The Sugared Game

by KJ Charles

  Phoebe’s Bright Young People seemed to be achieving that in their insatiable demand for attention. Waiters darted round the dancefloor like sheepdogs, urging those of the party they could corral to a hastily assembled set of tables. Beaumont was one of them, bearing two trays of champagne and glasses. Phoebe hooked her arm through Mrs. Skyrme’s and drew her to the tables, talking unstoppably. The High-Low’s manager wore the slightly bewildered look of anyone blown away by Phoebe’s breezy conversation. She wasn’t likely to get out of there any time soon.

  That left Fuller. Will gave it some thought, then leaned over to murmur his excuses to the girls. He left them at the table, and strolled over to the set of spiral stairs nearer to Mrs. Skyrme’s office. Fuller was still busy with the revellers so Will went up the stairs, feeling appallingly visible, and leaned on the balcony rail, a man with nothing better to do than watch the world go by.

  He was at the corner of the room, overlooking the dance floor, the tables along the long side of the balcony to his right, and the office to his left. From here he could see the smoked glass window of the office door, and make out a shape moving within. The glass obscured most detail, but the pale blur of the jacket was all too visible.

  So his job was to prevent anyone, but especially Fuller, heading for the office, in case they saw Kim. And he’d definitely need to cause a distraction when Kim emerged—God, he was taking his time—because he’d be entirely visible to half the room on this side when he did.

  The band started playing dance tunes again. Desmond Fuller was still below. Mrs. Skyrme laughed at something a man in a filthy striped blazer had said. On the down side, Phoebe’s battalion of young idiots seemed to have stopped their game in order to drink champagne. They were still making an incredible amount of noise, but they’d lost their fellow customers’ attention. That was the trouble with these night-club people, Will decided, they were jaded. Still, nobody was coming up to the office. A bit longer and they might get away with this.

  Will watched and waited. It was smoky up here, irritating his lungs. The band played on. A waiter cleared his throat, and Will turned with a pulse of hope, but it wasn’t Kim or even Beaumont, just a stranger in a garish jacket.

  “Would you care for a drink, sir?”

  “I’m all right for now.”

  “Perhaps I can take you to a table?”

  “I’ve been sitting all day. I’m fine here.”

  “If you’re sure, sir.”

  Downstairs, Mrs. Skyrme was disengaging herself from the Bright Young People. Will watched her for a few seconds, made sure that she was off on her rounds of the floor, chatting to customers, then cast about for Fuller.

  He couldn’t see him.

  Will scanned the floor frantically, looking for one sleek head among dozens. He couldn’t find the bastard, but Phoebe was standing by the far edge of the dance-floor, chatting to a man in a blazer. She looked up, caught Will’s eye, and moved her hand in a casual gesture, pointing.

  Will tracked along the room, and found him. Fuller was on the spiral stair, heading up. Will crossed his fingers the man was on his way to the upper balcony, but he didn’t keep climbing the stair. He headed off towards the office door, and Will.

  The band blared below. Will flexed his fingers.

  Kim was still in the office, and if he came out now, Fuller would see him. Will stepped in front of him as he approached. “I say. Just the chap.”

  “Ah, Mr. Darling. It’s good to see you back. I hope you’re having a good evening? Excuse me.”

  He swung nimbly around Will. Will sidestepped to get back in his way. “Very decent, thanks. Can you get me a brandy?”

  Fuller raised his hand, making a wiggling gesture with his fingers. “Someone will be along in a moment. Excuse me.”

  “No, not in a moment.” Will let the bonhomie drop out of his voice as he raised the volume. He’d seen plenty of belligerent drunks in his time, and how their moods turned on a sixpence. “I said I wanted a bloody brandy. D’you work here or not?”

  “There’s a waiter just coming,” Fuller said, with a practised stretch of the lips. “A brandy here, right away, on the house. I’m sorry for the delay.”

  That was beyond reasonable, and Will wasn’t in the habit of picking fights without provocation. He simply couldn’t think of anything to take further offence at, and in that second Fuller slipped by him, moving towards the office, with Kim still in it.

  Will shot a frantic look down at the dance floor, and saw Cynthia edging towards the group of Bright Young Things. A woman looked her up and down, expression mocking, while a tall man in evening dress with grime over his shirt-front made no effort to hide the fact that he was ogling her cleavage.

  “Get your hands off her, you dirty bastard!” Will bellowed, loud enough to make people jump two tables away. To make his point, he snatched a wine bottle from a passing waiter’s tray, turned, and flung it towards the office. It sailed over Fuller’s head and exploded in a shower of shards against the wall, causing quite a lot of screams.

  “Hoi!” Fuller shouted. “What the—”

  That should do it. Will charged down the stairs, roaring threats and curses and shoving people out of the way. Speed was of the essence: he needed to draw Fuller down, so he barrelled ruthlessly into the crowd on the dancefloor. Someone behind him grabbed at his arm, digging fingers in. Will swung round, dislodging his grip, and Fuller’s fist just brushed his jaw as he turned.

  Dirty bastard, hitting from behind. Will feinted, and hit him with a straight right, feeling Fuller’s nose crunch in a satisfactory manner. The man staggered back, and, since he liked Doris and Cynthia, Will landed a second punch in those offensive teeth. There was an audible crack and a sproing of wire as the dentures broke. Fuller gave a yell of pain and clutched his mouth.

  Will swung back to the gaping Bright Young Things. “I’ll bloody kill you, you filthy swine!” he shouted at random. A chinless young man grasped his shoulder with a reproving bleat. Will jabbed at his face, making no great effort to pull the blow—someone should punch them—and slammed his other elbow sideways, landing it in a soft gut. At that point someone collided with him from behind, and that was when things got hairy.

  HE WAS FROGMARCHED out, Fuller on one side, his mouth concave from the broken dentures and bleeding heavily from the nose, and a burly doorman on the other. A waiter hurried after with his coat and hat. They shoved him sprawling onto the wet pavement with what Will felt was unnecessary force.

  “Don’t come back,” Fuller told him thickly, and spat on the pavement.

  Will heaved himself to his knees, then his feet, once they’d gone inside. It was drizzling, the cold wet air a relief after the heat of the club and the fight. If Kim hadn’t been able to get out without that distraction, he deserved to get caught.

  He’d taken a fair few punches, including a glancing one that landed just over his eye, and Fuller had added some vicious kicks when he’d gone down. It was a damn good thing he’d been pulled off by watchers, because Will’s ribs hurt. He stretched the pain out for a moment, waiting to see if Phoebe would emerge, but the door remained firmly shut. He hoped that meant she was all right but he lingered on the other side of the road a little longer anyway, keeping a weather eye out for policemen.

  Nothing happened. He shrugged on his coat, muddy where it had been thrown in a puddle, slapped on his equally battered hat, and set off down the street.

  There was a figure waiting under the lamppost at the end. Kim had on a large topcoat and an opera hat; Will supposed it must be the folding kind. He looked self-possessed and well put together. The bugger.

  “Ouch,” he said as Will came under the lamplight. “That looks painful.”

  “You should see the other fellow. Got out all right?”

  “Entirely unnoticed, while you were drawing all eyes your way. Thank you, Will. That was spectacular.”

  “Did you see what happened to Phoebe?”

  “Safely surrounded by i
diots.”

  “I whacked a couple of them.”

  “Good,” Kim said wholeheartedly. “You probably need witch hazel on that cut.”

  “Am I cut?”

  Kim indicated his own eyebrow. Will wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and saw the wet skin smeared with blood. “Blast.”

  “Here.” Kim stepped in front of him, bringing them both to a stop on the dark street, and turned to face him. He drew out a handkerchief, glimmering pale in the gloom, and reached out to dab gently at his eyebrow.

  “You’ll ruin your handkerchief.”

  “That’s all right.” Kim pressed the handkerchief to Will’s face with light touches, eyes intent. He was a fraction taller, nothing worth noticing, but you couldn’t help seeing it up close like this. Will’s breath was coming a bit short.

  “Nasty cut,” Kim said, voice barely more than a whisper. “Perhaps you should come back to my place. Let me clean it up.”

  “All right.”

  They walked in near silence. Will didn’t want to talk about what was going on, what Kim had found, or been looking for. He wanted them behind a locked door. Everything else could wait.

  Kim led the way round to the mews behind his mansion flats without discussing it. He had keys to the back door. They went up the stairs, and Kim let them into the kitchen, relocked the door, and put on the light.

  “Sit down. Let me deal with that cut.”

  “Sod the cut.”

  Kim touched a finger to his lips. “Sit.”

  Will sat. In truth his brow was throbbing quite painfully now they were out of the rain.

  Kim stripped off his topcoat, and the ugly waiter’s jacket. He fetched cotton wool and a bottle of witch hazel, rolled up his sleeves, and carefully cleaned the cut above Will’s eye. The witch hazel stank, and it stung.

  “Ouch. Ow.”

  “I know you’ve had worse. I’ve seen the scars.”

  “I complained about those too,” Will pointed out.

  He had no real reason to complain. Kim’s hands on Will’s face and shoulders were very gentle, and did not feel like a nurse’s impersonal touch at all. They both smelled of cigarette smoke and damp cloth, not to mention the witch hazel, but Kim’s subtle cologne threaded its way through everything.

  “Are you done?”

  “Your hand.” Kim took Will’s right hand, running a thumb over the grazed knuckles almost too lightly to feel. “Let me just—”

  “My hand will be fine. I’ve got better things to do with it.”

  Will stood. Since Kim didn’t move away, that put them face to face and body to body. Will ran his hands down Kim’s arms, feeling the muscle under his touch, closing his fingers round the slim forearms with their faded white lines of healed cuts.

  The drink and the backwash of fighting had fuzzed his head, and he didn’t know what to say. I want. I need. His mouth tasted of blood and witch hazel and bad champagne. He wanted it to taste of Kim.

  “Will,” Kim said on a breath. “There’s something I should tell you.”

  “Is it going to piss me off?”

  “You certainly won’t be happy.”

  Will shut his eyes and rested his forehead against Kim’s. “So we wouldn’t want to fuck afterwards?”

  “Well, you might not.”

  Their faces were so close, Will could feel his own warm breath rebound against his skin. “Can it wait till tomorrow?”

  “As long as you don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Let’s go to bed.”

  HE’D ONLY BEEN IN KIM’S bedroom a few times. It felt more familiar than it should. Kim switched on some of his many lamps as Will struggled out of his coat, then walked over and pulled him into a kiss without a word. His mouth was hard and demanding. Will got a hand on his taut arse, then the other. Kim snarled against his lips, and moved his head to bite gently at Will’s earlobes, clutching his shoulders.

  “God. Kim. Can I—”

  “Yes,” Kim said into his skin. “Please do.”

  They both stripped quickly. Will wasn’t sure where the urgency was coming from. Maybe they were trying to outrun whatever trouble followed; he didn’t care. He kicked away his trousers and stepped out of his drawers.

  Kim sucked in a breath, almost a hiss. “Every time I see you naked...”

  “What?” Will was in reasonable shape—he did a lot of manual work, and he’d filled out in the last few months—but he was solid, not graceful, and he had some ugly scars.

  Kim tipped his head. “Many things. Every time I see you naked, I marvel at the gift. I discover a structural weakness in my knees that makes them want to bend. I consider and reject joining a gymnasium.” He stroked a very light finger over the ridged line on Will’s belly. “I wonder how close you came to not being here.”

  “That wasn’t the bad one.”

  “Which was?”

  “My leg. If it hadn’t been for the bravest stretcher-bearer in Flanders, I’d have died out there. A month in hospital.”

  Kim’s fingers trailed down over his hip, to the gnarled skin on his thigh. “This?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Not any more.”

  Kim’s fingertips were skimming the rough surface of the scar, round and over. “Beautiful.”

  “The scar?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re bloody odd.”

  “Scars are always beautiful,” Kim said. “They’re proof we lived.” He ran his fingers back up to Will’s stomach, skirting his groin in a way that made Will very aware of it. “What was this one?”

  “I walked into a bayonet. What are the ones on your arms?”

  “I walked into a razor.”

  Will looked at the thin white lines. “A razor?”

  “I used to cut myself,” Kim said, quite calmly. “When I was fourteen, fifteen. It...how can I put this? It let certain feelings out that would have been worse if they stayed in.”

  Will had no idea how to respond to that. He’d known a fellow in the trenches who’d taken to pinching himself viciously, so his wrists were a constant mess of half-moon nail marks. He didn’t want to think of a young Kim hurting his body to escape his mind, or of these scars as proof he had lived through whatever it was. The idea gave him a vast, aching sorrow too big for him to contain.

  “I thought you got them when you learned knife fighting,” he said, inadequately.

  “Don’t be absurd. I used wrist protectors.”

  Will opened his mouth, looked at the thin, faint scars again, and said “But—”

  Kim gave a sudden choke of laughter. Will caught his eye and spluttered, and then they were both laughing, stupidly because it wasn’t funny, and gloriously because it was.

  “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” Kim said. “Shut up.”

  Will wanted to hold him, to wrap his arms around him and find out what was wrong and make it right. That wasn’t in his power and Kim probably wouldn’t have welcomed it anyway. He said, instead, “Come to bed,” because he didn’t know how to say anything else, and took Kim’s hand.

  There was no hurry. That was important, somehow. He took his time, kissing and touching, and Kim did the same. Hands over each other, using touch because words were large and frightening things. Forgetting about scars, for now.

  After a while Kim sat up on Will’s spread thighs, took his left hand, and very slowly took a finger in his mouth. Will sucked in a breath. Kim drew the ring of his lips steadily up and down, with obvious symbolic effect but also providing a world of sensation in itself. Will had no idea his battered hands had so much feeling left in them; his prick jerked painfully. Kim seemed in no hurry, taking each toughened finger in turn, running tongue and teeth over the knotty joints and hardened skin, drawing his manicured nails across Will’s palm, slow and lingering and making his toes curl.

  “You have beautiful hands,” he murmured. “I’m sure I mentioned this.”

  “Y
ou did. You’re wrong, but you did.”

  “I’m not wrong.” Kim kissed the inside of Will’s wrist. “I’m never wrong.”

  Will managed a snort that turned into a yelp when Kim leaned forward and captured a nipple with his mouth. “God!”

  “You’re remarkably sensitive tonight,” Kim purred. His teeth rasped over the nub, hardening it. Will squirmed under him, the more when Kim’s hand slid down his side, over his hip, between his legs. Kim’s mouth and hand moved together, sending pleasure spiking up and down, his cock rubbing hot and hard against Will’s leg in time with the movements.

  Will moaned. Kim lifted his head away. “Can I suck you off?”

  “No. Don’t.” He didn’t want Kim kneeling between his legs, face hidden, feelings unreadable. He reached for the dark head. “Stay up here with me.”

  Kim’s lips parted a little. Will pulled him up and wriggled down to kiss him, cupping the back of his skull to keep him there, thighs and hips and pricks bumping beautifully together. Thank God for being the same height. He clamped his other hand on Kim’s smooth arse, feeling the muscle work, the vibration of his groan. Kim shifted over him, clamping Will’s cock between his legs, his own rubbing between their stomachs, and they rocked and kissed, kissed and rocked, fingers gripping and tongues duelling, until first one then the other groaned and jerked and came.

  They lay together, a tangle of arms and legs, body heat and wet spunk. Kim let his head drop to the crook of Will’s neck, leaving him with a faceful of fine hair.

  “Not sophisticated,” he said at last, muffled. “But good.”

  “Did you want sophisticated?” Will asked, with a stab of self-consciousness.

  “Not tonight. I think I wanted honesty. Thank you.”

  Will dropped an arm over his shoulder. They lay together in silence for a moment until Kim shifted, which made it apparent that the sticky mess on Will’s belly had started gluing them together. “Ugh. This must be what they call a mess of frottage.”

  “Jesus Christ. Had you been planning that long?”

  Kim grinned and rolled off. “I’ll get a cloth.”