Page 13 of A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
“Damned hard when you can’t move.”
“I never said you couldn’t move.”
“You didn’t say I could. And I didn’t think you’d like it if I did. Was I right?”
Hartley thought. “Yes,” he admitted. He had felt safe with Fox, but he had felt other things too. Things he’d be remembering alone, with his hand wrapped around his frustrated erection. For now, it was time for Fox to go home and leave Hartley to his empty house and turgid prick. He was still kneeling, but sitting back on his heels. Fox had landed in a sitting position, with his knees tucked up in front of him. It felt oddly companionable. Hartley didn’t like it. “Well, Mr. Fox, I thank you—”
“No. After that—” he gestured in the vicinity of his breeches “—you’re going to turn around and call me Mr. Fox? Everyone other than the excise man calls me Sam.”
Hartley felt his face heat. Looking away from Fox, he brushed some dust off the knees of his trousers.
“Unless you want me to call you Mr. Sedgwick,” Fox said, letting his words linger on the air.
That sounded all wrong. “No, please call me Hartley. Sam,” he added.
“Right then. When am I calling you Hartley?”
“Pardon?” Hartley tilted his head in confusion.
“When am I going to see you again? It isn’t a come on, I just like to know things in advance. If you tell me to bugger off, that’s what I’ll do, no hard feelings. But you’re helping me with Kate’s picture. Maybe you’ll think of something I can do to help that won’t risk my neck.”
That was the first time Hartley had heard the name of Sam’s friend and it kicked up some dust around an old memory that still remained just out of reach. “Come back next week. My house is always empty Sunday after midday.” It was pretty empty most hours of most days, to be fair. “We won’t be interrupted,” he added, in case Sam thought they were only going to spend the afternoon planning a burglary instead of pursuing better uses of their time.
They got to their feet and Hartley absently led the way toward the front door. It was nearest, and it was the door he habitually used, so it was only natural.
He froze, his hand on the door pull. “Oh, I beg your pardon. I forgot myself. I’ll bring you to the kitchen. Much safer that way.” Hartley had no reputation to speak of, but Sam kept a tavern and might be recognized for that reason as well as his dark skin. Sam’s reputation wasn’t Hartley’s to throw away, which could very well happen to any man seen coming and going from Hartley’s house.
But when he looked at Sam, he saw confusion on his face, followed by a blank coldness. After the pleasure, closeness, and sheer bloody relief of the last hour, Sam’s stony expression was a bracing shock. Hartley didn’t understand, perhaps because he was so carried away by the novelty of having forgotten himself for a time. All he could be sure of was that this encounter, like so many others before it, had ended badly.
Sam was no stranger to men who looked to him for an anonymous fuck, something rough to go along with his size and his looks. They wanted to be shoved up against a wall and used, and then afterward they left without more than a few embarrassed words. That wasn’t Sam’s ideal way to get off, but it was fine. Or at least he was used to it, and sometimes he thought being accustomed to something was maybe the same thing as accepting it.
That’s not what he had expected from Hartley. Hartley hadn’t wanted Sam to use him, hadn’t assumed that Sam wanted to hand out a brutal fucking. They had talked and then Sam had damned near lost his fucking mind trying not to shove his prick down Hartley’s throat. At one point he thought he might pass out or start whimpering if he didn’t come, and he thought Hartley liked that. God knew Sam had.
Once, at a time when Sam had less concern for law and order than he did presently, he had met a man in an alley behind the Cross Keys. When they went back to the man’s lodgings, the fellow had wanted Sam to tie him up. Sam had obliged, mostly because it wasn’t any skin off his back if a bloke wanted his hands bound while he was rogered, but he couldn’t say the practice had done anything special for him. Now he thought he understood what it did for that other fellow, though. The inability to move, the physical helplessness—it had scratched an itch Sam hadn’t known he had. Sam didn’t think he’d go in for actually having his hands bound. But knowing that he wasn’t supposed to move was even more of a restraint than any ropes could ever be.
He had lived his life entirely aware of his strength and power. Hell, he had never been allowed to forget. Not in the ring, not when people crossed the street in alarm upon seeing him, certainly not in his brief encounters with men. He hadn’t ever thought his strength was something that he wanted to put away temporarily, to escape from. But now he craved another chance to do exactly that.
He had seen Hartley’s face after their encounter. He had been as taken by surprise as Sam had by the force of whatever it was that sparked between them. “A lid for every pot,” his mum had often said, usually when referring to some slightly odd cousin who had finally settled down. Sam had always dismissed this saying as one that could never apply to him: what business did a man like him have looking for matches? Sitting on the floor with Hartley, though, he had wondered if that was what his mother had meant.
It wasn’t Sam’s usual encounter, and he was annoyed that it had ended the usual way. As if he even wanted to go out Hartley Sedgwick’s precious front door. It would serve the fellow right if Sam never darkened his doorway again. The only problem with that plan was that Sam already knew he wanted to see Hartley again. And that just made him more irritated with himself. Because who was Hartley to him, anyway? A fellow who didn’t have the sense God gave a duck, walking through bad streets with gold chains hanging out, and all to get a slice of dodgy pie. “Pitiful,” he said aloud, and didn’t know whether he meant himself or Hartley.
“It’s anybody’s guess which of you is more cross,” Nick said, dropping a tray of empty mugs on the bar.
“I’m not cross.” Kate yawned. “You’re cross,” she said, perched on a stool. Sam worried she would fall asleep and topple off the thing.
“I’m not cross, just busy, mate,” Sam told his brother. He hadn’t meant to snap, but he was pretty sure that’s how it had come out. Besides, he wasn’t cross so much as thoughtful, and even if his thoughts happened to stray toward everything in the world that annoyed him, that didn’t mean he was cross, he was quite certain.
“No, not a hint of crossness here. Everyone’s right cheerful,” Nick said, rolling his eyes.
“It’s the moon,” Kate said, yawning again. “Puts everyone on edge. I’ve had three births in two days and I need to sleep.”
“That doesn’t explain Sam,” Nick said.
Kate looked at Sam with bleary eyes. “You’re right,” she said to Nick, as if Sam didn’t have ears. “For days now he’s looked like he needed a dose of Senna tea. Maybe some syrup of figs.” Nick evidently found this hilarious, because the two of them laughed and bumped imaginary mugs together in a mimed salute.
“Oh hell, what’s going on with Johnny Newton now?” Nick asked, looking over Sam’s shoulder, toward the entry of the back room. Sam turned in time to see Newton toe to toe with a man he didn’t recognize as one of the Bell’s regulars. He caught a snippet of conversation that seemed to have something to do with Johnny’s mother.
“You stay back,” Sam said to his brother and Kate. “I’ll deal with it.” Breaking up fights was one of his duties at the Bell. He managed to get to the two men just in time to grab Johnny’s wrist and prevent him from swinging at the stranger. But the stranger’s reflexes weren’t as fast. Sam felt the blow collide with his cheekbone.
