Page 25 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

Matty had a room in a boardinghouse clearly chosen more for its proximity to Scotland Yard than comfort or beauty.

But the landlady treated him—and even his new friend—with surprising deference and a lack of questions.

She gave them what was left of a simple boardinghouse dinner before Matty led him up a creaking stair to his room.

It was in the north corner of the upstairs with a linen closet between him and the next neighbor over, rendering it uncommonly private.

That was good. Lessened the chance that anyone would hear their… pencils.

God, it was stupid, being here. Neither of them had successfully pretended it was just for drawing, and the ache he had for their honest ends became almost maddening the second the door was shut behind them.

It was clear that Matty had been living here for quite a while.

The runners and floorboards were comfortably softened between a bed, a desk, and a little sitting area before the now-cold fireplace.

Against the backdrop of worn books and tidy shelves with plain hatboxes and a minimum of trinkets, the objects of Matty’s newly invented artistic passion stood out like a com pletely separate painter had slapped the art books, the pencils, the pawnshop paintings, the stacks of sketching paper onto a classic piece just yesterday.

It was only one room, so of course that bed took up most of it. It was made up haphazardly with intimate overnight objects on the table beside it. A candle. A water glass.

A tin of hand cream.

Dear God.

The tension in the room became nearly unbearable. Matty was clearly feeling it too, as he shuffled a thinly-cushioned chair around. There was only one, and he seemed very undecided as to where it should be.

“Sorry it’s not more comfortable,” Matty muttered almost to himself.

A memory of their first meeting seemed to thrum the very air. They had been in the rudest, least comfortable circumstance possible, then.

Fuck, what was he doing here? There were a thousand blokes better suited to Warren’s passions.

He could have his pick of them the second the sun went down.

Admittedly, Matty was probably among the most attractive of them, but given he was so actively trying to diminish his own beauty with this artist thing, he probably wasn’t at the tippy top.

There was nothing stopping Warren from pretending he’d missed all the implications about this visit, showing the chap a few more tricks with the pencil, and easing the tension of the day later, as Matty was clearly in the habit of doing.

Contrary to his reputation, Warren wasn’t helpless against a pretty face or shapely form.

He indulged freely under the right circumstances—namely, at the Fox, where everyone was vetted and the rooms were tucked back and secure—but he was more than capable of keeping his trousers on the rest of the time. He had a family to support, after all.

Or rather, he used to have a family to support. Nowadays, it seemed, they were getting on alright without much effort on his part.

Matty seemed to sense his hesitation, and it clearly made him self-conscious.

With foolish diligence, he arranged his things, settling the chair and putting a pillow on the fireplace to serve as a second seat; gathering a handful of pencils, recounting them, and putting two back; placing his penknife perfectly parallel with the top of his sketchbook; everything exactly so, ready for action.

It was almost like he was trying to give Warren the option of pretending their ends were innocent after all.

Very inconveniently, it had the opposite effect.

If he’d been more overt, diving directly into sensuality, it might have spooked Warren to his senses.

But as Matty started to look despairing of his ability to fit two sketch pads perfectly side by side on the end table he’d placed between chair and mantel, acting like he didn’t have half a cockstand already giving him away, Warren was so utterly charmed by the awkwardness that his resistance was erased with ease.

“I have an idea,” said Warren. “Let’s quit the games. We’ll just sit on the bed.”

“The bed.” Matty froze with two pencils in his hand, blinking and blushing. “You want to teach me to draw from the bed?”

“Am I actually here to teach you drawing, then?” said Warren with a little smirk tugging at his lips.

Matty turned very red. “I did promise this was an extension of our class. You were the one who wanted that excuse.”

“Kind of you,” said Warren, and he meant it. The excuse had been silly—that Matty would indulge it was actually very generous. “Well, in that case, let’s put it this way: the workstation you’re trying so desperately to create is unnecessary.”

“Unnecessary?”

“Quite.” He went over to Matty and took the pencils from his hand, taking care that their fingers brushed when he did.

“You don’t need all the right supplies and teachers and setups.

I learned to draw all over the place—at the kitchen table, on the sofa over tea, on my bedroom floor, and yeah, right in the bed before falling asleep.

Though most of those drawings I burned pretty quickly after completion. ”

When Matty turned red, Warren winked and snatched up one of the sketchbooks.

Feeling how Matty’s eyes seemed to burn a hole through his back, he removed his shoes, and welcomed himself to the top of Matty’s bed.

He adjusted the pillows so he could lean comfortably against the headboard, his bent legs the easel.

Most of the beds Warren fucked in were public, with fresh sheets he’d changed himself, the room perfumed and lit with generic, if beautiful, purpose.

There was something almost shocking, therefore, about the intimacy of settling onto Matty’s own personal bed.

It did not smell like washing soap and incense, but the fruity macassar oil Matty put in his hair and the musk of his sleep, all the rumples in the quilt and dents in the pillows having been put there by his impeccably well-tended body.

Warren’s heart pulsed in places he hadn’t realized it could reach as Matty, moving with the same deliberateness with which he’d done everything else, took his own shoes off and sat rather stiffly next to Warren, shoulder to shoulder.

“Set up your easel,” Warren said. Matty bent his knees like he’d been given a direct order. It sent a thrill through Warren’s belly. “Obedient, eh?”

“If you like.”

Alright. Well. On that note.

“Let’s ah, let’s get started, then.” Warren cleared his throat. “I’ll draw you. You draw what I draw. We’ll take it step by step.”

And so they did. An extension of class, as promised.

Never mind that they were in a bloody bed together, or that every time their elbows or knees bumped it sent shots of lightning through Warren’s limbs.

Never mind that Warren could all but hear his own heartbeat, and that his eyes kept flicking to that incriminating jar that Matty either hadn’t noticed he left out or did not want to call attention to now.

They were practicing. And they weren’t doing too bad a job at it, either.

“That’s it,” Warren said. He was sketching out a rough outline of Matty’s face in profile, all the better to obscure the fact that he couldn’t keep his eyes off the bloke.

Matty was following along, gaze trained on Warren’s paper.

“Loosen up just a little more, nice and light. You can always add…there. You’re getting it. ”

His hand was gliding over the paper, that rigidity in his wrist finally softening in a way that inspired a certain part of Warren’s body to do just the opposite.

He adjusted the position of his sketchbook accordingly, watching Matty’s focused work.

The lines he put to the paper were not expert, but they were better.

A little extra help and a couple of weeks’ devoted practice had wrought an amazing change.

It did not stand out as being especially good, but nor was it particularly poor.

“Matty, that’s—”

“Shh.” His hand—beautifully formed, soft but a bit ink-stained, and dusted with blond hairs—was still moving. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Don’t scare it off. It might not come back again if you do.”

Warren laughed. “Skill’s not a bird, love.”

“Easy for you to say.” He carried on another minute, then asked, “You really think it’s better? That I’m getting the hang of it? I admit, I wasn’t expecting that to happen, when we got into the bed.”

Warren almost said yes, but stopped himself.

From this angle, he couldn’t really tell, now could he?

He was awfully far to the side, after all.

Needed a better view, he supposed. He reached over to pull Matty’s sketchbook closer, fingers brushing the soft, brown corduroy of his trousers just south of his knees.

He stopped the sketchbook so it rested on each of them equally, which left his hand, well, sort of right around the space between Matty’s thighs.

And it was chilly in the room. They hadn’t lit a fire.

So his hand, really without much say from him, nestled in that warm, velvety gap a little bit.

Warren found he could see the sketch quite perfectly, like that.

“Much better. I think you could probably broach the subject of private instruction at this point. They might not let you in, but talking about it wouldn’t seem so ridiculous.”

Matty hadn’t immediately reacted to Warren’s wandering, but now his legs pressed together in an unmistakable squeeze.

“Funny,” he said, with a little chuckle. “I nearly forgot for a moment that’s why we were doing this. For the sake of the case.”

“Will you really keep up drawing? When it’s done?”