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Jesper Fahey had forgotten him.
Wylan supposed it wasn’t all that surprising. He was well used to the forgetting, long past the initial sting of invisibility that prickled like thorns against his skin.
After all, he’d been forgotten on the Geldstraat too, lurking around the manor like a particularly timid sort of ghost as his father did business and the staff —his staff, technically, not that any of them paid particular mind to the fact—brushed past, hurrying from wing to wing in a rush to complete their daily tasks.
He really shouldn’t have been surprised. He knew all too well that he was easy to forget.
And yet…
And yet he’d thought Jesper might be different, because Jesper was different, different in every way from anyone Wylan had ever known. He was effusive and showy and soft and kind. He had perfect lips and quicksilver eyes and hands that felt made to cup Wylan’s jaw as he leaned in for a kiss. He was dangerous—his loaded gun belt served as a heavy reminder between their hips— yet achingly gentle, taking care as he tilted Wylan’s head to press feather soft kisses against the side of his throat. He was tall and lean and masculine, with strange clothing and strong hands and a baritone voice that whispered the filthiest, most perfe—
Stop.
He screwed his eyes shut, willing the memory to fade away.
Jesper Fahey had forgotten.
Wylan wished he could bring himself to do the same.
———
It had started—like nearly all bad ideas do—over a pint of ale.
Wylan was nursing it, cupping both hands around the glass in an attempt to cool himself down. The air in the club was thick and heavy, resting on the edge of stifling. Wylan’s ale was quickly growing lukewarm, and he fought back the urge to knock it back and order another, uncertain if the day’s meager earnings would be enough to cover a second drink.
Around him rowdy patrons gathered, cheerfully calling out to one another and singing drinking songs in unison. Wylan stayed silent. The melodies were unfamiliar to him, Barrel standards that were unbecoming from the lips of the Merchant class.
He’d come out tonight in an attempt to quell his loneliness, an effort he was swiftly realizing hadn’t quite worked. Instead, he felt more alienated than ever, surrounded on all sides by friendship and mirth that he couldn't claim as his own.
He was just about to get up and go, leaving his unfinished pint behind, when a smooth voice sounded somewhere near his ear.
“You’re new here.”
He turned toward the speaker, his gaze catching and sticking on the most perfect pair of lips he’d ever seen in his life.
He blinked, startled, managing to pull his eyes away just before the stranger caught him staring.
The lips were attached to a man, tall and lean with dark skin and bright eyes. He leaned on the bar, angling his body forward to be heard over the din of the crowd. His clothing was garishly Barrel—as was the flashy gun belt slung low across his hips—and his eyes were trained on Wylan, alight with humor and heat in equal measure.
Wylan swallowed. “I’ve been here almost an hour, actually. I was just about to—”
The stranger cut in. “Not here in the bar, love. Here in the Barrel.”
Love. The endearment rolled casually off the man’s tongue, slipping down Wylan’s throat and settling heavily somewhere in the base of his stomach.
Humiliatingly, a flush began to crawl across his face.
He should have been concerned that the man somehow knew that he was new to the neighborhood. He should have been concerned about the fact that, with some digging, any Barrel sop could easily find haphazardly buried clues that hinted at Wylan’s gilded past. Most of all, he should have been concerned about the hook of attraction that dug stubbornly into the skin below his navel, tugging him toward a stranger with silver eyes and a crooked smile.
He should have been concerned.
He wasn’t.
“Maybe I’ve lived here a long time,” Wylan replied in a tone he hoped was casual. “Maybe you’ve just never noticed me before.”
The man shook his head. “That’s not it.”
Wylan raised his chin. “Why not?”
The stranger’s smile stretched into a grin.
“Because I’ve lived here a long time, too,” he leaned closer, breath ghosting along the delicate skin of Wylan’s cheek as he murmured, “and I know I would have noticed such a pretty face.”
———
“How do you know Kaz?”
The carriage rumbled beneath Wylan’s feet, rocking unsteadily as he urged the horses forward. His pulse thrummed in his chest, the knowledge that he was participating in something criminal slipping through his veins like adrenaline. Every time he closed his eyes—even to so much as blink— he watched the Crow Club exploding in slow motion, the violent effects of his tinkering with chemicals put on full display.
He was tense even before he’d heard the carriage’s window slide open behind him, the sound of it sending his eyes rolling back into his skull. He knew before Jesper spoke that their conversation would be another series of questions, each of them dancing around the right one.
Where do I know you from?
It was as though Wylan were a scab that Jesper couldn’t help but pick, the man appearing at his periphery every few minutes with nosy, needling reminders that their evening together had been a forgettable one.
For Jesper, at least.
“I can’t honestly say that I know Kaz,” Wylan responded, fighting to keep his voice low and even. “He asked me to make a few phosphorus bombs for him. I didn’t want to.”
“Why not?”
The Crow Club exploded again in Wylan’s mind, bright orange flames curling from the bomb’s center and licking up the sides of the building. The sound of screaming rose with the smoke, echoing all the way to where he stood watching from above.
“Because I knew he would use them for something like this.”
From his periphery Wylan could see Jesper nod, the barest tilt of his chin acknowledging the truth of the statement. He seemed unbothered by their crime, not pressed by the fact that they’d exploded a club so much as by the fact that they’d exploded his favorite club.
Criminal. That’s what Jesper was, what Wylan had become. He should feel dirty, lowly, like the peculiar, desperate sort of Barrel rat he finally, truly embodied. And yet something else sparked in his chest alongside the horror. A strange pride; the unfamiliar feeling of a job well done.
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
“Did it work?”
Wylan turned his face toward Jesper, forgetting the horses a moment so he could read the expression on his face.
A slow smile unfurled across Jesper’s features, and Wylan had to fight back the memory of another time he’d seen the man smile just like that.
“Oh, it worked. Not many people can go up against General Kirigan and live to tell about it.”
Satisfaction slid sinuously through Wylan’s body, filling his stomach like a warm meal.
Perhaps he was a criminal, but he was oddly thrilled at the idea of being a good one.
He turned his attention forward, focusing on directing the horses once more. There was a beat of companionable silence, the hint of a reprieve from Jesper’s questioning, and then—
“Where’d he find you?”
Where do I know you from?
Wylan bit the inside of his cheek to avoid lashing out with the truth, the answer to the question Jesper didn’t ask.
“I was apprenticing at the tannery,” he explained, “so I guess Kaz knew I was good with chemicals.”
“Tannery?” Jesper asked. “That sounds familiar…”
Wylan grit his teeth in frustration. I’m sure it does.
He’d debated, the night they met, about how much he should reveal to a stranger, determining eventually that his job was a vague enough detail to divulge. Jesper’s eyes had widened in response, a hand reaching for Wylan’s as if to comfort him.
“The tannery?” Jesper had said, his thumb running soothingly back and forth along the soft skin at Wylan’s wrist. “ That’s tough work, love. The vats of chemicals, the smell, the steam. Saints, isn’t it boiling hot, too?”
Wylan met his eyes, deliberately licking his lips before he replied.
“Sweltering.”
In the carriage, Jesper’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“Have we met before?”
———
“How have we never met before?”
Wylan silenced the question with another kiss.
A few minutes of quiet conversation was all it had taken to clearly telegraph his interest, after which the man—whose name, he learned, was Jesper, the syllables strangely familiar as they echoed around in his head—tapped twice on the bar top, a key appearing between his fingers as if from nowhere.
“What do you say we move this conversation somewhere a little more private?”
Somewhere a little more private had been a room upstairs, littered with discarded clothing and half-drunk cups of water and wine. Wylan could still feel the beat of the music downstairs, could still hear the muffled din of conversation. He let it fuel him, timing the movement of his hips to the crest and swell of the revelry below.
How have we never met before?
The question tickled at the back of Wylan’s mind too, Jesper’s name still ringing with an unplaceable familiarity.
Jesper Fahey. Jesper Fahey.
He knew it from somewhere, but where?
Maybe they had met before. Maybe Jesper had once served as a member of the Van Eck staff, sweeping their floors or cleaning the wide-rimmed tub that Wylan had once used to bathe. Maybe he had tended their gardens or cooked their meals. After all, plenty of former Van Eck staffers had eventually ended up in the Barrel, their untimely terminations necessitating they move to the cheaper neighborhood.
If that was the case for Jesper, Wylan was eager to make him forget.
He didn’t answer the question, instead fisting his hands into Jesper’s lapel and deepening their kiss. One of Jesper’s hands rose to cup his jaw, the other pressing into the small of his back. Wylan let out a satisfied hum at the feeling, and Jesper pulled away slightly to speak.
"That’s right love, let me hear you.”
The words were liquid fire, pulling a deeper sound from somewhere within Wylan’s chest. Jesper smiled into their next kiss, his lips going taut for a moment before softening again. The feeling of it drove Wylan wild, another groan tearing from his throat at the taste of Jesper Fahey’s crooked smile.
They carried on like that a while, Jesper’s strong arms pulling Wylan impossibly closer as he got lost in the drag of their lips pressing together. The room soon filled with its own sounds: the slick slide of kissing, the soft ruffle of their clothes, the tiny moans Wylan couldn’t help but let out as Jesper backed him up against a wall.
When they pulled apart it felt as though hours had gone by, Wylan’s pulse hammering in his chest like he’d been running.
Perhaps he had. Perhaps he was. Running from the reality of his lonely existence, from the secrets he would die to keep.
He thought, as Jesper’s mouth ghosted along his jaw, that there were worse ways to run.
He gasped aloud when Jesper nipped at his throat, drawing a dark chuckle that vibrated against his skin. Jesper repeated the motion, slowly, taking his time so Wylan could savor every second that his sensitive skin was trapped between teeth.
“You like that?” he whispered.
Wylan whined in response, his hips bucking forward involuntarily.
“Answer me, darling.”
“Yes.”
Jesper indulged him a few more times, biting and sucking at his neck until Wylan saw stars, before straightening up and looking him in the eyes.
“You should know that you’re not going to get away with that tonight.”
Wylan blinked, dazed. “Get away with what?”
“Not answering me.” Jesper leaned closer, a hand threading into Wylan’s hair. “If we’re going to do this, I need to know how you’re feeling.”
Wylan scoffed gently, pressing his hips forward so Jesper could feel the hardness beneath his trousers. “I would say it’s fairly clear.”
Jesper smiled, the hand in Wylan’s hair dropping to his neck before sliding down his front until it cupped the bulge between his legs. He gasped at the sensation, his head tilting back against the wall as a moan tumbled from his lips.
“I need you to use your words,” Jesper instructed.
Through the haze in Wylan’s head, a question emerged. “Why?”
Jesper leaned close, applying the faintest amount of pressure to the hand on Wylan’s cock. “Because when I fuck someone, I need to know for a fact that I’m doing it right.”
The words echoed in Wylan’s mind, twanging discordantly against a memory.
———
“When Jesper Fahey fucks you, he does it right.”
The woman speaking turned toward her companion and waggled her brows. Her friend giggled, forgetting to stir her steaming vat of chemicals as she leaned closer.
That’ll burn, Wylan thought, his attention catching on the bubbling vat. He was too exhausted to bring himself to warn the woman, focusing instead on regularly stirring his own concoction.
“Is that so?” the friend asked, her voice sly and slick.
“Saints, yes. The man’s a machine. You tell him what you like and he delivers all night long.”
The two women dissolved into giddy laughter, clutching at one another’s arms to stay upright. Wylan watched distractedly, one eye on the now-smoking chemicals in both of their vats.
He wondered vaguely what it might be like to be with a man who delivered all that he asked.
And what might that be? a voice in his head chimed in. Affection, sweetness, love? A warm bed to come home to at night, a hot meal to share?
Not exactly what she’s referring to, Wylan.
He flushed with humiliation, the tannery's blistering heat growing impossibly hotter.
“I may have to take him for a spin myself,” the friend said suggestively.
The first woman—this mysterious Jesper Fahey’s lover—threw back her head and laughed. “By all means. I’d go back again, but I’ve heard he’s not particularly partial to anything more than one night.”
The warehouse manager strolled by, forcing the two women to sit up straight. The gossiping pair returned to their stirring, just barely catching the chemicals before their stasis caused a burn. Wylan stirred his own vat haphazardly, hoping to look busy while his mind spun with thoughts of a man who delivers all night long. When the manager had passed, the women turned toward one another once more.
“I’ll need to choose my night carefully then. Would hate to waste it.”
“Trust me. No matter when, it’ll be worthwhile.”
———
“You should know that you can trust me.”
Wylan and Jesper’s carriage ambled on, the horses slowly rounding a corner. Wylan glanced toward Jesper, watching as his features scrunched in tight disbelief.
“To be clear, I trust you because Kaz trusts you.”
“And you trust Kaz?”
Jesper sighed, looking away. Wylan watched as a muscle in his jaw leapt to life, twitching with frustration.
Good, Wylan thought savagely. Now you know how I feel.
“Listen,” said Jesper. “I’m not about to dissect my long standing working relationship with Kaz Brekker with a total stranger.”
Total stranger. The words exploded like a bomb in Wylan’s chest, his breath punching from him in a single, startled exhalation.
He looked back at Jesper, eyes wide with disbelief, but was met with nothing more than a stony expression. Jesper’s jovial attitude slid behind his grim, dangerous facade.
“Eyes on Pekka’s driver,” he instructed.
———
“Eyes on me, love.”
Wylan whined a vague refusal, keeping his eyes scrunched tight as Jesper’s hand worked beneath his trousers.
They were on the bed, half undressed. Wylan’s boots had been lost somewhere in the shuffle, his shirt unbuttoned and hair mussed. He’d managed to do little more than loosen the laces of his trousers before Jesper slid a clever hand beneath them, his motions stealing Wylan’s ability to think, much less continue disrobing.
Jesper was in a similar state of disarray, his shirt completely off, bare skin pressing against Wylan’s as he leaned close to repeat his whispered instruction.
“Look at me sweetheart, please.”
Please. The word buried itself in Wylan’s chest, his eyes fluttering open without permission. As soon as they did, Jesper swiped a thumb over the head of his cock, drawing a startled moan from the center of his chest.
“Ghezen,” he managed.
Jesper grinned. “A proper Kerch boy, eh? You know, I’m not sure I would have pegged you for one.”
Wylan was too far gone to tell him that he was the proper Kerch boy, heir to the most profitable shipping enterprise and largest fortune in the country. That he’d been the archetype of success, a man poised to gather up and use his generational wealth to honor Ghezen’s laws.
Until he’d fucked it up.
“What is it you Kerch heathens always call one another?” Jesper mused as his hand continued to stroke languidly up and down the length of Wylan’s cock. “Precious? Golden? Treasure?”
The endearments reverberated in Wylan’s skull, pulsing in time with his heart beat. Precious. Golden. Treasure. Precious, golden, treasure. Precious, golden—
He bit his lip to keep from letting out a high, keening whine, a furrow appearing above his brows as he fought to keep it in.
Still, Jesper picked up on his reaction, his eyes lighting up. His hand didn’t stop its treacherous, ruinous movement as he said, “You like that too, don’t you?”
Wylan nodded before remembering Jesper’s directive from before. I need you to use your words.
“Yes,” he breathed.
Jesper’s smile was like sunshine, lovely and comforting and searingly hot. Wylan gasped when Jesper suddenly extracted his hand from Wylan’s trousers, a pathetic sound escaping before he could stop it.
“Shh,” Jesper comforted as he maneuvered above him, placing a kiss on Wylan’s forehead as he braced one hand on either side of his head.
Wylan opened his mouth to protest, but before he could Jesper’s thigh slid between his, the solid pressure sending sparks up his spine. His eyes rolled back a little as he exhaled.
Jesper dipped his head so that his mouth brushed against the shell of Wylan’s ear.
“We’re going to have so much fun tonight, treasure.”
———
“Wait, we have met before, haven’t we?”
Jesper’s hands were braced on either side of Wylan’s head, their legs entangled as they lay flat beneath the carriage. Overhead gunshots whizzed past, bullets embedding themselves into the hull with an overwhelming slam.
Wylan’s eyes widened. “Yes, but—”
Two more bullets crashed into the carriage, slicing through the end of his sentence. He winced, wondering how Jesper could look so comfortable, right at home as he smiled down at Wylan with the satisfied expression of someone who had just solved a particularly tricky puzzle.
“And you bought me stroopwafels!”
Wylan couldn’t believe that that was what had made a lasting impression. He’d bought Jesper stroopwafels at the bar because he’d been unable to afford a second pint. When he produced them, wincing already with an excuse on his tongue, Jesper had let out a giddy laugh, tearing into the sweets with reckless abandon.
“I have to say I like your style,” he’d complimented as he licked sugar from his fingertips.
Beneath the carriage, Wylan was incredulous. “You remember that now?”
Another bullet whizzed overhead and Wylan drew into himself, flinching at the sound. He opened his eyes to see Jesper pressing a single finger to his lips.
Wylan understood the universal command.
Quiet.
———
“Louder.”
Wylan’s head tipped back, a groan slipping from between his lips.
“That’s right, precious,” Jesper whispered, “le —ah— let me hear you.”
He was satisfied to hear the crack in Jesper’s voice, the only evidence he’d been able to gather thus far that he was even a fraction as gone as Wylan.
As if to punctuate the point, he ground his hips down deeper, feeling Jesper’s cock push farther inside.
“Saints, baby.”
Wylan smiled, feeling like he was finally the one in control.
The first few hours of their acquaintance had slipped through Wylan’s fingers like silk, Jesper taking the lead and driving him absolutely wild with his talk and touch. He’d managed to get on top shortly after they’d both been fully divested of their clothing, sitting on Jesper’s lap with knees bracketing his hips. As he'd settled on Jesper’s cock, he thought that perhaps it was his turn to get even.
“You like that?” Wylan asked as he slid slowly up Jesper’s shaft.
As Jesper opened his lips to reply, Wylan slammed his hips back down, filling himself completely.
“Ah—” Any answer Jesper might have had was lost to a sudden, choked-off moan.
Wylan bit down on a smile and circled his hips a few times, studying the reactions that each movement elicited. Jesper’s eyes drifted shut, brows furrowing as he focused on the sensation.
He let the silence drag on a few more moments, settling into a rhythm that—from the positively wrecked look on his face—he could tell that Jesper enjoyed.
He spoke up only when he knew that Jesper was as far gone as he’d been all evening long.
“Use your words,” Wylan prompted quietly.
Jesper’s eyes flew open, a fire igniting somewhere deep within them. His brows raised, the corners of his lips drifting slowly up.
Wylan was used to surprising people. After all, he was a bundle of contradictions: an heir without the ability to run a business, a musician with a penchant for explosives. A man who looked like he might enjoy nothing more than a quiet evening at home with a book, who in reality enjoyed nothing more than this.
He tilted his hips back and forth, holding Jesper’s intense, surprised, adoring gaze.
He was used to surprising people.
He was not used to them liking it.
Jesper was fully grinning by the time he spoke.
“Yes, darling. I really like it when you bounce on my cock like that.”
Ghezen, this man would be the death of him.
Wylan slowly raised himself up again, cupping a hand behind Jesper’s neck so his fingers brushed along the coarse hairs at the base of his skull.
“Good.”
Jesper’s head snapped back into his hand as he sank down hard.
———
Jesper’s head snapped back as the man pressed an iron bar against his throat.
Wylan scrambled for an idea that might allow him to wrestle out of the grip of his own assailant so he could help Jesper survive. His thoughts snagged on a bottle of ammonia in his pocket, a prize from his trip to the chemistry store earlier that afternoon.
Without another thought he plunged a hand into his pocket, uncorking the bottle with his thumb. When his attacker leaned forward Wylan threw his hand back, hearing a scream of pain as powder flew into his eyes.
He rushed toward Jesper, leaping onto the back of the man trying to choke him. The three of them struggled until Wylan’s hands found purchase around the man’s thick neck. With his heart in his throat he squeezed, feeling the breath beneath his fingers grow scratched and whispery.
Only a little bit more, Wylan told himself. He’ll pass out soon.
Instead the man bucked back, throwing Wylan to the ground and releasing Jesper in one fell swoop. He went to raise the iron bar over his head—ostensibly to bring it down on Wylan’s—when he was distracted by the curious bend in its middle, the bar seemingly forced out of shape.
A moment was all it took.
Jesper’s gun fired once and the attacker fell forward, blood gushing from the wound in the center of his chest.
Jesper staggered a few steps forward, rubbing his throat with a frustrated growl.
Wylan’s relief lasted only a moment. Anxiety spiked in his chest as he thought of Kaz, Inej, and Nina, going without their help at the Exchange.
“How do we find out the others aren’t also in trouble?”
“We can’t.”
Jesper approached where Wylan lay splayed on the cobblestones, offering a hand to pull him to his feet. He was a grim sort of savior, speckled with blood and haloed in the glow of Barrel lights. Wylan glanced at the bodies that surrounded him, faceless men that Jesper had sent to their death one by one.
Perhaps he should be frightened by Jesper. Perhaps he should be terrified of his perfectly-placed bullets, his practiced movements, his clear lack of remorse for the lives he had taken.
Wylan certainly had been frightened of men like Jesper, back when he’d lived a sheltered life on the Geldenstraat.
But his descent into the Barrel had quickly taught him that not every man was exactly what he seemed. Not every sharpshooter or heartrender or thief was worth fearing. Not every Ghezen-abiding citizen or merchant was worth admiring. Not every family was worth loving.
He took Jesper’s hand.
———
Jesper took Wylan’s hand, threading their fingers together as he placed it above Wylan’s head on the sheets.
Wylan’s other hand drifted up to join it, and Jesper adjusted quickly so that both wrists fit within his wide, strong grip. He pressed down—gently at first and then, reading Wylan’s reactions, harder—and let out a sly chuckle, dipping his head so that his smile met the skin of Wylan’s throat.
“Want to be held down, love?”
The way Jesper so easily guessed at his most hidden, base desires was certain to send Wylan to an early grave. He melted at the idea of being pressed into the sheets as pleasure rocketed through his body like a firework.
This time, he didn’t need prompting to use his words.
“Please.”
“Please,” Jesper repeated. “So polite.”
You said it earlier, Wylan wanted to retort. Before he could, Jesper rolled his hips forward, driving his cock deeper.
“You’re so good, baby,” he murmured, pressing an openmouthed kiss to the side of Wylan’s neck. “Tell me what else you like.”
The glinting edge of a memory sliced through Wylan’s mind, sharp as a knife. You tell him what you like and he delivers all night long.
Right now, Wylan had a hard time believing that Jesper could deliver anything better than this. All night he’d felt as though they shared a single mind, Jesper able to pluck his thoughts and desires from his head before he could give them voice himself. He knew exactly when to let loose and when to hold back, how to kiss and touch and talk in ways that drove Wylan insane.
Was he like this with his other partners, too? Did he mold himself to their hidden desires, kind instead of teasing, mean instead of perfectly rough?
It was a difficult thing for Wylan to imagine.
His mind spun with ideas, things he so badly wanted but couldn’t quite name. Jesper gently kissing his neck and toying with his hair. Jesper bending him over the large, flat table at his workshop and driving into him until he cried. Jesper whispering his name in devotion, holding him close as he spilled his release into Wylan’s writhing body.
“Darling?”
Jesper’s movements slowed, then stopped. Wylan let out a humiliatingly needy whine, brows furrowing in confusion until he realized he’d let the silence hang a moment too long.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Don’t apologize, treasure. Just tell me what you want.”
The memories poked at him like needles, puncturing his skin.
Tell him what you like and he delivers all night long.
He’s not particularly partial to anything more than one night.
He pushed them aside, focusing on the thousands of answers that danced on the tip of his tongue.
I want to keep you here with me.
I want to see you again tomorrow.
I want this time to be different, for this to last more than just one night.
Instead, he said, “I want to see you come for me,” and watched the way Jesper’s face lit up with wonder.
Wylan’s brow furrowed at the sight. Had no one ever wanted to see his pleasure?
Quick as a blink Jesper’s crooked smile returned, the amazed expression disappearing behind his quicksilver facade.
“Only if you come first.”
———
“No one comes here,” said Wylan. He was lagging a few steps behind Jesper’s quick clip, weaving through tombstones in the shadowy half-light. “It’s a plague cemetery.”
“Which means we’ll be safe here.”
Safe. Wylan wanted to scoff. He had hardly felt safe anywhere since his expulsion from his past life, the Barrel pulling him steadily toward its dangerous underbelly from the moment he arrived. He’d been conned, beaten, stolen from, shot at, forgotten…
As though reading his mind, Jesper stopped in his tracks and whirled around to face Wylan.
“This isn’t your fight, you know. Clearing our names, this feud Kaz has with Pekka.”
Jesper let the sentence hang there, allowing Wylan to draw his own conclusions as to what he might say next.
You don’t have to do this.
“Jesper Fahey…” Wylan accused, leaning closer to inspect Jesper’s uncertain expression, “are you worried about me?”
Wylan wasn’t certain what he wanted to see on Jesper’s face. A softness in his eyes, the kind that had been noticeably missing since the night they’d met? A smile, accompanied by some glib comment to side-step the issue? A flicker of emotion revealing that—despite his forgetting—Jesper did, in fact, actually care?
He wasn’t certain what he wanted. But what he got was nothing more than Jesper’s angular features set into a stony expression.
“I saw your face when the Crow Club blew up,” said Jesper. “You didn’t know what you were getting yourself into.”
Wylan winced at the reference, but refused to drop his gaze. “Yeah, well, I know now.”
He knew now what he was doing getting involved with the infamous Crows. He knew now the type of grim camaraderie they offered, the gruesome things he would be asked to do while under Kaz Brekker’s employ.
He knew now who he was dealing with, and Jesper—finally, finally— now knew him.
He looked into Jesper’s eyes, raising his chin.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
———
I need to get out of here.
The thought pulsed through Wylan’s mind like a drum, steady and unrelenting. He nudged slightly farther away from Jesper’s sleeping form, reaching for the nightstand to provide leverage as he scooted out of bed. I need to get out of here, I need to get out of here, I need to—
“Baby?”
Jesper’s arm wrapped around Wylan from behind, drawing him back in. He sank into the soft warmth of Jesper’s chest with a sigh, wishing, for a moment, that he could bring himself to stay.
It wasn’t as though Jesper had kicked him out. Far from it. When they’d both finally come down from the highs of their respective orgasms, Jesper had simply rolled toward Wylan, drawing him in for one last, drowsy kiss before drifting to sleep.
That had been an hour ago.
Sleeplessness was a familiar plague, but this particular bout had been unbearable. Memories rose in Wylan’s throat like bile, coating the back of his tongue as voices slipped through his skull.
I’d go back for more, but I’ve heard he’s not particularly partial to anything more than one night.
I’ll need to choose my night carefully then. Would hate to waste it.
Wylan balled his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms as thoughts of wasting it spun through his tormented brain. He thought back to Jesper’s hands on his waist, squeezing like the contact with Wylan’s skin was the only thing keeping him grounded. His voice, low and soft and perfectly baritone, asking Wylan over and over again what he liked, what he wanted. His features, flitting from impossibly aroused to unbearably fond to awe-struck and back again in a matter of moments.
The way he’d whimpered Wylan’s name—not baby, not darling, not precious, but Wylan— into the soft skin at the side of Wylan’s neck when he finally came.
I need to get out of here.
Removing himself from Jesper’s arms slowly hadn’t worked.
Quickly, then.
Cautiously, he removed Jesper’s arm from around his waist. Then he bolted up, swinging his legs from the bed and standing in one smooth motion. Jesper made a sleepy noise of dissent, his brows furrowing and lashes fluttering as he began to wake.
His heart in his throat, Wylan did the only thing he could think of: he shoved a pillow into the space he used to occupy, pulse thrumming as he watched Jesper adjust to the new shape in his arms.
Wylan felt strangely disappointed when he did, sinking slowly back into sleep as though nothing were amiss.
A voice sprang back to life in his head.
I’ll need to choose my night carefully then. Would hate to waste it.
His night was far from wasted. It had been beyond wonderful, perfect and healing and scorchingly hot. It left him dreaming of impossible scenarios in which he could keep the man in his bed forever by his side, filling the midnight air with words that plainly painted his closely-held desires for a man perfectly equipped to deliver them. He wanted to spend his days examining Jesper from every angle like a diamond, inspecting each glimmering side for its clarity and cut. He wanted to chase every possibility together, not just the one they’d acted out tonight
He wanted too much, and it hurt.
He tore his eyes from Jesper’s sleeping face, crossing the room in three swift strides. At the door he paused, hand wrapped around the knob, and took a breath to steel himself.
He’s not particularly partial to anything more than one night.
With an audible exhale Wylan opened the door and stepped out into the hall, leaving Jesper Fahey behind.
———
“My friend Poppy’s got a new show over at the Blue Paradise I’ve been dying to see.”
Jesper paused there, hoping that Wylan might pick up the hint.
He hadn’t quite realized until he’d gotten here—their job satisfactorily completed, the immediate threat of danger well behind them—just how desperate he was to keep his demo man around. He felt fidgety with it, as though his sudden desire was a physical thing, crawling along his skin.
He thought he could keep things casual, light. That he could drop the name of a well-known performer, one that Wylan had perhaps also heard of and wanted to see. Wylan would ask, in that half-shy way of his, if Jesper minded that he tagged along, and Jesper would grin in response, slinging an arm around his shoulder as he said, not at all, darling. Let’s go.
But Wylan only smiled vaguely in response.
Jesper grit his teeth.
“You could … come with me?”
Hope rose like the sun in Jesper’s chest as he watched the corners of Wylan’s mouth tilt up, warmth sparking to life in his eyes.
It came crashing down to Earth when he tore his gaze nervously away and ducked down, swiftly disappearing below his workstation.
Jesper blinked, scoffing aloud at the shock of Wylan’s quick departure from view. He was a man well-used to the taste of rejection, but he could have sworn that Wylan—
“Sure,” came Wylan’s voice from below, interrupting his thoughts. Jesper could hear the sound of glass tinkling as he rearranged his stores of chemicals beneath the countertop.
Back on Black Veil Island, Wylan had been so certain, so sure of himself. I’m not going anywhere, he’d said with steel in his eyes, jutting out his chin as though daring Jesper to question him.
It was the very thing he’d grown to like about Wylan: the surprising confidence that shined in the most unexpected of moments, the contradiction between how he winced at breaking and entering a barely-guarded country estate but could march straight up to Kaz Brekker with a demand on his lips. Alby Rollins can’t help who his father is. You can’t punish him for that.
Then, he’d been self-assured. But here…
Jesper frowned, tapping twice on the countertop.
“Something’s off with you.”
A few moments of torturous silence followed his declaration. Jesper bit his tongue to keep from filling it, spinning his rings so that his hands stayed busy.
Finally, Wylan straightened, hands bracing against the workstation as the words spilled from him in a rush.
“The night that we first met, I left because I assumed that was what you were going to do.”
“Oh.”
Jesper’s heart sank inexplicably. He looked down at his hands, still fiddling with his rings. He’d known that he had a reputation, of course, but something about Wylan using it against him sent a pang lancing through his chest.
“Okay,” he said slowly.
Wylan backpedaled. “No, I uh… I just thought that someone like you wouldn’t want anything more.”
The words forced him into motion, burying beneath his skin and making it impossible to stay still. He turned away, crossing over toward the staircase to put some distance between himself and Wylan. Someone like you, Wylan's gentle voice taunted in his head. I assumed that was what someone like you was going to do.
The accusations were, regrettably, true enough. Someone like him might have left. Someone like him might have used Wylan for an evening of pleasure and slunk away in the night, his spot in bed gone cool by the time Wylan blinked awake in the golden light of morning. Someone like him might have seen nothing in Wylan but an impossibly pretty man sitting in threadbare clothing at the Crow Club bar, looking like someone fallen into the wrong story, a prince turned pauper, his for the night and not a minute more.
Someone like him would have been wrong.
“Especially after just one night,” continued Wylan, his voice cutting through Jesper’s reverie. “So I thought it was just easier to … cut my losses.”
Jesper let the words hang for a long moment, staring at Wylan’s flushed, open face.
He could have agreed with him. He could have left it there, bidding Wylan goodnight and heading out into the beloved chaos of the Barrel, guns at his hips and kruge in his pocket, ready to spend an evening at the tables and a night pressing his body against someone new.
He could have. He very nearly did.
Instead, he took a deep breath and started to speak.
“My reputation isn’t entirely unfounded,” he started. “I like the chaos, the gamble of Barrel life. Never knowing what comes next.”
Wylan shrugged as though to say, see? He crossed around to the end of his workstation and started to unpack one of their boxes, bottles clinking in the still, tense air. Jesper got the sense that Wylan was a tightly-coiled spring, feigning distraction to hide the taut emotion within.
“I might very well have left you first,” he admitted.
Wylan kept his eyes down on the box, chewing on his bottom lip as he removed the bottles methodically from within.
Look at me sweetheart, please.
“But that was before I got to know you.”
Wylan looked up. Slowly his hands stopped moving, hovering in place above the neatly lined-up bottles on the surface of his workstation. There was a clear surprise splashed across his face, disbelief evident in his wide eyes and open mouth. The look on his face tugged at Jesper's heartstrings. After all they’d been through together—the gunfights and break-ins and that gorgeous first night—how could Wylan still not believe that Jesper would be interested in anything more than a single night?
He swallowed, the sour taste of guilt coating his throat.
“I can’t make you any promises,” he continued, “or predict what might happen between us. But I can tell you that…” he trailed off, looking heavenward. In the bedroom the words had come easy, practiced questions and endless endearments tumbling from his tongue. Why was it so hard here, now, when he actually trusted the person to whom he spoke?
He forced himself to finish the sentence.
“I’d like to find out.”
Wylan blinked rapidly and cocked his head to the side, turning his face away. Anxiety bubbled in Jesper’s gut, the need to move—to speak, to shoot, to hit a moving target and hear the body fall—rising within his muscles. He fought the instinct with everything he had, forcing himself to wait for Wylan to turn back and show him the expression on his face.
The moment stretched to its limit and snapped, Jesper’s resolve wavering for one awful, dizzying moment.
Words spilled frantically from his lips. “You may have gathered this about me, but silences are … they really are not my favorite thi—”
Wylan surged across the room, gathering Jesper’s lapel in both hands and bringing their lips together for a kiss.
Jesper sighed into it, wrapping both arms around his back and drawing him in closer.
It was a gunshot, a prairie fire, a pair of aces between his fingers. It was everything their first night had been and more. Wylan, he thought, the full reality of the man in his arms settling pleasantly in his mind. Wylan, Wylan, Wylan.
After what felt like hours, they pulled apart.
“That was even better than last time.”
Wylan grinned, his eyes sparking with mischief and fondness in equal measure. He pulled away quickly, reaching back to grab Jesper by one hand.
“Maybe you need a fuller reminder.”
Jesper couldn’t help but wholeheartedly agree.
———