Page 36 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

But when the door opened this time, it was the welcoming figure of Warren on the other side of it.

“You came,” he said happily.

Matty felt a wide smile cross his face before he could stop it. “You doubted?”

“Of-fucking-course I doubted.” Warren laughed. “It was a mad enough scheme.”

“Guess I was mad enough to go along with it.” Matty peered behind him into the darkness of the entryway. “Anyone else here?”

“Just me, as promised.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

Warren took a measured breath. “Me, neither.”

Matty crossed the threshold with a sense of danger.

The sense melted, though, when Warren—much fresher than Matty was, warm and sparkling and clean-smelling—tugged him in by the hips without delay and kissed him warmly before they’d even come through the belled curtains.

The kiss made him feel awaited and wanted and dissolved all concern for what might be happening elsewhere.

As Matty’s hands framed Warren’s face, he realized his gloves were still on.

The lack of real contact frustrated his fingers, but increased the delight of his lips—the only lucky part of him that got to revel in what they’d ached for all night.

“Take your coat?” Warren whispered when he came up for air.

“That will be a decent enough start.” The core of him trembled as Warren slipped his coat off, his hat, his gloves. “So. I take it Mr. Forester said no.”

“He did,” Warren confirmed tersely as they hung up Matty’s things. “For your own good, supposedly. Said he won’t bring in a patron he can’t save in the event of a raid.”

“Smart man,” Matty admitted. “He’s right about that, you know. If I were recognized by the wrong person somewhere like this…”

Matty couldn’t bring himself to continue.

Warren still did not know that Matty was plagued by rumors at Scotland Yard, ones that had not been helped by his bungling of the fraud case.

In spite of all Ashton’s warm “friendship,” the promotion was a lost cause, the memory of the ring haunting him as his fingers searched unthinkingly for it against his chest. Whether he’d go from detective to suspect himself now that Barrows was gone still remained to be seen.

Being here was a bloody terrible idea, and if that was Mr. Forester’s reasoning, Matty couldn’t blame him.

“You want to leave?” Warren asked.

Matty shook his head. “Nothing will happen in the daylight. But he has a point about the nights, much as I hate to admit it. Does he know I’m here?”

Warren swallowed so hard, Matty could see his throat move above the points of his collar. “No.”

“Will he ever?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“What happens if he finds out?”

But Warren was shaking his head, clearly too agitated by this line of conversation to continue.

“Forget him,” Warren snapped. “He owes us both better than he’s giving us, so forget all about him.

” He came back to Matty, touching his face, tracing fingers over his lips and neck until the protective bubble of good feeling returned to block out the risks they were taking.

When they came up for air, Warren took Matty’s hand and led him to the parlor, which was deserted and in disarray.

“Looks like everyone had fun last night,” said Matty. Lots of fun. Without him.

“Some more than others,” Warren quipped bitterly.

“It looks a lot different, during the day.”

Warren laughed. “Yeah. Looks like what it really is, don’t it? It’s not as rich an enterprise as it could be—everything’s pawned or scrounged or has been here for years. It’s all lights and smoke and a shot of gin making it pretty when it needs to be.”

“Relatable, that is.” Matty ran a hand down his face, wondering if he’d made the right choice to come here looking like a certified beast. “You might need some of those things, to pretty me up today. Especially if you’re still planning to draw me.”

“Nah.” Warren grabbed him again, this time by the scarf he’d left behind when he took the rest of Matty’s outdoor things. The purpose of the supposed oversight was suddenly clear. He pulled Matty in until their noses touched, then ran a thumb down both his lips. “You look incredible.”

“I look like I spent the night in a moderately seedy pub after staying up past midnight waiting on news that never came, put the same clothes back on, didn’t shave, and was able to brush my teeth only due to the generosity of a probable prostitute after buying a toothbrush off her that she swears was never used. ”

Warren stopped the story with a playful kiss. “It’s nice to see you fitting into the neighborhood.”

Before Matty knew what happened, one kiss had turned into two, into three, into a whirlwind of them.

This compulsion was seriously slowing their progress, and Matty started to wonder if they’d ever make it across the parlor.

But after some indefinite span of hazy time, Warren took him by the scarf again and led him to the back of the room, across a threshold that no officer of the law was supposed to cross under any circumstance.

The doorway that led to the Fox’s private rooms.

More belled curtains hung spaced at intervals through the hall.

Clever. The curtains seemed pretty and whimsical, but were clearly more than décor.

Rough movement through them would serve a subtle warning, and sneaking around would be out of the question.

The deceptively innocent twinkle of the bells surrounded Matty as Warren tugged him impatiently along to the last door on the right.

If there were anyone around to hear them, their tryst would be over by now.

It was comforting that the bells’ cry for caution merely dissipated into the air to join the mellowed mist of last night’s incense and pipe smoke.

Unlike the rest of the club, which was clearly in its shabby-morning-coat phase of the day, the private room was in its pearl-encrusted midnight drags, the four-poster sporting piles of silken pillows, the lamps shaded in red and pink, and a cone of incense lit in a dish before the vanity mirror, its fragrant line of smoke doubled in the glass.

Someone had put effort into making this one room into a haven set apart from the rest of the club. The rest of the world, even.

Warren scratched the back of his neck as their eyes adjusted to the dimmer light. He looked uncharacteristically sheepish.

“Too much?” he said. “I dunno, I was just here alone this morning, and I knew the rest of the place was going to look fucking beastly at this hour, so I thought…” He trailed off, trying to read Matty’s face. “It’s too much. You want to go back out?”

Matty shook his head, trying to drag himself out of the shock. “No, it’s gorgeous, it’s just…” He touched the crystalline decanter of some shining liqueur that had been left on the low table. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me before.”

Warren did a double take. “No one?”

“No one real ,” Matty corrected, his voice rasped with regret. “No one who knew who I was when they did it.”

He preferred not to get into the details of that. Fortunately, Warren seemed to get what he meant on the first go.

“About time, then,” he said. Then he laughed with relief. “Thank God. I thought you hated it. I’m no romantic, really. I honestly don’t know why—”

Matty cut him off with a kiss on the cheek. “It’s wonderful, Warren. Thank you.”

“Well, let’s get started, then, shall we?” he said, uneasiness melting. “First though, I have a request.”

“What’s that?” said Matty.

“Will you do as I say?” He gently unwound the scarf from Matty’s neck. “I meant what I said at the end of class. I want to draw you. Properly. I’ve had a surge of inspiration, but the vision is specific, and I need to you do exactly as I say if we’re going to get it right.”

Matty very much hoped Warren was planning to draw him with a most furious cockstand if he was going to keep talking like that. Like they weren’t just randy art-class friends who could never be more, but like he was a real artist and Matty was his muse.

“Anything.” Matty’s mind raced with thoughts of what might be asked of him, heart keeping perfectly in step as it thumped faster in his chest. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. Whatever you say.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Warren rasped with a little smile that sent a pleasant shiver down Matty’s spine.

In the suggestive light of this room built for one thing, Warren threw Matty’s swiped scarf around his own neck like the lumpy thing was some fabulous feather boa.

The movement was so natural, so genuine and beautiful, that Matty nearly had to close his eyes to recover from it.

The full force of exactly who he was here with—this stunningly gorgeous creature with a devilishly feminine edge and a dangerous secret, one-in-the-same with an obvious mama’s boy who loved his family and told silly jokes in an art class he was too talented for by far—was suddenly overwhelming.

“Now,” Warren said. “Hold still.”

With almost painfully deliberate movements, Warren started mussing up Matty’s clothes, pocketing his tie and unbuttoning his shirt.

When he opened his eyes, he found Warren focused on him.

But he was not, as Matty might have thought, putting him back together or trying to smooth out all the wrinkles of his appearance.

In fact, he seemed to be doing quite the opposite, moving bits of his hair around so they fell into his face, stripping his jacket, rumpling his collar, and then…

“Very still,” he whispered against Matty’s mouth.

Matty froze as he was pressed with a breathtakingly hard kiss, Warren biting and sucking on his bottom lip.

They stood so close Matty could feel the fabric of their trousers whispering to each other, and very still proved torturous as every instinct urged his hips forward, just a little, just enough…

“There.” Warren pulled back, inspecting his handiwork on Matty’s lips with gaze and gentle fingers. “Nice and plump.”