Page 4 of Once a Rogue
He was looking forward to seeing Jade and Zhang. Arthur and Rory...that was a little more complicated, thanks to Sebastian’s time under blood magic, and those were more memories like quicksand, ready to pull him under, back to terrible times. But he’d worked with Arthur and Rory once before; they could do it again.
The cab made a sharp left onto Madison Avenue, and Mateo closed his book with an air of reluctance. “Do we have our story for the hotel?” he said, gesturing to the three of them.
“I do,” said Wesley. “If someone asks after my business, I tell them to fuck off. Works every time.”
“That’s not a story,” Sebastian said.
“Once upon a time, there was a snooping gossip who fucked off, and I lived happily ever after,” Wesley said. “Better?”
“How is that better?”
“You prefer the pulps? Picture the garish cover: me, with a large knife and far more muscle. You, clinging to my arm, your clothes strategically ripped. I’m fighting a crocodile, or perhaps an irate bear, and the headline readsThe Astounding Lord Fine: A Thrilling Tale of Everyone Fucking Off and Leaving Him Be.”
Sebastian frowned. “Don’t hurt the bear.”
“It’s not arealbear.”
“I could have gone by myself to Ohio.” Mateo pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re not going to tell anyone to fuck off, Sebi. How are you going to explain him?”
Sebastian frankly didn’t know how to explain Wesley at all. They’d saved each other’s lives; that had to make them more than casual, didn’t it? But was he allowed to call a viscount something likeboyfriend? Or did Wesley’s world have rules about that, like how Wesley was addressed as Lord Fine even though his last name was Collins? “What’s to explain? I’m sharing a double room upstairs with my brother.”
Sebastian was not looking forward to a night in a bed alone. For months in London, he’d been at the mercy of blood terrors, a holdover from the blood magic, waking from sleep to find himself a prisoner in his own body, unable to move until his blood remembered it was no longer under another’s control.
Then Wesley had woken him out of a blood terror their first night together in the manor in Yorkshire—and he hadn’t had once since.
But then, he’d spent all of his nights since Yorkshire with Wesley. They’d shared a room when they’d been in Paris, and then on the ship, he and Mateo had been next door to Wesley, making it easy for Sebastian to spend the voyage in Wesley’s cabin.
You realize I’ve always slept alone, Wesley had said their first night on the ship, as they lay face-to-face on the bed in Wesley’s cabin, panting and sweaty after Wesley had pinned him down and made him come twice.And I’ve never indulged in anything as sentimental as cuddling.
Your arm is around me, Sebastian had pointed out.
That hardly counts. This bed is the size of a matchbook. Where else am I supposed to put it?
Sebastian had hesitated.Does that mean you want me to go?
Wesley had skimmed his hand over Sebastian’s shoulder and arm, the touch light and almost tentative.Of course not. These are clearly conditions of this mad fae bargain I’ve apparently made.
Sebastian had inched closer, running his thumb over Wesley’s lips.So what do you get in exchange?
Sex. Obviously.
That doesn’t sound like a fair bargain. It just sounds like you’re giving me everything I want.
Yes, well.Wesley had brushed his fingers across the tattoo on Sebastian’s wrist.Perils of being a mortal in your world.
Sebastian had kissed him, and then slept curled around Wesley every night, and he hadn’t had a blood terror since Yorkshire.
Hard to imagine it was a coincidence that his blood remembered it was free when he had Wesley in his sleep. How mad was Wesley going to be if he ever found out Sebastian’s suspicions when he was probably already sick of the clinginess?
But when they’d cabled from Paris to arrange their New York lodgings, the hotel had already been near-full, with no available rooms near their last empty suite. Sebastian wasn’t going to ask a viscount to take a regular room when they were already staying in a travel hotel and not the Ritz or the Plaza, and he wasn’t going to guilt Wesley into sharing a bed when he would welcome the chance to sleep alone in peace.
He needed to get used to giving Wesley more space in public anyway. They could hide away in a ship’s cabin, but in public, people might speculate about what he was doing with Wesley. Sebastian knew all about that, and wasn’t going to draw that kind of attention to Wesley.
So Sebastian would sleep in a bed alone tonight and survive; if he had a blood terror, he would open his eyes and see Mateo in the next bed, and that would hopefully end it.
But Wesley frowned. “As you say, what’s to explain? It’s fairly common in my circles to engage a traveling companion when venturing overseas—say, a worldly Spanish patrician? The last time I came to America, I had a valet...although I suppose that didn’t end very well for him, did it?”
To say the least. Wesley’s valet had been smuggling the pomander relic into America, to sell to a textile mogul by the name of Luther Mansfield who traded in paranormal artifacts. Hyde had been the one to kill the valet with his claws and fangs; the police had written up the death asmauled by a tiger.
