Midwinter music, p.1
Midwinter Music, page 1
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Midwinter Music
By K.L. Noone
Published by JMS Books LLC
Visit jms-books.com for more information.
Copyright 2023 K.L. Noone
ISBN 9781685506339
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
All rights reserved.
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No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review. This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
For Brooke, who asked if there would be more; and for J.M., for being a fabulous publisher!
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Midwinter Music
By K.L. Noone
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 1
London, December,1802
“Are your pet empath and his terrifying viscount going to be eavesdropping, if I either punch you or kiss you?”
Sam Rookwood stared at his possible prisoner and possible love of his life, tried to figure out a way to answer John’s question without betraying his chief magistrate’s position or his own hurricane of feelings or both at once, and managed, “No?”
“Oh, all right,” John said, “good,” and slammed Sam’s townhouse study door shut and shoved Sam up against it. The night shimmered and crackled: London at Midwinter, candlelight and holly, rustling silk and supper-parties, ruby tiaras and emerald satin breeches, mistletoe and fortune-telling. Sam couldn’t think about a fortune, a future, right now.
He let himself be shoved. Flat against solid wood. The tangle of emotion did most of the work, trapping him even more effectively.
John Thynne was everything Sam remembered and everything he didn’t, after eleven years apart. More beautiful, if that could ever have been possible. Sharper, more refined, youthful attractiveness stripped to bare clean bone and pronounced edges. A thunderstorm of motion, a tumble of too-long black hair and blue eyes like winter mornings, body deceptively slim but strong. His skin glowed more golden these days, vivid temptation against the dark cut of his coat and the pewter hue of his waistcoat under that.
The years in Italy had in some ways been kind. In the touch of sunlight, perhaps, on lazy heat-soaked afternoons among history and sculpture and music.
Sam had a flash of picturing that, a bewildering up-ending of ache and awareness and loss. It took his breath away with longing: John having been happy, safe, sunkissed, at least for a time. John here, now, returned to England after so many years, on a chilly December night.
John stealing a damned painting right in the middle of Lady Carness’s supper-party, because John was a damned thief now and Sam’s magistrate’s soul was desperately trying to protest his own lack of protest.
John here in his townhouse. Not a Preternatural Division holding cell, no, not that, because Sam should’ve done that, and couldn’t, not even with the painting in question silently judging his choices. Not with John glaring at him, ice and midnight and tempests.
John right up against him, undeniable, vital, making Sam’s body coil and respond and throb with hunger. John, his John, the impossible glorious embodiment of every one of Sam’s failures, everything he wanted and couldn’t want, needed and did not deserve.
John’s hand found Sam’s left wrist and pinned it against the door. Hard. A hum of sound, under John’s breath, carried a steel-lace of music; Sam’s arm ended up over his own head, yanked upward by power.
Sam should have argued. Should have shoved John away. Should have used any one of his own skills, physical, street-honed, or preternatural. He wasn’t the strongest kinetic talent, but he could’ve fought.
He moved his other hand to the same spot, instead.
John gave him an actual smirk, lopsided, devastating. “Begging for it?”
“No. Yes. Gods. I don’t know. John—”
“Don’t say my fucking name,” John said, “don’t talk, don’t ask me for anything—” and kissed him. Deep, and incontrovertible. Almost angry, or desperate, as desperate as Sam felt: all edges and pain and raw emotion.
His mouth claimed Sam’s, drank Sam up, left burning imprints. When he bit Sam’s lip, the sting flared sharp. Sam’s knees nearly gave way.
John pulled back. Stared at him. “You’d let me do anything to you.”
Even disheveled, breathless, saying filthy words, John was ridiculously, wildly pretty; he always had been, even when they’d been so much younger, when he’d arrived with his mother at the Rookwood house, when Emily Thynne had been the most beautiful penniless widow in London and Sam’s father had married her just to own her. When Sam, aware that he was twelve years older than the new arrival, knowing his own father too well, had promised those big scared blue eyes that he, Sam, would always take care of his new family.
He had not been able to, in the end. He had not been able to help any of them. That weight pressed down across his shoulders as if his entire magistrate’s desk had landed there.
In this moment, he had John’s hand on his wrists, the hum of melody in the air, the way it’d always underlain John’s voice with song. Sam could’ve gone to both knees and begged. For release, for forgiveness, for John to fuck him on the study floor until he was screaming into the practical flat rug. Any of that. All of it. At once.
He admitted, voice a scratch, “Anything.”
“You’d let me fuck you. Right here. In your perfect proper Chief Magistrate’s study. In your perfect proper Mayfair home. You’d get on your hands and knees for me, and you’d beg, and you’d spend yourself all over that rug, if I wanted you to.”
“I would. J—” He’d almost said John’s name. He’d been asked—or told—not to. Sam swallowed back the hurt of it. “Please. Anything you want.”
John’s hand loosened, on Sam’s wrists. “Anything I want.” A different note of music threaded through his voice, complex, reed-thin. “You mean that.”
Sam nodded, helpless against the music, the sudden dark surprise in winter skies.
“I don’t trust you.” The tune caught, scraped, skidded across frayed strings. “You lied to me. You lied to your constables about knowing me. The world thinks you’re honest. Sam Rookwood, Chief Magistrate, viscount’s son. Upstanding. Respectable. I know better. I know you.”
Sam whispered, “I know you do.”
“I’m a thief,” John said, “you said so. And your stepbrother. Well, not any longer, I suppose. That one hasn’t been true for years.” His voice was very dry, over that; they both recalled his mother’s flight, the divorce, the scandal. The reasons why. “You should arrest me. You caught me. You and your pet constables. But you didn’t, and you won’t.”
“No.”
“Because you want this.” He dropped a hand to Sam’s trousers, skillful, practiced; he had musician’s fingers, and he played Sam’s prick through fine fabric, easily. “Because you want me.”
“No—”
John’s hand froze. His eyes went wider, startled. “Sam—”
“I didn’t mean no. To this. You. I meant—” Oh, all the gods, ever, old and new, Midwinter and Midsummer and the spaces in between. How could he talk?
How could he say anything, right or wrong? With those eyes, the tall fierce whirlwind, the presence? With John’s arousal evident, standing firm and hard, so close and undeniable?
Good, whispered a bit of Sam’s treacherous heart. Good, yes, it’s real, he wants you; maybe he even wants you as much as you want him—
John moved the hand, but did not back up.
Sam stayed in place, flattened against the door. “I want you. I want you to—to do whatever you want. To me. I mean I won’t arrest you—not because of this.”
John actually laughed, cynicism laced through a symphony. “Isn’t this exactly why people do things?” He meant passion, emotion, desire. Possibly revenge.
“You don’t deserve it. Gods—yes, you do, you’ve been stealing paintings—but they’re ours. They were hers. Torie’s. I know why you—”
“Shut up,” John said, and dropped to both knees.
Sam did not have time to move, to react, to know anything but pure blinding want. John on both knees, at his feet. John flicking open Sam’s trousers, a combination of fingertips and half-sung command, power as easy as breathing. A twine of melody, something classical that Sam vaguely recognized, fluttering and full of opera. Sam’s cravat slid free and whipped itself round his wrists, above his head.
His hips rocked forward, responding, instinctive. His study—his home, his house, his life—lay beyond John’s head, neat and clean, a pulse-pounding contrast. The open ca
John put a hand on his hip. Leaned in, plush curving mouth just there, hovering above Sam’s straining cock.
And then he leaned in more, and took Sam in. Thick head, stiff shaft, and all.
Sam made a noise. Strangled, broken, yearning and full, both at once somehow. His length, his girth, sliding in and out of John’s mouth. The slick sweet pinkness of John’s lips around him. The strokes, the friction, and whatever utterly sinful thing John was doing with his tongue, dear gods and all the demon hells, nothing Sam had ever imagined, if he’d ever let himself imagine—
John was humming. Just a bit, around the length filling his mouth. Something hot and glittery, a sensation. Sam couldn’t speak. His prick, his balls—all of him responded, drawn up tight and shaking, the edges of brilliance twinkling like glass, too much and yet exactly right, a shocked eruption of feeling.
John’s hand was toying with his balls, and John’s fingers slid lower, back, teasing his hole—while Sam stayed in place against his own door, wrists bound, held because he didn’t want to move, couldn’t move—
John, mouth full, looked up at him. Through devastating dark eyelashes, with the curve of a smile at his lips, before he did that—that—again.
Sam came on the spot, no warning at all, a sudden wrenching breaking-apart of release. Himself into John’s mouth, spurting, pouring it all out. With his eyes locked on John’s.
His desk shuddered as if it’d been kicked. The rug under John’s knees tried to roll itself, and quivered, and collapsed.
John swallowed, swallowed more, licked and stroked and wrapped his tongue around every drop and every sensitive spot; until Sam was whimpering and sobbing and practically out of his head with stimulation. And then John sat back, on both heels, looking up at him.
That mouth was so pink. Shining. Those eyes were huge and ruffled as velvet, not calm at all. Still dressed, boots on and waistcoat buttoned, cravat rumpled but stylishly so, John might’ve been artwork himself: a young man dressed for a Midwinter London house party, flawless and luscious, with nothing to give away the fact that he’d just had Sam’s prick in his mouth, with the sort of skill that might’ve made courtesans weep.
He said, “Was that good, for you?”
“Oh my fucking gods,” Sam breathed. His knees threatened to crumple. His door was convenient support.
“Was that what you wanted?” John got up, a lovely ripple of motion, and touched Sam’s wrists, under snowy linen. “About the rug. I saw that. That wasn’t an objection?”
“No. I only—” He hated to admit it. He couldn’t come up with a lie. “Lost control.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“No. Never. You—” He moved his right wrist; the makeshift restraint fell. Landed at their feet. Lay staring up at him, astonished. “Can I—do something for you? Please? You didn’t—?”
“Don’t.” John took a step back. The wry line had come back to the side of his mouth. It only made him prettier. His arousal was obvious, blatant, full under his trousers. “I shouldn’t—I didn’t mean to do that.”
“You accidentally fell onto your knees with your mouth on my cock? And your magic—”
“That’s more how I thought you’d sound.” John scrubbed both hands over his face, paced a step back to Sam’s desk, sagged onto it. “Not—not asking if you can do something for me. Not looking at me like that.”
“How do you want me to look at you?”
“Oh fuck me,” John said, and tipped his head back to gaze at Sam’s ceiling, and then a bookshelf, and then the rug. Then he went over and smoothed the corner out.
“All right.” Sam occupied himself, for a moment, with fixing his trousers; he touched his own wrist before he realized he was doing it. He made himself put his hands behind his back.
He came over to his—what were they, now? Not stepbrothers, not related, not even by law. Lover? Surely not, not even after that. Once, or one-half, or whatever they’d just done, might not count, and anyway John seemed so unhappy about it. Enemy? Not that, either. He hoped.
He’d brought John back to Mayfair, his townhome, up to his study, because they needed to talk. John had come willingly. And that was not the verb Sam’s head needed to focus on just this moment.
He attempted, “I’m not going to arrest you, and…we should talk? If I’m allowed to.”
“If you’re—” John stopped trying to flatten the already vanquished edge of the rug with his boot, and shook his head. “I forgot I said that. I didn’t…it wasn’t a command, or…I mean I wasn’t trying to push you. With magic.”
“I know. I was just trying to listen.” He bit his lip, the same spot from earlier. Heat and copper built, a sensation. He felt older, clumsy, awkward. Aware of himself, of the grey in his hair and the twinge in his hip, next to John’s fluid youthful beauty. “I’m sorry.”
John stared at him in much the same way the discarded cravat had done, and said, “You’re sorry?”
Chapter 2
The question hung in the study like a broken Midwinter wreath, a crushed bit of mistletoe, a shredded hope. The last painting, youthful artistic prodigy Victoria Rookwood’s third work, stood propped against the bookshelf near the door. Sam had set it there when they’d first come in, not knowing what else to do.
He tried for a steadying breath. “I am sorry. For not finding you. For Victoria—for that. For everything that happened to you. For not keeping my promises to you.”
John glared at him, started to lift a hand, dropped it. Framed by simple wood-paneled walls and plain carpet and heavy bookshelves, he was more lovely than the whole history of the law and regulations and known precedents. He said, “You have no idea what that even means. Whatever you think happened to us. In Italy.”
“I know.” He could never know. He hadn’t been there. For over ten years, he hadn’t been there.
“Torie—that wasn’t your fault. You were here alone. The fever—”
“It was my fault.” Sam put both hands on his desk, steadying. “I promised to take care of all of you. I know that.”
“You don’t know anything.”
Breathing, breathing; if he could do that he could get through this. Physical gifts. Kinetic. Maybe he could tell his heart to not split in two. A Midwinter miracle. “I understand that.”
“I mean—” John did the hand-wave again, exasperated and luscious. “Why the fuck do you keep agreeing with me?”
“Because you’re right, and I failed you?”
“I just fucked you, in your study, because you took me home instead of arresting me, and you’re breaking every one of your rules for me, and you’re telling me you failed me.”
“Technically,” Sam said, because he damned well liked precision, “you got on your knees and I fucked your mouth.”
John had opened his mouth to keep talking. No sound came out.
“Just so we’re clear.”
“All the fucking gods of holly and oak,” John said. “And rivers and demon-hells. Sam—you said no. And I more or less held you down and made you spend in my mouth.”
“I didn’t say no. Not to that.” Their eyes met, across the cherrywood expanse of Sam’s desk, an inkwell, the small fire-charm light from the fireplace.
John asked, very softly, “Did you like that?”
“Does it matter? If there’s something you want from me, you can take it. I owe you that. More.”
“No. No, no—Sam, that’s not what I meant to—” John took a step back, collided with a bookcase, lost feline poise for a second. “If you didn’t want—then I just—”
“I did,” Sam said, because, again, precision. Necessary. “I wanted it. You. Like that. I’d reciprocate, but you wouldn’t let me.”
John swore again, under his breath. His face was pale. “I’m sorry, too.”
“For reminding me I’m not a hero? I know I’m not.”
“No, but—” John glanced around the room, as if seeking assistance; Sam saw him take in rigid bookshelves, clean desk, blank walls. “You don’t believe in comfort? In decoration? In color?”
