A Sinner without a Saint

by Bliss Bennet

  “A clandestine romance! How exciting you make life sound, Leverett.” Dulcie flicked at the cuff of his sleeve with admirable indifference, though a slight tightening of his lips told Benedict his temper was on the rise. “Tell me, with whom do you suspect me of trysting? Sarah Siddons? Angelica Catalini? The Princess Sophia?”

  The men in the room gasped. Damn it, Clair must be truly furious, to bandy about the name of the king’s sister so.

  “No lady quite so exalted, I’m afraid,” Leverett said, with a cruel smile in Benedict’s direction.

  This was getting out of hand. Could he not put a stop to it? Perhaps, if he took a page out of Dulcie’s book and put on a good show—

  Rising from his chair, he allowed both scorn and hurt to play over his features. “You must excuse me, Lord Dulcie. I have no wish to distract you from either your courtship of Miss Adler or any other romantic partner. Or to interfere with your wager with this gentleman. Bid you good day, sirs.”

  After making his stiffest bow, Benedict strode from the room.

  There. Rousting Benedict from the field should make Leverett pull back his claws.

  Benedict fetched his gloves and hat from the British Institution’s footman, then set off down Pall Mall, an unfamiliar spring in his step. He wouldn’t like to make a practice of it, but pretending to feel something he did not could be quite entertaining. No wonder Clair found it so endlessly amusing.

  Before he’d even reached Piccadilly, the pound of booted feet on pavement and the hoarse shout of his name drew him up short. He turned and spied Clair, hair charmingly wind-blown, racing up St. James’ Street in his wake.

  “Benedict, stop.” Clair huffed as he struggled to catch his breath. “Polly— Leverett— you must know I have not the least intention of— Not after we—”

  “Clair, this is hardly the place,” Benedict said, suppressing his smile as he cast his eyes towards the bow-front window of White’s Club. Had his attempts to stop Leverett’s taunts had the unintended consequence of making Clair worry?

  “But Pen, you must understand—”

  Benedict pulled Clair down an alley, where they would be out of view of the bustling London crowds. “You utterly ridiculous man,” he said, then pushed him against a rough wall and pressed his lips to his.

  Benedict kissed him until Clair finally begin to relax in his arms.

  “You’re not upset with me, then?” Clair asked, the blue of his eyes nearly swallowed by his desire-blasted pupils.

  Benedict took a step back and searched for his best schoolmaster voice. “Did you begin courting Polly because you wanted Adler’s paintings?

  Clair shook his head.

  “Or because you wished to prevent Adler from donating them to a national museum?”

  “Certainly not!”

  “And do you still intend to court Polly?”

  This brought a scowl to Clair’s handsome face. “How could you even think such a thing?”

  Benedict raised his eyebrows. “Do you? A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will do.”

  “Of course not,” Clair answered with a petulant toss of his head. “I never really intended to in the first place, in spite of my father’s urging. But Leverett would goad me so.”

  “Well, I must say, I don’t think very highly of your good sense, entering into a wager with Leverett, of all people. And I don’t believe Polly will enjoy discovering she’s the subject of gossip among the artistic set.”

  “But still, you’re not so very angry with me?” Clair wheedled, laying a hand on Benedict’s arm.

  Benedict laughed. “How could I be angry, when you’re the one who accepted that wager, then unthinkingly did everything in your power to lose it? The bet wasn’t your idea, was it?”

  Clair shook his head again, sending his golden curls flying. “Leverett’s, entirely. Your return to London distracted me, which annoyed him for some reason I cannot begin to fathom.”

  Benedict, though, was beginning to suspect. “And he thought such a wager would set us at odds. But you, you preening peacock, accepted it because you wanted some excuse to draw my attention, to throw yourself into my path.”

  Clair’s mouth opened in quick denial, but after a moment’s consideration, drifted closed. And then, a corner turned up in charmingly rueful admission. “How can you see so clearly inside me? Better than I can even see myself?”

  Benedict shrugged, his eyes fixed on his boots. “Anyone who looked closely would see.”

  Clair shook his head. “No. No one else sees what you do, Pen. No one has your eyes, or your way of viewing the world. I’ve never met anyone quite like you. I only hope you won’t run screaming when you finally see down to the depths of my rather muddy soul.”

  It almost blinded him, the sheer wonder blazing across Clair’s face. Benedict swallowed against the rise of feeling that threatened to steal all of his words.

  “That’s a risk you’ll just have to take, won’t you, my lord?” he finally managed to say.

  “Indeed. A risk only a fool would refuse, knowing the rewards to be reaped by the victor.” Clair’s glove hand reached out and grazed Benedict’s cheek. “Now, shall we return to Pennington House, so I may claim my prize?”

  Benedict could only bite his lip and nod.

  As they strolled back up St. James, and then across Piccadilly, to the sounds of Clair’s jaunty whistle, Benedict made a silent vow. Each and every time he paid homage to Clair’s body, he’d make it more inventive, more intense, more memorable than the last.

  Anything to keep that look of near-reverence in his lover’s eyes.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Mid-morning sun blazed through the windows of Benedict’s studio, dancing like diadems over the curls atop Clair’s head. And the ones on his bare chest, too. Benedict sighed, longing to swirl his fingers through that small patch on Clair’s sternum as his lover reclined, breeched and booted but shirtless, on the settee like a true Sybarite. But since the night they’d become lovers, he’d had the devil of a time convincing Clair to devote any of their hours alone to anything but bedsport—or wallsport, tablesport, or sport in locations Benedict had never before associated with frigging, frotting, or tossing another off. Clair claimed Benedict was the one with imagination, but Clair’s sensual inventiveness had nearly driven him to distraction this past week.

  Benedict’s mind had always been far more important to him than his body. With other lovers, the sexual act had been a pleasure, yes, even occasionally a joy, but not a craving that drove him all his waking hours. He could go months, years even, without sating that particular hunger. But lord, with Clair, neither of them could seem to allow even a moment to pass without touching, an hour without kissing, a day without making the other shudder and spend.

  Still, he couldn’t allow this newly-awakened lust to divert him from his art. Especially not when he was this close to finishing Clair’s portrait. Both of Clair’s portraits.

  Still, with his demon-angel lounging there, temptation incarnate . . .

  “Is it true, what you said that night after we visited the Sketching Society?” Benedict took care to keep his eyes focused on his painting as he posed his question. “Or did you just say it to taunt me?”

  “Everything I said that night was meant to taunt you,” Clair answered with a knowing chuckle. “To which taunt in particular do you refer?”

  “To your Parthian shot. I believe your precise words were, ‘I never allow any man to fuck me. Not even one as comely as you, Benedict Pennington.’”

  “Ah, that stung, did it? I’m very glad to hear it.”

  Benedict shook his head. How could a man swagger while lying down?

  “But is it true?” Benedict continued, head bent to his palette, swirling red and white together on his palette to match the shade of Clair’s flesh. “You don’t take pleasure in playing at all fours?”

  “Oh, I’d love to have you on all fours in front of me,” Clair answered, languorously stretching his arms over his
head. “But allowing a cock to be shoved in an orifice God never intended to be breached? I think not.”

  “Put your arms back down,” Benedict ordered, forcing his eyes away from the tempting whorls of hair revealed by Clair’s movement. “How can I finish if you keep moving about?”

  “But you don’t really need me here to pose any longer, do you? More muse than model now, I am. And I believe this pose more likely to inspire. ” With a sly smile, Clair settled his hands behind his neck and crossing a booted foot over the other. A position that drew even more attention to his slim chest, as he well knew.

  “Perhaps one day you’ll paint me without any clothing at all,” he said, his eyes glinting with heat.

  Benedict ducked his head to hide the blush he felt creeping over his cheeks. Some day, indeed.

  He set down his brush and palette and strode to the settee. With one hand, he batted Clair’s foot down, then used the other to pull his arms back into the correct position.

  “One would hardly guess you prefer taking the active role during the act, the way you incite me to manhandle you so.”

  “But I never said I prefer to take any role during the act,” Clair exclaimed, jerking upright without his usual grace. “If, by ‘the act,’ you refer to fucking. When the mere sight of a lady’s bower of bliss makes me shudder, what makes you think I’d find dipping my wick in some fellow’s shithole any more appealing?”

  Benedict took a step back, his eyes widening. Clair disdained buggery altogether? And he, quiet, contained Benedict Pennington, had more in the way of sexual experience than the adventurous Lord Dulcie?

  At his lover’s frown, Benedict kneeled on the rug beside him. “Is it that you’ve never attempted it? Or that you’ve tried, and know that it gives you no pleasure?”

  “Must we truly discuss this?”

  Benedict arched his eyebrows.

  Clair raised his own eyes to the ceiling as if begging the gods to have pity on his long-suffering self. But when Benedict remained determinedly silent in the face of his dramatics, he cursed quietly under his breath for a few moments, then turned his eyes back to Benedict’s. No, his lover was no coward.

  “Yes, Pen, certainly I’ve tried it. And from both ends, as it were. Neither gave me the least bit of pleasure.” His hand skimmed Benedict’s cheek. “Will it be a problem? If I can’t share such a thing with you?”

  Benedict’s hand covered Clair’s, and gave it a squeeze. “You must know I’d never ask you to do something you disliked.”

  “But, much to my own surprise, I find I wish to please you, Pen.” Clair chuckled. “Almost as much as I wish to please myself. And I surmise that inventive brain of yours has been dreaming of all sorts of salacious acts. Perhaps if there are a few that do not include playing at buggeranto, you’ll share them with me?”

  Benedict smiled. “Some day,” he said as he pushed up off the floor.

  “What better time than the present?” Clair set both hands on Benedict’s shoulders, guiding him back down.

  Benedict’s breath caught as his hands, searching for balance, lighted against Clair’s well-muscled thighs. Even beneath the superfine of his breeches, Benedict could feel them flex and tense beneath his fingers.

  “But the painting—”

  “Damn the painting. It’s been nearly a day since I’ve had your cock in my hand.”

  Said appendage leaped to attention at Clair’s words, even as something in Benedict’s chest tightened. He’d likely only be able to keep Clair’s attention for a few short months at most, until Parliament convened again in the winter and the Season once again drew his lover into its social whirl. Perhaps even less than that, if Clair decided London in autumn grew tiresome, and accepted one of the many invitations he’d received to hunting and house parties in the countryside. After he left, Benedict would always have his art to console him. Better to make hay while the sun of this beautiful, infuriating man deigned to shine so brightly in his vicinity.

  Gliding his hands with teasing slowness up Clair’s thighs, Benedict said, “Well, the Bible does say that He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.”

  A bark of laughter split the air. “Diligent hand! And people say I am irreverent. . . ”

  Yes, there it was, that open, delighted smile Clair so seldom showed to the world. Benedict rubbed his cheek against Clair’s thigh, breathing deep of his rising arousal.

  “Will you reveal my secret? For I must admit, I revere nothing more than your transcendent body. So much so that I can’t go another minute without worshiping you with my mouth.”

  “Your mouth?” Clair’s cheeks pinked. “You wish to put my cock in your mouth?”

  Benedict sat back on his heels. Had he managed to disconcert the broad-minded Lord Dulcie again? No, Clair’s expression revealed more dismay than embarrassment.

  “You don’t enjoy that either?” Benedict asked, struggling to keep the disappointment from his voice. Frigging and frotting were nothing to sneer at, but pleasuring a partner with his mouth—even the thought of it sent an electric jolt from his sack to his spine.

  Clair gave a delicate shudder. “Doesn’t sound very sanitary, does it?”

  “Would you ask that I clean my teeth first?” he asked, moving to rise. “I’d be happy to, if it would set your mind at ease.”

  “No!” The look of horror on Clair’s face would have been comical, if only their situation weren’t so fraught. Of what was he afraid?

  Benedict laid a hand on his arm and squeezed.

  Clair bowed his head and sighed. “My concern wasn’t about you, but about myself.”

  Benedict settled back on his knees with a grunt. Clair worried that Ben would find him less appealing if they engaged in such an act?

  “This from the man who spent a good part of the evening in the bath?” he joked, attempting to lighten the moment. “Why, has the world ever seen such an overly fastidious fellow?”

  Clair’s hands moved as if to tug on a shirt cuff, as he so often did when he wished to appear unperturbed. But when he found he wasn’t wearing any linen, he frowned and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Pen, I’ve never even considered such a thing. At least, not with man of equal rank,” he said at last. “Would you not find it degrading to be used so?”

  Benedict sat back on his heels, hiding his face behind a fall of hair. He knew many educated men, having read Latin and Greek texts in which such acts were viewed as debasing for both parties involved—os impurum, filthy, impure mouth—refused to allow mouth and cock to ever meet. Some obscenely comic verse even went so far as to suggest the act left one with breath so foul it was nearly toxic, a claim as false as it was ridiculous.

  But Clair’s concern was all for Benedict, not for himself. The realization sent a flood of joy coursing throughout his body.

  He lifted his face so that his lover could see the truth of his words. “Not degrading, Clair. Exalting.”

  Clair’s own eyes widened, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts. But he said not a word.

  Benedict took heart from his unusual silence. Slowly, so as not to startle him, he slid his hand up to the buttons on Clair’s breeches. “Please? May I?”

  “Go to it, man,” Clair said, his brash words belied by the trembling of his hands.

  Benedict undid Clair’s falls with eager, fumbling fingers, then paused to press his nose against his smalls. Yes, there was the lemon of his soap he favored, and there, a hint of saddle leather that a horseman could never quite wash away. And, there, beneath them both, the musk of Clair’s arousal, briny, keen, electrifying.

  With a sudden, sharp jerk, Benedict yanked breeches and smalls down until they hung over the tops of Clair’s boots. Yes, those boots would have to go, otherwise, he’d not be able to fit his body between Clair’s thighs, nor reach the nest of golden curls that held his prize. Hands on his lover’s hips, he shoved Clair back onto the settee, then jerked off his boots and tos
sed them aside. Freeing one foot from breeches and smalls, he left both to hang off the other, too eager to get his lips on the loadstar of his lust to have a care for Lord Dulcie’s fine tailoring.

  A hand on each muscular thigh, he shoved Clair’s legs wide. His lover grunted, an inelegant sound he’d never thought to hear escape the imperturbable Clair’s lips.

  During their previous trysts, he’d seemed to like it when Benedict took the more active part. Still, that need not mean he enjoyed being mauled like a ravening beast.

  But no. Pupils blown-wide, nipples pebbled, cock straining against his lightly furred stomach—Clair’s grunt had been one of pleasure, not of dismay.

  Benedict nearly groaned himself at the sight of Clair laid so achingly bare. He kneed his way between those outstretched legs, then lowered his lips to the inside of a thigh, licking and nipping as the muscles tensed and rose beneath him.

  The salty tang in his mouth, the rich smells in his nose—lord, he could spend hours, no, days rummaging the heavens between Clair’s outstretched legs.

  But his lover’s cock, slim, elegant even when suffused with blood, could no longer be ignored. Grabbing hold of his hips, Benedict jerked Clair’s body to the very edge of the settee.

  His eyes fixed on Clair’s, he lowered his mouth to take the tip between his lips.

  The way Clair’s neck arched at the first lick, the way his entire torso lifted at the first suck—no, not even Benedict’s most arousing fantasies had prepared him for such a sight.

  With a muted groan, he slid his mouth down the shaft. Rigid yet yielding, solid, and hot, and so very alive, all the vibrancy of Clair’s personality distilled. He let his fingers stroke down, combing through the curls of hair atop Clair’s thighs, then dragged them up again, raking across the smooth skin of his hips and the globes of his arse with his nails. Teasing his lips over Clair’s length, he stopped just long enough to tongue the tip, then reeled him back in, slowly, so slowly, until the head lodged at the back of his throat. His lips stretched, throbbing with need, every nerve in his mouth afire.