The Gentleman’s Guide to Getting Lucky (Montague Siblings, #1.5)

by Mackenzi Lee

“Dear Lord, you haven’t been a virgin all this while, have you?”

“No, but I’m a bit concerned my virginity is starting to grow back.”

It had felt like the first deep breath I’d ever taken, to tell him everything, to hear his half of it all, then hold them up together to find they fit like two pieces of cracked pottery.

“You deserve a reward for all I put you through.” “You’re my reward.” “What a rotten reward I am.” “Not to me. Why do you think everyone needs some sort of recompense for being around you?” he says, his voice so gentle I almost start to cry. He wraps an arm around me, pressing me against his chest, and I can feel the light touch of his hand on the back of my neck, fingers stroking my hair. “You don’t owe me sex. You don’t owe me anything. I’m with you because I want to be. And if we’re together, it’ll be because we both want to be. And we are going to London together because we want to. And it’s going to be a disaster. But that’s all right, because we’ll have each other, and there’s no one on this goddamn planet I’d rather be a disaster with than you.”

I want to be the only thing touching him. I want to be the only thing that ever touches him again. I will be envious of every shirt he ever wears, the cuffs of his coats, the trousers going soft with wear where they rub his inner thighs. Every snowflake that ever falls upon his lips, every piece of bread upon his tongue. I want to breathe him, let him fill up my chest until my ribs strain and I break open like ripe fruit beneath a paring knife. I would be raw. I would freckle and blister in the sun. I would teach my body to regrow my heart each time I gave it to him, over and over and over again. Heart after heart after heart—every one of them his.

I wish I could travel backward in time and tell Monty of two years ago, lying on the lawn of his father’s house with a black eye and a dawning realization he was falling in love with his best friend, that someday he’d be here. It would be years of drinking too much, falling asleep calculating how much arsenic he’d have to take to make certain the job was done, letting himself be groped by strangers in the backrooms of bars. Maybe I’d go even further back than that—to Monty at twelve, or thirteen. That masturbating little bastard could have used a good buoying up, a promise to carry in his pocket that it wouldn’t always be loneliness and hard hits and worrying he was catching some venereal disease from a girl he’d just met. Someday, you little twat, I’d tell him, it’s going to be more. It’s going to be better, and so will you. Where we start doesn’t have to be where we end up.

“If you thought I was ignorant as to the nature of your relationship with Mr. Newton, you may need to reexamine your concept of appropriate physical fondness between friends.”

“I love you,” I say quietly. “You know that?” “And I you, my darling boy.” He nestles his head against mine and takes a deep breath. “Did Scipio go?”