Okay, probably he'd crash sometime in midafternoon, but until then he intended to enjoy the rush.
He still couldn't get over it--not the fact that he was fucking the Prince of Wales (though, that too, the bloody Prince of Wales), but the fact that he seemed to have found the perfect sexual relationship in the absolute place he would ever have expected. James's position, the very thing that ought to have made this impossible, instead made it ideal.
They had boundaries. They had limits. Those limits were absolute and unlikely ever to change. James would never ask for more, which meant Ben didn't have to feel like a shit for having nothing more to give. They were lovers in the darkness of Clarence House and strangers everywhere else: no overlap, no blending, no messiness. It was utterly clean, perfectly self-contained: everything Ben had ever wanted.
Which meant Ben was free to enjoy the sex, to enjoy James's perfect mouth and perfect cock and perfect ass, as long as they both wanted, and there was no fear that it would ever become more complicated than that.
*
It became more complicated the following Friday.
None of Ben's sources on the latest mega-merger called him back until twenty minutes to deadline--par for the course--but then he wound up getting information that would radically reshape the story. Fiona gave him an extra hour to work, which meant he had about an hour and a half.
But that, in turn, was an hour after he'd told James he would arrive at Clarence House.
Ben had been given the number of the private landline for Clarence House. He'd memorized it but hadn't called yet; James had taken the initiative for both of their meetings so far. Ben hadn't phoned because he felt sure the butler would answer, which would be incredibly weird. Not that it wasn't peculiar enough, being met by the man at St. James's Palace and walked through the complex of royal houses until they reached Clarence House, and James. The butler was utterly unmoved by the entire thing, so much so Ben might as well have been delivering the groceries. But it was strange to think of this tall, gray-haired man knowing what was going on and saying nothing.
And what kind of message was Ben supposed to give the butler anyway? Kindly tell His Royal Highness we must reschedule tonight's fornication.
When he finally dialed the number, though, after a few rings, James picked up himself. "Hullo?"
"Oh. Hi. It's me."
"Hi." James sounded surprised to hear him--surprised and glad--but caution crept into his next words. "Is something wrong?"
"I've got to work late, is all."
"Do you need to cancel?"
Ben had meant to; the day had been so stressful that he felt more like a quick scotch and sleep than sex, even phenomenal sex. But the sound of James's voice melted over him like warm caramel. "Not if you don't mind my showing up later."
"Not at all. Just come when you can. Call when you're leaving, and I'll make sure you get in."
One hour turned into two, and they were the kind of hours that felt like days. The merger, it turned out, was on weaker ground than the press releases declared, which meant Ben had to interrogate CFOs, and CFOs had to get extremely testy with Ben before remembering they were on the record. His story got better and better, and Fiona's smile grew wider and wider, but Ben went from feeling tired to feeling like he was about to drop in his tracks. (He could sleep under the cubicle, couldn't he? Enough room if he curled into a fetal position. Just ball up Roberto's forgotten hoodie, use it as a pillow, and voila.)
But still he called James and took the Tube to the Green Park stop.
By the time he appeared at the side service entrance, Ben was wishing he'd bought a coffee on the way over. He'd come to as soon as he saw James, though--as soon as their lips touched--
The door opened, and Ben slipped through. Only after he was inside did he see that the person behind the door was not the butler, but James himself, less than grand in pajama pants and a sweatshirt.
"I try not to keep Glover too late," James whispered as he latched the door. various security sensors around it blinked from green to red. "He has a wife."
How careful James had been to stand behind the door, in case someone might have been outside with a camera. They walked in silence to Clarence House; Ben wondered whether they were avoiding being recorded or overheard by security guards. At any rate, he didn't speak until they got to James's private suite: "Sorry it took me so long."
"Quite all right. You're here now." James drew Ben down for a kiss, long and soft, and for one moment Ben thought he might be able to set his exhaustion aside--
--at which point his stomach let out a grumble so loud that they both started to laugh, breaking the kiss. Ben shook his head. "Sorry again."
"Have you not had dinner? You must be about to drop. Come on, let's get you something." Ben tensed, fearing the butler's reappearance, or perhaps James taking him to a dining room where he'd ring a silver bell and they'd suddenly receive a four-course meal. Instead James added, "There's a lasagna in the fridge."
"What?"
"A lasagna. You like lasagna, right?"
"Everyone likes lasagna."
James smiled, pleased.
They went upstairs, and through a side door that Ben had never entered before; he'd always taken the most direct path to the bedroom. This was also the first part of the house he'd ever been in where the lights were on--just a couple of lamps, but it let him take a look around. To Ben's surprise, he was surrounded not by grandeur but by a fairly ordinary kitchen. It was a large room, well-appointed, with marble countertops and top-of-the-line appliances, the sort of thing he'd seen in magazine spreads about the rich and famous. But what threw Ben was the fact that this was clearly a kitchen for James, rather than for the servants. He spotted a microwave, a bottle opener, a set of chef's knives, and even, in one corner, bright silver bowls for dog food and water. The entire place looked . . . cozy.
"I wouldn't have thought you even knew where your kitchen was," Ben said, taking a seat at the elegant--but small--table and chairs in the far corner.
James gave him a look as he went to the refrigerator. "My grandparents don't know where theirs is. I feel sure my Uncle Richard doesn't either. But when my parents renovated Clarence House fifteen years ago in preparation for our move from Kensington, my mother insisted that we have an area where we could live like any other family. Someplace not nearly as stiff as Kensington Palace. She wanted to cook for us sometimes, and she did, when she could find the time away from her schedule of events. For my father it was more of a novelty, but he liked it too."
Ben took a seat at the table, feeling awkward. Paradoxically, the very ordinariness of the kitchen had left him at a loss. "You don't have, I don't know, a chef?"
"There are cooks in the main kitchen downstairs who send up dinner most nights. Luncheon I usually have out, and Glover serves tea if I ask him to. And of course, whenever I host a gathering here, the catering staff takes over. But Mum taught us all to shift for ourselves; she enjoyed teaching us some basics. Having servants means sacrificing privacy, you see, and she valued hers, just as I've come to value mine. I see to my own breakfast, usually." James held out a butter yellow Le Creuset casserole dish with some pride. "And I make a mean lasagna."
James's mother was the beloved Princess Rose. She'd been the darling of the media from the time of her engagement until her death. The courtship was fairy-tale stuff; she'd been a student doctor on rotation in A&E when a young man brought a friend in after a bicycling accident, and the young man in question was a prince. Six months later, they'd announced their impending marriage, and it seemed as though the tabloids had wanted to write about no one else for the rest of her life. It was precisely the sort of thing Ben was inclined to sneer at--and yet even he had liked looking at pictures of Princess Rose, had paused when her face flickered across a TV screen. She'd had the kind of face that commanded attention: long, soft brown hair like her daughter's, startling green eyes like her son. No, she didn't look like an actress or a model; James's large
nose was another of his inheritances from his mother, and it looked better on him than it had on her. But Ben had heard it said that perfection was merely pretty, while great beauty always contained flaws. That had been true for Princess Rose, at least. How odd to think of her pottering around in a kitchen, or teaching her son how to make an omelet.
As James popped a bowlful of lasagna into the microwave, Ben heard a faint click-click-click near the door. He glanced over to see two corgis waddling in, fat of haunch and gray of muzzle, who seemed very interested in smelling his shoes.
"You don't mind the dogs, do you?" James said. Standing there in his PJs and sweatshirt, he might as well have been any other guy in any other house in Britain. "I've kept them out of the bedroom area when you visited."
"They're fine." Ben liked dogs, actually. His peripatetic life had never allowed him to own one, but he'd always imagined that might be a thing he'd do if he ever got stuck someplace. Though he'd thought of a proper dog, a German shepherd or a border collie, not these squat little things. Still, as they panted up at him, he had to smile. "What are they called?"
"Oh. My father picked the names." James's cheeks flushed. "They're, ah, Happy and Glorious."
Apparently there was some joke to that Ben wasn't getting. He just scratched the dogs behind their ears.
The microwave beeped, and James delivered the bowl to the table with a flourish. "Water or wine?"
"Wine would be great. Thanks."
Domestic situations like this were precisely what Ben tried to avoid, most of the time. But he was too tired to duck out, and too hungry. So there was no reason not to relax, wait for James to bring him a glass of wine, and try the lasagna. It turned out to be excellent. The wine was even better.
"You could be a chef or a sommelier," Ben said to James, who'd taken a seat beside him at the table. "If the monarchy thing ever falls through."
James smiled. "Nice to have something to fall back on."
"If you open a restaurant, let me know. I'll be sure to visit." Ben took another sip of the wine. "After today, I might be willing to come on as head waiter. It would have to be less stressful."
"Why was today so awful?"
At first Ben was reluctant to answer. He liked the arrangement they had, with few words and lots of sex. Then again, James already knew a great deal about him, didn't he? That would teach Ben to gamble with chess.
So Ben began talking about mergers and sources who didn't return phone calls and Fiona's constant refrain that he should add more information to the story and yet somehow make it shorter. The words seemed to multiply each other, turning what he'd intended to be a brief summary into a full-fledged vent. James nodded, petted the corgis, and topped up Ben's wineglass as he listened. Once Ben was done with his meal, James put the dishes in the sink and then guided Ben into yet another new room: a parlor, as comfortable and unpretentious as the kitchen. Ben sank gratefully into an easy chair with the remainder of his wine. "The story's in. It's solid. But I feel like I've spent the day going through a meat grinder."
"You look completely knackered." James stepped away to shoo out the dogs. "Go on, Glo. Your food's in there."
"You didn't have to do that," Ben murmured. He felt so heavy, as though he might never rise from this chair.
"I didn't want them underfoot."
Before Ben could ask why the dogs were suddenly a problem, James leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, then very softly on the lips. He sank down onto his knees in front of Ben's chair, locking his gaze with Ben's as he set to work on Ben's belt and zipper.
"Just lie back." James's voice was doing the melted-caramel thing again. "Relax."
Ben leaned his head against the cushioned chair, spread his thighs to let James get closer, and groaned as he felt James's fingers against his cock.
James bowed his head, and warmth and wetness swallowed Ben completely. He wound his fingers through James's hair, guiding him as he sucked. Ben felt as though he were being swept away on a slow, inexorable tide--he could remain heavy and motionless, let arousal flow around him and through him, drawing him out of his weary limbs until he only felt the pulsing tip of his cock, circled by James's tongue.
Now James had hit just the right rhythm, as though synchronizing with Ben's heartbeat, with every throb, and Ben couldn't hold back any longer. He gave in to it completely, moaning as pleasure turned him inside out, and he came in James's mouth.
For a few moments he could only sit there, hardly able to move; then James rose, kissed him once on the lips (mouth tasting of sex), and took a sip of Ben's wine. "There," James said, as though he were proud of himself. In Ben's opinion he had every right to be.
He smiled up at James. "Wonderful pasta, fantastic wine, and a blow job from the reigning Prince Regent? This is a very friendly country."
"I'll pitch that to the tourism council, see what they think."
"It's my turn next," Ben promised, though he wasn't sure how he could manage to return the favor. That would almost certainly involve moving. Right now he felt pleasantly boneless, as though he could sleep for days.
"Why don't you lie down?" James brushed back Ben's hair.
"If I do that, I'll fall asleep."
"That's all right." There was a pause, during which Ben didn't know whether or not he should object. But James continued, more briskly, "You don't have to work Saturdays, correct? Besides, as long as nobody saw you come in, it will look less odd, your going out in the morning rather than the wee hours of the night."
Well. If it was for propriety's sake.
Ben leaned on James's arm the whole way to the bedroom. He remembered taking off his shoes but not much beyond that; sleep claimed him instantly. When he woke just at dawn, he first thought that he should probably get his things and go. But then James stirred, and Ben remembered that he hadn't even gotten the man off yet. He awakened James by going down on him, bringing him to orgasm without so much as one word spoken between them. Afterward, James fell asleep again almost immediately, which amused Ben for the few minutes it took him to drift off again as well.
Which was how he wound up rising for breakfast after 9 a.m., still in the palace.
Pleasant drowsiness evaporated as Ben realized he'd let himself get caught in the ever-present domestic trap.
"Who's hungry?" he heard James calling from the kitchen. Ben was about to object to being called in this way--it sounded like summoning a child to breakfast before school. But he felt foolish when James continued, "Who wants her food this morning? Is it you? Is it you?"
Maybe you could try not overreacting to James talking to the dogs, Ben thought.
He found his shorts and padded into the kitchen, where James was swaddled in a plush robe of some sort and spooning some sort of beefy mush into the dogs' bowls. The natural thing to say was Good morning; instead Ben said, "You don't have the butler do that?"
"Good heavens, no. If the butler fed the dogs, within a couple of months they'd be the butler's dogs. They're animals, not fools." The corgis chomped away, oblivious.
"What are you feeding them? It smells like chateaubriand steak."
"Might well be--the cut, anyway, not the sauce. Their food is made by the same cooks who make mine, and with much the same ingredients. Spoiled little gluttons." James turned to Ben with a smile. "Our breakfast is going to be much less grand than theirs, I'm afraid. Scrambled eggs? Or we've got some fruit."
"Toast and coffee will do."
"Right."
James set to work doing something complicated with a French press. Ben stood near the table, not precisely sure how to behave. Finally he decided having James wait on him was a bit much; he could see the toaster for himself. "Where do you keep the bread?"
But when James pointed toward what turned out to be a ceramic dish specially made to store freshly-baked loaves, Ben thought that was worse. Fixing breakfast side by side: definitely domestic. Still, he went ahead and made the toast.
What is it they call that children's game h
ere? Playing Wendy houses. Don't you let him get away with it. And don't fall into that trap yourself.
So once they were seated, Ben said, "You manage this rather smoothly for someone who--how did you put it? Doesn't indulge often."
James raised one of his perfectly arched eyebrows. "What, making coffee?"
"Having overnight company in the palace."
"It's hardly a complicated procedure."
"You're not worried someone will see me walking out this morning?"
"Somewhat. But plenty of people come in and out of the palace during the day. Unless someone is specifically watching for you, there's no reason you'd attract notice."
Ben went back to his toast. That sounded a little more like it: couching things in terms of safety. Convenience. Those were their terms.
But then James said, "Feeling better?"
"What?"
"You were worn out last night. Glad you came here regardless."
Instead of replying, Ben shrugged. It had been weak of him, allowing himself to be looked after last night. To be coddled. Worse would be if James decided he liked the coddling. Best if they just didn't mention it again.
His irritation must have been obvious, though, because James continued, "Is there some problem?"
Ben struck. "For someone who's so chickenshit about coming out, you're rather blithe about our chances of being discovered."
James had pale skin that flushed beautifully when he was turned on--or, as Ben was now discovering, when he was angry. "I've spent my whole life being watched by the press. By now I know what they look for and what they don't. And did you just call me 'chickenshit'?"
"It's an American term."
"I know what it means. But I can't believe you'd say that."
"Well, I can't believe you've chosen to live a lie." All the pent-up frustration Ben had felt about this wouldn't be held back any longer. "You're one of the wealthiest men in the world. You're as safe from oppression as anyone could be. But you hide your true self out of fear of what people will say."
"Fear of what people will say?" James laughed. "Are you kidding? I've been called a coward for failing to enlist in the military even though I was medically ineligible. I've been called a traitor for becoming regent while the king still lives, even though it was necessary. And I feel sure you've heard them call me weak for not breaking it off with Cass. People gossip about what I wear, what I say, where I go, where I don't go, and everything I do. They always will. Horrible things are going to be said about me every day of my life and long after I'm dead, regardless of how I act. I long since learned not to give a damn."