Chapter Text
SIMON
I knew the moment he walked in that he’d be a problem.
He’s wearing a suit. Three pieces. It's so dark blue it’s almost purple, and it makes his reddish-gold skin glow in the lamplight. There isn’t a blemish on him, not a single black hair out of place. It’s perfectly slicked back, like a gangster, showcasing a sharp widow’s peak. He looks severe, untouchable, all the way down to his polished brown oxfords. He holds himself stiffly but also somehow effortlessly graceful.
I watch his long fingers smooth down the front of his blazer before gripping the hem. It’s a nervous gesture. Is he nervous?
It’s my job to make sure he isn’t. That he enjoys this.
“You can take that off,” I say lightly, trying to keep the smirk out of my voice. Posh arseholes like him usually don’t like being laughed at.
“Right,” he says in a rush of breath, tugging at the hem one more time before he turns decisive, stripping off the jacket entirely and placing it carefully on the heavy, antique dresser nearest the door.
He picked the hotel, and honestly, if I’d seen him first, I would have sworn he’d be a minimalist. I’ve been in hotels like that, all clean lines and fifty shades of hospital white.
This place, Mummers House Hotel, is warm. Comfortable, even, with its dark wood furniture and forest green walls. Every pillow and blanket has different patterns and colours, and a plum velvet settee sits near the window. There are artful photos over the bed of The Leake Street Tunnel, and another place I’m nearly certain is Shoreditch.
The photos don’t do the art justice, but they’re pretty. Palatable, I guess. I’ve been to see nearly all the notable graffiti sites in central London, it’s more invigorating and inspirational than a hundred stuffy galleries. Art in the wild, on the sides of buildings and trains.
I like a canvas that’s unforgiving. You have to give a shit, you have to really want it to make it work.
He hasn’t moved to get closer to me, still hovering near the door, eyes on his hands, hands on the buttons of his waistcoat. I don’t even think he’s checked me out yet. Maybe I’m not what he was expecting.
I swallow the thought.
I stand up from where I’ve been sat on the bed and cross the room to get to him. His gaze flicks over to me, and, for a split second, it feels like he’s actually looking, eyes going wide before focusing back on his hands. I move in front of him, gently brushing them aside to take over.
“This all right?”
“Yes,” he says quietly.
His breath catches when my thumb finds the first button. I feel it more than I hear it, a puff of warm air across my forehead.
“Thank you,” he says, a little louder this time. His voice is deep and rich. “I don’t—I’m not actually sure how this works.”
I chuckle lightly; I can’t help it. “It works however you want it to.”
He lets out a quick huff of a laugh in return. “What if I told you I wasn’t sure about that, either?”
I glance up, and there he is. Staring straight back at me. His eyes are a strange shade of blue, almost grey. Like polished slate. He’s young, maybe my age, and I’m unsure how I overlooked that.
It’s the damned suit. Who in their early twenties dresses like this?
My fingers are slotted between the buttons of his waistcoat, and I can feel the softness of his belly give way under the pressure, his short little breaths. His pupils widen as he stares at me, and his lips part. He’s … objectively gorgeous, and I can’t quite understand why he’s here. Why he’s standing in front of me acting like this is the most intimately he’s ever been touched.
“You must have had some idea,” I say as I undo another button, “when you set this up. You were the one that set this up, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he sighs. “Yes. I was the one to set this up.”
Thank Christ.
“Mmm,” I hum. “So. Tell me what you’ve fantasised about.” With the final button undone, I push the waistcoat down over his shoulders, feeling him shiver as my hands run the length of his arms.
It’s sort of a shame, honestly. He looks obscenely good in a waistcoat, the way it cinches around his slim figure.
“I want …” He takes a deep breath. Then he shakes his head. “I’ve never done this before.”
Clearly. "That’s all right,” I say, trying to soothe him. I know I’m still shit at it, but this is sort of familiar, and I’ve had years of practice at this point. Some people get anxious. It’s normal. “What about something you’ve done before and liked, yeah? Just to start.”
He looks at me like I’ve just announced that a beloved pet has a terminal illness.
I’m … well, I’m fucking baffled is what I am.
Unsure what to say, I take his tie in my hands; it’s the colour of deep red wine. The damn thing is so tight I can’t imagine it’s not choking him. As I work it loose, my thumbs brush his neck, the skin thin and velvet soft. I feel him swallow.
“I’ve never done this before,” he reiterates, with more desperation this time. “Any of this. I haven’t—"
“Hey …” I drop my hands, his tie hanging low, the top button of his shirt undone. He looks practically dishevelled. “Let’s take a step back, all right? My name’s Simon Snow. Your name’s Basilton, yeah? Can I call you that?”
“I prefer Baz.”
“Baz, then,” I say, stepping back so he doesn’t feel crowded. “Baz, what do you mean you’ve never done this before? I figured this was your first time hiring an escort, but now I’m thinking that’s not what you're saying.”
He turns his head a little and shuts his eyes. Bracing himself. “I meant … exactly what I said. I’ve never done this before. I’ve never been with anyone.”
“You’ve never had sex.”
“I’ve never done anything, Snow.”
“Okay, but—”
“—I just thought that it’d somehow be easier once I was here. That I’d be able to do this. Finally.”
“This. As in sex.”
“As in everything.”
I blink. “Baz. Have you ever been kissed?”
He looks completely stricken, and I’m wild about it. All these faces he’s pulling. I definitely like them more than the carefully guarded look he had when he first walked in. I just want to make it better. I think I could make him feel good if he let me, but also …
Fuck. “Really?”
He nods.
“How is that possible?”
Now he’s looking at me like I’m thick, but I’m being serious. How has this man never been kissed?
“Is there anything to drink here?” he asks, altogether avoiding my question. He sticks two fingers into the loose knot of his tie and pulls it down further. I see the glint of a gold chain around his neck.
“Yeah, it’s all overpriced tosh, but there’s a bar in the corner by the ensuite.”
“Brilliant.”
I sit back down on the edge of the bed while he frowns at the selection, a little line pinched between his thick eyebrows. I want to fix that too. Fuck, I sort of feel like I might combust if I don’t get it right. If he doesn’t like it.
I expect him to go for the wine, but he grabs a half-bottle of sherry oak whiskey by the neck, plus two Glencairn glasses, and turns to face me, holding them out like a question.
“Come on, then,” I say, gesturing for him to sit beside me. “Let’s find out if we can taste the two hundred percent markup.”
—
For a little while, it’s almost ordinary. We could just be two blokes sharing a drink after a night out, making small talk between careful silences. Dancing around what might come next. All the possibilities.
He’s unravelling a bit, moment by moment, his shoulders dropping, a few strands of black hair coming loose and falling over his eyes. I’m tempted to push it back for him. It’s that thought that jolts me out of it. That’s not what this is. There’s no way, under normal circumstances, that he’d ever end up in bed with someone like me.
Christ, he really is a problem. I never think like this. I can’t think like this. Usually, clients don’t give me time to think.
“We don’t have to do anything, you know,” I say, staring down at my hand and my nearly empty glass. A thin pool of amber liquid swirls along the bottom.
My head is buzzing a little, a warm feeling trickling down my throat and pooling in my chest. I usually drink cider, if I drink at all.
Baz is halfway through his second glass. His eyes already looked tired when he came in; I think they’re just naturally like that, sort of a sad dog effect. It’s pretty on him somehow. Now, though, they’re practically drooping. Soft and glassy.
“It’s fine,” I continue. “We can go out if you like. I do that too. Even brought clothes for it, just in case.” Just going to the bar at this place is an ordeal, so I wanted to be prepared.
He shakes his head. “No,” he says quietly. “No, I want this. I need this.”
I nod. “Okay.”
His eyes are dark and focused on me when I take his drink, letting my fingers brush his. It’s hard not to wonder what he’s thinking or what he sees. Most people can’t shut up, almost desperate to spill every sordid detail of their life. Baz is locked up tight.
I set both glasses on the floor before turning to face him completely, one leg curled up on the mattress, my knees pressed to his thigh.
I can’t explain it. I’ve slept with first-timers before, but something about Baz makes me want to be careful.
His tie is still hanging loose around his neck, so I move to take it off.
“Snow?”
“You can call me Simon.” He looks thoroughly unimpressed with me, so I just sigh, sliding the knot free, a slip of fabric. “Yeah?”
“Do you like this?”
I tense. I tug the tie from Baz’s shoulders. “It’s grand.”
“I’m not asking to be an arse or to have you stroke my ego. I just need to make sure because I can’t stomach the idea of doing this with someone who might not even enjoy it.”
Oh. “You want to know whether or not I enjoy sex?”
He frowns at me and then wobbles his head from side to side as if to say, ‘more or less’.
“I mean …” I lick my lips. He watches me do it. “Yeah. Sure. ‘Course I do. I wouldn’t be in this business otherwise. I like being touched. I like touching. I like making people feel good. I’d like to …” I pause, brushing his now exposed collarbone with two knuckles. “I’d like to make you feel good.”
That’s an understatement. His whole everything just makes me so ... I feel restless, a little obsessed maybe.
“You don’t have to say that.”
“Yeah. I do,” I respond, trailing my fingers up his long neck. I skip over the thin gold chain, the pendant still hidden beneath his shirt collar. It seems incongruous with the rest of him. I can’t really say why. “This all right?”
“Yeah.”
He’s clean-shaven, but his hair is dark and thick. I rub up against the grain and feel the scratch. My palm comes to rest on his cheek.
“Do you want me to kiss you?” I ask.
He nods his head.
I lean in, feeling him lock his jaw reflexively. Instead of barreling forward like I normally would, I tuck my face into the curve of his neck, nosing up under his chin, lips catching, sticking, sliding against his skin. I ghost a trail down his throat, his head tilting forward and in. It’s gentle submission, a weight in my palm, a breath in my hair.
He smells incredible, like someplace old and tucked away. Dust between pages, firewood, peeled fruit.
My lips settle on his pulse, and I feel it flutter beneath my lips. His hand comes up to my hair, scratching my skull. It’s like he’s goading me on and soothing me simultaneously. Begging me closer. I kiss my way along his jaw, up his cheek, moving against the insistent press of his hand, letting my teeth graze and nip.
He shivers under me. He holds his breath.
I stop at the edge of his mouth.
“Please,” he says quietly, and I think I might be willing to give him anything.
The moment my lips touch his, he whimpers. I swallow it. I feel it drop to my stomach. I kiss him again and again and again. Small kisses that ask nothing of him except to feel it, to map out the shape of my mouth and his. To understand.
I kiss him like that until he starts to kiss me back.
It doesn’t stay sweet and careful for long after that. I’m drawn forward, his hand fisted in my hair, the other gripping my shoulder, tugging my shirt. I take him around the waist and deepen the kiss, tasting the seam of his mouth, tongue flat, fingers sinking into his black hair.
I’m determined to ruin it if he’ll let me.
It wasn’t a lie. Before. I like sex. It’s just that … I guess some people talk about it like it’s this big thing. Something they need. The way you need food. Or, more like how you crave it, the way your mouth starts watering just at the thought. The way you fantasise about it when it grows scarce.
For me, it’s only ever been sex. I get off, and it feels good. The way wanking feels good. It never feels urgent or necessary.
This feels … I don’t know.
I just …
All I have to do is kiss him. That’s the job. Give him what he wants, what he needs. What he’s asking for.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve never kissed a client like this. That I’ve never kissed anyone like this, I don’t think. It’s never been this good. Kissing works best when it’s a conversation, and usually, clients like to be the ones talking.
But Baz … Baz … I kiss him. It’s his first kiss, and he gave it to me, fucking handed it to me, and so I’ll take care of him. Try to make sure he doesn’t regret it.
I push my chin into him, letting my teeth worry at his bottom lip. His hand is still clutched in my curls, and he’s pulling, fucking yanking. I don’t think he realises how hard, but it feels incredible. It’s grounding. I need him to do it more.
My hand is on his lower back, and I’m bunching the fabric of his shirt, tugging it loose from his trousers. Once it’s freed, I touch his bare back, the dip of it, the soft hair like the skin of a peach. He sinks against me, his chest flush with mine, halfway in my lap.
I try to break the kiss and give him a moment to breathe, but he chases me back and back until I’m laid out on the bed, pulling him over me, onto me. His knees bracket my hips, hands on either side of my head. I want to drag him closer, feel him get hard, but I’m letting him set the pace. He gets to decide.
He’s kneeling over me, curled forward, kissing me in earnest. Sucking on my lips, breathing hard through his nose.
Fucking quick study. I should have guessed he would be.
(Baz is hungry for it. He craves it. He needs.)
“Snow,” he gasps, pressing his cheek into my hair. I take the opportunity to kiss down his neck again, working the buttons of his shirt open. “I want …”
“Yeah?”
“Please,” he sighs, “Touch me. Please.”
“You don’t have to say please,” I say, nosing under the collar of his shirt and sucking on the smooth knot of his shoulder. “I told you. You can have whatever you want.”
He shakes his head, a pained noise in the back of his throat. “Mark me.”
Christ. “You sure?”
“Yes. Yes.”
I do. His breath goes ragged as I suck him harder, rolling the skin between my teeth. I wet and soothe him with the flat of my tongue. Clients don’t usually let me do this. I don’t usually want to.
I get the shirt down to his wrists before he pulls away, sitting back on my thighs. Just half an inch forward, and he’d be able to feel how hard I am. His mouth is red and swollen, and his hair is falling loose, the muscles in his chest and shoulders and stomach working as he tugs off his shirt and tosses it to the floor in a heap, and fuck. Fuck. I ache just looking at him.
My hands come up his waist to the inward curve of his belly. There’s a line of black hair down his navel. He’s watching me touch him, bracing himself on my stomach, pressing divots into my skin like dough.
The gold chain hangs from his neck openly now, over the dark spread of hair across his chest, and I can see, for the first time, a shining gold cross there. It makes my chest feel inexplicably tight, picturing how he was when he walked in: Lock-jawed and careful-footed. His cold reluctance may have been something else entirely.
I don’t understand him. I want to, but that’s not mine to have either.
I focus on my pale hands, freckled and scarred, against his brown skin, mapping out his soft spots. He’s fit, leanly muscled, willowy even, but not so much that it’s left him without supple swells around his hips, at the bend of his stomach, his inner thighs.
My fingers find his belt. I can see the shape of his cock pushing against the seams of his trousers. His hands tighten on my stomach.
“How do you want this?” I ask, pulling his belt free from one loop. “Do you want my hands?” Then another. “My mouth?”
I’m surprised to feel his fingers on my face, cheeks and chin, his thumb sinking into my tender lower lip. I stare up and find him frowning as he watches me. He has a face made for frowning. I should hate it.
My mouth falls open for him, and his nail scratches my teeth, the pad of his thumb wet and cool.
“First, your hands,” he says, scooting forward just enough on my lap to press us together, the pressure enough to make me groan. “Then your mouth.”
I smirk. “Yeah,” I say, gripping him around the waist, bringing my thumbs together at the centre of his stomach. “All right.”
I should kiss him to get him out of his head, so I nip at his thumb before taking his wrist and pulling him down on top of me. His mouth opens easily this time. He lets me kiss him deeply while I tug his belt free and toss it to the floor. I work his mouth wider beneath mine, sliding my fingers beneath the waistband of his trousers and pants. Then, I’m pushing down, fabric slipping over his arse, his hips, his thighs.
His cock falls heavy on my stomach. I taste his moan.
One of my hands sneaks between our stomachs to grasp him firmly while the other pushes up the back of his neck, knotting my fingers into his silk-soft hair. I’m cradling him against me, his mouth gone slack over mine, chest heaving as I stroke him.
“Is that good?” I ask into his mouth.
“Fuck, Snow.” He rocks his hips forward. He nods.
I rub my fingers into his scalp. I breathe in every groan. He’s moving against me now, fucking into the circle of my fist. I bite back a moan at the pressure on my own cock. Christ, I’m hard for him. We’re so close, though, we’re stomach to stomach, and I feel every twitch of muscle, every rut forward.
“Fuck,” he whimpers. “Fuck, fuck.”
He presses closer, knocking our foreheads together, our noses. His mouth drags wet over my cheek, and his hair is in my eyes. I smell whiskey and peppermint. The heat of it, of him, of us.
His mouth is …
He’s shaking in my arms.
“I’m going to—” he gasps, and then he’s curling into me, gripping my hair with both hands. “Fuck, God, fuck …”
I squeeze him through it, feeling his come pool warm on my fingers and stomach. My hand goes gentle in his hair, and I kiss his slack mouth as he whimpers and groans, knocking his hips forward erratically. Chasing the aftershocks.
I give him a few loose, slow pulls until he’s nearly sobbing with overstimulation. Then, finally, he goes lax, burying his face in my neck. Still trembling. Still trying to catch his breath.
“All right?” I ask, stroking his hair again.
“Yeah,” he says quietly, sounding a bit fucked out, if I’m honest. Low and raspy.
“I should have taken off my shirt,” I say without thinking, but he laughs, so fuck if I care. He’s got a great laugh. A little nervous at the moment, but mostly just good. I think it was good for him.
We lapse back into silence for a while. He still hasn’t moved.
“Seriously, you all right?” I check, nosing at the crown of his head. “Think you could go again? I know there was more you wanted.”
“No,” he says. His lips are against my neck, so the word buzzes my skin and sends a shiver down my spine. “But … thank you. That was good. Better than … well. Better than I expected.”
Literally everything that comes out of his mouth makes me want to do more. I can’t fucking stand it.
“Well,” I say, trying to keep my tone light. “Pleased to know I’ve exceeded expectations.” He laughs again, and there’s something easy about it I don’t expect. Something good. “Do you need a flannel?”
His arms tighten reflexively. “Can we lay here a little longer?”
“Yeah,” I whisper hoarsely, draping my arms loosely around his waist. My cheek rests against his forehead. My heart might be racing. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
—
I change my shirt while Baz takes a quick shower.
He comes out smelling like posh hotel soap, something minty. I prefer his cologne. Other than that and his damp hair, he’s back to how he was when he first arrived, all buttoned up to his chin and stiff-shouldered, but it doesn’t fit him the same as before. Like it’s all half a size too small.
He looks at me as he stands at the door, hand on the latch. His eyes are gentle.
“Thank you,” he says again, and it’s so fucking strange. And I want to kiss him again, which is mental.
“You really don’t have to say that.”
“I imagine this isn’t normally how these things go.” He frowns. “I suppose I just …”
He lets it hang in the air for a moment before he huffs, and then he walks over to me. I don’t have time to react before he takes my face in his hands and kisses me. And it’s good. Tender and undemanding. I touch the hem of his jacket, tugging just enough that he might be able to feel it.
And then it’s done.
He’s halfway out the door when I say, “You can ask for me. If you ever do this again, you can give them my name.”
Baz smiles, and his whole face softens into it. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen it. And I just …
The door clicks behind him.
Right, I think. All right.
I pull myself off in the ensuite, hand over my mouth, forehead pressed against the cool tile of the shower. I wash up with that posh, minty soap. I think about the mark I left on his shoulder.
Yeah. He’s going to be a big fucking problem.