And Thomas knew him too, and that was its own wonder. He roused Micha now with a few urgent touches, the clumsiness its own provocation, because it was so full of need. And that was like an iron bar prying his ribs open, leaving his heart naked to the world. Thomas reached between them, wrapping a hand around Micha’s cock. This, perhaps, he knew too well. Exactly the rhythm and pressure, the long drag and little twist, to make Micha spend. Sometimes Thomas liked to tease, to hold Micha breathless and half-sobbing, blissfully helpless on the edge of satisfaction, but not tonight. Tonight he sent Micha soaring towards climax with all the defiance of Icarus chasing the sun. He neither enticed surrender nor demanded it. He simply took it as his due, claiming dominion over Micha’s pleasure, his body and soul. And Micha came within moments, with a harsh cry and almost without volition, spilling hot over Thomas’s fingers and his own stomach.
Thomas leaned over him to lick up his issue, his tongue tracing the shuddering grooves of Micha’s stomach, as he kissed his way back up to his mouth. Now he tasted of Micha, but his lips were wet withfresh tears, and when he pulled away, he whispered, “He knows. The bishop knows.”
Micha jerked partially up, all the languor of gratification leaving him. “What? How?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps George told him. But perhaps he simply guessed. He’s a worldly man. Ironically, you don’t get to be a bishop in the Church of England if you’re not.”
“Fuck me,” muttered Micha. “That must have been quite the confrontation.”
“I wouldn’t say it was a confrontation. More a conversation.”
“A conversation about your preference for men?”
“Essentially.” Thomas gave a little shrug. “He told me tonight. He took me into his study for a private talk, poured me a brandy, and said, as calmly as you please, ‘I understand you’re a sodomite?’”
This time there was no unseemly, selfish joy in Micha. Just a cold dread. “He’s got no proof. And making something like this public would do as much harm to the church as it would to you individually.”
“Yes, but I couldn’t deny it,” Thomas protested.
Micha stared at him. “Why?”
“Because ... it would have meant denying you.”
“Fuck’s sake.” Groaning, Micha fell back against the pillows. “What’s going to happen to us? To you?”
“As it happens,” said Thomas, sitting up, “nothing very much.” He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. “The bishop cares more about maintaining his connection to my family than he does about ... personal immorality. Mainly he’s disappointed I’m not political enough to be a useful archdeacon.”
Micha was having trouble listening. He felt too cut open and left raw, and Thomas’s words were coming at him as if from a great distance. “So it’s fine then? Just like that?”
“Well ...” Thomas finally met his eyes, his own little more than shadows in the moonlight that crept from between the curtains. “I’m supposed to be more discreet.”
“‘More discreet’?” repeated Micha. “What does he mean, ‘more discreet’?”
There was a long silence.
“He suggested I should marry.”
Micha sprang out of bed, the heat of the covers suddenly overwhelming, the smell of their bodies in pleasure swiftly turning sour. “You what? You’ve actually been considering it, haven’t you? And this is how you tell me, with your hand on my cock and my come in your mouth?”
“Oh Micha.” Thomas looked stricken.
“Don’t ‘oh Micha’ me.” He was angry, furious, rightfully so, but his eyes had betrayed him with tears. “I don’t fucking believe this.”
“It needn’t change anything between us?”
“Thomas,” Micha cried, hating the broken sound of his voice in the quiet room. “You’d be married. To someone else. How could I be with you, live with you, then?”
“We’d find a way. We could—”
“What? Fuck each other when your wife is out teaching Sunday school?” Micha dragged a blanket from the bed and wrapped it round his waist. The conversation was already verging on unendurable, but standing there naked, with his spent prick sticky between his legs, was making it infinitely worse.
Thomas visibly flinched. “God, no. It wouldn’t be like that. We would find someone with ... with understanding.”
“Understanding. Of course.” Micha sat slowly on the edge of the bed. He hurt. Everything hurt. “You’ve done more than consider this. You’ve thought it all the way through. You’re going to marry her, aren’t you? Your other whore.”
He glared at Thomas, daring him to lie, to dissemble or insist that the idea hadn’t even crossed his mind. And, this time, Thomas didn’t flinch. “Yes,” he said softly. “Yes. I ... I wondered. It would be some measure of protection for all of us. And it would secure Hope’s future.”
“But”—and Micha cringed from the bewildered hurt in his own voice—“you’re mine. You’ve said so, time and time again. Were you lying?”
