Title: The Tank: Chapter Three, Part Two
***
Chapter Three, Part
Two
It was a different inn than the one Anton had been to with
Camille before—closer, thank God. They walked there together, mouths silent but
bodies speaking volumes. Their shoulders practically touched, hands bumping
from time to time as they stepped in sync. Anton had to work not to shiver, and
couldn’t help biting his lip as they finally reached Camille’s inn. They entered
through a side door, and climbed up a small, dark set of stairs that probably primarily
the purview of servants. Camille’s room was the first on the right as they
exited, and he withdrew the key from his pocket and unlocked the door in tight,
quick movements.
The moment Anton was through inside, it was as though his
skin was on fire. He felt like he might burn down to a cinder any second, but
then Camille was there, and the fast, fiery heat coursing through him found an
outlet in lips and hands. Anton knew he had to be quiet, he knew it, but
it was so hard when all he wanted to do was shout his lover’s name to the
heavens with every beat of his heart. It shouldn’t have been possible to feel
so good from nothing but a kiss to his lips, Camille’s hands bared and
trembling against his throat as he undid Anton’s four-in-hand and threw his tie
aside.
Anton knocked off Camille’s hat as he dug his fingers into his
hair, moaning softly into their kiss. He knew more skin bared was desirable—for
all they had done together, gone through together, they had yet to be naked
together. As they were now, though, Anton felt wonderfully desperate. Every
inch of skin he was able to touch made his nerves thrill with pleasure, and as
Camille pressed close enough for Anton to feel his member straining against the
fabric of his trousers, the sensation was almost enough by itself to make Anton
come. How could he get so much from so little? How would he ever survive having
more?
Camille seemed in a similarly disheveled mental state, thank
heavens. “Academics and their bloody buttons,” he muttered as be broke the
kiss, glaring down at the waistcoat that was giving his nimble fingers pause. “I
would rip them clean off if I did not know you would be the one to sew them all
back on.”
Anton grinned. “You’re so thoughtful, love,” he said
affectionately, then froze. Oh damn. He hadn’t meant for that to slip out.
Hell, he wasn’t sure what he meant by it himself, even though he was the one
saying it—was it love love, or simply “love” as a convenient epithet, like
“dear” or “darling?” Perhaps he could pass it off as an English eccentricity,
or a—
“Anton.” Camille sank to his knees in front of him,
his breaths harsh. He ripped open the fastening to Anton’s trousers, jerked them
and the pants beneath them down to his knees, and—
“G-nngh!” Anton bit the knuckles of his right hand to muffle
his cry, his left hand still twined in Camille’s hair as the other man engulfed
the head of his cock in his shockingly hot mouth. “You—oh—you—” He couldn’t
speak, his body barely knew to keep him breathing if the stars shooting across
his vision were anything to go by. He had only been touched this way once
before, and back then he had been drunk, he and the other boy both. There had
been choking, spitting—it had ended with them slinking off in separate directions,
never to speak of it, or indeed to each other, ever again.
This was nothing like that. Camille was fervent,
mobile, and vocal, his low hums and heat and the wetness of his tongue working
together to create a perilous symphony in Anton’s body. Camille leaned into the
act with every part of himself, from the tight grip he kept on Anton’s hips,
stroking his pelvic ridges with broad thumbs, to the half-lidded look of pure
enticement he threw from time to time, as though he wanted to check and make
sure that Anton was enjoying this. As though he could do anything else—as though
there was any way he didn’t want Camille to touch him.
Anton had done nothing to earn this, he was sure of it, but
Camille wanted to do this for him anyway. He wanted Anton, wanted
his pleasure and worried over his pain and fell to his knees like a supplicant
in a church, and god—
He couldn’t stop it, any more than he could call back a
spell once it was successfully cast. His body was the spell now, all his symbols
lit with power, and there was only one way for that power to express itself. He came hard, lungs folding like bellows, back
curling because how could he possibly stand up straight when lightning itself
was shooting down his spine?
Anton breathed only when his body forced it, drawing out the
pleasure, and when he finally opened his eyes again he was looking at Camille,
who looked straight back, mouth slack, his own eyes dark and wanting. Anton
stretched out a hand to him and in an instant, Camille was back on his feet,
leaning into Anton’s body and taking his hand, sliding it beneath fabric and
down until he—touched him, he was touching the hardness of his need, stroking
him as best he could within the restrictions of the position, and it couldn’t
have been good but it had to be because Camille came fast, so fast, and the
secondhand satisfaction Anton got from it was almost enough to make him fall
over, his knees went so weak.
Eventually their heads cleared enough to get them to the
bed, to get them out of their top layers of costume and into each other’s arms.
Anton’s heartbeat finally began to slow, but from his position against Camille’s
chest, he could feel that something was still making his lover tense. “What is
it?” he asked quietly. “What aren’t you saying?”
Camille sighed. “It is almost a certainty that your
Professor Grable is going to be invited to Paris, to spend the summer term
working to shore up the Emperor’s mechanisms of war. It is likewise nearly a
certainty that you will be invited to join him there. He’ll need an assistant, you’re
available, the pay is more than adequate, and he likes you.”
Anton lifted his head in shock. “Is that why you’re here? To
ask Grable to go work for Napoleon?”
“No.” Camille shook his head, seeming irritated. “I was in
fact expressly barred from being part of the committee the emperor sent. It’s…a
personal matter, unrelated to the task. However, I was owed a great deal of
time after a particularly long case earlier this year, so I decided to come of
my own accord. I wanted to see you, before you were swept along with the tide.
Anton.” He looked directly into my eyes. “If you want to avoid the specter of
war on the continent, now is the time to leave. Refuse Grable’s offer, go back
to London, find another way to get by. There must be work for someone as
talented as you there.”
“My own efforts to find it have been fruitless,” Anton
replied. “And…” Should he tell Camille about Caroline? Something held his
tongue. Things might not all come together the way Camille predicted, after all.
There was no need to out her as a spy to a man who, while Anton cared immensely
for him, was also one of the emperor’s most powerful secret agents. “And I have
the feeling that if war is coming, Britain won’t escape it either. I would
rather stay somewhere I can be close to you.”
That got him a reluctant smile. “I can’t pretend not to be
pleased by the prospect of your presence. But Anton, just…if you do go to
Paris, don’t show anyone else that new spell of yours. I fear what ideas it may
foster.”
“I won’t,” Anton promised. Why would he even need to? He was
no battle thaumaturge; his craft was nothing compared to a practitioner of
Grable’s reputation. “I swear.”
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