Rafe wanted to kiss the pain from Jonah’s eyes. What an image, kissing away pain. It was the sort of poetic drivel his brother read—had read, he corrected himself—and there was some more pain to push away. Kissing away pain. Rafe had never thought such idiocy might exist in his world. But the words had come to him as Jonah had matter-of-factly described the way his whole family had turned its back on him and then his cousins had beaten the hell out of him. When he remembered the wreck Jonah had been the night he’d turned up at the carnival, Rafe wanted to howl.
Oh God. He was lost to good sense, his emotions roused and boiling on behalf of his young lover. He rolled Jonah onto his back and leaned over him, then gently brushed his lips over Jonah’s closed eyelids, wishing he could erase the memories of fists that had plowed into that beautiful face. He pressed kisses all over Jonah’s face, gentle at first, and despite the rough, unshaved cheeks and chin, he didn’t miss an inch. There was a small scar below Jonah’s lips and another by his ear, souvenirs of his cousins. Even as the kisses grew more urgent, Rafe dipped past Jonah’s tempting mouth to make sure he gave attention to every inch of his jaw. There; maybe he’d gotten his sentiments under control and could indulge in the pure joy of lust. No emotions. That was the way it should be.
Indeed when he allowed himself to meet Jonah’s mouth at last, the groan that broke deep in Jonah’s throat brought Rafe’s mind right back into the gutter where it belonged. Just the sight of this man was enough to make him hard. Seeing his chest heave quickly with arousal, touching him, brought that hardness to a throbbing ache. It wasn’t long before the desperation would kick in. Now. Give over, now.
His balls ached from unfulfilled hunger, and he wasn’t interested in gentle play anymore. He wanted the whole of Jonah, naked under his hands and mouth.
“Let me,” he ordered as he unbuttoned Jonah’s braces and then his shirt and pushed the cloth aside to kiss and lick at the skin underneath. The salt of perspiration, the sweet taste of Jonah’s flesh—he wanted to memorize that flavor, keep the essence of Jonah with him forever. But he had more to do.
He stripped Jonah naked, then buried his face in his belly. Jonah panted, then growled in frustration as Rafe kissed and stroked everywhere except his cock. At last he took pity on the man and slowly licked his quivering shaft.
Jonah arched up and grabbed his hair, twisting his fingers in it almost painfully. Rafe pulled back to gaze at the cock in his hand, which was hard as diamond and glistened like one. His mouth watered. He let the rounded tip then the solid shaft slide into his mouth and deep into his throat until he nearly choked from the solid, heavy weight. He moved slowly, deliberately on Jonah’s cock, sometimes sucking, sometimes licking. He thought Jonah was lost in pleasure, but when Rafe reached for his own cock to relieve the pressure, a surprisingly strong hand gripped his shoulder.
“In me,” Jonah said. “You get inside me.”
It took Rafe a moment to understand. Sodomy. He’d only brought men off with his hands and mouth and vice versa. No doing more than that with the men he met on his travels or even during the brief affair he’d had with a roustabout before the man left the carnival. The thought of coupling that way, so deeply, so very intimately, and in such a taboo portal should have disgusted him, but he felt a rush of sudden eagerness and a desperate need to be surrounded by hot flesh.
“Me, inside you.” His voice broke on the last word, turning it into what sounded like a question.
“Yes.” Jonah sat up.
“You’ve done that?”
“Yes, both ways. It’s good.” He seized the sides of Rafe’s head and pulled him into a fierce kiss. “I promise.”
Jonah turned onto his hands and knees. Rafe watched the pale curve of his rear and the dark cleft between his cheeks as Jonah reached for his trousers and took a small tin from one pocket. “We’ll need this.”
Rafe gave an unsteady laugh. “You came prepared?”
“I came hopeful.” He sat cross-legged now on the pile of clothes, a slight frown on his face as he studied Rafe. The raging erection that rose from his lap was the only evidence of their kisses. Very obvious evidence. “I want you inside me. Badly. But if you’d rather not… I, uh, don’t mean to pressure…”
Rafe laughed again. He still wore his trousers and underlinens, and now he roughly shoved them down and off. “Get on your hands and knees again,” he ordered in a low voice. “That looked…promising.”
Jonah scrambled into position and handed the tin to Rafe over his shoulder. “Just your finger at first. And then—” He gasped as Rafe palmed his rear end.
Rafe loved the way a simple touch could interrupt Jonah’s thoughts. And the lines of that body. They’ll be mine. He felt the savage fierceness of a Viking warrior conquering new lands as he moved behind Jonah. He wanted to invade and pillage Jonah’s body and take his soul prisoner, binding it to him. Thrusting away the preposterous thought, he leaned over, pressing his chest to Jonah’s back. He pushed his cock between the other man’s legs, where it bumped against his sac.
He straightened, still on his knees, and opened the tin. The lubricant was thick and smooth. Rafe scooped up a fingerful and slid his thumb over it. “Mm.” He touched Jonah’s backside and pushed his thumb into the crack. “It’s very slick. And you’re very warm,” he added as he found the puckered hole. Both men groaned as Rafe’s finger slipped past the restraining ring. A tight fit. His cock jerked in anticipation.
He slowly pushed his finger farther. Jonah’s body felt hot as a smithy’s forge around it. Rafe felt hot and fevered too, beside himself with impatience to bury himself deep—hammer the steel of his shaft into an even harder blade. He grew bolder and pushed in two fingers. Jonah tilted his head back and wiggled impatiently against his hand. All right, then, he’d hurry up. He’d best do so soon. The feel of that hot arse and muscular body curling under his might make him spend before he’d had a chance to be surrounded by Jonah.
He lined up his cock and pushed, gently at first, then harder. The lubricant had grown even more slippery as it heated on their bodies. He pushed harder to seek out the relief his cock demanded and gasped as he pushed all the way into Jonah’s body, balls-deep. Jonah moved, squirming so that exquisite sensation ran through him. Not so fast. Not so…
“Ah,” he groaned and seized back control. He needed to feel every thrust and withdrawal, but there must be a few seconds at least before he exploded. He rested his body on the sleek back now slick with perspiration in this hot, close room, but the urge to move was too strong, particularly when Jonah did another of those wicked little shimmies and squeezed around his cock. He was inside Jonah, surrounded by him—all that flesh and beauty. Writhing flesh. With a grunt, he gave up control.
Rafe had been rocking slowly, but now he pushed harder. Jesus, the sensation was perfect. Thrusting deep, he grabbed Jonah’s body by the narrow hips and held him in just the right spot, claiming him. Digging in his fingers for a good grip, he thrust a few times. He loved the satisfying slap as their bodies came together, but reined himself in. Jonah arched his back and moaned as Rafe leaned on him again, skin rubbing skin, so he could reach around to grasp Jonah’s erection. Rafe pumped into him again and pulled too, each motion a mirror of the other. He held his breath and tried to silence his groans so he could hear Jonah’s panting words.
“Now, Rafe. Yes. God. Yes.”
Together. We’ll reach it together. He pushed harder as the cock in his hand swelled, and deeper, faster until his own balls drew up tight and his cock erupted.
Sealed together by sweat and fluids, their bodies entwined, the two men remained locked together for several panting moments afterward.
One. We are as one. This is what they mean by that expression. Love sonnets squawked about some mystical union of souls, but Rafe had never understood what the reality might feel like until now. This was about more than thrusting bodies and a few moments of ecstasy. He felt something for this particular man. Jonah, an idealistic, sometimes moralistic country boy—the unlikeliest partner in the world for him.
The emotions running rampant through him scared the hell out of him, and fear snapped him out of the lust-induced trance. As he slowly came back to himself, Rafe reluctantly let go of Jonah’s body and withdrew from him, the physical separation reflecting his inner division from the other man. For a shining moment, it had felt as if they’d experienced a sublime connection, but that was an illusion. What they’d done was only sexual, after all, its very nature temporary. He’d be a fool to imagine some bond had been forged during those moments of joining. If his heart was pounding and his stomach spinning cartwheels, it was purely a physical reaction to orgasm, nothing more. Lack of oxygen from breathing too hard and an overly strenuous workout, no doubt.
Solitary once more, as he always must be, Rafe groaned and flopped onto his back on the hard, dirty floor. The floorboards were sticky with remnants of spun sugar that could never be scrubbed completely clean. He nearly snorted aloud at the obvious symbolism to a man who could never be washed clean of his dirty past.
Some time passed in silence, and Rafe realized Jonah had fallen sleep. He listened to the other man’s slow breathing, felt the tickle of it on his arm. Soon enough he’d return to his wagon and Jonah to a bedroll on the ground like the rest of the roustabouts. Rafe couldn’t show favoritism in the tiny kingdom of the show. Jonah’s family members weren’t the only ones who felt it their duty to pummel sodomites. There were those in the carnival who might do the same if they knew what Rafe and Jonah were up to. It was imperative they keep their distance from each other and that Rafe hide his desire and excitement whenever he encountered Jonah in public.
He stared at the dim light reflected in the mirrors and the tin metal plates hammered to the wall to supplement the flash and glitter of the House of Mirrors. Rafe felt an ache of nostalgia for this spot though he hadn’t left the wagon behind—yet. He wanted to sleep with Jonah beside him for the entire night. And he wanted to stay with the carnival, but his reign as its ruler must draw to a close, probably before the end of the season.
Remnick, the Englishman garbed in Western getup, had been sent by the family’s solicitors to find Rafe and deliver a summons. A couple of weeks earlier, Remnick had finally caught up with Rafe, days after he’d first appeared and a town or two farther down the road. The man had come knocking at Rafe’s trailer, and there was no more sidestepping him.
Without being asked, Remnick had taken a seat at Rafe’s table and gotten down to business at once. “I was sent to find you and tell you it’s time to go home and take up your duties.”
“That’s all? You weren’t given an explanation for the sudden desire for my return?”
Remnick had drawn on his smelly cigar and studied Rafe. In his clipped, educated tone he said, “I wasn’t told the reason, but I suppose it’s because your brother died.” He peered at Rafe. “Here now, you’ve gone pale. Didn’t you know?”
“No.” Although he’d suspected such news—for why else would the family want him unless it was time for him to assume the family title?—Rafe had been rocked by the offhand manner with which Remnick delivered the news. “God no. Where the hell would I learn that? That sort of news wouldn’t show up in the papers here.” Time had shifted even as he’d babbled at Remnick. He hadn’t been able to hold back the words, “How? When?”
“I heard he drowned after a long night of drinking.” The British cowboy had stood then, bowed, and said, “My condolences, Lord Darkwell.”
Even now, lying in the dark next to Jonah, feeling the warmth of his sleeping body pressed against his arm, Rafe could recall the peculiar way everything had slowed during the moments after he’d learned of his brother’s death and how it had taken a moment to realize Remnick was referring to him by his new title.
After telling him about Edward, Remnick hadn’t met his eyes but stared over Rafe’s shoulder to the door of the wagon. “No answer for me to carry back to my employer, my lord?”
Rafe had struggled to think and breathe for a few heartbeats. Once he’d calmed, he’d understood there was no hurry. His brother wasn’t going to come back to life no matter how quickly he traveled, and his mother wouldn’t be anxious to see him even though the title was now his. The estate would survive lackluster management a few months longer until he was ready to return.
“We break down for the season in early October. I’ll be back then,” he’d replied.
“Nothing else?” Remnick’s shaggy white eyebrows rose. “Mr. North would want a specific date. And I’ll wager that he’d tell me the sooner you return home, the better.”
Of course it had been Mr. North who’d initiated the search for Rafe. The family solicitor took his duties seriously. “Tell him I’ll telegraph his office in London when I know my travel plans.”
Come autumn, he’d return to the scene of the crime. It was some consolation to recollect it wasn’t his crime. He’d fled like a coward—or a loyal brother who wouldn’t speak against his sibling; his memory of it depended on his mood.
At the moment, as Rafe lay on the floor of the wagon remembering the meeting with Remnick, he felt less human than trapped animal. The coziness of the wagon now felt stifling, and as much as he wanted to keep lying and listening to the soft breathing of his lover, he knew he must push him away. Already he’d allowed Jonah to get too close to him—and himself to care too much for Jonah. No point in it. This had to end eventually.
Rafe sighed and rose to his feet. The sexual interlude had drained his energy but not his overactive brain. He put on his clothes except for the bits that lay under Jonah.
There would be some compensation to returning home, luxuries he’d almost forgotten. He tried to recall the pleasure of a comfortable armchair by a fire, but such things weren’t important to him, although he supposed it would be easier to indulge his appetite for other men. The sophisticated elite knew how to ignore the things they did not care to acknowledge. He wondered what Jonah would think of the genteel hypocrisy.
The rest of this season of freedom in the United States, and then he would take up the responsibilities he’d never expected would be his. Which brought his mind right back to the source of his pain—Edward, trouble in life and more trouble in death. But whatever his brother had been, Rafe was incapable of despising the self-centered wastrel. He couldn’t forget times in their boyhood, running through the woods playing at Robin Hood. Edward had always been Robin, but Rafe got to be Will Scarlet and sing ballads. And it was those childhood memories that had made it impossible for him to turn against Edward even after what he’d done to that girl.
Jonah sighed, awoke, and rolled off the disheveled pile of clothing. He sat and held up Rafe’s waistcoat. “I hope we didn’t wreck your clothes.”
It would be worth it. “No matter,” Rafe said carelessly as he pulled on the waistcoat. “I have several of these vests, as you’d call ’em.”
“Yes, I like the gold-and-ivory one best.” Jonah yawned. “It makes your complexion even darker.”
Rafe snorted. “God Almighty, you sound like a woman.”
Jonah gave a small laugh. “I never much cared about clothing before. But that first night, the sight of you changed that.”
Rafe instinctively took a step away from him. He wanted to tell Jonah to stop with that kind of talk.
Jonah didn’t seem to notice his discomfort. “I think it’s from when I was a kid. You know, that whole magical world. You looked as powerful as any wizard in a fairy tale.” His smile lit the dim interior of the caravan, with his white teeth reflected over and over.
Rafe smiled back, and his panic eased. That was all right, then. Jonah had been seduced by the show. He already knew that about the man. “Aha, and Jamie in her spangled tights and feathered headdress finished your transformation into a man who loved fashion.”
Jonah stood to pull on his trousers. “Funny thing is, even though I know all the secrets—most of them, anyway—I still love the illusion of the stage.” He buttoned his fly and pulled on his braces. He studied Rafe for a long moment. “And I even love what I found under the illusion.”
Rafe’s heart lurched again. What did Jonah want from him? Declarations of undying affection as they grappled over by the horses? Whispers of romantic poetry as they met in some copse of trees for a fast suck? Not bloody likely.
But even as he tried to think of what to say, Jonah saved him by moving to another subject. “I read a couple of stories in Claudia’s book. Too bad there isn’t a phonograph cylinder of a heartbeat. That would be wonderful background to a dramatic reading of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’ Though I suppose two minutes wouldn’t be long enough.”
Rafe should have been relieved by the shift in mood. He reached for a boot. “Tableaux are all the rage at seaside resorts,” he said.
“We didn’t move or talk in the biblical scenes we depicted at the church festivals because my father didn’t want to emulate the theater. But I saw some plays when I went to college. There was an acting troupe in the town. It was wonderful.”
Jonah sounded so enthusiastic about some amateur production, Rafe wanted to take him to New York and show him a real play. Or in London, they could go to the Strand. He’d watch Jonah see some real actors on a legitimate stage.
I’m a crazy man. One minute trying to throw this lad away, another planning an impossible future with him. He laughed.
“What’s funny?”
Rafe lied. “I was picturing the staging of ‘The Pit and the Pendulum.’ Now that would be quite a feat.”
Jonah laughed too. “Oh, I’d pay good money to see that production. Maybe Pete could carve a giant pendulum while he works on making new stakes.”
“Staubs,” Rafe reminded him, and Jonah’s smile was reflected a thousand times in the real and tin mirrors, as delighted as Rafe had known he’d be. Sometimes Rafe was tempted to make up words just to see that smile. Jonah obviously treasured the odd vocabulary of the carnival. He collected language like some men gloated over fine wines.
“The way you are. It amazes me,” Rafe burst out.
Jonah tilted his head, frowning. “Pardon?” He seemed to stiffen slightly, as if readying himself for criticism.
Rafe had been about to call him a rube, but changed his mind. “You’re as happy as a child. No, that’s not at all accurate. I’ve seen the kiddies at the end of the night, and they’re as crotchety as Mindy on a bad day. A man has to wonder when your gloss of excitement is going to wear off,” Rafe said. “We work from sunup to long past sundown. It’ll wear you down eventually, lad.”
“It hasn’t worn you down.”
He laughed sourly. “The show takes nearly every drop of energy and time from March through October.”
“You have a few drops left over.” That rough, suggestive voice coming from that angelic countenance made Rafe want to rip off their clothes and start again.
Before Rafe could make a move toward him, Jonah opened the door and looked out. “No one’s there. Do you want to go first?”
Rafe suddenly had had enough of sneaking about like thieves. “We’ll walk together.”
He pushed open the door, and Jonah followed. The soft night air was filled with the scent of flowers he didn’t know the name of. He didn’t have time to learn about the land he traveled over with the show.
As he walked through the familiar dark maze of the wagons, a silent Jonah by his side, he thought about how he’d tell him and the others there would be no more seasons for Rafe Grimstone. A heavy sensation settled in his gut. There was no reason on God’s green earth why he should feel the need to stay with the carnival. It would muddle along without him. Parinsky would probably be glad to buy him out and take over his managerial duties, or he could sell to the Orcully Brothers, let them engulf his little traveling show, as they clearly wanted to. Even more mysterious was his powerful draw to the sad, small thing compared to the grand shows he’d seen in Europe or New York.
So much work compared to the easy existence he’d had in England—the life he’d return to soon. But his five years on the road, three as manager, were precious, and its endless work signified freedom to him.
And then there was the inevitable parting from Jonah, who’d vaulted unexpectedly into his life and threatened to break through the barrier around his heart, but that didn’t bear thinking about, so he shoved away the thought.
“What is that sound?” Jonah whispered. It was a long, low, stuttering moan.
Rafe listened. “It’s from somewhere near Lance’s wagon. Bloody hell, it might be Lance.” The lion made a surprising variety of coughs, roars, snarls, moans, and purrs, but this was something new.
Rafe ran, but by the time he got to the cage, it was too late.