absent. He’d never describe himself as a dominant bedfellow, but even so, he’d let Beauregard use him like a dishrag. Yet Beauregard had not made him feel used, not once. On the contrary, he’d made him feel…necessary. For a moment, with the Frenchman in it, Mickey’s bedchamber—nay his life—had felt less solitary.

With sleep eluding him, he decided to keep the oil lamps burning a little longer and read. Mickey was a slow reader, having learned far too late to be much of a scholar, but he was improving with each book he finished. Moreover, books were reliably excellent at sending him to sleep, even his travel books. Turning in bed, he reached for his latest from the chevet, an adventure thing about a courageous ship’s captain and his valiant adventures through the island of Tahiti.

Which was when Mickey discovered that the maddening, exasperating, intriguing French sod had half inched his sodding sleeve buttons.

Chapter Eight

“TALYBRIDGE’S SAFE, CONTAINING your parure, is located in his study and is only opened with a Chubb key.”

Tommy delivered this piece of intelligence to his dear duke during a quiet early evening at Squire’s, where Ashington, Fitzsimmons, and Rossingley occupied their usual nook.

“How jolly super for him. A quick game of loo anyone?”

Tommy smiled indulgently at his lover. “You hate loo.”