A Seditious Affair(31)

Silas lifted his weight off a little. Dominic moaned a protest and felt Silas smile against his open mouth. Then there was that big, familiar, calloused hand encircling both pricks together, between their bodies as they lay heart to heart.

“You’ll take this, Tory,” Silas said, and dipped his head. Mouth meeting Dominic’s with reverent care, moving gently. Hand pulling and sliding. Kissing Dominic and bringing him off at once with the kind of careful lovemaking he’d never wanted, that Silas knew he’d never wanted and was forcing on a pinned, bound, and helpless man because Dominic could not resist or object. He could do nothing but let Silas make love to him, and it set him coming as hard as the most brutal, humiliating fuck ever had.

It took him a moment to gather his wits, as Silas buried his face in his shoulder, gasping his own relief. Dominic could feel both chests heave together, Silas’s hand trapped between their bodies.

“Get these damned cuffs off,” Dominic managed.

Silas sat up and pulled Dominic to a sitting position, still straddling his legs. They stared at each other. There was unfamiliar uncertainty in Silas’s face now, an odd set to his mouth, as if he wanted to smile and wasn’t quite sure whether he could or should.

“Do you know,” Dominic said, “if you’d asked me earlier, I’d have said things between us were already as disastrous as they could be. How wrong I was.”

“There’s not much can’t be made worse.” Silas’s face was closing up, going stony.

“The cuffs?”

Silas grunted. Dominic twisted to let him unsnap the mechanism, made so as not to require a key. He turned back, took a deep breath, grasped Silas’s prickly jaw in both hands, and brought their mouths together again.

There was a startled instant, and then Silas’s lips were open to his, and this time it was equal. Long, curious kisses, careful on bruised lips, little exploring movements now as though it were the first time. Kissing that wasn’t desire or frustration, but something much, much more terrifying. He ran his hands over Silas’s cropped, paper-dusty hair, down his strong back muscles, felt the need shudder through them both.

At last Dominic pulled away, just a little. “What are we doing?”

“Making it worse.” Silas’s fingers skimmed Dominic’s face. “Didn’t plan to.” He ran a thumb over Dominic’s lips, which felt swollen under the pressure, a little raw. “But I couldn’t say goodbye without.”

“I don’t want to say goodbye.”

“Nor I, you Tory bastard. I…this last year…well. Learned a lot about wine, that’s for certain.”

“Silas…my friend…” Dominic straightened. “Oh, the devil with it. I don’t want to stop.”

The sudden energy in his voice had Silas sitting up too. “Aye, well, what choice have we got?”

“None. You’re a seditionist, I’m Home Office. The sane thing to do is end this illegal and immoral business forthwith. You go back to your democratic libels and I attempt to have you arrested.” He took a deep breath. “Or, alternatively, we risk your liberty, my reputation, and both our damn fool necks, and I’ll see you here next Wednesday.”

Silas’s mouth was open. “Tory…”

“You could call me Dominic, you know.”

“Daft mouthful of a name,” Silas muttered.

“Or Dom.” He hadn’t meant to say that. Nobody but Richard called him Dom. Nobody but Richard had ever kissed him as though he were the only man alive, until today. “If you like.”

“Dom,” Silas repeated, almost shyly, then shook his head. “What I’ll call you is a Bedlamite. How can we carry on? That’s madness.”

“It is. It’s madness that the friendship of a radical lawbreaker should mean so much to me. It’s madness that you should have been so kind to a Tory swine. It’s madness that I cannot bear to see you face your just deserts. Richard has already told me in so many words that I must have lost my senses.”

“There you go,” Silas said. “Me agreeing with his lordship.”

Dominic reached for Silas’s hand, felt the clasp returned. “And over these last weeks, I might have agreed with you both. Heaven knows I have barely been able to think. But…” Clarity now. Absolute clarity, since that first, urgent kiss. “I cannot walk away. I will not.”

“You can, and you’d be a damned fool not to. Your position—”

“Do you care about my position?”

“Ah, hell. You know what I think about gentlemen. But the only way I want to see you hurt is if I’m doing it.”