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“Your Grace.”
Wriothesley’s brisk pace falters at the sound of Neuvillette’s voice, echoing in the relatively empty back halls of the Opera Epiclese. He pauses, turning on his heel to face the Chief Justice, his brows lifted. “Chief Justice. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Neuvillette approaches him with the slightest frown—which, in Wriothesley’s limited experience, means he’s deeply displeased—a thick case file in his hands. “You are here to escort an exile to Meropide?” he asks, ignoring Wriothesley’s question entirely.
Wriothesley takes it in stride. “Probably, but I’m mostly here to testify.” A grimace pulls across his face. “A few months ago, I shut down a smuggling ring operating out of the Fortress. The gardes identified the man on the outside. Today’s his trial.” Wriothesley shrugs, the casual gesture belying the severity with which he views the situation.
“And you’re dressed like that?” Neuvillette makes a small gesture that encompasses all of Wriothesley.
Wriothesley presses his lips into a thin line. “There’s nothing wrong with how I’m dressed.”
Neuvillette regards Wriothesley for a long, silent moment. “With me, Your Grace,” he says, beckoning for Wriothesley to follow him as he strides down the hallway.
Heaving out a long-suffering sigh, Wriothesley falls into step just behind Neuvillette. It’s not a bad place to be, not really; he’s got a great angle to let his eyes drift over Neuvillette’s back to the trim dip of his waist—all without Neuvillette being any the wiser. Which is for the best. No one, least of all the man himself, should know how badly Wriothesley is consumed with desire for him. And it’s not like he’ll ever be able to make good on those desires. It’s not like Neuvillette will ever entertain a personal relationship, least of all with someone like him.
He rakes a hand through his hair—and realizes in that moment where they’re headed. Not to one of the Opera Epiclese’s green rooms, no, but to the private study meant for the Chief Justice.
“Monsieur—”
Neuvillette opens the door and holds it for him, waiting expectantly.
Falling silent, Wriothesley steps inside. He hovers just inside the door as Neuvillette goes to the desk and sets down his case file.
Agitation coils through him. “Monsieur,” he begins again. “Respectfully, the trial is set to begin soon, and I—”
Neuvillette turns back to him. Reaches for him. Wriothesley freezes in place, his mind racing. Agitation turns to anticipation.
Gloved fingers brush beneath his tie, over his throat, and down his chest. They run against the collar of his shirt. Neuvillette pulls the fabric together, doing up the last two buttons of Wriothesley’s shirt, and Wriothesley can’t breathe, can’t think, has wondered for so long what those gloves would feel like on his skin that, for a second, he thinks he may have passed out somewhere between the Fortress and the opera house.
He’s dreaming, certainly. Neuvillette, the untouchable Chief Justice, would never—but he is. His fingers slide against Wriothesley’s skin with—with what? Is that reverence? Desire? Wriothesley has no idea, but it’s something. This isn’t perfunctory. He’d been annoyed, feeling like a child called before a parent, but this is—this isn’t that.
He doesn’t know what this is.
A dream. It has to be a dream.
Neuvillette draws his hands from Wriothesley’s shirt, allowing his tie to fall over his chest once more. “This,” he says, his voice low and soft and delicious, pulling over Wriothesley like a physical caress, “is not a proper knot.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I had anyone to teach me,” Wriothesley says without thinking.
He regrets the words immediately.
But Neuvillette is not put off by them. “No. You did not. Forgive me.”
Wriothesley clears his throat. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he says, tongue thick. And there’s not. It’s not as if he holds Neuvillette responsible for his conviction or anything that led to it. “That—wasn’t fair of me.”
Shit. Why is he still talking? He needs to stop talking.
“Allow me, then,” Neuvillette says, removing the tie pin. He holds it out, and Wriothesley takes it from him, smothering a shiver at the touch of Neuvillette’s fingers against his palm.
He’s not some horny teenager, desperate for his crush to touch him.
Except that he is. Archons, he is. He’s so hungry for any scrap of attention Neuvillette might give him, and now Neuvillette is so close he could bend his head and—
And he definitely shouldn’t think about kissing the Chief Justice. At least, not here, not in front of him, not where he can’t do anything about the consequences of those thoughts.
He closes his hand hard around the pin, letting the sharp edges bite into his palm.
“Would you like me to explain how to tie the knot?” Neuvillette asks, his knuckles brushing against Wriothesley’s chest.
Swallowing hard, Wriothesley gives a too sharp nod. “Sure.” He’s not agreeing because he actually wants to know how to tie a tie. He’s not agreeing because he thinks the information will stick in his brain. He’s agreeing because he wants to hear Neuvillette talk, wants that deep, sonorous voice to fill his ears.
“The wide end of the tie should be twice as long as the narrow end,” Neuvillette says, adjusting the length of the two ends without pulling his hands away from Wriothesley’s body. There’s no way he needs to be that close, but Wriothesley isn’t about to say a godsdamn thing about it. “You see?”
Wriothesley looks down even though he wants nothing more than to watch Neuvillette’s face. “Yeah.”
“Now, you wrap the wide end of the tie around the narrow end—” Neuvillette folds the tie around itself, and Wriothesley tries to pay attention, he really does, but the movement of Neuvillette’s lips catches his eyes and he can’t stop staring at them. Soft, pink. Very kissable.
He wonders what Neuvillette would do if he bent forward and kissed him. Probably nothing but step back with another of those small, damnable frowns. Probably apologize for not understanding human interactions as a way to brush Wriothesley off.
And Wriothesley would, of course, laugh and apologize, too, and they’d never talk about it again.
Neuvillette pushes the wide end of the tie through the complicated knot he’s made, his knuckles brushing along Wriothesley’s throat, and it’s all Wriothesley can do to keep from tipping his head back and groaning. Neuvillette would never take that invitation, but Wriothesley allows himself the brief fantasy. Neuvillette’s mouth on the leather straps around his neck, hot and warm and wet.
“Now,” Neuvillette says. “You take the wide end of the tie and push it through the knot.”
Wriothesley glances down, watching fabric slip into fabric and trying not to imagine bits of himself slipping into Neuvillette.
Would Neuvillette cry out? Would he just gasp? Would he moan and press himself into Wriothesley’s body?
“Pull the narrow end of the tie,” Neuvillette continues, even though Wriothesley is barely listening. It takes all his self-control not to wrap his fingers around Neuvillette’s wrist as Neuvillette gently pulls down on the tie, lifting the knot up Wriothesley’s chest. He snugs it against Wriothesley’s throat—and then slips his fingers between the knot and Wriothesley’s neck, which is something that Wriothesley is sure is not necessary. “Not too tight?”
Frankly, if Neuvillette wanted to choke him with the tie, Wriothesley would thank him for his trouble.
He sucks in a slow breath, his gaze fixed on Neuvillette’s face—and Neuvillette is watching him, too, instead of the tie, instead of the knot.
A visceral tension fills the air, electric, staticky. Wriothesley is keenly aware of the warmth of Neuvillette’s fingers against his throat, the only place their bodies touch. He wants—more. Wants to take the small step forward that will bring their bodies together, that will allow him to turn his head ever so slightly to the side and press his lips against Neuvillette’s.
“Not too tight,” he says instead.
Neuvillette draws his fingers from beneath the tie and smooths them down its length.
Wriothesley dies a little inside, imagining Neuvillette’s fingers running down a very particular part of him instead. But that’s not what’s happening here. This isn’t foreplay. This isn’t even flirtation. This is just—the Chief Justice ensuring the Administrator of Meropide is presentable in court.
That’s all it is. All it will ever be.
Neuvillette holds out his hand, and Wriothesley places the tiepin into his palm. This time, his fingers linger, pulling over Neuvillette’s gloves. He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help himself. He’ll never be this close to the Chief Justice again.
“Hm.”
Neuvillette looks down, looks at Wriothesley’s fingers as Wriothesley curls them and pulls them back.
“Sorry,” he says, needing to fill the space.
Neuvillette looks up at him. Cants his head to one side. “For what?” he asks.
Heat burns in Wriothesley’s belly. But there’s no way that Neuvillette means his question as an invitation. There is absolutely no way.
“For tying a sloppy tie,” Wriothesley says.
“You are not the first young man—” Wriothesley is hardly young, but he’ll take the compliment. “—who has entered the courthouse with a poorly tied tie. You will not be the last.”
“Thanks for looking out for me.”
Neuvillette slides the pin in place. His hands linger. He doesn’t move back. “You are welcome.”
They stand like that for a long moment, just watching each other, and Wriothesley thinks that this is it. This is the moment. If he’s ever going to kiss the Chief Justice, he should do it now.
But he doesn’t, and Neuvillette steps back, and the moment is shattered, lost, gone forever. Neuvillette crosses the room to his desk, and Wriothesley remains where he is, rooted in place, struck by regret. He is not particularly used to living with regret.
He reaches for the tie, where it is snug against his throat. Not uncomfortable, no, just—different. He’s not used to fabric there, not used to the weight of sensation. His skin still tingles where Neuvillette touched him.
“I should… get going,” he says into the silence.
Neuvillette nods. “Yes. Do not be late.”
Wriothesley ducks out of the room, suddenly aware that he is sweating, that his heart is pounding. He presses the heel of his hand against his chest as he strides down the hallway, shaking himself. He’s not a horny teenager with no idea how to handle a crush.
Which is why, when the trial takes the next three days, he arrives early each day with his tie hanging sloppily from his neck.