Bob liked it. Outside of social events, he had only been to the house a handful of times, but he appreciated it greatly each time. The high windows that brought brilliant light into the room, the splashes of color in the drapery and artwork, and how comfortable the furniture was. His own home was not like it at all, it did not carry the same warmth, the same homeliness that the Walker house did.

Though, that might be because he wasn’t being scrutinized by the scorching glare of its heir when he was in his own home.

“Go home Reynolds. My sister is not here.”

Bob let himself finish the biscuit he had been eating. The staff had been kind enough to fix him up something to eat while he waited in the drawing room.

“I am aware. I was told just as I walked in. I intend to wait for her to come back.”

Bob can nearly see Walker grind his teeth in frustration.

“She will not be back until later in the afternoon. It is pointless to wait here that long.”

“Well, isn’t it up to me to judge whether this is a pointless endeavor?” Bob shoots back.

“Not when you are taking advantage of my hospitality to do it.” Walker nearly growls. He looks ready to strangle Bob where he stands. Annoyance swells through Bob. There was something about this man that seemed to push every one of Bob’s buttons.

From the corner of his eye, he sees one of the maids peeking glancing into the slightly opened door. Walker follows his gaze.

“Perhaps,” Bob starts lightly, “this conversation is best had in private.”

Walker doesn’t say anything, simply turning and striding swiftly out the room. Bob doesn’t hesitate to follow.

Despite Bob’s best efforts, they could not seem to get along. Before this season, they were aware of each other—of course they were, what men of their standing had not even an inkling of men similarly situated to themselves? But they had never really interacted beyond passing pleasantries.

But things have changed. Bob’s father has issued an ultimatum—find a wife or find himself on the streets. While Bob would love to be free of his father’s control, even he is not naïve enough to believe that he would be able to survive if he was disowned.

Bob has never thought romance was in the cards for him, always quietly expecting to live out his days alone. But his father has forced his hand. And that is how he found himself courting Yelena Belova, Walker’s half-sister. It seemed like the best option—she was unmarried and without suitors, and something gave him the idea that she would not be hurt by Bob’s less than romantic intentions in pursuing her. But Bob had not expected how protective Walker was of his sister, nor how much he could hate Bob’s very existence. It was like the moment that Bob approached Yelena, Walker deemed him no better than a piece of shit underneath his shoe. And nothing Bob has done has seemed changed his mind.

It doesn’t help that the other man seemed to constantly push Bob to his own boundaries. Bob has never been quick to anger, rather one to fold easily and show his belly. But with Walker, Bob finds himself pushing back, barring teeth that he didn’t even know he has.

After a set of stairs and a long hallway, Bob finds himself at the door of a room in what must be the back of house. Walker throws open the door and walks in, Bob following him. The room is modestly sized, with a bed, that is made almost militarily-like, and a single desk, which is mostly bare other than a few papers and quills resting neatly upon it.

This must be Walkers’s room.

For some reason, his heart’s flutters at the thought.

“Well,” Walker demands. It shakes Bob from his mind, back into the present.

“What?” Bob asks.

“What more could you have to say that requires me to be trapped in further conversation with you?”

Bob feels a flash of hurt, which is quickly replaced with irritation.

“You were the one to bring me into your bedroom. You could’ve just left me in the drawing room to my devices.”

Walker gives him a scornful look, “leave you to prowl my home, Reynolds, like a deviant, waiting for my sister? Absolutely not.”

“A deviant?” Bob sputters, “do you really think of me as some freakish man, rubbing my palms together, eager to take your sister’s virtue?” Walker doesn’t say anything, only giving him a look of pure reproach.

Bob’s hands clench into fists. Of course, Walker thinks of him as some brute. He has never given Bob the benefit of the doubt, instead he has immediately treated him as some aberrant, disgusting thing.

And suddenly, Bob can’t remember why he has held himself back for so long. Why has he attempted to remain pleasant and polite to someone who has refused to do the same with him?

In that moment, he simply snaps.

He lunges forward, gripping Walker’s collar, and hauling him towards him. Bob can’t decide if he wants to scream in his face or simply punch him.

“Robert, get your hands off me!” Walker yells.

“No.” If Bob’s glare could start fires, he would be looking at a pile of ash right now. He turns them around, hands still clenching Walker’s shirt, and presses him backwards until he hits wall with a thump. He is suddenly overwhelmed with an anger so passionate that it almost surprises himself, “I have acted with the utmost propriety. I am no rake nor do I have any debts, gambling or otherwise. I have sent gifts and I have been attentive and present. I have acted as a proper gentleman to Yelena this entire time, and yet you still question my intentions.” Walker attempts to push against him, but Bob doesn’t afford him the slightest of movement.

“I have only been kind to you even though have never shown me a single once of it!” Bob snarls.

“So why,” He continues, furiously, “Why do you hate me so? What grave sin have I committed to earn your ire? Other than courting your beloved sister?”

“I do not hate you.” Walker says. His voice is flat, and he seems to have resigned himself to his position on the wall.

“You do.”

“I do not.”

“Do not lie to me.”

“I am not lying.”

“From the moment our eyes met you have detested me. You have scorned my presence. Do. Not Lie. To. Me.”

“I do not hate you!” Bob scoffs, intending to pull away. But now Walker’s hands grip his shoulders, holding him in place. With a sudden movement, Walker flips their positions so that Bob finds his own back pressed into the wall.

Now Walker is the one looking furiously down at him.

He has never noticed before, but the other’s eyes were a brilliant blue. Like an open, summer sky. They are trained on Bob’s own, and the weight of his gaze is so heavy that Bob nearly shudders, barely stopping himself from looking away. Walker moves closer to him, his voice dropping to a fervent whisper.

“You can barely dance, pressing on unfortunate young ladies’ feet with your awkward prancing. You cannot hold a conversation without appearing as if you are apologizing for being there at all. You linger in the shadows of the room, standing silently in their corners until you find the perfect opportunity to come and beg like a downtrodden, well-kicked dog. You are an absolute annoyance, and I feel furious every moment you lay your eyes on my sister because I know that you do not truly love her, but you choose to pursue her anyway. But I do not hate you.”

Bob’s chest aches, “You have all these complaints. Each enough to sustain a hatred of me, but you claim that you do not. Why?”

“Because…Because…” Walker’s angry gaze suddenly melts, as if butter on a hot plate. What is left is something quieter, emptier.  

“How can I pervade your thoughts like this.” Bob cries out, “How can I consume your waking mind, yet you do not hate me?” Without realizing it, he has once again gripped John’s shirt, crumbling the fabric inside his fists.

Their mouths were only inches apart. Their breaths are commingling between them as their chests heave. It feels as though there is electricity thrumming underneath Bob’s skin. He feels the heat of John’s body against his own.

“Because…”

“Walker.”

“Because...”

“Johnathan, John. Please. Please give me an answer. Help me make sense of this.” Bob feels his expression twist into agonizing plea.

For a moment there was a desperate silence between them.

Bob’s fists start to slacken. But once again, when Bob starts to pull away, John tightens his grip, rooting Bob in place. The blood starts to rush in his ears, momentarily deafening him as they stare at each other.

Another beat.

John’s hands leave his shoulders. Bob only as a fraction of a second to mourn the loss of contact before one of John’s hands moves up to cup his face. It sears like a brand.

“I can barely make sense of it myself.” John’s thumb strokes his cheek almost absentmindedly, “All I know is that my body, my mind, my soul burns when I am in your presence. My eyes cannot help finding yours in a crowded room and when you are gone, you haunt me like a dark specter in the night. You are the light in my day and the void in my darkness. I cannot seem to let you go.”

A gasp escapes his throat. Bob’s heart thuds painfully in chest. It feels as though time has stopped yet was somehow also simultaneously spinning hopelessly out of control.

A thousand words seemed to cross Bob’s mind in an instant. But when he opens his mouth, all that seems to come out is a broken, desperate, “please.”

John does not say anything but continues to hold Bob’s face so delicately. As if he was something precious, and not the continuous thorn in his side that he had seemed to view him before.  

“Please John. Please.” Bob begs. He was not sure what exactly he was asking for. All he knew was that he needed. He craved. He craved so desperately it was setting his nerves on fire.

John’s expression shutters, his hands slackening, “I cannot. I should not.”

Bob’s head is swimming. It’s as if the entire spectrum of human emotion was coursing through him at once. Resentment. Anxiety. Ecstasy. Terror. Radiance.

Hunger.

He feels himself being pulled a thousand different directions. Yet, at the same time, it feels like his entire world has narrowed to this one singular moment.  

John starts to pull away, and Bob panics. He knows, with the utmost clarity, that if he lets John go, this will be the end. There will be something fundamentally broken between them that can never be fixed.

Bob panics, and he grasps John’s arm.

Bob panics, and he pulls John back towards him.

Bob panics, and he covers John’s mouth with his own.

John’s mouth is pressed lightly against his own, a naïve lock of lips. Bob tentatively starts to move, deepening the kiss. John’s mouth tastes like these sweetest of wines, light and citrusy. But he remains frozen, having not moved once since Bob pressed his mouth onto his.

What the hell was Bob thinking? Nothing, that is what Bob was thinking. If he had been thinking, he won’t have given into this sudden treacherous desire that has consumed him. He starts to pull away, anxious about how he is ever going to come back from this—he wouldn’t be surprised if the other man chose to truly hate him now for accosting him like this—when John’s body suddenly roars to life.

He surges into him.

And then. Heat. Scorching, burning heat.

Their mouths desperately press against each other. Their teeth clash, and it shouldn’t feel as good as it does, but every glide of their mouths, every swipe of their tongues sets him ablaze. Bob feels as if he is about to be consumed whole. And he welcomes it. 

Bob wraps his arms around John’s back, feeling the hard muscles underneath his palms, as John slides one hand into his hair and the other tightly around his waist. Their bodies press against each other, and Bob feels every point of contact.

“God. Bob, oh god.” John groans between kisses, “you are perfect.” Bob gasps into his mouth.

Thoughts of sin ring distantly in his head. This was not right. It was wrong. Condemning voices swirl through his mind, sounding suspiciously like his father’s. But how could something so apparently evil, so shameful, feel so fucking good? How can the greatest pleasure Bob has ever known come from a man? Not just a man, but this man. Johnathan Walker. Who had appeared to detest Bob with all his heart until this very moment. Bob may have just condemned himself to an eternity in the fieriest pits below, but at this moment he could not care less. Not with the way his spine melted, and his nerves were set alight, with every press of John’s body against his own.   

He wants to climb into the other man’s skin and make himself home there.

John moves his hands down to Bob’s thighs. They don’t stop kissing for a moment, even as John pulls Bob into the air and Bob wraps his legs around his waist.

For a moment, they just stay there. Alternating between long ministrations of their mouths to short bursts of kisses. But then, John starts to walk them around the room. John suddenly pulls his mouth away from him, and Bob feels a whine escape his throat, which quickly becomes a surprised “oh!” as John unceremoniously throws him onto the bed. Bob lands with a slight bounce, and gasps, partly from surprise and partly from his increasingly lack of air.

John crawls on top of him, and the heavy weight of him feels something like comfort.

“Is this, okay?” He asks. Bob looks at him. His pupils are blown out, and his lips are plump and red, shiny with spit. His normally well-maintained blond locks sit messily on top of his head, making him look like a rogue. An incredibly handsome rouge.

He must have taken too long to answer, because John apprehensively utters, “Bob.”

Bob raises his hand, pressing it on top of John’s head to pat down the errant locks. John’s eyes flutter closed for a moment, a pleased sigh escaping his lips, and he looks so beautiful that it takes Bob’s breath away. John lazily opens his eyes again and their eyes meet. Bob knows that those blue eyes will haunt his dreams from this moment on. For a second they just look at each other.

But then the pressing need between them both starts to become urgent. Bob threads his fingers into John’s hair and pulls his head down to meet his.

And they are kissing again. It is slower this time. Longer, deeper presses of their lips. But no less intense than before.

Their bodies rock into each other. Bob feels a burning, searing sensation start to rise in his pelvis as sparks shoot down his fingertips. His toes curl as he arches his back to press further up into John. If his mouth wasn’t occupied, there would be a chorus of moans spilling from his lips.

Bob never knew he could feel like this before. It was glorious. It was perfect.

This torturous, all-consuming pleasure.

But somehow, it wasn’t enough. Bob needs more. He needs everything that John could give him.

“Have you ever?” Bob asks, breathless. He is not sure himself what exactly he is asking. Have you ever had relations? Kissed a man? Tumbled into bed with one of his sisters’ suitors?

“No,” John replies, voice hoarse, “I am a gentleman.”  It’s unclear what question John is answering, but Bob finds that he doesn’t much care as John grinds his hips filthily against Bob’s. 

“I am a gentleman.” He repeats again, his mouth moving lower, pressing hot kisses along Bob’s throat. Bob lets out a broken moan, filled with need.

“I am a gentleman.” John unbuttons Bob’s shirt, his mouth trailing behind his fingers. Bob arches his back as John makes his way down his body.