Ideas of Sin

by Cooper, R.

“I did not come here to talk of that.” So close, the length of hands only from James, and his fingers twitched before he closed them into his palm and lowered his hand. But he would not say that name, knowing how it inflamed James so and not wishing to hear James say it in return. “I will leave to-morrow.”

  “Yes.” The word hissed from James before he snapped his jaw shut, and René let his eyes follow the strong lines of his face when James flicked his gaze to the floor. Of course James had known this, and René found himself wondering at James’ purpose in coming to him like this, hurling himself before the lions.

  “Is this why you come to me now?” His own jaw was tight, and for the space of one heartbeat, René looked beyond James to the large shadowed figure molding itself to Sir Marvell’s wall. He looked back to James in time to see the quick twitch as James’ followed his gaze, and then the startled splash of colour across his cheekbones.

  “I have no more wish to speak of Etienne than you seem to.” James snorted as he said the words, jerking a glance back over his body at his employer before twitching his shoulders straight and growing still.

  René understood his anxiety well enough, and the reason for his looks to his employer. The room held only a handful of people even if one counted the slaves, but it seemed crowded and the air too thick to breathe. Almost, he expected lightening outside, but the skies had been clear.

  He opened his mouth to suggest they retire to another, less busy, chamber, and James stole the very air from his lungs with something that could have been murmured in Latin and would still have had the sound of bells to his ears.

  “There is another room, where we might be alone.” Even with a deepened, roughened voice, there was no mistaking the invitation, and René knew his brows rose, and frowned to straighten them even as he thinned his lips. He nodded once, in reply, and turned the smallest fraction of a glance to his waiting man, dismissing him bare moments later.

  He would not put an end to James’ new madness, if James chose to face his desires now, though René knew that it was only the fact of his leaving that enabled James to grow so bold as to wish aloud to be alone with him. That did not matter; if they were alone then René could take what he wanted as well.

  But he paused, remembering the strange, daring way James had spoken to him in Sir Marvell’s office, the challenge to his stance and the presumptuous caresses of his hands.

  He knew he shivered, and looked upward in time to see the embarrassed expression that James had no time to hide from him. This James he knew well, and it would not be long before he held him once more, doing away with the proud creature who raised his chin in defiance. Then he would be his, again and again he would plunge into his body until he had had his fill, and James would moan and beg to stay with him.

  “I do not have all night, James,” he bit out the words with too much eagerness, but did not care to waste more time with talking, not with others watching and James holding himself distant.

  But James nodded, murmuring something softly to himself in his own tongue before turning, and walking stiffly from the room by way of a small servant’s entrance, leaving René to stay or follow behind him as though it meant little to him whichever René chose.

  Scowling tightly, René followed, longing to pull his blade and remind James of just who was master here. Nearly silent footsteps sounded behind him, but René continued walking, ducking without need through the door and keeping step with James down a hallway. He could feel the pressure at his neck easing and knew without turning that Marechal no longer followed. Pleased that he did not have to reprimand the man, René did not turn to see where he had gone, though he could easily imagine Marechal being too big to fit through the small passageway.

  It was not long before James pushed open a set of doors and slipped inside a room, and René followed after, stopping in the doorway to study the room carefully. It was some of small office or antechamber, filled only by a small table at the opposite end of the room, by a window. The window had been opened to let in the cooling breezes, but the room still carried the smoke of many candles, which someone had lit before they had entered.

  That James had to have done it himself, or ordered it done, was René’s only thought of the moment, and he stepped into the room, closing the door slowly behind him. “So…” James had stopped only feet from the entrance, keeping his back to René, and René forgot about his annoyance for a moment to contemplate the lines of his back, and when he had last seen them, touched them.

  “So we are alone.” James had spoken again, but René did not hear him at first, advancing until he was perhaps a foot only from touching James, and then the words had meaning. “ Oui.” He breathed in, but James had jumped at his word, seeming to be startled at his closeness, for he moved quickly away, spinning around to him with an expectant face. He did not return, and René felt himself frowning, standing in his own place for a long moment before gesturing at the air between them.

  That he frowned did not seem to worry James; the other man glared darkly back at him briefly and then shoving his hands into his coat pockets. Then he sighed heavily, like a mother wearied by her children. It was a sound René did not find pleasing, and he turned from James to walk to the table, pulling out the bag from his coat as he did.

  He emptied it into his hand and discarded the sack on the table before turning back to face James, holding out his hand and uncurling his fingers so that the lights might better reflect the glowing surfaces of the treasure he now offered to James.

  The silence seemed to grow loud, and scratched along René skin, making him shift his stance and raise his eyes from the stones at last to peer across into James Fitzroy’s face, knowing that if a book had not made him happy, then surely these would.

  “Diamonds now?” There was no hiding the way his shoulders jerked at the sudden demand from James. It was displeasing to consider, when, despite James’ larger size, René had never once been afraid of him.

  The younger man had raised his voice, and perhaps that was the source of his reaction. James shouted as though they were both common whores in the street, with no shame or respect to keep their business private. Nonetheless, while René still stood like a mute beggar with his hand outstretched, James only grew red with increasing fury. The collection of hard gems still rested in René’s palm, reflecting the thin sliver of the rising moon as it found them through the opened window, and the multitude of candles hidden in the walls about them. Orange and red and purple flames, winking in his hands, but nothing to the clear gems that glittered invitingly in the midst of them all.

  “ Stones?” James swung around and stopped his short-stepped pacing to ask of him, lowering his voice only to have to rise again at his next words. “Do you think to buy me?” There was no hint of his stammer, and for that René watched him carefully, wary that the man might make some other lunatic pronouncement as he had done before, not certain of this new man that kept appearing before him. How tall he had stood, taller even than Marechal it had seemed, and then out of his mouth the most ridiculous sentiments. They were mad, the English, and none more so than James Fitzroy.

  I will not allow it, he had said, quivering only a little at René’s caresses, not trembling like a scared boy. No his arms had been steel and his chest like marble, but never as cold as metal or stone. So warm, René thought once more, shivering as fevered men did, as though it were cold when they burned to the touch. James was hotter than other men, fiery like the sun under his skin and even the child clung to him to feel it. There was no shame in that, in wanting the warmth that only a touch could provide. If James were not so proud and foolish, he would see this, and allow René to have him. He sailed to-morrow, and Port Royal would not welcome him back as a revered son.

  “This is the price you set for me?” James sneered, twisting his face into something ugly, and for a moment René could only blink, but by then the expression was gone and James was walking to and fro once more. “Before it was only a handful of coin. Your memory of
that night must be different than mine, Sir, for I only recall thy displeasure with me, your eagerness to leave.”

  “ Non!” It was not his own voice, strained and weak as he struggled away from the wide table behind him, his coat caught on the scrolled carvings of the corner. But James did not even turn, and René was left in his damned coat with a hand full of stones that had no worth. Impatient, cursing, René threw the jewels to the floor and watched with surprise as they clattered and spun around like the toys of the children in the ghettos, disappearing from his sight.

  It was James’ time to jump, and René had his attention at last, as he had not since they had entered this room, and shut the doors behind them. Panting, feeling the weight of the moon on his neck as the short hours passed, René clutched at the coat with one hand, pointing with the other.

  “Have I not already said to you that I want you?” His voice he did not raise, but surely even the stars heard him. If James had heard he gave no sign, and René growled low in his throat, as if James had turned him into some sort of beast at last. Forgetting his coat for the moment, he reached down and grabbed his cock, nearly moaning at the hard feel of his hand on its aching length, though he should have been weary of his own attentions. “Have I not said I thirst for the taste of your prick?”

  “No.” There was a startled sigh of air. “No, you have not,” James answered, slowly, as though he felt the effects of Mirena’s herb, though the sweet smoke from those weeds was not a scent that would ever follow James Fitzroy. But René did not want to waste moments thinking of that when there were more important things to be done tonight. He jerked his hand at James instead, unable to speak at the idiocy of the Englishman when he had made his feelings more than plain enough. Even a blind man would have seen how René hardened with every step James took nearer to him.

  “ Saint Denis!” It rang out finally, when James still would not move, and at last James raised his head from the cloud of unseen smoke around him and shook his head clear of what spirits had possessed him. From where James stood now, halfway across the room, ten longlegged steps across a rug to the table by the window, and René, René could see the trembling of James’ lower lip, and the resolute strength of his shoulders, the uncertainty of James the priest, fighting what he wanted with all the strength of his martyr’s soul.

  He had simply to press, and James would be his. Inhaling, René left his prick to the air and divested himself of the coat, hearing it fall to table behind him and then slide to the floor with the jewels. And with the rush of that was the rush of James’ breathing, startled and quickening at the idea of René’s naked flesh being so much closer to the touch of his gentle hands. He had only to cross the room to take it. “You please me,” René murmured it, hiding his annoyance at saying such a thing out loud, twitching his eyebrows into something that was not a frown.

  The rush of breath into James’ lungs stopped, and yet even with that, James found a way to speak. “And when you sail to-morrow?” James asked him, tossing his head suddenly, with such strength that the bones in his neck cracked. Lights fired off the glass of his spectacles as he turned, reflections from the candles, leaving René blind as to the feeling in his brown eyes.

  His heart sounded in his ears, and he knew he swallowed for his mouth was no longer dry, but it only became dry again, watching the abrupt, relentless motion of James as he covered his mouth with his hands and then dropped them to his coat, burying one in a pocket and grasping something so tightly that his arm shook.

  James stepped forward, turning from the candlelight now, giving René a glimpse of eyes almost as dark as his own. “If I please you again, will those be left for me?” He waved at the floor, to where a mine of precious stones were scattered like pebbles. Treacherous obstacles for stumbling feet, but James strode toward him with deliberate steps that did not falter, and that was enough to have René searching the familiar face again, trying to find softly trembling lips.

  Unsteadily, René leaned back until his hands found the smooth, cool table, “You want them?” He demanded in disbelief and then shook his head. But James would not pause to deny the words, and so they had to be truth.

  “They are worthless to you,” James remarked, and he was standing before René, tall and strong and reaching for the tiny button at the top of his coat. There he trembled, his fingers slipping on the button, but René could not slow his racing heart, blinking at the strangeness of the vision before him. “You throw them away.” James was going on, still speaking though his voice was quiet in René’s ears. The table was hard against his back and his body throbbed with it, an unforgiving pounding that left him dizzy and motionless when he ought to run.

  “What of what pleases me?” James demanded of him for the second time, but the cold words were not spoken to René, and James’ mouth twisted into something pained as he closed his eyes. His raised his hands to his face and only then did he reopen his eyes, looking beyond his hands to René, who could not move without brushing against the rigid body before him. So hot, he could feel the skin of his thighs tighten.

  “James,” he meant to say, and perhaps he did, but his own voice was so weak that even his own ears could not hear it. Strange, when there were two heartbeats echoing in his head like the mad drumming from the fields, locking his muscles before he could think to shift and dart away.

  “And what shall I give to you, René, if you please me?” With a grace that seemed to come from another man, James reached up and swept the horrible wig from his head and threw it to the side, lifting his chin as if daring René to challenge the action. He did not seem to care about the mess they had made on his employer’s floor, continuing to unbutton his coat with a darkened face but newly steadied hands.

  René felt his gaze traveling from those hands to that face, and back again, over and over until James pulled himself free of the ill-fitting jacket and stretched his back as it landed near his feet. His white shirt was loose, but thin, and it was only theveste that kept his form hidden from sight.

  Nothing of his eyes was visible now, with his chin so high and his body so straight and tall, and René had to let his head fall back, feeling the weight of his hair as it slid down over his neck. That, too, caused shivers, and he could not still his body as James stood there and studied him with his heavy lids, stern and forbidding.

  “I don’t have anything of value to offer you.” James made it a condemnation, pressing himself forward until René could not see anything but the length of his body. There was James, and the table behind him, and something resting on that that fell over with a crash as James dared one last step, and René was pushed hard into the wood. “But if you are so thirsty…” he went on slowly, nearly grinding the words between his teeth, slapping his palms loudly on the table, one arm to either side of René. René knew he gave a start, able to finally control his shivers at last only to twitch at the mass of James’ body as it settled above him. He licked his lips as the English words became Parisian in his mind, and he could feel the wordthirsty sink through to him to his spine and leave a drought in its wake.

  He was not thirsty; he was dying of this. The pains in his lower back were fleeting, settling to dullness instantly at the rough whisper, a sharper hunger between his legs sapping his strength. He could feel his flesh tighten there too, and frowned, lowering a hand to his sash.

  Warmed linen brushed against the backs of his fingers, the sleeves of James’ shirt, and the muscles beneath the cloth rippled. “If you are so thirsty Villon…” Even now, René was not deaf to the anger hardening James’ voice; to the way his moved one hand until he found one of René’s on the table and covered it with grasping fingers. “…Then why are you still on your feet?”

  He had misheard the strange words, and pulled his head away the slightest degree, frowning over what James had said. James was rigid, trembling in the moonlight, or swaying as though the room were circling around them. But there was no hint of embarrassment in the square face, not even when the lips parted o
n a single aroused breath. “Perhaps we can find a bed, if the floor is not to your liking. My cock does not care.” There was a strange, rasping sound, like metal pulled along metal, and though it did not come from René, his skin was raw with it.

  None demanded of him, none expected anything but what he gave them. That James had stumbled over his words meant nothing to this wound.

  “I am not your…” René’s mind would not supply the proper English word at first and he struck out, glancing a blow across the iron strength of James’ chest. “…Whore!” he blurted clumsily, at last, and shoved against the desk to free himself. The move brought him tight against James, and the air hissed from his lungs as his body caught fire, hundreds of flames catching along his skin like lights reflected off those stones lying abandoned on the floor.

  His cock was pressed into James’ hard thigh, and it was only the shocked gasp from James that enabled René to move at all, falling back against the table, seeking the cooler wood to restore his senses. But with a curse that made René’s face sting with heat, James pressed in after him, pinning him to the table with his legs and sliding his hands from the table to his hips, crushing into the small bones, creating pools of warmth under each fingertip.

  He had touched there before, soft and imploring, and it had been nothing like this, though even then René had been too aroused to do much more than punish James for speaking when they should have been fucking. René opened his eyes wide at how those fingers drew him closer, pushing his arousal into James’ body, pushing his swollen shaft against René’s stomach.

  “But I am yours?” James’s harsh little cry, just above his ear, begged for an answer, but René could not find one with shuddery, heated breaths scattering over his ear and the side of his face. “Mayhap…” And James was murmuring into the shell of his ear, pushing hair aside with his face to bring himself closer. “…That will change this night.”

  “ Qu…quois?” René would have ducked his head away in shame to hear himself stammer like a child, but then he would have had to move from James’ mouth, and his body did not wish that. He fought back the desire to strive closer to it as he willed his mind to understand this strange English.