“Well, you are beautiful,” I said, kissing his bare, golden skin, letting myself taste the sweat drying on it. “And worth a small fortune.”
“Aren’tyouthe one worth a small fortune?”
Perhaps he was starting to make peace with the idea.
“I’m merely in possession of it. You’reworthit.”
Andy chuckled, but I was entirely serious.
“I meant I’m not made of porcelain. You don’t have to be so careful with me.”
“Ah, but you are extraordinarily precious,” I said, nuzzling his neck, breathing in the scent of sweat and sex and Andy, that familiar scent that hung in our apartment and always made me think of home. “I can’t express how sorry I am for exposing you to those people. I didn’t want to.”
“They torture you like that?” Andy asked, looking back over his shoulder as I traced soothing circles on his belly.
“Yes, when I was younger,” I admitted.
Andy’s jaw hardened. “I’m gonna kick their asses.”
“I have no doubt you could, too,” I said. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather avoid the lecture that would come with the scandal of having to bail you out. Unnecessarily, of course. In your own defense, you’re welcome to respond as you see fit.”
“I’d like to punch Will in his smug face,” Andy murmured, wriggling closer to me and tugging the blankets up further.
“Ah, welcome to our generation of the upper classes, then. We all want to punch Will in his smug face.”
“Why don’t you?”
“It’s not worth the ensuing scandal. You know, I didn’t evenwantto kiss him, that time we got caught,” I confessed.
I’d never told another soul this, but Andy would keep my secret.
“But he thought it’d be funny to kiss me. I’ve always wondered if he meant for us to get caught, knowing there’d be no consequences for him but there would be for me, because my father wasn’t nearly as important as his.”
“What happened?” Andy asked softly, linking his fingers with mine, splayed across his belly.
“Father was called, I was brought to the headmaster’s office to face him.” I smiled against Andy’s shoulder as I thought of the next part of the story. “Father gave the headmaster the most thorough dressing down I’ve ever heard and demanded he apologize tome,for so much as implying that I’d done anything even slightly wrong. Then he took me home and we went for ice cream.”
I paused to kiss the back of Andy’s neck.
“And he told me he loved me, and that my feelings were perfectly all right and perfectly normal, and that there would be nicer boys than Fitzwilliam Billington-Whitely. And you are living proof that there are.”
Andy laughed softly, squeezing my fingers. “My dad told me it was cool that I liked boys and girls and that he wished he’d thought of it when he was my age,” he said. “For twice the opportunities. Never did figure out if he was serious.”
“I’d like to think he was,” I said. “Mostly for my own amusement.”
“Yeah, me too,” Andy agreed, sighing and looking up at the ceiling as the sounds from downstairs—Christmas songs and glasses clinking—filtered up to us.
Mother was entertaining, I assumed.
“Kit...” Andy spoke up after a few moments of silence. “Will there be, umm. Consequences? For you? For yelling at your cousin and Will?”
“None I’m not willing to weather,” I said. “Besides, they were unequivocally in the wrong, and I do not intend to back down on that point.”
“Brave of you,” Andy said.
“Under normal circumstances I am an unforgivable coward, butyouare not fair game.” I pressed a kiss behind his ear. “Do you know you smell incredible after, umm...”
“Sex?”
