Ideas of Sin

by Cooper, R.

  A warm, strong hand held him, caressed his hard, wet cock and there was nothing to do, no way to escape it, just as before, nothing to do but murmur his pleasure against James’ heat and thrust back into that giving palm as James surrounded him, as James always had. So close to him that René could have flicked out his tongue to touch James’ lips. And he did, and remembered the words that had come from them as James squeezed him again, hard and firm and commanding.

  “James.” A soft little hiss as he came, a small explosion of liquid between them as James continued to jerk his prick in his hand, and then a heaviness seeping into his bones. His eyes fell closed, and even the ground seemed comfortable enough to serve as a bed as the last of his seed left his body. The heat was better than a flaming hearth and blankets of warm wool, and he sighed once more, clutching mindlessly at the shoulders beneath his hands.

  “René.” A flat, almost dry acknowledgement, and then the heat collapsed tiredly over him, crushing him though he could not seem to mind yet as he drew shallow, careful breaths. Water splashed them as the seed between them cooled, though it was some time before that finally drove itself into his consciousness enough for him open his eyes, and remember that they lay in a dirty field, miles from shelter, covered in mud and naked to the elements.

  “James.” He shoved weakly against one shoulder as he said it, and James snapped his head up to squint at him. Then his face again filled with red, as dark as an aroused prick, flushing with blood at something that no doubt was not the reason that he ought to be blushing.

  James’ cock slipped free of him and René frowned at the oddly familiar sensation of emptiness, a wide ache in him at James’ absence. “Have I hurt you?” James was suddenly rising up from with a furious sort of urgency, running his hands lightly over René’s sticky chest. René shivered, but was pushed back when he tried to rise, a one-handed shove from James keeping him down. “I…” Whatever he meant to say he could not finish, and René knew his eyes widened as James ducked his head to nearly between his legs, and then pressed his fingers to the tingling, sore hole. “What are you doing?” He demanded and shoved away the hand to push himself into a sitting position. James was bent before him and regarding his ass so seriously that René would have blushed if he had not been concentrating on the sight of James’ back, the red line and welts from René’s roughness. A few of the marks were bleeding slightly, slight, scattered beads of scarlet that were growing pink with each drop of rain that hit James’ skin.

  “You do not bleed.” James seemed both relieved and puzzled, and then embarrassed, realizing that he held René’s attention with a suddenness that had him jerking his back onto his knees and avoiding René’s eyes.

  “James.” He knew he had the sound of a fool, repeating that name, but it was all his mind would grant him, and he touched his tongue to his lips, tasting the rain once more. Free to move now, René moved himself out from under James and slid up to his knees as well, not looking at his own used body, awkward and pale next to James and his honey and winecoloured strength. Strength that bleed, nonetheless, for having been touched by René, and he recalled how he had looked away that first afternoon, when James had wiped himself clean of the effects of René’s fucking.

  “You do,” René told him finally, and surged forward, twisting himself like a cat in order to drag his tongue along the blood from the scratches he had made, and swallow the saltiness before James would push him away for his madness.

  An arm crossed his chest, bending to crush him in place when he would have slid away, and though it could not have brought James comfort, René could feel his hand at his back.

  “You will not send me from you.” The blood was like spirits on his tongue, leaving his mind numb and foolish, nothing but warmth in the cheek that he pressed to James’ back. He had no place for his own arms, and held them from James’ heat for a moment, hearing the rush of James’ sigh through his chest at his hesitation. But he was not weak, and let his fingers creep back over James’ skin, feeling James do the same.

  “No.” The sweetness of James’ breath at René’s shoulder echoed René’s short exhalation, and René closed his eyes before the rain could return, knowing that did not have long to sit here like this. Already his body wanted him to move.

  The beat under his ear did not slow, and René’s fingers curled, holding tight in sudden fear. When his eyes opened, he saw that nothing about them had changed. “Aye,” James spoke for himself, his words nearly swallowed by the wind, and only then did he turn his head, easing his hold so that René might move and look him in the face. He was calm, gentle whispers only as he reached for dirtied coats and scraps of what clothing remained dry. “Let us leave this place, René.”

  Chapter Twenty–-one

  R

  ené Villon was his lover. It seemed not such a strange thing after all, though James could only wonder if another man were to look behind him and follow the path James had taken in the past months, would he also find himself as James was now, his back to the mountain of pillows in René Villon’s bed, his limbs stretched out under soft blankets, his body warm and sated even if his mind would not rest?

  He did not imagine it so. Did not wish to, perhaps, and let himself dream that he had been given this, that his path had been guided so that he might be here now, the lover of such a soul.

  It was not the first time the statement had floated bare across his vision in the past days, and James did not think it would be the last. It was a foolish thought, incredibly so when it seemed the whole of the Caribbean had known the physical truth of the affair long before James had ever acknowledged it to himself.

  He could not resist having the thought again, pulling at the words as though he were an impatient child tugging on the ribbon of a gift that he was not permitted to open.

  René Villon was his lover. Yet if James were to say such a thing aloud, he knew he would be greeted with stares. Incomprehension or just annoyance at James’ stupidity would leave René silent for all of a moment, and then there would be denials and muttered curses about the insanity of the English. Denials that seemed foreshadowed in the sudden push of the elbow at his back, the warmth of blankets tossed over onto him as the smaller body at his side moved away.

  James blinked to clear his blurred vision, his sight only made worse by the lack of light, the hints of dawn creeping in underneath the heavy curtains closed over the large windows doing little for his eyes. The drawn curtains had been René’s last order to the servants the night before, something disconcerting from a man who seemed to need light around him at all times.

  Three days in Paris had left René’s skin stretched thin and his face shadowed. His desire for bed, and sleep, had perhaps won over his desire to remain out of the dark for the night. Perhaps nothing but a need to lay abed longer than usual moved him, and James had only imagined the desperation in the hands holding him as the fire’s embers had dimmed at last.

  Looking down and to his side showed something both familiar and strange to James’ eyes, a frowning face buried into the pillow next to him, one arm already reaching out as René stirred into wakefulness for perhaps the hundredth time in a handful of hours.

  That René could not sleep full the night through was a fact known to few, two or three if James counted himself, one less now that the cause of it was no more. But though the dreams woke him, most meant only restless limbs and whispered curses. Others did not, others meant worse, but there had been none of those this night.

  Very still, James watched René’s fingers clutch at the sheets of his bed, likely searching for his weapon, and James exhaled as he found himself thinking of that pistol once again. It was odd to be thinking such things at all, assuredly they were not the thought that most had while in bed with their lover.

  A strange path had led him here, and yet his feet did not move to carry him away. Their bed was, for the moment, close and warm, almost too full with the shifting movements of René’s body and the decadent array of pillows
that had appeared upon this bed the day before.

  The sun rose outside, dawn giving way to morning. It was near to the mornings at home, over a year ago, his mind wakeful and aware even as his body had not wished to move, listening to soft movements downstairs. It would have been his step-mother then, though it was a collection of servants now. Ben would be waking soon; René as well as soon as James made to rise from the bed.

  René had not requested the candles remain lit, though the fire had slowly died to nothing in the night. Soon enough, even without them it would be light in here, and James would be gone before then, off to his own room as though the pretense fooled anyone.

  But he kept his place, for the bed was still theirs for a few moments yet. Knowing his thoughts even in sleep it seemed, René’s restless figure curled back to him, shivering until James lifted a hand and brought the blankets back to cover him. The act left James’ arm with nowhere to rest but around the slender body, and he left his hand awkwardly at René’s back, not certain of welcome in this though the touch was hardly intimate.

  It was too similar to their pose in the mud of the field two days before, and James felt his brows draw together, staring at the windows as though he could see through the curtains and over the fields to the road to Paris.

  René had not wanted him to repeat that act since, and in truth James was not sure that would, if asked, if René turning away to hide his face and ordering James to touch him could be thought of asasking.

  James’ mouth quirked for a moment, imagining the lady Mirena’s reaction to that. Then his frown returned, his gaze leaving his bed-partner to seek out the drawn curtains once more.

  It had not been the rain, wet on René’s face, not at first. Yet if he had felt pain during the act or after, he had not shown it, nowhere as stiff as James had been after the first time. René’s only seeming concern had been the stripes he had carved into James’ back, and the mud covering them both. He had even bathed without comment, appearing at James’ chamber door with a clean shirt sticking to his damp body and water droplets sparkling in his short hair.

  If there had been hurt for René, it had been in his mind alone, and James knew himself for an idiot as he realized that he would never have had the thought if he had not witnessed René’s terror with his own eyes.

  He had thought it sacrifice and had found it pleasure. In that at least, James was not slow and lack-witted. René had dropped down into the dirt of that field and spread his legs as though it were his bridal duty, holding onto slippery clumps of grass to prepare himself for the pain.

  The pain that James had chosen not to give him, James thought again, just as he had many times in his hours here, watching René’s restless dreaming. The word held a strange power now, it was true, the same prayer behind it that he thought he had once heard in René’s voice.

  René Villon, the corsaire, thief and killer, knew what it was to offer a choice. René Villon would turn his black eyes away before a glimpse of the truth could be seen in their depths, yet revealed in his acts that he knew too well the difference in having a choice, and not.

  If he asked, James wondered if Etienne would also explain the distinction, or if he would shrug and pronounce James a fool, before he too looked away.

  James closed his eyes, breathing carefully through his nose. Carter had only screamed for the wounds near the surface; the deeper cuts had bled him without a whimper. Outside, the storm had calmed to nothing but a light rain, gentle sprays against the windowpanes and the odd gust of wind to remind him of their passion the day before. Heavy though the rain had been, it had not been a true storm. Not of the kind that he had seen raging at the Jamaican coasts. Neither was a storm brewing somewhere distant and on its way toward them, not as James could determine, though a true mariner or farmer might disagree.

  Yet damp, chilled hands seemed to touch along his back whenever he imagined what waited beyond the closed curtains, cold raising bumps on his skin despite the warmth of this bed, and he knew it was not a warmth that would last. Still James stayed, and let René steal the blankets and their heat from him, knowing any other night the cold would never have touched him.

  He had known there would be consequences for letting Etienne go, had imagined demons and angels alike, had known that often the way of right was also the way of suffering. Etienne Saint-Cyr would hold the bond as a pirate might not, as Etienne himself had said, his skin white and his mouth bruised, touching a lip with his tongue as though to remember the taste of his pain.

  Then Etienne had laughed, and what might have seemed a careless, easy gesture in the gaiety of a noble’s court had seemed frightening in the black hold of a ship, only-recently cut ropes still underneath Etienne’s feet. It was a madness that James now recognized, the barest of covers for fear curling in the belly.

  Along his spine, James could feel the sick, sticking feel of old sweat, his flesh prickling with heat despite his quick shiver, and he opened his eyes, wondering if the servants would find him mad as well if he were to run from the house out into that rain.

  So sweet and soft in René’s mouth, on his lips as he had allowed James to kiss him, his heart pounding urgently between them as he had waited for more. His limbs had trembled even as he had arched under James’ touch, seeming as surprised as James at the strength of his reaction, patience gone and temper in its place.

  Even with the Lady Mirena, James had felt the force of that impatience. The bluntness in the woman’s manner as deceptive as René’s silence for all that it revealed her thoughts. She had never once offered him a warning, but now James would venture the lady’s mind was clear enough in her choice of gifts. Gifts to René, given through James.

  A simple coat that served its purpose well, and a ring hanging from one earlobe that seemed to fascinate all who beheld it. Lady Suzette, Pym, those in the street, staring at him with knowledge of what he now was. For a moment James shivered, a different heat flushing his skin to recall René’s attention to it, pulling on the hot flesh with his teeth. James had kept it in his ear to be kind, and yet had found himself insisting on the bit of vanity when the sight of it had disturbed others. He had been slow to behold its meaning.

  A servant did not wear such a thing. Neither did a man obedient to the laws of his sovereign, of any faith. The noise from downstairs was growing louder. James put a hand to the mattress to push himself to his feet at last, knowing there would not be much more time to linger, and felt the sudden pressure of René’s fingers at his wrist.

  René’s awakenings were always abrupt and startled, James knew them well from the fever, had thought them a symptom of that sickness only. The endless, fearful glances had not ended when the fire had left his mind, and James turned quickly to see black eyes opened and steady on him.

  “Do not leave.” It was only experience that gave James the ability to keep himself still at René’s command, studying the pretty, pale face resting on his pillow carefully to determine the many possible shades of René’s meaning.

  “It is morning,” James answered at last, aware that he whispered even though they were alone, habit perhaps, from the crowded ship. The hand at his wrist did not ease its hold, though the flat line of René’s mouth softened a bit, one hand slipping from under the blankets in order to pull them possessively nearly to René’s chin. He had made another vow yesterday, and James felt it heavy on his chest as he watched René hide himself.

  It was his place to leave their bed. Never would he send René from him. He looked away, toward the windows to hide his frown that René should need to ask him for that, reminding himself as he had not when René had first asked it, that it heralded René’s regard for him. René would not give reasons for his command; it was enough to him to have made it.

  You will be there , René had ordered, bare moments away from pinning James down to Sir Marvell’s desk, forced to leave then by Ben’s presence but promising an end to James’ want with his shining, wicked eyes. In the weeks afterward, in moments alone, Jam
es had taken himself in hand and remembered that command, a thrill stirring his blood to realize that the masterful words expressed nothing more than René’s longing to be with him again.

  It was enough for now to smooth the frown from James’ brow, bring something near a smile to his face as he turned back to René and the sharp gaze always so steady on him. His large, black eyes were still as cutting as the truest of swords, the savagery of the boucan behind them even if the sleek line of each arching eyebrow seemed as light as a foil Etienne might use. It was only the pose that mimicked the posture of a child—a frightened child— sheets twisted to the neck, body still and careful. Fearful perhaps, of shadows in corners and underneath beds, waiting outside doors if James thought of his own boyhood dreams.

  “But I might stay for a while longer,” James added, to end the silence between them, showing his teeth in a wider smile before leaning back into the pillows. He heard his heart stutter inside his bones, felt the uneven count of three beats, and then he was blinking at the sudden weight of René’s body on him and lifting up his hands to stroke them down the length of René’s back.

  His fingertips seemed lit, bright with each humming breath filling René’s chest, his palms tingling to feel the pulse of blood rushing beneath René’s skin, hot for him. René looked to be no longer concerned with his nakedness, covered only at his thighs by the blankets he had not shoved aside in order to lay atop James’ body.

  James spared a moment to gaze upon that nakedness, seeing the pink, flushed scar that still worried him and the soft bruises from the day before that did not—at least did not any longer. His study drew no protests from René, who held himself up with shaking arms, and for that James lifted his eyes to René’s face, hissing slightly at René’s amused expression. “You think to leave me with nothing?” René dropped his head as he whispered the low words, his breath hot on James’ flesh as James gasped. If he noticed James’ stillness he did not comment, his mouth pressed into a brief kiss just over James’ sickly pounding heart before moving on, pausing at one tightly budded nipple.