Spectred Isle (Green Men #1)(60)

He did love to talk. Saul had never had that knack, and was generally happy to screw in silence, but then he’d never met anyone who used his mouth like Randolph. That light, filthy drawl was going straight to Saul’s previously exhausted prick, and he could very happily get used to this.

He ran a hand between Randolph’s legs, cupping his balls, looking up. “Tell me what you want me to do. Since you’re so keen on giving orders.”

Randolph’s lips curled. “For a start, get your mouth back on my cock. Deeper. I want you taking all of it. Christ, yes. And watch yourself. I want to see you watch yourself.”

Saul was; he couldn’t look away. They looked like strangers in the mirror: one elegant man in evening dress, on his knees fellating another. He’d once bought a collection of photographs in a furtive sort of shop on Holywell Street, all of them showing supposedly aristocratic men at play; this could have been one of those.

“I could swear you’re hard again,” Randolph rasped. “Well, if it gives you pleasure to have your mouth fucked...” He was thrusting gently, hand in Saul’s hair, and Saul’s mouth tasted of soap and a tang that suggested Randolph would be coming soon, and ivy. He made an urgent noise. Randolph responded to that, thrusting harder, finally wordless, and Saul just held on as he spent, loving every gasp.

He swallowed the viscous, salty-sweet mouthful as Randolph braced himself with a hand against the mirror.

“Sweet God. I had no idea how much I wanted you to do that.”

“I’ve wanted to do that for some time,” Saul said. “To be honest, you could have had me at that blasted burning tree and saved us all a lot of trouble.”

“Then we have time to make up. May I—?”

“God, not yet, I couldn’t.” Saul hauled himself to his feet. “Or rather, probably I could but it would take a while and I’m hungry as a hunter.”

“Well, you can’t blame me for that,” Randolph pointed out. “As you please. Tidy yourself up, though, you look like you’ve been sucking cock.”

Saul had no idea why that was even funny, but he doubled over, howling. Randolph caught his hilarity, shoulders shaking with that odd silent laugh of his, and the two of them were still spluttering as they left the flat.

*

The Cafe Royal was on Piccadilly, and it was glittering. Men in black and white, women with shingled hair in shimmering dresses. Saul had been eating alone in Lyons Coffee Houses for years, a solitary watcher of the chattering crowds. It felt peculiar to be one of them, but not wrong. He was dressed for it, and Randolph’s casual superiority was a passport to anywhere he chose.

The menu was in French, and the prices astounding. Randolph glanced at him. “I suppose you’re better at Arab food. The sweetbreads and the turbot are particularly good here.”

“I’ll trust your judgement,” Saul said, with some relief, since his French extended only to comparing the garden of his uncle to the pen of his aunt.

Randolph crooked a finger, and a waiter appeared. He ordered for them both, and added a bottle of champagne, which arrived within seconds, with two gleaming flutes. Randolph raised his glass. “Shall we say, to making the best of complications?”

“I’ll drink to that.” Saul raised his glass in salute. The golden wine sparkled against his lips. It tasted of nothing so much as sweet biscuits. “So this is how the other half live?”

“Fewer than half, but indeed.”

“Family money?”

“Quite a lot of it over the years, yes. Various gifts and grants from grateful monarchs and governments. And only me left to spend it.”

“But no titles?”

“Many offered, but we turn them down. It’s better to have the country obliged to you than vice versa. We talk a great deal about my family; what about yours?”

Saul sipped champagne. “I’m from Tring, in Hertfordshire. It isn’t terribly noteworthy. I’ve—I had—a brother and a sister. My father was a solicitor. That’s about it.”

“All gone?” Randolph asked with a frown.

“As far as I’m aware they are all very well, but they, uh, they disowned me after the war. I attempt to respect that.”

“You’re a better man than I, then, since I can’t sufficiently convey my contempt. My family history includes a number of catastrophic errors and some shockingly black sheep—wolves in black sheep’s clothing, even—but we never pretended they weren’t ours. Disowning, indeed. How bourgeois.”

Saul wasn’t sure whether to be amused or offended. “Well, that’s a country solicitor for you. What did your family do with your black sheep, if not disowning?”

“Killed them, mostly.”

“Oh, that’s much better.”

Randolph gave his slanted smile. “In our line of work, when people go bad they go spectacularly bad. Power corrupts and all that. It’s why I am very conscious of the distinction between making a pig’s ear of things and deliberate wrongdoing.”

“So if I’d been in your family—”

“We’d have removed you from gaol first, and then gone after the gentlemen who entrapped you. One wouldn’t want them to feel they could exploit one of our own and live to tell the tale. No indeed. And there would have been a great deal of shouting and unpleasantness, naturally, but that’s only to be expected.”