Darling James

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

James Trevalyan was a handsome man of average height, but that was the only thing average about him. He had auburn hair that even cut short was a mass of curls, and green eyes that rivalled emeralds, and a velvet voice that…

Really not the thing, you stupid git, I admonished myself. One should not wax eloquent about the looks of the man one works for.

It wasn’t in my files, any of them, that I liked men even more than I liked women. As unfortunate as it might be, if a bloke’s mates learned he didn’t mind a bit of back scuttle, he’d quickly find himself without any mates at all, and quite possibly without backup as well when the s**t hit the fan.

So once I’d known the path my future would take and had decided to become a Royal Marine, I’d determined to put those experiences behind me, buried those feelings deep inside. No pun intended.

My sole lapse had been when I was nineteen and on leave and met that toff with the sad, sad eyes…

I’d been inexplicably drawn to him—

Or perhaps it wasn’t so inexplicable. No one had ever needed me the way he seemed to, and so I let him take me to a hotel room where I went down on him, made love to him with all the expertise at my command, and then lay beside him after he fell asleep. I couldn’t sleep, though. Why would an obvious toff come to a pub like the Poodle and the Panther?

He’d almost seemed willing to challenge the two toughs, but they’d have made mincemeat out of him, which was why I’d stepped in. What could make a man willing to do that?

Before I came to any conclusions, I started to become drowsy. I’d never spent the night with a bloke in my bed, and I…liked it. I tightened my hold on him, stroked his thick, dark hair, and eventually fell asleep.

He woke me in the night, weeping in his sleep, and I held him while he murmured something in a foreign language, one I hadn’t been familiar with at the time.

“s**t,” I muttered. Had I hurt him? I blew out a relieved breath when from his disjointed sentences, I gathered the impression that his lover had gone missing and might well be dead. “Easy now, luv.” Touched and saddened—no wonder he didn’t care if wankers like Hays and Martin had a go at him—I made gentle love to him, this time face to face, whispering love words in Italian. This time I was able to bring him off, and he exploded all over my chest and belly.

“Ochi verzi,” he murmured on a sigh.

“Hold on, luv.” I dragged my arse out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, wet a flannel, then brought it back and cleaned him up. I cleaned myself up as well before tossing aside the flannel and climbing back into bed with him.

I pulled him back into my arms, and even though we were pretty much the same height, he tucked his head under my chin. Another odd thing was we both had c***s that kinked to the right. P’rhaps in the morning he’d be feeling a bit better and we could chuckle over our similarities. P’rhaps he’d consider having a meal with me. P’rhaps…

I drifted off into a sound sleep, the kind where nothing woke me up.

That was something I’d never do again. In the morning he was gone, and he’d left some money on the chest of drawers. The bugger had taken me for a bloody rent boy. I wasn’t flattered.

“But y’know what, mate,” I said to myself, “if he comes looking for you, the last place will be in the Royal Marines.”

Afterward, though, I was twice as careful. I cut a swath through the female population and got a reputation among my mates as quite the Casanova. The ladies had a good time, I had a good time, and if I felt the need for a masculine hand on my c**k, there was always my own. If I needed something more, I’d go to a green grocer and find a nice-sized courgette.

And I promised myself there would be a day in the future when I would indulge myself once again.