Page 47 of The Lawrence Browne Affair
“I’m trying so hard not to take from you.” An adorable crease had appeared on Georgie’s forehead.
“It’s a gift. You’re meant to take it.” When Georgie didn’t answer, Lawrence moved his fistful of jewels closer to the open window.
“Stop! Damn you. This is—you’re holding a pistol to my head.”
“Would you like me to hide them someplace for you to pretend to steal? I could put it all back in the jewelry case—I assume you’re capable of picking a lock?”
Georgie choked back a laugh. “If you had acted half so daft a month ago, I would never have tried to convince you that you were sane.”
Lawrence took Georgie’s hand and slid the jewels into his open palm, then closed each of Georgie’s fingers around the gems, before wrapping his own hand around Georgie’s fist.
“I’ll concede that this might not be the moment I’d want brought up if my sanity were called into question.” He settled a palm against Georgie’s hip, satisfied by the way his hand nestled against the smaller man’s body.
Georgie brushed a kiss against Lawrence’s newly smooth jaw. “I suppose any decent person would protest about it being sordid and transactional. Payment for services, that sort of thing.” And that was Georgie’s way of telling him that he knew this not to be the case.
Lawrence pulled back just far enough to pull his watch from his pocket. “It’s still technically Christmas. Consider it a Christmas present.”
“Madness.” With his empty hand, he was pushing open Lawrence’s dressing gown.
“So I’ve been telling you.” His dressing gown fell to the floor, and he was standing before Georgie, bare chested.
“I’ve wanted you from the beginning, you know. Since you thought I was a housebreaker.” Something of the irony of that situation must have occurred to him—whatever he was must not be so different from a housebreaker, after all—because he smiled candidly up at Lawrence, crinkles forming around his eyes, such an unstudied expression of joy that Lawrence hardly could keep from laughing with happiness.
Georgie traced his fingers along Lawrence’s chest, hoping the feel of taut skin and coarsely curling hair would distract him from the jewels he clenched in his other hand. But even when Lawrence kissed him in a confusion of lips and tongues and teeth, all Georgie could think about were rubies and diamonds, his mind calculating value and interest and contemplating such mundane matters as insurance.
None of that was surprising in itself; this wouldn’t be the first time Georgie had focused on personal gain instead of . . . everything else. No, what surprised him was the wonderful, awful, sickening realization of what those jewels meant. No matter how he turned the numbers over in his mind, even if he were to sell them to an unscrupulous jeweler—hell, even if he were to use a fence—he would make enough money to stay far from the gutter for the rest of his life. He’d be safe. All he had to do was take Lawrence’s offering, and he would never need to steal, swindle, or cheat again.
And if he weren’t doing those things, if he didn’t always have one eye open to every dishonest opportunity, what the holy hell was he supposed to do with himself? Another fifty years of . . . what? It was more than the question of how to fill the days and years. Georgie didn’t even know who he would be if he weren’t a swindler. He had been a clerk, an apothecary, a man about town, the younger son of minor peer. He had been one of Mattie Brewster’s best men.
But he had never simply been Georgie Turner.
“Where did you go?” Lawrence asked, pulling back from the kiss, leaving Georgie blindly seeking, bewildered.
Half a dozen flippant answers sprung to mind. Half a dozen different ways to deflect and distract. Instead he tried for something nearer to the truth. “What will I do? Now that I’m to be a man of leisure, I mean.” It wasn’t possible to entirely do away with flippancy.
Lawrence looked down at him, misty blue eyes going wide with understanding. “Whatever you like, I hope.”
If only he knew what that was. Georgie Turner swindled and connived to put as much distance as possible between himself and poverty, starvation, and humiliation. Absent that goal, what did he even want?
“You could stay here,” Lawrence said carefully. “If you like.” Georgie thought he heard a note of wistfulness, as if Lawrence didn’t really believe that would come to pass.
“I want you to kiss me,” Georgie said, because at least it was true. It was a start. And Lawrence did kiss him, soft and patient. Georgie pressed his back hard against the wall, and Lawrence took the hint, leaning forward against him so that Georgie had nowhere to go, nowhere to move, no choice but to kiss and be kissed.
Georgie squirmed, and Lawrence promptly eased away. That would never do. Georgie tugged him back.
“You like this,” Lawrence said, unnecessarily, because surely at this proximity he could feel the evidence of Georgie’s arousal.
“I like this,” Georgie managed, squirming again, relishing the feeling of being gently trapped.
Lawrence worked a hand in between their bodies and started to untie Georgie’s cravat. “Well then, if walls and . . . roughness are what you have in mind . . . ” Georgie let out a sigh of pleasure. “I see that they are,” Lawrence went on. “Then I’ll see what I can do.”
He tugged off Georgie’s clothes without the least bit of finesse until they stood chest to chest, Georgie’s head tipped back to properly enjoy the look of intent interest on Lawrence’s face. Lawrence braced his forearms on the wall beside Georgie’s head and brought his mouth down in a hard kiss. The harder Lawrence kissed, the harder Georgie kissed him back. The more aggressively Lawrence crowded Georgie, the more Georgie felt like he was melting against Lawrence’s stone wall of a body.
And all the while, the jewels were heavy in his left hand, warm now with the heat from his palm.
Lawrence, holding him close, never breaking the kiss, steered him towards the bedchamber door. Georgie still clutched the jewels.
Lawrence pushed him onto the bed. Georgie still clutched the jewels.
