In his defense, Gabriel had promised him a Christmas present, which made patience a special
challenge. Gabriel always came up with the best presents. For example, on the anniversary of their
first meeting, Gabriel had blindfolded Tristan and carried him like a sack over his shoulder to the
cellar. There he’d bound Tristan hand and foot to an empty wine rack and toyed with him for hours,
bringing him to the depths of agony and the heights of ecstasy, often in the space of a few scant
moments.
Tristan remembered the dozens and dozens of candles burning on the floor around him and how
they’d made him sweat, and how the salt had made the welts from Gabriel’s riding crop burn and
tingle. He remembered how Gabriel’s mouth had felt on each little wound, sucking up the droplets
of blood as if they were the finest claret.
Then, when he was spent and hanging limp from the rack, he’d felt the cool touch of Gabriel’s
fingers at the back of his neck, and the slither of something metallic against his skin. When Gabriel
removed the blindfold, Tristan saw the pendant dangling from his own throat. Wrought in finest
silver, its intricate design was easily the most beautiful thing Tristan had ever seen. When he’d said
as much to Gabriel, his lover had kissed him on the mouth for the very first time. Tristan recalled
Gabriel’s sudden, fierce passion – the unholy blue glow of his eyes, the candlelight glinting off his
canines as they descended in all their deadly glory. Now he shivered with remembered pleasure,
and stretched his naked body in its cocoon of silken sheets.
A pale naked man with long
black hair and thick kohl
eyeliner lays sprawled across
a bed with white sheets.
There is a silver goblet turned
on its side by his hand and a
bit of red liquid drips from the
corner of his mouth.
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Tristan had an idea that tonight’s gift would be even better. Christmas seemed to mean a great
deal to Gabriel. As far as Tristan was concerned, it was just another excellent occasion to beg stray
coins from the occasional drunkard stumbling home from making merry...and perhaps, if he were
lucky, to roll that same drunkard in the nearest alley for every farthing in his purse. But Gabriel –
who’d been alive when unchurched peasants had spent the winter solstice huddled in their huts,
burning the Yule log to frighten away evil spirits – insisted Christmas was the highlight of each and
every year.
Yes, Gabriel’s gift to Tristan was sure to be spectacular. But now Tristan was alone. Gabriel had
promised to return by midnight, but the clock in the foyer had already struck eleven. The big,
elegant house on Regent Street was dark, and though the roaring blaze in the fireplace kept off the
chill, Tristan had lost patience with waiting.
The dregs of crimson at the bottom of his wine goblet had long since clotted and gone cold. Now
Tristan used them as finger-paints to decorate the blank stretch of wall above the carved mahogany
headboard. If he’d known how to write, he would’ve created for his lover and master a message of
holiday cheer. As it was, he could only sketch a rough likeness of a holly bush, its sharp leaves and
bright berries fairly bursting with poisonous glee.
When he’d finished, he licked at his fingertips and settled back into his nest of silk, not at all
careful of where he smeared the evidence of his artistry. After all, if Gabriel hadn’t wanted him to
make a mess, he shouldn’t have left him alone so long.
He awoke to the sound of the clock chiming twelve, his every instinct aroused and on edge.
Gabriel was near. On the street, by the stair, in the corridor?
Tristan slipped naked from the bed, padded across the icy floor to the window, and parted the
draperies. Snow swirled past the glass, obscuring the view. The back of his neck and the tips of his
fingers tingled with presentiment. A moment later, the front door slammed.
He turned to find that Gabriel had dispensed with the stairs entirely and simply materialized in
the bedroom doorway. “Merry Christmas, guttersnipe.”
Tristan knew the name was meant to be affectionate, and wished he had some term of
endearment for his lover, as well. But Gabriel was only Gabriel – blue-eyed, fair-haired, tall and
strong as the archangel for which he’d been named more than a millennium ago. He’d always be just
Gabriel. No other name would ever suit.
The smile of greeting on Gabriel’s face brightened, then dissolved into a frown as he caught sight
of Tristan’s crude artwork on the wall above the bed.
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“Don’t look like that,” Tristan whined, attempting to be adorable and fetching in his nakedness.
“It’s meant to be jolly, you know.”
“Yes, I’m sure Mrs. Gimble will think it a great jest.”
“So I’ll help her scrub it off.”
“And if it stains?”
Tristan shrugged. “A bucket of whitewash and a stiff brush. The old girl’s used to such work by
now, ain’t she?”
He knew he’d overstepped his bounds when Gabriel stalked toward him. The air parted around
his master’s bulk like water, every reverberation sinking into Tristan’s bones to wake a thudding
pulse of need beneath his skin. He didn’t hesitate, but fell to his knees on the cold, hard floor like a
marionette with clipped strings. When Gabriel stopped inches before him, Tristan wrapped his
arms about his master’s hips and buried his face in the wool-clad vee of his tree-like thighs. The
musky, purely masculine scent filled his senses, setting his body alight with simmering lust.
When he felt the moment for apology had passed, he lifted his face and slurred, “You promised
presents.”
“Indeed.”
Gabriel disengaged himself from Tristan’s embrace and shed his greatcoat. From one of its many
deep pockets he produced a bottle made of opaque brown glass. This, Tristan knew, contained their
breakfast. He didn’t bother to ask where Gabriel had procured it, knowing full well his master
would not deign to answer, and might withhold the sustenance in punishment for the rudeness of
the question. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder...stable boy? Parlor maid? Common streetwalker, or
virgin daughter of a duke? Gabriel was always far too picky in his choice of prey.
After placing the bottle on the mantel to warm, Gabriel reached into his pocket again. Tristan
trembled with a combination of anticipation and chill, gooseflesh crawling over his exposed skin.
When Gabriel tossed him a package wound in a length of brown paper and tied with a bit of twine,
he caught it easily and made quick work of the wrappings.
“A book?” Outrage and disappointment made him incautious in his tone. “You brought me a
bleedin’ book?”
Gabriel seemed more amused than surprised at his reaction. “Not just any book.”
Tristan tried to control his sneer. “And what do you expect me to do with it? Burn it for fuel?”
“I expect you to read it, eventually.” Gabriel stripped down to his trousers and linens as he spoke.
“For now, I shall read, and you shall listen. Attentively.” His tone took an unmistakable note of
command. “Very attentively.”
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“Fat lot of good that does me,” Tristan muttered. He rose and made a show of dusting off his
knees.
Gabriel smiled, and for all his angelic looks, that smile was as dark and wicked a thing as Tristan
had ever seen—and in his nineteen years growing up on the streets of Whitechapel, Tristan had
seen many a dark and wicked thing. “Eternity is a long time to remain pig-ignorant. Assuming you
wish to remain here as my companion, of course.”
Gabriel had made this kind of veiled threat before, and though Tristan was fairly certain he
didn’t mean it, the idea of being shunted aside for someone more educated and worldly never failed
to raise a desperate kind of panic. Instinctively, he sidled up to Gabriel and batted his eyes.
“I was merely ’opin’ for somethin’ a bit less edifyin’,” he said, “and a bit more shiny, if you know
what I mean.” To underline his meaning, he reached down to trace the outline of the pendant on his
own chest with the tip of his finger.
Gabriel stared at him with a gaze so intent Tristan was sure his master could see to the very
marrow of his bones. “What a greedy little whore you are.”
“So you keep tellin’ me.”
With a disapproving grunt, Gabriel turned away, finished disrobing, and went to stand before the
fire. The play of muscles in his back and along the amazing breadth of his shoulders was so
transfixing that Tristan nearly missed his next words.
“Would you like to hear something about the individual who provided your Christmas morning
repast?”
Tristan’s mood – which had begun to go sour and sulky – improved instantly. Gabriel rarely
spoke of his hunts. He tossed the book on the bedside table without a second glance. “Oh, do tell.”
Turning his head, Gabriel gifted him with a sardonic look. “A wealthy young gentlemen. I’ve been
stalking him for some days,” he began. “He led me a merry chase, but he was mine in the end.”
“How’d you choose ’im?”
Gabriel shrugged. “I first saw him in his tailor’s shop, dickering over the price of a suit of clothes.
He spoke with such arrogance, such overweening and undeserved pride in himself that I couldn’t
help but despise him on sight. So I made inquiries and continued to watch him.”
“And what did you find out?”
“That he was a shallow, selfish young man who used those around him to his own ends. A man
whose family and friends will no doubt mourn his loss for the span of two minutes – certainly no
more, and quite possibly less.”
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Tristan winced. A blind man could see where the conversation was headed. “Gabriel—”
“What did I tell you when I brought you into my household, Tristan?”
Tristan sighed. “You told me I could stay if I labored to improve myself. And I ’ave, you know. I
’aven’t picked a pocket in weeks.”
Gabriel turned at last from his contemplation of the flames. “My expectations for you are
somewhat loftier than simply avoiding petty theft.”
“I know. You want me to be a bleedin’ gentleman, but I keep tellin’ you that I ain’t got it in me.”
Tristan spread his hands before him, well aware of the picture he made in the golden light from the
fire, with his skin as white as the falling snow and his hair streaming black as midnight over his
shoulders. “Why won’t you take me as I am?”
“Because you could be so much more.”
“Says you.”
“Yes,” Gabriel said, his face and tone grown hard and unforgiving. “I do say it. And now I say turn
’round and grasp the bedpost, Tristan. ’Tis time for making merry.”
Before he could obey, Tristan found himself whirled about and shoved against the foot of the
bed. An instant later, he felt the hot prod of an erect cock at the back of his thigh. The pressure was
a promise that made Tristan’s inner muscles twinge with the memory of invasion.
Though Tristan had been working the streets of London for years before Gabriel found him, and
had taken many a gentleman’s cock down his throat and up his arse, Gabriel had only fucked him
once during the long months of their acquaintance. Until recently, Tristan had believed that this was
because Gabriel was hung like a royal stallion and feared harming his newest conquest. But
recently, he’d come to understand that Gabriel took fucking seriously – much like the took the
celebration of Christmas – and didn’t indulge in it as sport.
But now he was angry, and Tristan couldn’t help feeling more than a little trepidation at the
prospect of a dry buggering.
“Frightened, guttersnipe?”
The smarmy note of challenge in Gabriel’s voice transformed his words into a taunt that made
Tristan’s contrary cock twitch with growing interest. Ever defiant, even in abject submission, he put
on a practiced simper like a virgin miss from a badly executed street performance. “Do your worst,
blackguard.”
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Gabriel’s answering chuckle was nearly as dark and wicked as his smile. He pressed forward.
Tristan did his best not to clench against the intrusion. Then the scent of almond oil, sweet and
pungent, rose in the air around him. He sighed with relief.
Small mercies were undoubtedly all he could expect at this point, and probably more than he
deserved.
He relaxed by fractions as the smooth glide of Gabriel’s cock filled him. He canted his hips
backward, his nerves lit by delicious friction that countered the aching burn of his inner muscles.
Squeezing the bedpost as if he meant to throttle the life from it, he widened his stance and dropped
his head forward in surrender. Of all the many things he didn’t understand about Gabriel, this – this
unerring ability to take him apart from the inside out – was the greatest mystery. There had been so
many men before Gabriel, yet only Gabriel could undo him and leave him pleading for more.
Gabriel gave no quarter. Within a few moments, he was pounding Tristan’s arse as if it had
insulted the queen, his hands grasping Tristan’s hips and lifting him to his toes in search of the
perfect angle of entry. When he found it – evidenced by Tristan’s hoarse cry of pleasure – he slowed
to a more reasonable, rocking gait.
Tristan dug his blunt fingernails into the wood of the bedpost. The rising tension in his belly and
balls coupled with the quivery weakness in his legs told him he wouldn’t last long under the
onslaught of sensation. He strained toward the approaching climax, knowing its intensity would
leave him spent and exhausted in the happiest, most satisfying way.
“No,” Gabriel whispered, little more than a puff of hot air against Tristan’s cheek. “Deny
yourself.”
Tristan keened, his hips bucking forward in search of release.
“Not because you fear I’ll throw you out on the street if you disobey,” Gabriel continued, “but
because you want to. For me.”
Tristan’s breath hitched in his chest. Sparks of pure delight snapped outward from his center,
tightening and twisting his muscles as he sought to stave off the inevitable. The edge of the
precipice rushed toward him...closer...closer...
He yanked himself back with a choking cry. As he writhed in delirious, frustrated agony, his
vision blurred and faded to an opaque gray shot through with threads of crimson. A endless
moment later, he heard Gabriel speak in a tone that lapped at his skin like the tongue of a tabby-cat.
“Well done. Now beg for me.”
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Tristan heard a voice raised in a babbling, incoherent stream of nonsense and realized it was his
own. Too far gone for shame, his body a perfect knot of throbbing need, he howled his pleas to the
faraway sky.
Then Gabriel reached forward and closed his hand around Tristan’s cock, and it could be nothing
but finished. Tristan’s body closed down tightly as he came, and he lost himself in the raw, flaying
pleasure that bordered so closely on pain as it be indistinguishable. With a wordless grunt of
completion, Gabriel thrust into him once more, spearing him hard. Tristan sobbed as a final, violent
burst of sensation tore through him. His knees buckled and he fell forward over the foot of the bed.
Waves of sleepy satisfaction broke over him. Even when Gabriel landed a sharp smack on his
arse and left him slumped there like a used rag, he couldn’t bring himself to respond with anything
more defiant than a whimper.
“Interesting,” Gabriel purred from somewhere behind him. “Clearly, I’ve been taking the wrong
tack. From now on I shall simply fuck you into docility.”
Tristan bestirred himself with a half-hearted sneer. “Never claimed to be good for much else.”
“You’re mistaken.” Gabriel loomed over him, backlit by the blaze on the hearth. “As I’ve said
repeatedly, I sincerely believe you could become more than you are, Tristan.”
“Right. A proper gentleman, with a proper gentleman’s accent, and a proper gentleman’s
education.”
Gabriel shrugged. “Accent and education are merely surface considerations that would allow you
to accompany me on my travels. If forced to choose, I’d rather see you cultivate your soul.”
In the short, brutal course of his existence, no one had ever so much as suggested Tristan even
possessed such a thing, much less that he might be able to improve it. With some effort, he
struggled to a sitting position, his legs hanging over the footboard, his bare feet dangling above the
floor. “My soul, eh? You’re so sure I ’ave one?”
Gabriel snorted – a vulgar sound not in keeping with his customary manner. “Do you truly
suppose a creature could live so long as I have and not develop the ability to read another’s worth?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Never mind. Come to bed, Tristan.”
“I thought you was gonna read the book?”
Gabriel hesitated, his surprise obvious. “You’re sure?”
“It’s my Christmas gift, ain’t it?” Tristan wriggled and scooted his way to the head of the bed,
wincing at the leftover traces of discomfort in his arse, but happy enough to have caught Gabriel at a
slight disadvantage.
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“What if I told you I did have another gift for you – something shiny and expensive – but I gave it
to a little beggar on a street in Whitechapel because his great, dark eyes reminded me of yours?”
Tristan tried to sulk, but found he was too contented for disappointment. “I’d say good on ’im for
knowin’ ’ow to use ’is looks to ’is advantage.”
Gabriel stared him. He shook his great head slowly, back and forth. “You never cease to astound
me.”
Tristan reached for the book. It didn’t appear to be very long. Bound in red cloth, with gilt-edged
pages, its title was embossed on the cover: A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.
“Where’d you buy it?”
Gabriel laughed, low and rumbling. “As it happens, the shops were sold out, so I obtained it from
the author himself. He was reluctant to part with one of his few personal copies, but I
was...persuasive.”
“Gabriel, you didn’t—”
“Oh, certainly not. Someday, Mr. Dickens will be counted as one of England’s great literary
treasures, and that book will be worth its weight in gold.”
“Yeah?” The thought of handful of gold made Tristan happy. “What’s it about, then?”
“I understand it’s about another selfish man, spoiled and greedy and cold, who does not keep
Christmas in his heart.”
Tristan offered a grin, which he did his best to render in as cheeky a manner as possible.
“Blighter sounds a right bastard. I do ’ope he gets his comeuppance.”
“Fear not, guttersnipe. I suspect he does.”
They settled into the nest of silk sheets, and as the wind roared, and the snow swirled, and the
fire crackled and spat on the other side of the room, Gabriel began to read.
“Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his
burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge
signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old
Marley was as dead as a door-nail
challenge. Gabriel always came up with the best presents. For example, on the anniversary of their
first meeting, Gabriel had blindfolded Tristan and carried him like a sack over his shoulder to the
cellar. There he’d bound Tristan hand and foot to an empty wine rack and toyed with him for hours,
bringing him to the depths of agony and the heights of ecstasy, often in the space of a few scant
moments.
Tristan remembered the dozens and dozens of candles burning on the floor around him and how
they’d made him sweat, and how the salt had made the welts from Gabriel’s riding crop burn and
tingle. He remembered how Gabriel’s mouth had felt on each little wound, sucking up the droplets
of blood as if they were the finest claret.
Then, when he was spent and hanging limp from the rack, he’d felt the cool touch of Gabriel’s
fingers at the back of his neck, and the slither of something metallic against his skin. When Gabriel
removed the blindfold, Tristan saw the pendant dangling from his own throat. Wrought in finest
silver, its intricate design was easily the most beautiful thing Tristan had ever seen. When he’d said
as much to Gabriel, his lover had kissed him on the mouth for the very first time. Tristan recalled
Gabriel’s sudden, fierce passion – the unholy blue glow of his eyes, the candlelight glinting off his
canines as they descended in all their deadly glory. Now he shivered with remembered pleasure,
and stretched his naked body in its cocoon of silken sheets.
A pale naked man with long
black hair and thick kohl
eyeliner lays sprawled across
a bed with white sheets.
There is a silver goblet turned
on its side by his hand and a
bit of red liquid drips from the
corner of his mouth.
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Tristan had an idea that tonight’s gift would be even better. Christmas seemed to mean a great
deal to Gabriel. As far as Tristan was concerned, it was just another excellent occasion to beg stray
coins from the occasional drunkard stumbling home from making merry...and perhaps, if he were
lucky, to roll that same drunkard in the nearest alley for every farthing in his purse. But Gabriel –
who’d been alive when unchurched peasants had spent the winter solstice huddled in their huts,
burning the Yule log to frighten away evil spirits – insisted Christmas was the highlight of each and
every year.
Yes, Gabriel’s gift to Tristan was sure to be spectacular. But now Tristan was alone. Gabriel had
promised to return by midnight, but the clock in the foyer had already struck eleven. The big,
elegant house on Regent Street was dark, and though the roaring blaze in the fireplace kept off the
chill, Tristan had lost patience with waiting.
The dregs of crimson at the bottom of his wine goblet had long since clotted and gone cold. Now
Tristan used them as finger-paints to decorate the blank stretch of wall above the carved mahogany
headboard. If he’d known how to write, he would’ve created for his lover and master a message of
holiday cheer. As it was, he could only sketch a rough likeness of a holly bush, its sharp leaves and
bright berries fairly bursting with poisonous glee.
When he’d finished, he licked at his fingertips and settled back into his nest of silk, not at all
careful of where he smeared the evidence of his artistry. After all, if Gabriel hadn’t wanted him to
make a mess, he shouldn’t have left him alone so long.
He awoke to the sound of the clock chiming twelve, his every instinct aroused and on edge.
Gabriel was near. On the street, by the stair, in the corridor?
Tristan slipped naked from the bed, padded across the icy floor to the window, and parted the
draperies. Snow swirled past the glass, obscuring the view. The back of his neck and the tips of his
fingers tingled with presentiment. A moment later, the front door slammed.
He turned to find that Gabriel had dispensed with the stairs entirely and simply materialized in
the bedroom doorway. “Merry Christmas, guttersnipe.”
Tristan knew the name was meant to be affectionate, and wished he had some term of
endearment for his lover, as well. But Gabriel was only Gabriel – blue-eyed, fair-haired, tall and
strong as the archangel for which he’d been named more than a millennium ago. He’d always be just
Gabriel. No other name would ever suit.
The smile of greeting on Gabriel’s face brightened, then dissolved into a frown as he caught sight
of Tristan’s crude artwork on the wall above the bed.
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“Don’t look like that,” Tristan whined, attempting to be adorable and fetching in his nakedness.
“It’s meant to be jolly, you know.”
“Yes, I’m sure Mrs. Gimble will think it a great jest.”
“So I’ll help her scrub it off.”
“And if it stains?”
Tristan shrugged. “A bucket of whitewash and a stiff brush. The old girl’s used to such work by
now, ain’t she?”
He knew he’d overstepped his bounds when Gabriel stalked toward him. The air parted around
his master’s bulk like water, every reverberation sinking into Tristan’s bones to wake a thudding
pulse of need beneath his skin. He didn’t hesitate, but fell to his knees on the cold, hard floor like a
marionette with clipped strings. When Gabriel stopped inches before him, Tristan wrapped his
arms about his master’s hips and buried his face in the wool-clad vee of his tree-like thighs. The
musky, purely masculine scent filled his senses, setting his body alight with simmering lust.
When he felt the moment for apology had passed, he lifted his face and slurred, “You promised
presents.”
“Indeed.”
Gabriel disengaged himself from Tristan’s embrace and shed his greatcoat. From one of its many
deep pockets he produced a bottle made of opaque brown glass. This, Tristan knew, contained their
breakfast. He didn’t bother to ask where Gabriel had procured it, knowing full well his master
would not deign to answer, and might withhold the sustenance in punishment for the rudeness of
the question. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder...stable boy? Parlor maid? Common streetwalker, or
virgin daughter of a duke? Gabriel was always far too picky in his choice of prey.
After placing the bottle on the mantel to warm, Gabriel reached into his pocket again. Tristan
trembled with a combination of anticipation and chill, gooseflesh crawling over his exposed skin.
When Gabriel tossed him a package wound in a length of brown paper and tied with a bit of twine,
he caught it easily and made quick work of the wrappings.
“A book?” Outrage and disappointment made him incautious in his tone. “You brought me a
bleedin’ book?”
Gabriel seemed more amused than surprised at his reaction. “Not just any book.”
Tristan tried to control his sneer. “And what do you expect me to do with it? Burn it for fuel?”
“I expect you to read it, eventually.” Gabriel stripped down to his trousers and linens as he spoke.
“For now, I shall read, and you shall listen. Attentively.” His tone took an unmistakable note of
command. “Very attentively.”
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“Fat lot of good that does me,” Tristan muttered. He rose and made a show of dusting off his
knees.
Gabriel smiled, and for all his angelic looks, that smile was as dark and wicked a thing as Tristan
had ever seen—and in his nineteen years growing up on the streets of Whitechapel, Tristan had
seen many a dark and wicked thing. “Eternity is a long time to remain pig-ignorant. Assuming you
wish to remain here as my companion, of course.”
Gabriel had made this kind of veiled threat before, and though Tristan was fairly certain he
didn’t mean it, the idea of being shunted aside for someone more educated and worldly never failed
to raise a desperate kind of panic. Instinctively, he sidled up to Gabriel and batted his eyes.
“I was merely ’opin’ for somethin’ a bit less edifyin’,” he said, “and a bit more shiny, if you know
what I mean.” To underline his meaning, he reached down to trace the outline of the pendant on his
own chest with the tip of his finger.
Gabriel stared at him with a gaze so intent Tristan was sure his master could see to the very
marrow of his bones. “What a greedy little whore you are.”
“So you keep tellin’ me.”
With a disapproving grunt, Gabriel turned away, finished disrobing, and went to stand before the
fire. The play of muscles in his back and along the amazing breadth of his shoulders was so
transfixing that Tristan nearly missed his next words.
“Would you like to hear something about the individual who provided your Christmas morning
repast?”
Tristan’s mood – which had begun to go sour and sulky – improved instantly. Gabriel rarely
spoke of his hunts. He tossed the book on the bedside table without a second glance. “Oh, do tell.”
Turning his head, Gabriel gifted him with a sardonic look. “A wealthy young gentlemen. I’ve been
stalking him for some days,” he began. “He led me a merry chase, but he was mine in the end.”
“How’d you choose ’im?”
Gabriel shrugged. “I first saw him in his tailor’s shop, dickering over the price of a suit of clothes.
He spoke with such arrogance, such overweening and undeserved pride in himself that I couldn’t
help but despise him on sight. So I made inquiries and continued to watch him.”
“And what did you find out?”
“That he was a shallow, selfish young man who used those around him to his own ends. A man
whose family and friends will no doubt mourn his loss for the span of two minutes – certainly no
more, and quite possibly less.”
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Tristan winced. A blind man could see where the conversation was headed. “Gabriel—”
“What did I tell you when I brought you into my household, Tristan?”
Tristan sighed. “You told me I could stay if I labored to improve myself. And I ’ave, you know. I
’aven’t picked a pocket in weeks.”
Gabriel turned at last from his contemplation of the flames. “My expectations for you are
somewhat loftier than simply avoiding petty theft.”
“I know. You want me to be a bleedin’ gentleman, but I keep tellin’ you that I ain’t got it in me.”
Tristan spread his hands before him, well aware of the picture he made in the golden light from the
fire, with his skin as white as the falling snow and his hair streaming black as midnight over his
shoulders. “Why won’t you take me as I am?”
“Because you could be so much more.”
“Says you.”
“Yes,” Gabriel said, his face and tone grown hard and unforgiving. “I do say it. And now I say turn
’round and grasp the bedpost, Tristan. ’Tis time for making merry.”
Before he could obey, Tristan found himself whirled about and shoved against the foot of the
bed. An instant later, he felt the hot prod of an erect cock at the back of his thigh. The pressure was
a promise that made Tristan’s inner muscles twinge with the memory of invasion.
Though Tristan had been working the streets of London for years before Gabriel found him, and
had taken many a gentleman’s cock down his throat and up his arse, Gabriel had only fucked him
once during the long months of their acquaintance. Until recently, Tristan had believed that this was
because Gabriel was hung like a royal stallion and feared harming his newest conquest. But
recently, he’d come to understand that Gabriel took fucking seriously – much like the took the
celebration of Christmas – and didn’t indulge in it as sport.
But now he was angry, and Tristan couldn’t help feeling more than a little trepidation at the
prospect of a dry buggering.
“Frightened, guttersnipe?”
The smarmy note of challenge in Gabriel’s voice transformed his words into a taunt that made
Tristan’s contrary cock twitch with growing interest. Ever defiant, even in abject submission, he put
on a practiced simper like a virgin miss from a badly executed street performance. “Do your worst,
blackguard.”
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Gabriel’s answering chuckle was nearly as dark and wicked as his smile. He pressed forward.
Tristan did his best not to clench against the intrusion. Then the scent of almond oil, sweet and
pungent, rose in the air around him. He sighed with relief.
Small mercies were undoubtedly all he could expect at this point, and probably more than he
deserved.
He relaxed by fractions as the smooth glide of Gabriel’s cock filled him. He canted his hips
backward, his nerves lit by delicious friction that countered the aching burn of his inner muscles.
Squeezing the bedpost as if he meant to throttle the life from it, he widened his stance and dropped
his head forward in surrender. Of all the many things he didn’t understand about Gabriel, this – this
unerring ability to take him apart from the inside out – was the greatest mystery. There had been so
many men before Gabriel, yet only Gabriel could undo him and leave him pleading for more.
Gabriel gave no quarter. Within a few moments, he was pounding Tristan’s arse as if it had
insulted the queen, his hands grasping Tristan’s hips and lifting him to his toes in search of the
perfect angle of entry. When he found it – evidenced by Tristan’s hoarse cry of pleasure – he slowed
to a more reasonable, rocking gait.
Tristan dug his blunt fingernails into the wood of the bedpost. The rising tension in his belly and
balls coupled with the quivery weakness in his legs told him he wouldn’t last long under the
onslaught of sensation. He strained toward the approaching climax, knowing its intensity would
leave him spent and exhausted in the happiest, most satisfying way.
“No,” Gabriel whispered, little more than a puff of hot air against Tristan’s cheek. “Deny
yourself.”
Tristan keened, his hips bucking forward in search of release.
“Not because you fear I’ll throw you out on the street if you disobey,” Gabriel continued, “but
because you want to. For me.”
Tristan’s breath hitched in his chest. Sparks of pure delight snapped outward from his center,
tightening and twisting his muscles as he sought to stave off the inevitable. The edge of the
precipice rushed toward him...closer...closer...
He yanked himself back with a choking cry. As he writhed in delirious, frustrated agony, his
vision blurred and faded to an opaque gray shot through with threads of crimson. A endless
moment later, he heard Gabriel speak in a tone that lapped at his skin like the tongue of a tabby-cat.
“Well done. Now beg for me.”
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Tristan heard a voice raised in a babbling, incoherent stream of nonsense and realized it was his
own. Too far gone for shame, his body a perfect knot of throbbing need, he howled his pleas to the
faraway sky.
Then Gabriel reached forward and closed his hand around Tristan’s cock, and it could be nothing
but finished. Tristan’s body closed down tightly as he came, and he lost himself in the raw, flaying
pleasure that bordered so closely on pain as it be indistinguishable. With a wordless grunt of
completion, Gabriel thrust into him once more, spearing him hard. Tristan sobbed as a final, violent
burst of sensation tore through him. His knees buckled and he fell forward over the foot of the bed.
Waves of sleepy satisfaction broke over him. Even when Gabriel landed a sharp smack on his
arse and left him slumped there like a used rag, he couldn’t bring himself to respond with anything
more defiant than a whimper.
“Interesting,” Gabriel purred from somewhere behind him. “Clearly, I’ve been taking the wrong
tack. From now on I shall simply fuck you into docility.”
Tristan bestirred himself with a half-hearted sneer. “Never claimed to be good for much else.”
“You’re mistaken.” Gabriel loomed over him, backlit by the blaze on the hearth. “As I’ve said
repeatedly, I sincerely believe you could become more than you are, Tristan.”
“Right. A proper gentleman, with a proper gentleman’s accent, and a proper gentleman’s
education.”
Gabriel shrugged. “Accent and education are merely surface considerations that would allow you
to accompany me on my travels. If forced to choose, I’d rather see you cultivate your soul.”
In the short, brutal course of his existence, no one had ever so much as suggested Tristan even
possessed such a thing, much less that he might be able to improve it. With some effort, he
struggled to a sitting position, his legs hanging over the footboard, his bare feet dangling above the
floor. “My soul, eh? You’re so sure I ’ave one?”
Gabriel snorted – a vulgar sound not in keeping with his customary manner. “Do you truly
suppose a creature could live so long as I have and not develop the ability to read another’s worth?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Never mind. Come to bed, Tristan.”
“I thought you was gonna read the book?”
Gabriel hesitated, his surprise obvious. “You’re sure?”
“It’s my Christmas gift, ain’t it?” Tristan wriggled and scooted his way to the head of the bed,
wincing at the leftover traces of discomfort in his arse, but happy enough to have caught Gabriel at a
slight disadvantage.
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“What if I told you I did have another gift for you – something shiny and expensive – but I gave it
to a little beggar on a street in Whitechapel because his great, dark eyes reminded me of yours?”
Tristan tried to sulk, but found he was too contented for disappointment. “I’d say good on ’im for
knowin’ ’ow to use ’is looks to ’is advantage.”
Gabriel stared him. He shook his great head slowly, back and forth. “You never cease to astound
me.”
Tristan reached for the book. It didn’t appear to be very long. Bound in red cloth, with gilt-edged
pages, its title was embossed on the cover: A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.
“Where’d you buy it?”
Gabriel laughed, low and rumbling. “As it happens, the shops were sold out, so I obtained it from
the author himself. He was reluctant to part with one of his few personal copies, but I
was...persuasive.”
“Gabriel, you didn’t—”
“Oh, certainly not. Someday, Mr. Dickens will be counted as one of England’s great literary
treasures, and that book will be worth its weight in gold.”
“Yeah?” The thought of handful of gold made Tristan happy. “What’s it about, then?”
“I understand it’s about another selfish man, spoiled and greedy and cold, who does not keep
Christmas in his heart.”
Tristan offered a grin, which he did his best to render in as cheeky a manner as possible.
“Blighter sounds a right bastard. I do ’ope he gets his comeuppance.”
“Fear not, guttersnipe. I suspect he does.”
They settled into the nest of silk sheets, and as the wind roared, and the snow swirled, and the
fire crackled and spat on the other side of the room, Gabriel began to read.
“Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his
burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge
signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old
Marley was as dead as a door-nail
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