The Bohemian and the Banker

by Bonnie Dee

  “You wear too many clothes.” Jay pulled away while his hands busily peeled off Nigel’s jacket and worked on his waistcoat buttons. In moments, his hand was inside Nigel’s shirtfront, feeling his chest through his undershirt. “Four layers on a warm night such as this. Outrageous!”

  Again that delicious chuckle muffled by Jay’s mouth pressed now against Nigel’s neck. The vibration nearly did him in. He couldn’t accept so much touch against his skin when he was used to no touch at all.

  Jay had pulled his shirttails out of his trousers and pushed up his undershirt to spread his palm flat against Nigel’s stomach. Working the buttons of Nigel’s fly, the backs of Jay’s knuckles brushed bare flesh, and every touch was agony and ecstasy. The tension in Nigel’s cock was beyond bearing, and he was going to release. He didn’t want to embarrass himself with such pathetic eagerness.

  Nigel seized Jay’s hand to stop him. “Wait. I can’t… It’s too much.”

  The other man sat up, pulling his sucking mouth off Nigel’s throat. He looked into Nigel’s eyes, smiled and nodded. “All right. We’ll move a little slower, then. We have all night.”

  Chapter Four

  Jay felt oddly protective of this baby bird who’d stumbled into the wrong nest. Nigel wasn’t a boy—not even close to it—but he was as inexperienced as one. Poor thing was eager and starving for affection and sex. It was up to Jay to set the pace and ease him slowly into the things he craved. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

  He reluctantly removed his hand from Nigel’s trousers. He’d been so close to grasping the hard cock he knew lay beneath the broadcloth. He smoothed down the undershirt over that surprisingly flat stomach and moved away. What next? A little more talk, or some light kissing and handholding? How would he woo this adorable virgin?

  The glow from the skylight picked out the features of the man beside him, although, really, Nigel vibrated with a kind of energy that would have been impossible to ignore even if they’d lain in utter darkness.

  With a sigh, Jay reclined on the pallet, hands behind his head, and stared into the sky, searching for a few stars with lights strong enough to reach earth through the city’s lights. He tried to think of something, anything to stop himself from lunging at Nigel. The temptation to kiss and touch him was surprisingly strong.

  Jay had a drive—he wasn’t dead, after all. Yet he’d recently been less single-minded in his pursuit of fleshly delights. Roger accused him of ennui, and Jay had rolled his eyes at her but hadn’t bothered to deny it. Pleasure for the sake of pleasure alone was best sampled in small bites, and he’d gulped down huge portions during his time in Paris. He’d lost much of his appetite. When he had brought men back to the apartment lately, he’d had a drive, but it was to reach climax quickly. He’d satisfy himself and his partner, kiss the man good-bye, and hope to sleep without dreams or the broken support on the sofa disturbing his rest.

  Tonight, when he’d picked up Nigel Warren, he actually had something other than that single-minded focus. He’d been a little bored and homesick. And yet now the hunger had descended, again, surprisingly fast and fierce. He wanted that orgasm, of course, and for them both, but he felt hungry for more exploration as well.

  Perhaps it was Nigel’s eagerness that fueled his own. And the discovery that under that staid wool suit was a body that would make Merde swoon and reach for his pencils. The Englishman smelled so much better than Jay was used to, no fug of bad tobacco and unwashed clothes.

  “We’ll practice restraint,” he told Nigel and himself. “It’s good for the soul. We’ll talk of politics, the weather, maybe school days. It will serve to calm our raging desires.”

  A soft choking sound next to him—protest or passion?—made him smile at the stars, a pattern that might have been a dipper of some sort.

  “Tell me all about your conventional life.”

  Nigel hoisted himself up onto an elbow and looked at Jay. “You sneer at me.”

  “Is that what you think?” Jay reflected that perhaps he did sound slightly condescending. “Maybe. A little.”

  Nigel peered at him, and his breath was fast and ragged. Jay smiled back. He felt ready for more kisses, and this time he wouldn’t stop. Yes, he’d like to bring that eager trembling man to climax. He would enjoy discovering if Nigel cried out or was silent as he came.

  But Nigel didn’t grab him. He would apparently obey Jay’s order to converse. “There is nothing wrong with convention. My accomplishments might not mean anything here, but they carry weight elsewhere.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. Do you mean your work?” Jay intended to be polite, but Nigel seemed nettled.

  “Yes, my work, and my life. It is quite conventional. You’ve guessed right about me again. But there is nothing wrong with waking up and knowing every detail of your day and your next day and so on into the future. Nothing. Wrong.” He’d started out strong, but his words died away.

  Poor man seemed to be realizing he faced endless days of teacups and bed by ten.

  Jay yawned and stretched. “All right, Nige. If convention is what suits you, I’m not going to protest that you should live otherwise. Lord knows I hear often enough from people who scold me to change my ways. I wouldn’t scold anyone else. And, truthfully, I do see the appeal of your sort of life. Sleeping in a comfortable bed, knowing your next meal will be more than a scrap. Oh, indeed I understand the appeal.” He gave a wistful sigh. “It’s simply not in my cards—the ones I’ve dealt myself, that is.”

  “What would your life be like if you weren’t here in Paris?”

  “If I’d stuck to the cards dealt me at birth, I’d be going to the factory day in and day out and probably married with six little ones. Trips to the seaside with the wife and kiddies.”

  “A factory? You?”

  “There’s a mill near the town where my mother grew up. She didn’t like London, always talked about returning to the north and getting jobs for both of us in the mill. The owner was fair to his employees, she told me. Even provided some drab little houses for them.”

  “Did she go back?”

  “No, she died before she could leave the East End. My father was French—that’s how I got the language—and he died when I was a boy. For a time, it was just my mum and me.”

  “That is an echo of my life. That is to say I was an only child and now both parents are dead, my father when I was six and my mother more recently.”

  “Except you didn’t grow up in the part of London with the families of laborers and street sellers.”

  “No.” Nigel paused. Jay expected him to talk about his own wealthy, conventional life, but, in a tentative manner, Nigel asked, “Do you miss your mother?”

  His mum. He hadn’t thought about her for months, and what did that say about a son’s devotion? “Yes. You?”

  “Very much, indeed,” Nigel said gravely. “But her death did not change my habits and customs. Your mother’s did, I think.”

  “Too right. No more need to keep my desire for pretty things a secret in my own home, and no more pressure to move to a mill town.”

  Nigel gave a breathy laugh. “I don’t know you very well, but I can’t see you in a factory.”

  “Oh no. I should have run away or gone mad. Or perhaps I might have been a lonely bachelor who joined some workingman societies to keep me from sitting alone in my home.”

  Nigel laughed again. “Nor can I see that either. You’re too alive.”

  “You are as well, my friend.”

  “No.” After a few moments of silence punctuated by the calls of cats enjoying themselves, Nigel added, as if convincing himself, “But I am content.”

  “Are you?” Jay was tired of this discussion of the lives they led away from this rooftop. He didn’t want to think about the dreary neighborhood he’d left behind. He wanted them back in this vital, interesting present. And he looked forw
ard to learning about the very intimate life of this gent. “Tell me this. When you touch yourself—”

  “I-I know what you mean, and I don’t do that.”

  “Oh, do be honest, tonight at least,” Jay said, a little annoyed. “You touch yourself. Yes?”

  Nigel shifted, nodded. “Not often,” he whispered.

  “But when you do, and you make up the stories that go with your hand on your hard cock, do you imagine yourself with a sweet woman or a man?”

  “I try not to think about it.” His voice was unsteady.

  That likely answered that question, as much as the kisses they’d exchanged, but Jay still felt the urge to ruffle the man. “When you walk around museums, do you look at the statues of the naked men or the naked women?”

  Nigel was silent a moment before answering in steadier tones. “I don’t often look at art. But if I did… Both I think. The forms are beautiful.”

  “I believe you. I wonder if you might be like Merde. He couldn’t care less if there is a cock or a cunt, breast or chest. He just wants the muscles. Enjoys painting pictures of big muscular lumps of flesh. Merde swoons for those forms. He was engaged to a washerwoman for a while. Her arms were impressive. She soon discovered that Merde only wanted her for her muscles and used them to bounce him out the door.”

  “What about you? What do you…think about? When you…when you…?” His words came out deep and unsteady. Nigel obviously fought growing desire.

  Jay enjoyed hearing that barely suppressed longing. “Ah me. I knew what I was from the moment such thoughts entered my head. I understood what I wanted. While I like the form of a woman—indeed, many are pretty—I don’t ache to touch breasts or soft curves. Nor do I wish to have them, much as my mode of dress on stage might make you think otherwise. I like the body under my fingers to be hard. Flesh that’s thick and muscled and, mmm, I do like cock. Do you know how delicious it is to have a man begging you for more? For your mouth or your hands or your arse?”

  Another strangled groan came from next to him. “Stop. Please.”

  Jay smiled. “I’m teasing you, and I suppose that’s naughty of me. But you seem the sort of person who could use teasing.”

  “What should I do? How shall I respond?” He sounded truly baffled.

  “What would you like to do?”

  “I don’t have words,” Nigel whispered.

  “Ha, and I have plenty of them myself.” Jay blinked up at the sky. His erection, which had been flagging, had returned with his own description of arousal. He felt keenly aware of the man lying next to him.

  Nigel spoke, low and fast. “Your words, all of you. I have no experience with this. Out here with you, I feel as if I’m flying. And I have no wings.”

  “Bah. None of us do. But there’s a good solid roof under us.” Such a strange moment. Jay could almost feel as if he were launching into that sky, up toward the moon.

  Nigel waved a hand in the air above them. “I’m up there somewhere.”

  “You are silly.”

  “Profoundly silly,” said Nigel, so serious. “Flying makes a person dizzy, as it turns out.”

  “So does wine with coca.”

  “Oh, that.” Nigel reached out and touched Jay’s face with such a light graze of his fingers across Jay’s cheek. “Yes, but you’re a stronger drug by far.”

  Jay laughed and, with slow deliberate fingers, unbuttoned his shirt.

  “May I kiss you again?” Nigel murmured.

  “Yes, all right.”

  He’d expected more of the starving, almost awkward fumbling they’d enjoyed earlier, but Nigel levered himself up and held himself over Jay so only their mouths touched. He gave him the lightest of kisses, a brush of the lips.

  “Again?” The word a warm wash of breath over Jay.

  Jay decided to let him take control. “Yes.”

  And this kiss was also light, soft. Sweet. The smallest touch of tongue to Jay’s mouth.

  Christ the man was turning into a tease. Already. That hadn’t taken long. The kisses grew deeper, and Jay felt drugged with desire in a way he hadn’t been for a very long time. This time Jay was the one to make a small protesting sound when the kiss ended.

  “Thank you,” Nigel whispered and pressed his forehead to Jay’s collarbone.

  The soft dark hair tickled Jay’s chin, and he stroked Nigel’s head. “I feel as if I’m patting a friendly sort of a dog,” Jay said.

  “Woof,” Nigel answered and laughed against the thin fabric of Jay’s undershirt. The two of them were still unbuttoned and nearly undressed.

  Jay continued to stroke and wind his fingers in the short but thick hair. “You would be a fine dog, faithful and prone to regular habits. Whereas I would be a cat, I think. I’d doze the day away in a patch of sunlight and my nights sleeping on someone’s best cashmere shawl.”

  Nigel raised his head, and Jay looked up at him. The skylight’s glow painted Nigel’s hair, tousled and messy. The light caught the damp on his mouth, which looked full and sensual now. Such a contrast to the well-groomed businessman waiting outside the theatre.

  “Is that what you’d want to do with your life?” Nigel asked. “Sleep it away? Why would you do that when you have such an interesting life? Not to mention music and singing to live for.”

  “Caterwauling in the back alleys, you mean? One must sleep eventually.” He stretched and yawned. “And should you, of all people, condemn someone for sleeping life away? Pfah.”

  “What do you mean?” Nigel’s voice was hushed and urgent. “I don’t think that’s correct. I don’t sleepwalk through my life.” He sounded truly distressed. The man listened to Jay far too carefully. Each word and sentiment seemed to carry weight with Nigel.

  Jay was surprised to realize he cared that he might cause Nigel pain. He’d have to be careful speaking nonsense with this one. “Don’t mind me. I’m babbling for my own entertainment. But, really, no sleep for either of us. I’ve promised you a night’s entertainment, haven’t I?”

  “You haven’t promised me anything, so I will take whatever you offer,” Nigel said.

  Jay began to smile, but then his amusement died as he understood that this inconsequential conversation and those kisses had made a lasting impression on him…on Jay.

  Damnation. That meant that when he came up here again, as he often did on balmy nights, he’d think about Nigel. This hardly seemed fair. Nigel was supposed to be a bit of a distraction. Jay had decided he would be an influence on the staid banker. Not the other way around.

  “All right, I’ll make a promise now. I’ll give you a gift. When you go back to England, you’ll have something to think about those few times you touch yourself.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Nigel whispered.

  And I shall have something as well. But Jay didn’t say the words. He pushed Nigel down on his back and framed his face with his hands before bending down for a kiss.

  Chapter Five

  They moved toward that overpowering excitement again, so quickly. Back to kisses and touches and this time they would not stop. Not until… God, would they be naked?

  Nigel licked his lips, swallowed. His mouth, dry, tasted of bad wine—but he’d kissed Jay, and that had tasted better than anything he’d ever savored in his life.

  At last. If he’d known how perfect such a kiss would be, he would not have waited until he’d almost reached his thirtieth birthday to savor one.

  And another human, touching him, thigh to thigh, belly to belly. Cock to very hard cock.

  They moved restlessly, and Nigel lay with most of his weight on Jay, who writhed beneath him. Oh, he’d imagined it all, but to have another person so close and present… A few times he’d been pressed tight against bodies in crowds, and he’d closed his eyes and thought, This must be what it is like.

  He’d been wrong. The intimacy
and immediacy of a man sharing his breath and touching him proved his imagination had been paltry. Oh, the hands on his face and now taking charge by gripping his shoulders and pulling him close. Before this night, he couldn’t have guessed at the breath and heartbeat, the scent. He had to memorize this all.

  In his ear, an amused voice said, “Are you with me? I believe you’re thinking too much.”

  He sighed. “You’re right.” And so he forced his busy mind to quiet and focus all attention on the minutia of the physical—the tiny lick of Jay’s tongue at the base of his throat, the texture of the other man’s flesh so smooth and stretched over hard muscle, the wet press of lips—on his chest now, and, good God, the sudden grip on his cock!

  Jay had reached a hand between them, unfastened Nigel’s trousers and smalls and seized his member with a strong, sure fist. The capture of this intimate part of him was… Nigel had no words for the sensation, but it made him tremble not merely with the mindless natural response of lust, but something more. Need. Desire. Surrender. Submission? Yes, that was it. Jay’s stroking hand controlled Nigel and made him want to turn belly up, to give in completely and let this man have his way with him. Such a swooning feminine reaction, but there it was.

  He no longer wanted to be the man on top, the one doing things. Jay seemed to instinctively sense this, for suddenly he rolled off his back, flipped Nigel onto his, and loomed over him. His face hung above Nigel’s like the moon, pale and mesmerizing, filling his vision. Jay’s full lips pursed, and Nigel recalled how they’d appeared when rouged red and ripe.

  “If you’ll let me now, I’ll show you some things,” Jay murmured, and then he swooped down like a predatory bird to devour Nigel’s mouth again.

  Yes, yes, yes. Do what you like with me. Show me everything you know, all those secrets about what men may do together that I’ve only guessed at. Nigel closed his eyes and stretched his back against the thin mat that emitted a whiff of mildew. He moaned into Jay’s mouth as that clever tongue invaded his like some conquering explorer. He clutched at the back of Jay’s shirt, pulled up the thin cotton and felt hot, hard muscle and bone underneath. Male flesh writhing on top of him, weighing him down—the very idea fanned the raging inferno inside him. Nigel hiked the undershirt over Jay’s head.