Feast of Stephen Read Online Free Page A

Crane’s
skin, slid downward, tendrils probing and exploring and, oh
Christ , penetrating now. It was impossible to believe there was
nothing there. Sensation along every nerve ending, deep pressure
inside, just right—a long time since he’d felt that—the steady
rhythm round his cock, sharper spangles of sensation going off all
over his body now, at earlobes and nipples and neck. Stephen was
working every part of him at once, and Crane couldn’t move under
the barrage of pleasure. He was swearing in Shanghainese and
English together, thrown back in the chair, hands locked on its
arms, and Stephen was everywhere, all over him, unstoppable.
    “ Tsaena .
Shit. Stephen, please .”
    “I love you,”
Stephen said softly. “I need you.” The pressure and pace increased
as he spoke, spiralling upwards. Crane’s nails raked the
upholstery. He had never felt less in control of his own body. “And
there’s nobody in the world who can do this to you but me.”
    Crane made a
hoarse noise. Stephen bent his head, lips closing warm over Crane’s
cock, sending sensation clenching all over him at once, and he came
so hard that he cried out with something that was almost pain.
    He managed to
focus again after a few moments. Stephen was sitting back with an
expression of intense self-satisfaction, eyes glowing gold.
    “Good God,”
Crane croaked. “If that’s what a ring gets me, I intend to buy you
a great deal more jewellery. Possibly a tiara.”
    “Well, this—”
Stephen raised his hand as he spoke, and broke off, giving the ring
on his finger a sharp look.
    “What? Oh, no,
no, no. Don’t tell me the fucking birds are moving. Do not .”
Crane sat up and glared at his own ring.
    “No, sorry,
it’s fine. It was just a trick of the light,” Stephen said. “I
think.”
    “You think ?”
    Stephen sighed.
“You might as well accustom yourself to the inevitable. Magpie
rings, on us? I will wager anything you like, in a hundred years’
time, some distant Vaudrey relation is going to pick one of these
up and think, Oh, what a lovely heirloom , and put it on, and
the whole blasted business is going to start again.”
    “We may need to
die at sea, then,” Crane said. “And if we fail to do that, it’s
their problem.” He took Stephen’s hand, felt the champagne fizz
against his skin. “Whereas my problem, at this moment, is
how to improve on what you just did to me with only natural
ingenuity and twenty years of practice to call upon. So come here,
witch, and let me try.”
    ***
    London, New Year’s
Eve
    The snow fell
thickly here. It coated the blackened walls and grimy streets,
brightening the darkness with a façade of purity that, the next
day, would be kicked and filthied and turned into an icy, dangerous
nuisance. For now, in the night, it was beautiful.
    Jonah Pastern
sat on the parapet of St Paul’s Cathedral, looking over the city.
Snowflakes flurried around him, melting instantly a few inches from
his body thanks to the layer of warmth he had wrapped around
himself.
    New Year’s Eve.
He should have been celebrating it. They should have been
celebrating, in bed, ringing the new year in with kisses. He
shouldn’t be up here alone with a flask of gin and a pain that
wouldn’t go away. But he was, and there was not a single thing he
could do about it.
    “Happy New
Year, lover. To us. Wherever you are, and wherever I am.” He raised
the flask to the air, drained it, and flung it away, careless of
where it fell. “Happy New Year, and God rot the bastards, every
one.”
    The building
under him began to vibrate with the deafening resonance of the
bells. He stood and leapt out, over the parapet, into the cold,
empty air, alone.
    It was time to
run again.
     
    ###