Without consciously planning to, Wesley let his thumb skate over the tattoo, the familiar lion now in the black ink. Sebastian’s inhale was quiet, but unmistakable.
Don’t let Sebastian try to use magic again, Mateo’s cable had said.But don’t tell him about this message.What did Mateo know that they didn’t? When would his letter arrive?
Wesley’s thumb kept moving, following the path of the lion. “Will you humor me and answer a question?”
“Of course.”
“Back in New York, at the Magnolia, I asked if you could have accidentally created a relic when your magic disappeared. Why did you seem so sure you hadn’t?”
Sebastian’s gaze was also on the tattoo, following Wesley’s thumb. “The relics required the siphon to make—and lots of planning. I don’t think I could have made one by accident,” he said. “If my magic had gone into an item, surely I would have felt the connection to the object? But there was nothing in there that felt like mine. I mean, except you, of course,” he added, more playfully.
It sent a spark over Wesley, the thought of being Sebastian’s. He let his thumb come to rest on the lion. “Does it bother you, that he lost his color?”
“No.” Sebastian said it immediately, firm and resolute, like the answer had come straight from his bones. “I like him like this. The lion is my—how did you call it once? He’s my battle scar. He doesn’t remind me of what I lost—he reminds me of what I won.”
He glanced up, smile growing, and touched Wesley’sface with his free hand. “That’s you, if you didn’t know.”
This time, Wesley heard his own quiet breath.If you won me, take me with you, to your wild places wherever you go, he wanted to say.Let me stay with you, grow old with you, lives intertwined like the branches of two trees that can’t be separated.
“Stop trying to give me feelings, you absolute menace,” Wesley muttered instead, and heard Sebastian’s soft laugh. “May I give you a hand with your dress coat? It’s going to be tight.”
Sebastian nodded, and Wesley reluctantly let his wrist go to retrieve the tailcoat from the closet. Sebastian gamely stuck out his arms, and let Wesley help him into the jacket.
Wesley’s gaze stayed glued to their reflection as he pulled the coat over Sebastian’s shoulders. It went on as smoothly as silk over skin, following the graceful proportions of Sebastian’s body while the line of the jacket’s collar echoed the high cheekbones and definition of his jaw.
“Look at you.” Wesley didn’t recognize his own voice. In that moment, the acerbic bitterness and sharp edges were gone, replaced with something softer, maybe even a little dazed.
In the mirror, Sebastian made a face. “I look like a penguin.”
“You really fucking don’t,” Wesley said, with feeling.
They needed to leave in the next few minutes; he didn’t have time for any of the things he wanted to do with Sebastian, all of which involved some degree of getting him out of the clothes he’d just gotten into. But even if they couldn’t fuck, surely this was a momentWesley could at least indulge in touch, or perhaps even kiss him—
“You’re so sweet.”
Sebastian followed that patently outrageous statement by turning and stretching up. And suddenly Wesley was watching his mirror image being kissed, Sebastian’s lips soft and warm against his own as a hand found the back of his neck and pulled him down. And Christ, there was something about having a shorter lover shamelessly manhandle Wesley down to kissing height that had heat flaring through him.
Then Sebastian was pulling away. “I suppose we have to go,” he said regretfully, his fingers lingering on the back of Wesley’s neck and sending sparks across his skin. “Otherwise I am going to make you very late.”
Wesley licked his just-kissed lips. “Right.” He made himself straighten. He’d gone without sex, or frankly even touch, for months at a time. He could wait a few measly hours to have Sebastian to himself again.
Sebastian moved his hand off Wesley’s neck and held up his wrist. The ram cufflink sparkled in the light while the black ink of the top of the lion tattoo peeked out from under the stark white shirt cuff. For fuck’s sake, Wesley could have put a sign on him readingMineand his damnable possessive streak probably would have found it more subtle.
“At least I get to wear your cufflinks tonight,” Sebastian said happily.
Waiting was going to be torture.
* * *
Arthur drove the Bentley to the ball, Rory up front with him and Sebastian and Wesley in the back.
“Why is this place called Beckley Park when it’s ahouse?” Rory asked, as Arthur followed a Cowley onto a narrow country road. “Is it because the house is the size of a park?”
“Don’t ask me to explain the English aristocracy,” Arthur said, joining the line of cars approaching the lit manor house just ahead. “I haven’t the faintest idea why they are the way they are.”
“I heard that,” Wesley said.
Rory glanced over his shoulder. “You ready to go onstage, Seb?”
