The Gilded Scarab (46 page)

His mouth left mine to slide down my throat. I tilted my head back, letting Ned drop little kisses down the side of my neck. He didn’t stop there. He mouthed my collarbone, licking the skin in the hollows, and down over my nipples—another of Jove’s thunderbolts there, I can tell you, sending their jagged spikes arcing around my body—down over my belly and still down….

Oh God.

“I’
M
SORRY
to have stayed away so long.” Ned coiled himself around me, our legs entwined, hands clasped together. “To be quite honest, Rafe, I was rather ashamed of myself.”

“What?”

He sighed. “I put you and the others in danger—Hugh, Alan, and Sam. Daniel wanted what I couldn’t give him. He wanted it for ten years. It unhinged him, I think. I should have cut the cord years ago. By letting him cling to the hope that one day we could go back to where we were… that wasn’t well done of me. I never allowed him to be free. And in the end, that warped him. My fault.”

I refrained from rolling my eyes, tempted though I was. “He was a grown man, Ned. He made his own choices. You didn’t hold him, tie him to yourself. He tied the cords himself, and he made damn sure the knots didn’t slip. What happened wasn’t your fault. But Daniel’s own nature, his inability to let you go, that’s what Stone found to use against you. Don’t blame yourself.”

I don’t think he was listening. “My excuse… well, I don’t really have any excuse. You know that when Daniel and I first became lovers, I was quite insanely in love with him. More than that, I had never really had a friend who wasn’t someone in the House, not a friend I chose for myself. I didn’t want to let that go, even if I couldn’t betray Laeticia with an affair. I wasn’t a good friend to him, Rafe. I wasn’t. I needed a little time to think about that, what I got wrong with him.”

“I thought you’d stayed away because I shot him, that you couldn’t forgive me.”

He pushed himself a little way up on his elbows. “Rafe, no! I didn’t mean for you to think that!”

“As you say, you loved him once. I understand your grief for him.” I grimaced. “Remember the dinner at your house, when you said you wanted to know what went on in here”—I tapped my chest—“before you committed yourself? I was beginning to think you didn’t like what you saw.”

Ned’s hand closed over mine. “What I saw was someone who cared enough about me to risk his life. Yes, I’ll always grieve a little for Daniel, but you aren’t responsible for killing him. Stone is. You did what was necessary to live and to save me. I like what I see there. Very much.”

Well, maybe this was what it meant to be really happy, this feeling of having the sun trapped under your ribcage, filling you with light and warmth. “And so? Is this a… a romantic thingymajig, Ned?”

He laughed. “Yes, Rafe. Yes, it is. The most romantic thingymajig we can manage. I won’t make the same mistakes with you that I did with Daniel. I promise.”

“That’s all right. We’ll have the next forty years to make a whole set of new ones.”

He laughed then, pure and unfettered and unguarded. When he kissed me, I thought I’d drown. The touch of his tongue against mine had me making soft noises in the back of my throat. Very manly noises, of course. I could have lost myself forever in those kisses, in the feel of Ned’s tongue and lips.

His fingers curled around the whole length of my cock, stroking over the head and causing another of those galvanic, furious bucks, pushing into his hand. I pressed my hand against my mouth to keep the noise down.

I really did not want to be interrupted by exploding doors.

We’re much the same height, Ned and I. When he rolled back on top of me, everything lined up delightfully. Breast to breast, cock to cock. Rubbing up against Ned while kissing him all but melted my bones.

His tongue was in my mouth and his hands were exploring me again. For a few moments, we kissed and rolled together, my hands smoothing down his back and over the globes of his backside. Ned had a very fine backside. The skin was soft, but the muscles under it flexed and clenched.

I rolled him onto his back, pinning him down. Ned’s legs were widely spread, hooked around mine, holding me so cock stroked against cock. One more kiss, and I moved down Ned’s chest, hands first and my mouth following. I glanced up to see what he looked like when I engulfed him with one swift movement.

He yelped. Not loudly enough to get Sam’s attention, thankfully. His hips bucked, and I moved with them, licking and kissing and using my fingers on the inside of his thighs in precise little circles and shapes, writing my promises of love and fidelity on the damp skin, letting them say what I didn’t dare say aloud. Down toward the knee and back again, writing and promising, and all the while my head moved up and down on Ned’s cock, swallowing it and letting it slide free. Sometimes I scattered light little kisses on it, then licked it from base of the shaft to the head, sometimes I breathed on it, a hot softness of air; when I blew hard, it was cold, making Ned shiver and shake.

I thought he’d let me finish it like that, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He caught my head with both his hands.

“Not like this. Not like this.” He tugged me up to kiss me. “Let me in, Rafe.”

I couldn’t ask for anything better.

Another age of kisses, of rolling, of hands meeting and clasping, sealing us together. I ended up underneath again, pressing myself up against him. My back arched as a finger circled around my backside, tickling, bringing fire in its wake. When the finger pushed up into me, a groan was wrenched from somewhere so deep inside me it seemed to take an age to escape my throat.

“Easy, easy,” murmured Ned. “Let me get you ready. You’re so beautiful, Rafe. So beautiful.”

So I shivered and shook and let him do what he wanted. What I wanted. I wanted it so very badly. I tried to give all my attention to moving at the same rhythm and speed as the finger moving in and out of me, groaning a little when the sensation felt thicker and harder. That had to be more than one finger. Moving my backside helped, made it all feel smooth and natural.

He sat back on his heels between my legs, tipping a little phial over his cock, anointing it with oil. I couldn’t think where he’d got it from. I didn’t remember him reaching for it from the bedside cabinet. When I raised my head to look, Ned’s other hand wasn’t visible. It had disappeared between my legs, his arm moving as he pistoned his fingers in and out of me.

“Ready, Rafe?”

The full sensation in my backside vanished, leaving an aching want behind it. Ned shuffled forward on his knees, supporting my thighs over his arms, spreading them, and lifting my buttocks up slightly from the bed. His gaze, intent and hot, held mine.

“This is it, Rafe. Let me in.”

Something bigger than the fingers pressed against me, pushed a little way in, and slowly his hard cock pushed inside me. His eyes closed and his mouth dropped open. My legs came up automatically to let him in, the backs of my thighs braced by his shoulders.

“Ahhhhh,” he said, and licked his lips.

I was being stretched in two, a Ned-shaped space created inside me. He eased back, the pressure fading, then pushed forward again. And again. And again. Each time he pushed in farther and harder.

And then we were joined, and I couldn’t tell where I ended and Ned began. Ned panted, eyes still closed, his mouth tight. A moment later, he moved, slowly at first, then picking up the speed as I rolled my hips and pushed up to meet every thrust of that big cock. He was hitting that sweet spot inside me, flashing lightning through my veins on every stroke. Fire raced down to my balls and cock again, trapped as they were under Ned’s belly, rubbing against the soft skin.

I reached up as he bent down, and our mouths met. No more sweet kisses. These were frantic, devouring flames. Every breath whined out of me and into Ned’s mouth, a breath for every thrust. Faster. Harder. Until I was shuddering and gasping as I came, coating Ned’s stomach as my cock spasmed and the blood in my veins was replaced with the liquid fire of sheer pleasure. Ned slammed home and stayed there, shuddering through his own release, gasping, letting out a sharp little moan.

He collapsed on top of me, letting my legs slide down, kisses slower and sweeter now as our breathing slowed and hearts stopped pounding. Ned slid out. He put his hand against my face.

“Oh Rafe,” he said and kissed me. “Dearest, dearest Rafe.”

I smiled and kissed him back.

It would work. Ned, me, the next forty years together… it would work.

With luck it would, anyway.

With Lancaster’s Luck.

Glossary

Actinic Rays—

• (i) UV/IR light
  
• (ii) Dark light
  

Aegypt/Aegyptologist—Archaic spelling of Egypt/Egyptologist

Aegyptian Exploration Fund—Organization founded by Amelia Edwards (1831-1892) to fund and support the excavation of Aegypt and the Soudan

Aero Corps—In
The
Gilded Scarab
, the air arm of the Britannic Imperium’s military with aerocraft of all sizes

Aerodrome—Airport

Aerofighter—Small, biwinged fighter craft powered with aether/phlogiston/petroleum distillate engines operating either from a military aerodrome or from the decks of a dreadnought such as the
Ark Royal

Aeronaut—Pilot, aviator

Aether (or Ether)—Classical physical element. In some versions of alchemy – and for the purposes of
The Gilded Scarab
– this was the fifth element in addition to air, earth, fire and water. In
The Gilded Scarab
, aether in its light-bearing (luminiferous) form, is an inexhaustible power source. See
Luminiferous Aether

Alembic—An apparatus consisting of two vessels connected by a tube, formerly used for distilling liquids. In Rafe’s coffeehouse, his slow-drip coffee machine uses alembics and has its own cold fusion furnace – it creates fine coffee overnight using cold water and coffee grounds

Analytical Engine—Archaic; as conceived by Charles Babbage (1791-1871), a more advanced version of the
Difference Engine
(a mechanical device to compile mathematical tables). The analytical engine would perform any calculation. In Steampunk literature, any mechanical computer

Apothecary—A person who prepares and sells medicines and drugs

Artificer—Skilled worker; craftsperson; one that contrives, devises, or constructs something

Autocar—Passenger vehicle powered by aether/phlogiston/petroleum distillate mix. The driver in an exterior cab protected by transparent aluminum. Of various types:

• (i) Autophaeton : sporty vehicle for 2/3 passengers
  
• (ii) Autolandau : Large, commodious vehicle for 5/6 passengers, guard stations on rear
  

Autohansom—A cab, plying the streets of Londinium for hire

Bandolier—Ammunition belt, worn over the shoulder, having loops or pockets for cartridges

Brimstone—

• (i) In
  The Gilded Scarab,
  a flashlight
  
• (ii) Sulfur
  

Britannic Aero Carriers—In
The Gilded Scarab
, the national aeroline (airline) carrying both goods and passengers

Britannic Imperium—Empire comprising the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom: Canada, India/Pakistan/Burma, Australia, and a wide strip of Africa from Cairo to the Cape. The largest empire in history, the empire on which the sun never sets

Cadet—

• (i) A student at a military school who is training to be an officer
  
• (ii) A younger son or brother
  

Cadet Branch—Of the Houses, a subsidiary branch descended from the younger sons of the patriarch/founder member

Chronometer—Clock or watch

Cigarillo—A thin cigar

Cold fusion—A hypothetical type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature. In
The Gilded Scarab,
cold fusion components power things as diverse as a slow-drip coffee machine and Rafe’s small hideaway gun

Convocation House—One of the eight ruling Houses of the oligarchic Britannic Imperium, ruled by the Queen (God bless her). The Convocation Houses hold all political power and divide government departments between them, staffing them with their own House members and those of their allied Minor Houses. See
Minor Houses

Cowens Flash Box—Electric flash lamp igniting flash powder to produce a burst of intense light (photographer’s flash)

Crank—A device for transmitting rotary motion, consisting of a handle or arm attached at right angles to a shaft

Cutpurse—Pickpocket

Datareader—A small, portable type of analytical engine used for storing and reading electronic texts of books and pamphlets

Datascope—An analytical engine (computer) with a screen to access the data. May be portable or desk-sized

Decoction—An extraction or essence of something, obtained by boiling it down

Discharge—

• (i) Release of stored energy in a capacitor by the flow of current between its terminals
  
• (ii) Conversion of chemical energy to electric energy in a storage battery
  
• (iii) A flow of electricity in a dielectric (an electrical insulator that can be polarized by an applied electric field), especially in a rarefied gas—in
  The Gilded Scarab,
  the means by which phlogiston enhances an aether tube in a weapon
  
• (iv) Elimination of net electric charge from a charged body