Page 58 of Once a Gentleman
He had meant it to be only a brief meeting of the lips, but Andrew wrapped an arm around his waist, yanked him in, and kissed him so deeply his head spun, and he lost track of anything but the solid press of Andrew’s body against his and the desperately wonderful caresses of his lips and his tongue.
Andrew lifted his head at last, and Kit blinked back to reality, his vision entirely filled with his bright eyes and strongly carved features. He could have looked at that view forever.
“We sail with the tide at half past nine this morning,” Andrew said, his voice a little hoarse—perhaps with the desire that thrummed in Kit’s veins too, despite how thoroughly they had debauched one another the night before, and also with the unhappiness of their impending separation. “Will you come down to the dock to see us off? So that I might have someone—Kit, I cannot be silent, not when there is a slim but real possibility we will never meet again. Someone I love. I love you, and I would have my beloved waving to me as I sail away.”
Kit hesitated, his chest clenching with longing and with fear. He had begged Andrew not to make any more declarations of love—and yet the words made his blood pump faster and his whole body and soul yearn.
“This is unworthy of me,” Andrew went on before Kit could manage any answer, “but I will, on this one occasion, stoop to playing on your sympathy and good nature. I have never once had anyone I cared for present when I set sail. Will you, please?”
Kit swallowed hard, gazing into Andrew’s eyes, bluer than the sea and infinitely more likely to drown him. “Would it not seem odd for your secretary to come to see you sail? I mean, no one would—suspect anything amiss?”
Andrew’s triumphant smile showed he recognized that seeming protest for what it really was: capitulation and a need for reassurance that would allow Kit to go.
“Not at all,” he said, swooping down and taking another quick kiss. “Mrs. Harrison and their children will no doubt be there, and Mrs. O’Neill.”
“Their families, theirwives, Andrew,” Kit protested, rather more genuinely this time. “I’m not a lady!”
“And others aboard will have their fathers or their brothers or their cousins or what have you lining the dock and seeing them off. No one will think another fellow at all odd. Particularly when they will see you speaking to Mrs. Harrison. Besides, am I not permitted to have friends?”
Kit laughed, shook his head, and yielded to the inevitable—and to Andrew’s kiss, which was as all-consuming as the first.
“I will see you there, then?” Andrew asked between kisses. “You will give me that last glimpse of you before I depart, to carry with me?”
“Yes,” Kit breathed, returning the kisses with interest.
And several minutes passed that way, until despite their labors the night before, Kit found himself shamelessly rubbing his cockstand against Andrew’s thigh and realizing that those little desperate moans were coming from his own mouth.
Andrew tore his mouth away, but his grip around Kit’s body only tightened. “You will be here when I return?” he murmured hoarsely against Kit’s cheek.
“I have already promised you, but I shall promise again if you feel it necessary.” Kit’s throat felt almost too tight to speak, particularly considering the words he knew he ought to say. “You must go, Andrew.”
“I know.” Andrew did not go, and Kit felt his chest shudder with a deep, hitching breath. “I know,” he repeated, and pressed one last kiss to Kit’s cheek, pulling himself away with a palpable effort when Kit turned his head blindly to catch his mouth with his own. “Don’t, love, or I’ll never have the strength to leave you.”
Kit wrapped his arms around himself, forcing his feet to remain planted on the ground as Andrew drew back a step, eyes still fixed on Kit’s face and with his cheeks flushed and his breath coming fast.
“I love you,” Andrew said, the words seeming to tear out of him. “I will look for you when I sail, and—Kit, don’t forget that I love you.”
And with that, he fled, the door shutting rather too hard behind him and his quick, heavy footsteps echoing through the corridor and down the stairs.
Kit stood silently, straining his ears to detect Andrew’s movements through the hall, his conversation with Samuel, his final preparations to depart. His trunk had been taken down to theHoratiothe day before, so all Andrew had to do was leave the house.
And he did, the shutting of the front door a faint thud in the distance.
Kit suppressed the urge to run after him, to race down the stairs and fling the door open and chase Andrew through the street, to answer his declaration of love with one of his own. In that moment, when it was too late, those words burned in his throat, agonizing in their need to burst forth.
He dropped into his armchair, hands over his face, breathing hard. He would see Andrew again within a fortnight; he would see him again that morning, of course, to wave farewell, but that would be almost worse than not seeing him at all.
A fortnight. Not so long to wait.
And if Andrew still loved him then, or professed to, Kit would throw caution to the winds and give in, not only with his body but with his heart and soul. And he would pray that it would not end in disaster.
