Page 63 of The Devil Himself
“So what now?” Luc asked it in all seriousness. And his question had at least a dozen meetings.
Rys swirled his brandy and the glass, warming the base of it with his palm and fingers. “Well, Gareth will go back to school. I’m assuming they won’t hang Arthur. I imagine they’ll take him to gaol, where he’ll disappear. If he doesn’t, then I will pay for him to go to an asylum where he’ll never be let out again.”
Rys’s grimace told him volumes about how Rys really felt about that. It had to hurt to see his family collapse over and over again.
“And what of you?” Luc worried over his next words because he didn’t wish to seem needy or desperate, but he also wanted Rys to know that he was right there, and that he didn’t want to be abandoned or to let Rys slip away.
“I’ll go back to London,” Rys said. “I have a club to run. I am the Devil Himself, after all. The Devil’s Playground wouldn’t be the same without me.”
Naturally, that sounded rather ominous, as if he didn’t factor into Rys’s plans at all. He wasn’t certain that worked for him. “And do I have a place in your life in London?” Luc finally made himself ask, staring intently at his lover.
A small smile worked at Rys’s lips. “I would like that, yes, if it suits you.”
Luc set his brandy aside and rose, moving over to where Rys sat in the chair opposite his. He put his hands on Rys’s shoulders and straddled his thighs, kneeling on the chair above him. “It suits me to the ground. I know we’ll have a great deal to discuss once we get back to London, but I want you to know that I intend to have that discussion, and that I have no desire to go back tomy life the way it was before I brought all of this down on your head.”
“Tired of your boring widower existence?” Rys teased, his hands coming up to clutch and squeeze at Luc’s arse.
“I would never have said that.” Luc gave it all the thought it deserved. “But I suppose it’s true. I’m not sure I’m up for this sort of adventure on a regular basis, but I absolutely intend to continue our association.”
One dark eyebrow winged up, Rys’s eyes glittering silver. “Our association.”
Luc kissed Rys on the lips lightly, teasing them both. “Our special friendship?”
“Ha! That’s for women who hire companions so that everyone in the Town will believe that they’re just winding wool and keeping cats together in the country. I don’t think that you could call what we have anything so tepid.” Rys stared him down as if daring him to argue.
That made him smile, and he rocked down against Rys, allowing their cloth-covered shafts to rub together. “And what would you call it?”
Rys reached up with both hands to frame his face so he couldn’t look away. “I would call it a love affair, my dear angel.”
His heart raced so hard that he thought he might black out from the sheer speed of it, the blood rushing through his veins far too quickly. “I see. And do you?”
Rys let the other eyebrow rise up to match the first. “Do I what?”
“Love me. Because I love you, Rys Grey. You make me feel things I thought long dead and cold inside my chest. I want to be with you. I want to make this all work somehow. In fact, I would say it’s a compulsion.” He had never said those words to another adult. His wife had never been a love match for him, and while he had a great fondness for her memory, he had never had apassion for her. He only ever said I-love-you to his son, so he was feeling incredibly vulnerable as the words left his mouth.
But Rys’s smile was far more fallen angel than it was devil now, sweet and wondrous. “I love you, as well. I never thought I would say it, but I do, and I can’t imagine going back to London and living as though I don’t love you. I know it might be difficult especially when your son is home from school, but we will figure it out.”
Luc took another kiss and then another. “We will. Of this, I have no doubt.”
Rys pulled him down, pushing off his clothing, the desire between them flaring higher and hotter than it had at any point thus far. Luc gave into it utterly, letting Rys have every part of him, body and soul.
This was something that he wanted for life, and he was going to set out to prove it to Rys every day. And hopefully, neither of them would be shot or stabbed ever again.
Twenty-Nine
“So he really just thought that he could barge into the house and demand that you allow him to kill Gareth?” Julian asked, his expression one of utter disbelief.
“So it would seem. He’d worked up his courage with drink, and his mistress had encouraged him to it.” Rys was the one who answered, toasting Julian with his whisky. “But at least you're not betrothed anymore to Hannah.”
Julian placed a hand over his heart, his body settling into a swooning posture. “True enough. Alas, I'm overthrown. Thrown over? How does one throw someone over? It seems very physical for something that is generally accomplished with a note or a tearful word.” Julian did ramble when he’d had too much wine with supper.
They all stared at Jules, and Rys tried not to allow a flicker of the amusement he felt to show. They were having dinner together, all of them. Rys and Luc, Julian and Harris, and even Deacon Collingsworth, who had arrived at the back entrance wearing a cloak so that no one knew he was frequenting the Devil's Playground.
“Can’t have anyone know we’re colluding,” Deacon had quipped when he arrived.
They were all quite happy to go back to their normal, everyday lives, he thought, although he knew his life would never be the same as it had been now that Luc was in it. His beautiful angel earl, who kept him utterly on his toes and yet satisfied at the same time.
“Julian, you are an eccentric.” Luc toasted Jules as well and took a sip of his brandy. The remains of dinner were still on the table, but they were indulging in an after-dinner drink and discussing all of the events that had occurred during the last wild ride to keep Gareth from being killed.
