“You said you wrote what you wanted.”
He hadn’t managed to inflect it as a question; nor entirely as a statement. There was a long pause. Ross wasn’t smiling any longer.
“Don’t dance around,” said Ross. “You don’t give a toss for manners when it suits you not to. Don’t change on my account. You want to know why. So. Ask.”
“Why is this what you write?”
Ross nodded, a surprisingly patronising motion from someone a foot shorter and seven years younger than Jack. Someone whose life Jack could have easily bought—had bought, he thought with a trickle of heat, remembering the cufflinks and watch he’d pressed into Ross’s hands.
“Because this,” said Ross, lifting the book, “is safe.”
“I’ll remind you of that if you’re ever arrested for obscenity.”
“Safer than the alternative. Or perhaps you think I’d come to no harm at all, risk nothing, if I were to go in search of rough-handed soldiers and cruel dukes and tell them that what I really fancied was being tied up and fucked and pretending that I didn’t want it.”
All of Jack’s blood tried to converge on a single point. Heat gripped him, and he shifted in the chair. Ross’s glance took it in, mocked him for it, and returned to skewer his face, all within moments.
Jack said, “If you tell me you’ve never been fucked, I’ll say you’re lying about being the Roman after all.”
“One of the best pornographers I know is a fifty-year-old virgin spinster who looks like she’s never had a dirty thought in her life.”
“You dared me to ask,” said Jack. “So answer.”
That lighthouse-flash of emotion appeared. For a second Jack was convinced that Ross had changed his mind about this, whatever it was. That he’d shove the book into place and walk out of Jack’s study and back to his own life.
“Yes. I’ve tried, once or twice. To go looking for more.” The book tapped against his hand. “But not many men of your sort recognise the line between real and play. And it’s just my luck that the appeal is right on that line.”
Jack knew what he meant. His body was shouting for him to stand, to use his height and the force of his presence. To see that extraordinary face turned up to his, hating the necessity of it, alive with dislike and desire, here in Jack’s house surrounded by the evidence of Jack’s wealth. It was a cruel thing to want. He wanted it so much it was hard to breathe.
But more than that, he wanted Ross to feel safe enough to keep talking. So he stayed in his chair.
In Jack’s silence, one of Ross’s wicked half smiles appeared like a reward for Jack’s restraint.
Ross said, “Ask me if I’ve been paid for it.”
“Ask? I only have to look at you. Men would bankrupt themselves.”
Surprise bled into Ross’s face. His body was an angle, his shoulders tipped forward as if he wanted to move but a rope held him back by the waist.
Jack said, deliberately, “Should I tell you to name your price?”
Ross did turn and replace the pamphlet, now. He ran a hand through his curls.
“Fuck you all the way to hell, Lord Hawthorn,” he said quietly. “This would be so much easier if what I wanted was you on your knees.”
“You don’t?”
“In an ideal world, yes. I’d love to see you driven to your knees. Politically, I’d fucking enjoy that.”
Anticipation, always an optimist, had begun to work Jack’s desire to a higher pitch. He wavered between pushing it aside and surrendering.
He said, “And actually?”
Ross barked a laugh. “In reality, I think if you forced me to my knees and fed me your prick, I’d come untouched before you had a chance to find out how deeply I can take it.”
Jack had known, but he hadn’t known. It had been hanging like misted petroleum in the air between them. And Ross had made a vicious struck match out of his honesty—had said I and you, and dragged them out of the hypothetical and into the real.
It was the most arousing thing that Jack had heard in his life. But it wasn’t an invitation.
“Oh, and don’t you hate that,” he murmured.
“Of course I do.” A wave of irritated shame rose right into Ross’s face, and too late Jack realised that what he had here—a full collection of Ross’s fantasies, and the knowledge of the author’s identity—was even more than the political, social, and financial power he already held over Ross. It was a secret that nobody else had. The least safe of all.
Jack had to hand some power back. Not money, and not magic, but a secret in return. One that would mean something.
“I wrote you a letter.”
“You—what?”
“I wrote a letter to the Roman,” said Jack. “Perhaps five years ago, now. I gave it to the man at the shop in Charing Cross and told him to send it back along the chain. I’ve no idea if it ever reached you, but—”
“It reached me.”
“Are you sure? I didn’t exactly sign my name.”
“How many letters do you think the average anonymous scribbler of illegal pornography gets?” said Ross. “I’ve only ever had the one. I thought it was a fucking joke, until I read it. Now I could probably recite it. Or reproduce the writing exactly. Mother of God. That was you?”
Jack spread his hands. That letter had been one of the most sincere and impulsive acts of his life, born from an odd sense of fair play. Someone had created something that had crept under his skin and found a blissful nerve; he wanted to tell them so. Now he felt uncomfortably as though he’d peeled back that same layer of skin.
“Don’t recite it. I’ve no idea what I wrote. All manner of rubbish, no doubt.”
“No.” Ross’s posture had shifted. “It meant something, to hear from a real person. It made it all seem less tawdry. It was—a kind thing.”
And Jack wasn’t going to ask how few kindnesses this man had received in his life, that a page-long letter telling him what he surely already knew—that he had a gift, and was using it well—would rank so highly.
That shift became movement. Ross came to stand closer to Jack’s chair. Not too close; Jack would have to stand, to touch him. He hooked his thumbs into the waist of his trousers. His voice, level and honest a moment ago, became a low and electrifying taunt.
“So now I know the kind of filth your tastes run to. You want an excuse to treat someone like dirt? Is that why I’m here? A boy from the gutter, invited into the grand lord’s house and shown everything he can’t have?”
Jack had been expecting a thank-you. Perhaps even a sincere one. Anger rose faster than sense within him, and he was on the verge of spitting out a denial when he caught the expression on Ross’s face.
He stood up. Ross took a step back, instantly. He did have to raise his face to hold Jack’s gaze, and it did look as though it annoyed him to do it. In lamplight the fresh scratches on his jaw were stark. It was impossible to tell where the dark-rum brown of his eyes stopped and the pupils began.
Ross had said that Jack wanted for nothing. False, so very false. He didn’t need this, no; he’d arranged his life and his heart so that he needed no one else. But want was another thing entirely.