“You’ve been quiet this morning,” Tom muttered, following along at Burke’s side as they wove through the busy street.
They were on their way back to Corbin House from the auction lots. Burke always had an excellent eye for horses. He handled all the Corbin family’s hunt, stud, and racing portfolios, earning a percentage of the profits. He seemed pleased with this morning’s find.
Meanwhile, Tom was in turmoil. The events of last night troubled him. Well…one event. A line crossed. A liberty taken. He was terrified to speak his fears aloud and have them realized. But not to speak them was impossible. It’s the reason he tagged along, hoping to get a moment with Burke alone.
“Can I assume you mean to suffocate me with this heavy silence?”
“There is nothing to say,” Burke muttered.
They were moving down a narrow street of shops in the ironworks district. The clang of blacksmiths’ hammers rent the crisp morning air. A stray dog darted in their path, chased after by a street urchin.
“I think there is,” Tom countered. “And I think I know what it is, and if I’m right—”
“Christ, Tom. We’re not talking about this now.” To prove his point, Burke stretched out his long legs, weaving faster through the morning shoppers.
Desperation clawed at Tom as he elongated his stride to keep up. “Burke, please—”
Burke suddenly stopped and spun on his heel. Snatching Tom by the front of his open great coat, he dragged him into the narrow alley between a typesetter’s shop and a key repair store.
Tom grunted as Burke shoved him up against the grimy brick wall, stained black with years of smoke. Burke kept a hand on his shoulder. The brim of his hat was pulled low, casting a shadow over his stormy grey eyes. “You want to do this here? Right here, Tom?”
“I’m sorry,” Tom murmured. There were no other words to be said. He knew this had to be about their kiss last night. In the moment, Burke had accepted it. Hell, in the moment he’d kissed Tom back with enough passion to rip Tom’s soul apart.
But Horatio Burke did not kiss men.
Ever.
Tom knew this. He just hoped that perhaps, with Rosalie between them, it might be different. Perhaps Burke could let himself share his passion. Clearly, Tom was wrong. “I’m sorry,” he muttered again.
“Stop saying you’re sorry,” Burke snapped. “Why the hell are you sorry?”
“I…” Tom swallowed. “I know we touched at Alcott…but that was different. That was about her pleasure, not ours. And there was nothing wrong in it.” He was stumbling all over his words. God, he could barely think straight. “But last night…the kiss. Burke, it doesn’t have to happen again—”
“Stop talking,” Burke growled. He lowered his face until his mouth was inches away, until they were sharing breath.
A slow ache pulsed in Tom’s cock. He couldn’t help it. What the hell was Burke doing? He closed his eyes and leaned away.
Burke cupped his jaw and jerked his chin up. “Look at me, Tom. Look me right in the goddamn eye. If we’re having this conversation, let’s bloody well have it.”
Tom opened his eyes, feeling the strength of Burke’s hands holding him in place.
Burke’s eyes swirled with angry storms of darkest grey. “You think I didn’t like it? Is that what this show of remorse is about? You wandering behind me all morning like a kicked dog?”
Tom bit his lip, fighting back the words. They’d never spoken so openly about this subject before. Never. Apparently now was the time, and this was the place. This dingy, rank alley that smelled heavily of smoke. “You don’t like men,” he whispered.
“Of course, I don’t,” Burke huffed. “I like women. I fuck women. I worship at their feet and drink from their perfect cunts. One woman in particular I now claim as my goddess. There will be no other women for me.”
Tom closed his eyes again, nodding…heart quietly breaking. Burke wanted Rosalie. Only Rosalie. Tom could well understand, for he wanted her too. He just wanted…more.
“I said look at me,” Burke growled, squeezing Tom’s jaw tighter.
Tom opened his eyes.
Burke leaned in, his thumb brushing over Tom’s parted lips. “I don’t like men. I don’t fuck men…but you are not men.”
Tom blinked, confused and wholly distracted by Burke’s thumb on his mouth. “I don’t understand—”
“You are Tom. My Tom. You are all fucking mine.”
As the words rumbled from Burke’s chest, Tom sagged against the brick wall, his breath escaping him in a sharp exhale.
“The two of us have been linked since we were twelve years old,” Burke went on. “Do you remember the day?”
Of course, Tom remembered it. He still dreamed of it sometimes. It was the day Burke nearly drowned. They’d been fording the river one spring day. Neither was prepared for the strength of the current after a week of heavy rain. Burke was immediately swept under. It was the scariest moment of Tom’s young life—diving in after him, reaching blindly for him in the swirling darkness, dragging him to the surface and pulling him to shore. “I remember,” he murmured.
“We are part of each other. Always have been.” A silence stretched between them, and Burke’s eyes narrowed as his scowl deepened. “Goddamn it, say something.”
What words could ever suffice? Instead, Tom grabbed Burke by the neck, crashing their lips together in a hungry kiss. Burke groaned, parting his lips to tease Tom with his tongue. Tom wanted to die. To feel Burke so close, to have him in his arms, his taste on his tongue. It was perfect. It was heaven.
It was over in seconds.
Burke jerked away. He staggered back, wiping at his mouth with his leather gloved hand. “We can’t—fucking Christ. We can’t, Tom.” He sank back against the opposite wall, eyes darting towards the busy street. No one noticed them here in the shadows. No one cared.
Tom flicked his tongue over his bottom lip, savoring the taste of Burke’s kiss. His cock was achingly hard now. He needed to know if Burke was equally affected. But instead of heat in Burke’s eyes, he saw only frustration, worry, guilt. Such a combination had shame twisting in Tom’s gut. He pushed off the wall, inching closer. “Burke, it’s okay. It doesn’t have to happen again.”
Burke pounded his fist into the brick twice, cursing under his breath.
“We can be with Rosalie, and not with each other. It’s enough. I swear it’s enough for me. I won’t push you again. I’m sorry. Please…let us just be as before.”
Slowly, Burke lowered his fist from the wall and turned. His expression was impossible to read in this darkness. “I just told you that you’re mine…that you always have been…and your response is to say you want us to be as we were before? Friends?” He said the word like a curse.
“I just kissed you and you pushed me away saying ‘we can’t,’” Tom countered. “Burke, I will not lose you to this. I will swallow it. Bury it. Christ, I’ll burn it out of me if I have to,” he growled, one hand pressing over his heart. “I will never risk our friendship. I can control myself. I will—”
Burke cupped Tom’s face with both his gloved hands. The leather was cool, foreign. Tom ached to feel the warmth of Burke’s skin against his. He fought to keep his eyes open, too afraid to look at his friend and see more guilt and shame there.
“I am telling you that I don’t want you to be my friend,” Burke pressed. “You are more than a friend to me, Tom. You have been for a long time…I think it just took sharing you with Rosalie to fully understand the true scope of what I want.”
“And…what is it that you want?”
Burke laughed, lowering his hands to Tom’s shoulders. “I want to kiss you again.” He leaned in. “I want to taste you with my tongue until you’re moaning my name.”
“Burke,” Tom whispered. This couldn’t be real.
A devilish grin tipped Burke’s lips. “I want my hands in your hair…my cock in your mouth…and I want to own you, Tom Renley. When I call a thing mine, I mean it.”
Overcome, Tom dropped his forehead to Burke’s shoulder. “I want you too,” he murmured. “God, I’ve wanted you for so long.”
Burke stiffened. “But nothing can happen between us without Rosalie’s consent,” he declared. “When I say we can’t, that is what I mean. She doesn’t know how we feel, what we want. And I will not have secrets between us.”
Tom wanted to laugh. He wanted to shout. He wanted to take Burke in his two hands and claim him against this filthy alley wall. “She already knows.”
It was Burke’s turn to blink and pull back. “What?”
“At least, she knows what I want,” he clarified. “I told her.”
Burke’s eyes narrowed. “And what do you want then?”
Tom’s smile widened. “Last night she called you Horatio. You let her use it as an endearment.”
“So?”
“So, that’s what I want too,” Tom murmured, heart in his throat.
Burke huffed a laugh. “You’re not calling me Horatio, Tom.”
“You let her say it,” he challenged.
“Yes, well she lets me come inside her,” Burke replied with a grin. “It’s a more than even trade, I think.”
More than even.
Tom stepped closer, heat flooding to his hardening cock. “If you say I’m yours, you better be ready to claim me in all the ways that matter.”
Burke went utterly still.
Tom raised a hand and brushed it lightly down the arm of Burke’s coat. “Picture it…Horatio.” He noted the way Burke hissed in a breath and inched closer, running the tip of his nose along Burke’s jaw. “You could claim us both at once. I’d sink my cock into her, and you’d take me from behind. Each thrust of yours would bury me inside her. You could ruin her on my cock while you come inside me. Own us. Devastate us.”
“Bloody fucking hell.” Burke sank back against the wall.
“Tell me you don’t want it,” Tom teased, following him to the wall, pinning him down with a push of his hips. “Tell me your cock isn’t hard right now. Tell me it’s not weeping at the image of me on all fours, Rosalie beneath us both. Tell me, Burke. Lie to me.”
With a feral growl, Burke’s hand slipped between them, cupping Tom’s painfully hard cock. Both men moaned as Tom pressed into his hand.
Panting, Tom shifted back a step. “My only condition is that when we’re alone, I get to call you Horatio too.”
Burke laughed, dropping his hand away. “Why do you suddenly give a damn about calling me Horatio?”
“Because I like sharing these secrets with you,” he replied. “I like seeing you in a crowded room and knowing I’ve watched you take our girl. I like knowing what you say to her, how easily you get her to come. It makes me come faster too.”
Burke groaned.
“These secrets are ours, Burke. Not yours. Not hers. Ours. Horatio is a secret you keep, and you gave it to her. I want it too.”
“Fine,” Burke muttered. “If it means that much to you, call me Horatio.”
Tom smiled, leaning forward to kiss his jaw. “Oh, I will. But I intend to earn it first. People you come inside get to say it, yes? That’s the rule?”
Burke held his gaze, his look hungry. Slowly, he nodded.
Peace settled in Tom’s chest, knowing they understood each other. “Don’t worry, we’ll work up to it. But first we tell Rosalie our intentions. Until then, we keep our hands off each other, agreed?”
A playful smile tipped Burke’s mouth. “Can you bear to wait?”
Tom adjusted his hat and coat with a matching grin. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve lasted this long. The real question is…can you?”
