Amberlough(81)

“I’m not an idiot, Ari,” he said.

Aristide paused, his hand still lingering on the lock. “Nobody said you were.”

Folding his arms, Finn nailed Aristide with a stern look. “What’s your connection to Cross?”

“Nothing you need to know about. Care for a d-d-drink?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Finn tailed him into the parlor and, while he poured single malt into two tumblers, continued to harangue him.

“You’re using me to send messages,” he said, tearing the rosette from his buttonhole and holding it high. “Do you realize the kind of trouble I could land in? It’s not like it was; I can’t afford to be caught out aiding smugglers. And she is a smuggler, isn’t she?”

“I am a smuggler,” said Aristide. “She is my associate.” He capped the decanter and set it at the back of the bar. The crystal snapped against the mirrored shelf, harder than he’d meant it to. He turned to Finn, a glass in each hand. “Drink. Relax.”

“I won’t rotten relax,” said Finn, “until you tell me you won’t do that again.”

Aristide rather doubted Cross meant to send any more messages in such a flashy, obtuse manner. She was just marking Finn as a channel; it was up to Aristide to figure out the manner in which he might be used. But that wasn’t what Finn wanted to hear. Instead, Aristide asked, “Are you frightened?”

“Yes, Ari. Of course I’m frightened. The country’s falling apart and you’re using me to run who knows what right under the Ospies’ noses. You’re being reckless, and I want no part of it.”

“Don’t you?” He set the glasses aside and stepped closer.

Finn’s eyes flickered, but he held his ground. “No.”

“Are you sure?” Aristide closed, and took the rosette from Finn’s suddenly pliable fingers. He used the gilded frippery to trace a line up the front of Finn’s waistcoat, to follow the curve of his throat and tip his head back. “Don’t you think you’d like it? Helping me do d-d-dangerous things?”

“You should have told me,” said Finn. He was breathless.

“Why?” Aristide leaned forward, put his mouth against Finn’s ear. “Would it have made a difference?”

“I know that office, Ari. There are better ways to send a message than this.” He dashed the rosette from Aristide’s grip.

Aristide grabbed his wrist instead, pulling Finn into his body and curling over him, speaking into his neck. Finn’s pulse beat against his lips. “Like what?” He let his tongue curl elaborately over the “L,” striping the warm hollow of Finn’s throat. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“There’s—there’s a procedure…”

“Yes?”

“For agents like Cross … she—ah!”

Aristide’s grip on Finn’s wrist had gone very tight. He let go and pushed Finn back until his knees buckled against the sofa. “Go on,” he said, settling on the floor between Finn’s thighs. His fingers knew their own way around buttons and zippers, so he could stare Finn straight in the face. Desire made the boy’s pupils into inkpots, swallowing the gray center and leaving only a halo of gentian around the black. “Go on; I’m waiting.”

“Um. Cross is … she’s inactive, but she’s … on retainer. They call it … oh, perdition. They call it ‘hobbled.’ Like a horse.” He swallowed, larynx bobbing beneath whey-pale skin.

“That means nothing to me.” Aristide made small, slick circles with his thumb. Finn cursed. “Explain.”

“She’s not on an action.” He spoke carefully, with long pauses in between his words. When he finished the sentence, he took a shuddering breath. “But they want to keep her close, in case they need her.”

Aristide dipped his head, letting his breath out. His mouth was so close to Finn’s prick he could feel the heat of it. “And?”

“They pay her expenses—” He choked. “She’s got … she’s got to turn them in at the beginning of the week. Every week. Please will you just—!”

“I still don’t understand,” said Aristide, pausing to put the tip of his tongue out, to taste Finn for just a moment, “what exactly this has to do with me.”

Finn’s hands jumped, fluttering close to Aristide’s face, then curled into fists on his own knees. His words came out strung together, in a gasping rush. “Hobbled agents put in their reports at the beginning of the week. At the end we put out a memo about departmental expenses. Somebody’s got to collate those reports and write up the memo. Plague take it, do you understand now?”

Inhaling, long and slow, Aristide could feel the air move across his palate. He knew Finn could feel it too, in more sensitive places. “Clever boy. So d-d-devious.”

Finn made a strangled sound and clenched his fist in Aristide’s hair, pushing desperately. But Aristide held his neck stiff, unwilling to be directed. He wasn’t finished yet.

“Tell me…” he said, tipping his chin so his curls fell around his face, tumbling over Finn’s spread thighs.

“Tell you what?” Finn’s spastic grip stung Aristide’s scalp.

“In between reports. How do we talk if something urgent comes up?”