A person who happened to be a very delightful, slightly ridiculous boy by the name of Tally.
A boy I pledged right then and there to make my own for good.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tally
“Mr. Talbot-Ullswater?” the cameraman asked. “We’re ready for you.”
I nodded at him, and then told my mum I loved her and hung up the phone.
“Your mum, eh?” the cameraman said with a knowing roll of his eyes. “My mum is the same way.”
I gave him a weak smile, not bothering to tell him that my mum had called me because she’d just found out—along with the rest of the world—that I’d been fucking the prime minister. Who just so happened to be my stepbrother. She hadn’t been upset, though, only surprised. And determined to wash the sheets in my bedroom again.
The story had been everywhere this morning, just like James had warned me. My phone had been blowing up all day—Twitter, Instagram, text messages.
I’d felt numb looking at it all. I hadn’t lied to James when I said I’d been a scandal before—although I’d never been a scandal of this magnitude—so I wasn’t much bothered by it. Truly. The paps waiting outside my flat this morning had been annoying, but there weren’t too many by the time I left, and I lost them easily enough coming here to shoot a short segment for ITV about the Battle Bridge stadium site. And I was sure people were saying terrible things on Twitter, but I turned off all notifications and simply pretended I was living in 2003, and social media didn’t exist.
But then James made that incredible speech.
That speech that sent my pulse racing and my heart twisting and my stomach floating somewhere near my throat.
Knowing him has been one of the highlights of my life.
Will you castigate me for loving a man? Because the truth is, I do love him. Very much.
He loved me. He loved me, and he’d said it.
To other people. In public.
I’d stood there on the pavement outside King’s Cross station while the ITV crew got set up, and I’d watched over and over again the clip of him saying he loved me. And then of course, Mum had called me, and I’d had to explain to her that yes, yes, it was all true, but that James and I had sort of broken up last night so she didn’t need to soundproof my room at Ullswater Cottage in preparation for next Christmas just yet.
Because despite what he said today, I still wasn’t sure what happened next.
I had hopes, I had fantasies, I knew what I wanted more than my next breath—but after how we left things last night, I couldn’t be sure. James had announced the end of his career—
the career that had defined his life, the career he’d dedicated his entire being to—and I wasn’t sure how he felt about his choice. He’d said it was because he wanted to live freely and not because he was worried about what the nation would think, but still…
What if he already regretted it?
Regretted me?
I stepped where the producer indicated, and then the journalist interviewing me stood opposite. I was deeply grateful this was for a program specifically about historic areas under threat of urban development and that there wouldn’t be an opportunity for her to ask about the prime minister’s statement. I could sense she was itching to and I just wasn’t in the headspace for it. Not right now. Not when I didn’t know whether to be elated or proud or anxious or lonely or what.
“Tell us about the Battle Bridge site,” the journalist said, and that was my cue to speak. To be Tobias, the adorable and photogenic archaeologist.
“Many of us Londoners might not realize that we’re actually standing on top of a river, the River Fleet, which before becoming an underground sewer was an important waterway for Celts, Romans, and later the Saxons. Boudica herself was said to have fought a battle at this very site...”
I was rattling all this off when I heard the producer say, “Sir, sir, we’re filming right now, excuse me—Sir!”
And I turned and then I saw him. Framed by the silver light of late afternoon, his eyes a shade of blue usually reserved for painting the Virgin Mary.
I stopped talking. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Tobias,” James said, his voice rough and low. The same way he’d say it if he was inside me.
I shivered.
He strode forward, and God, that stride. It didn’t matter if his address wouldn’t be 10 Downing Street; he would always be a man of power, a man of cold, intelligent arrogance. He came up to me while I stood there like a prize idiot, and then he took my hand, ignoring the journalist and the cameraman and the still-sputtering producer as if they didn’t exist.
“I’m sorry, Tally,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry. I have no excuse, but I want to do better. You are worth doing better for, and I know now that I am too.”
“I saw your speech, you impetuous twat,” I said, my voice quavering. “What were you thinking? And announcing your resignation too?”
“I was thinking that I love you,” he said fiercely. “And I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
I stared up at him, at that stern mouth and those eyes, intense and glittering just for me. “But your work…”
“I’m not leaving it because I’m ashamed or afraid of the public,” he said. “I’m leaving it because I realized it’s no longer where my heart lies. It lies with you, my ridiculous boy, and nowhere else.”
“But—”
“Tobias,” he said. “Do you want me to kiss you or not?”
I reached up and ran my fingers over his mouth. The sculpted lines of it softened just for me. “There’s a camera,” I warned him. “And at least four people with smartphones recording us right now.”
“Good,” was his prompt, grave reply.
And then his mouth was on mine, demanding and firm. Imperious and just a little vulnerable.
Heaven.
I melted against him, and he wrapped me in his arms, all wool coat and pure, male strength, and I knew I would follow him anywhere. I would give him everything.
“No more secrets,” he promised, pulling away just enough to press his thumb against my lower lip. “No more dirty little secrets.”
“Well,” I said, nipping at the pad of his thumb. “Let’s keep the dirty part. Sir.”
“Always,” growled James, and then with another ferocious kiss, he swept me up into his arms.
And in front of the television camera and the gathering crowd, the prime minister of the United Kingdom carried me off into the gray-pink London sunset, kissing me the entire way.
EPILOGUE
James
“You’re being a baby,” Tally said, a hint of smug satisfaction in his voice as if the idea of my immaturity amused him.
I snorted. “Hardly. I’m forty-three years old, nearly twenty years your senior. You should respect your elders, boy.”
Tally grinned impishly in my periphery as I maneuvered my Aston Martin around the narrow, curving lanes in Wiltshire leading to Ullswater Cottage. We were on our way to visit my father and his wife for the first time since #gaygate, and understandably, I was nervous.
Though, I was unequivocally not being a baby about it.
“Maybe you should remind me later just how much respect you deserve,” my boyfriend purred as his hand found my thigh and trailed up the length of it to squeeze my cock.
“You’re trying to distract me with sex,” I noted coolly.
He gave my dick another squeeze and then a nice pat, pat, pat as if it was a beloved animal. “Yes. I rather think it’s working from the feel of you hardening in my hand.”
“Do you want to get into an accident?” I asked, tugging his hand away from my growing erection. “You know I can’t think of anything but you at the best of times, and I’m trying to get us to Ullswater Cottage safely.”
“So that you can officially come out to your father.”
I slanted him a grumpy look, but it was impossible to stay cross when I caught sight of his beautiful smile.
He had been smiling like that every day for the past month. Ever since the scandal broke, and our love came tumbling out of the closet into the open. It wasn’t easy, the fallout. Tally was called a slut in the press more times than I could count, though he seemed to find it amusing, especially when he was dubbed the Yoko Ono of politics. People in my own party refused to deal with me, waiting out my time in office silently, or, bitterly, making their homophobic sentiments known in a myriad of creative ways.
It was difficult, but then, as Mona had rightly pointed out, anything worth having was.
And this past month had only succeeded in proving that risking everything for Tally was not only the right choice, but the only choice for me.
I loved him desperately. Almost feverishly.
We simply couldn’t get enough of each other.
The sex, of course, because he was a limber, gorgeous youth with a rabid sex drive and a wonderfully kinky imagination, and I was a man who had just discovered the joys of the male body.
But more.
It was the way he shuffled out of bed in the morning, blurry-eyed, hair a tousled mess of feathered curls around his sleep-creased face. He took a full hour to recover his usual spirit, sitting quietly, curled up in a chair with his fuzzy pajama-clad legs held to his chest while I plied him with his tea and toast.
It was the way he touched me always. Little morsels of affection gifted throughout the day with the press of his hand to my back, a kiss to my cheek, fingers trailing down my arm so he could fit his lean fingers between my own.
It was the way he said my name. James. As if I was his king, his Lord and God.
It was the way he made me feel bigger than I ever had before, even as Prime Minister, the head of Her Majesty’s government. I felt taller, grander, more capable with Tally because his belief in me was so utterly absolute.
“I love you,” I said suddenly, almost clumsily because the shock of it still robbed me of breath most times.
Tally patted my thigh again as if calming an agitated horse. “I know. It’s practically impossible to feel any other way about me. I’m incredibly lovable.”
“And ridiculous,” I retorted, shooting a glance at his soft angora sweater in a vivid shade of turquoise.
“All the best things are,” he said breezily, then laughed when we caught sight of the two people waiting for us in the driveway of the cottage. “Oh look, we have a welcoming committee.”
Tally’s mum held a large cardboard sign that said, “Welcome home, boys!” in rainbow paint and sparkles while my father, standing rather awkwardly, held one that said, “Congrats on coming out!”
I parked the car in front of them but found my body wouldn’t comply when I told it to get out of the car. Tally had no such qualms. He bounded out of the vehicle and skipped to his mother, who enveloped him in a long hug before they began to giggle and whisper between them. She slipped her arm in Tally’s and urged him toward the house, already forgetting about me.
My father did not.
We stared at each other through the windshield.
I thought of all the moments growing up that had led me to this moment. All the ways my father had made it clear that he did not approve of gay men.
A bit light in the loafers, that one, he’d say.
Of course, he’s gay, so you can’t expect otherwise.
Never understood how one bloke could choose another man over a woman. Something not quite right with that.
A random memory shook loose. I was nine years old and wrestling in the backyard with a friend. I’d just pinned him, hands to wrists, my body pressed fully down the length of his and our faces close enough to feel the warmth of his breath on my tongue. There had been a small thrill of excitement at the base of my spine and a question I felt in my body more than my mind.
Then my father, shouting from the doorway to get off poor Sam and leave him alone.
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I hadn’t been allowed to invite Sam over after that.
Shame curdled the happiness in my stomach as it hadn’t done in the month since I’d come out.
My father dropped his sign to the ground and walked around the side of the car, settling into the passenger seat before I could think of a way to tell him not to.
Alone in my little car, both of our long bodies folded up, I realized I hadn’t been this physically close to the man since I was a boy.
“James,” he said, then cleared his throat. “My son.”
“Father,” I replied, colder than I might have wanted.
He sighed, his hand shaking as he ran it through his hair. A nervous habit I suddenly realized we shared. “I’m not very good at this...stuff. Never have been. But Figgy, she’s told me I’ve been remiss, and unfortunately, I have to agree with her. I think, well, rather, I wanted you to know that I’m very happy for you, James.”
I blinked. “Oh?”
He looked at me then away, fixing his eyes, blue as my own, out the window. “Well, yes. You see, misery recognizes misery. I was very unhappy after your mother passed away. Quite frankly, it gutted me. I was lost without her and lost raising a boy who was too much like me, so driven, so calculated. I didn’t know how to talk to you, to anyone really. Stiff upper lip and all that. Now, I know it was unfair of me to leave you so alone because you were miserable too. It seems Tally makes you happy just as Figgy has made me happy. How could I not be supportive of that?”
“Because I’m gay,” I said. The words came easier now. Sometimes, Tally caught me saying them into the bathroom mirror, practicing. “Because I’m in love with a man who also happens to be my stepbrother.”
“Yes, well…” Nigel made a face. “It’s not ideal, but it’s not as if you grew up together. It was a shock, you know? Hearing it in the news like that didn’t help. But I’ve known Tally now for long enough to know he has his own kind of magic. He’s very lovable.”
“Yes,” I said, strongly, almost defensively, because I was so tired of seeing or hearing anything bad about the man I loved. “He’s everything.”
My father turned to me finally, searching my face, reading the resolve and the passion there. And then he did something that nearly made me break.
He reached over, clasped my hand, and smiled brilliantly. “Good. I’m glad. You deserve that, you know? You’re a good man, and you’ve done so much good in this life. You deserve some fun and happiness.”
“Thank you.” I tried to remain stoic, but Tally had ruined me for it. I blinked away the sting in my eyes and gave my father’s hand a squeeze. “I appreciate that from you.”
We both jumped when there was a loud knock on the window. I turned to see Tally’s nose pressed against the glass, a pink martini in one hand with a maraschino cherry in it.
“Are you done having your Hallmark moment?” he asked impudently. “Mummy’s made cucumber sandwiches, and you know those are my kryptonite. If you don’t hurry in, I’ll eat them all, and I won’t feel badly because now, I’ve warned you.”
“You will save some for me,” I warned him.
He raised an eyebrow. “Will I?”
Before I could answer, he turned on his heel and walked back into the house.
“He’s delightful,” Nigel admitted. “Took me a minute to get used to him, but really, a lovely boy.”
“He is,” I agreed, somewhat dreamily.
“What will you do now?” he asked. “Now that you’re no longer PM.”
“You know, I haven’t the foggiest,” I said, laughter bubbling up in my chest as Tally popped his head out the front door, sandwich in hand, and shoved the entire thing in his mouth. “But for now, I’m very content to live my life with Tally.”
He would always be my dirty boy, but I would never again let anything between us be a secret ever again.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sierra Simone is a USA Today bestselling former librarian who spent too much time reading romance novels at the information desk. She l
ives with her husband and family in Kansas City.
www.thesierrasimone.com
Also by Sierra Simone:
Thornchapel:
A Lesson in Thorns
Feast of Sparks
Harvest of Sighs
Door of Bruises
The Priest Series:
Priest
Midnight Mass: A Priest Novella
Sinner
Saint (Coming Summer 2021)
The New Camelot Trilogy:
American Queen
American Prince
American King
The Moon (Merlin’s Novella)
American Squire (A Thornchapel and New Camelot Crossover)
Misadventures:
Misadventures with a Professor
Misadventures of a Curvy Girl
Misadventures in Blue
Co-Written with Laurelin Paige
Porn Star
Hot Cop
The Markham Hall Series:
The Awakening of Ivy Leavold
The Education of Ivy Leavold
The Punishment of Ivy Leavold
The Reclaiming of Ivy Leavold
The London Lovers:
The Seduction of Molly O’Flaherty
The Persuasion of Molly O’Flaherty
The Wedding of Molly O’Flaherty
CHAPTER ONE
Lexi
"Lexi, your ass is grass if Dad sees you dressed like that," Brock says.
A smile tips my lips. Father is known to skip out on family events that don't serve his purpose. To him, watching his youngest toddler of a daughter meet Santa for the first time is not important, which is why I knew I could get away with my outfit. He wouldn't be here.
I hike my little sister higher on my hip. Crystal's legs squeeze me as she holds on tight, jerking my skirt as I walk through the shopping mall with her attached to me. I came straight from cheerleading practice and had an extra pair of bloomers with me to slip on, otherwise my ass cheeks would be hanging out right now. Brock questions my outfit with narrow eyes again but I brush it off. Our stepmom had my outfit made to match the fabric my half-sister I'm currently lugging on my hip is wearing. Only, she screwed up the measurements and ordered European sizes instead of American. The two-piece elf-inspired outfit was delivered three sizes too small and several weeks late.
Tales of Darkness & Sin: An Anthology Page 41