"Thessshe are delishiousssh and no mish- misshtake," Jimmy mutters around a mouthful of Mrs. Patmore's famous chocolate cookies. Just nicked out of the kitchen, they're still warm and, what's most important, ridiculously overstuffed with chocolate chips. Low appreciative moans fill the servants' hall as Thomas watches Jimmy sit and munch away like a little chipmunk, spraying small dark crumbs all over the table while he does so.
"Where are mine, then?" With a frown, Thomas slumps down in the chair next to Jimmy, casting him a suspicious glance.
"Your- mwha- whattt?"
"My cookies, of course!" Thomas blurts. "You bloody well know these are my favorites so I take it you got me some as well. Didn't you, Jimmy?"
The footman wipes his mouth, abashed, and gives an apologetic shrug. "Um …I'm afraid, I didn't."
"Bastard!" Thomas grumbles and throws him a dirty look in response. Of course, he loves Jimmy; he's a perfect golden dream come true, but cookies –chocolate cookies - are another matter entirely.
"I'm sorry, Thomas," Jimmy says sheepishly.
From the look on his face Thomas knows Jimmy truly is and he feels a syrupy warmth flowing through his body when Jimmy starts absently stroking his left thumb against the edge of the table.
"What are you doing this for, darling?" Thomas asked one evening when Jimmy wouldn't stop rubbing the rim of their half-empty wine bottle while gazing up at him with dreamy eyes. "You're always doing this with your thumb." Thomas laughed. "It's distracting. You're weird." Jimmy averted his eyes, hot-faced, looking as if he'd just gotten caught doing something particularly naughty. "Well I guess it means that you- that I- um…I think I really-," his mouth twitched helplessly around the unspoken words and that was the moment Thomas knew. Eventually. "Oh," he said, leaning in to softly kiss Jimmy's cheek and whisper, "I love you too, Jimmy."
With a swipe of his tongue Jimmy licks away the remaining crumbs from his lips before a single finger finds its way into his mouth. He starts sucking on it, lost in thought while humming in pleasure, and it's so refreshingly chaste yet sensual at the same time, it makes Thomas's eyes sparkle with something that rather belongs in the bedroom.
"Don't do that!" he says quietly, unsuccessfully trying to drag his eyes away from Jimmy's pretty mouth.
Jimmy arches a brow in surprise. "Do what?" he asks innocently and Thomas leans in, just for a moment, but long enough to mutter, "God, I wish it was my mouth!" in Jimmy's ear. There is certainly nothing innocent in his words and Thomas loves how they cause a shy pink flush on Jimmy's cheeks.
The blond's eyes flicker nervously around the servants' hall and he swallows hard – Thomas can see Jimmy's Adam's apple bobbing above his collar, a strangely erotic sight - and for a split second Thomas asks himself if he's being a little too daring.
After all, they haven't really done anything in the bedroom.
Not yet.
Yes, there are precious stolen moments of holding hands in the yard while sharing a cigarette – always making sure no one's looking. And then there's kissing of course, oh so much sweet kissing. The walls, the sheets in his bed - everything in Thomas's room is awash with the rain of Jimmy's tender kisses that always linger on his face long after Jimmy's gone back to his own room…
He's never been the religious sort, very far from it, but when Jimmy Kent offered Thomas his shy velvety mouth for the very first time, Thomas seriously wondered if maybe God had taken a pity on him, at last, and sent him an angel in form of a snarky blond footman.
However, after long weeks of kissing there was a night when Thomas, spurred on by quiet moans and eager lips, mustered up the courage to slip a hand beneath Jimmy's thin undershirt. His fingers moved in slow caresses up and down that broad, muscular chest, making Jimmy gasp hotly into his mouth while he arched against Thomas like a needy cat.
That was, until Thomas finally reached for his waistband to … well, take things a little further. Instantly, Jimmy went stiff beneath his touches and stared at him, shocked, with eyes wide as a fish's.
But that was fine, Thomas decided - kissing and hugging and cuddling Jimmy Kent every night was already more than he'd ever dared dreaming of. Making proper love to him would be only another matter of time and just like anything that had taken a little longer for Jimmy, Thomas knew it'd be more than worth the wait. In a way, it kept things oddly interesting, as it seemed to bring his slightly rusty art of seduction back to life again.
Jimmy inclines his head, eyes fixed on the tabletop and the beginning of a smile pulling at his lips as he says in a hushed voice, "To be honest, I'd like to feed you something much bigger than just a finger."
Thomas's mouth falls open at once, all the blood rushing to his cheeks and …other places. That's not what he expected, not at all; it's so deliciously filthy, he finds himself almost proud of Jimmy. "Uh, bigger, is it?" is all Thomas manages, the prospect of having Jimmy in his mouth causing him to shift in the chair and tug impatiently at his collar. He shivers slightly at the vivid pictures in his mind, a pleasant heat settling in his groin as he imagines how Jimmy might look, how wonderful he'd feel in his hands and between his lips …
"A lot bigger," Jimmy assures, and though his face is clearly on fire, the faint smile changes into a wicked little grin.
"I see," Thomas says, dry-mouthed, and has to stifle a groan; he's honestly thankful that certain parts of him are properly hidden beneath the table. Despite that, he gathers himself and murmurs, again very close to Jimmy's ear, "Gladly, my love." After quickly checking that no one's near, he gives a lazy wet lick to the shell, then asks:
"But what's in there for me, I wonder?"
At that, Jimmy's perfect little mouth threatens to pout. "Well, I- I thought that was rather obvious?!"
"I'm sure you do taste very nice, Jimmy." A smirk spreads across Thomas's face as he lets his gaze trail pointedly down to Jimmy's crotch.
"But that's not what I meant. I want something else."
"A kiss?" Jimmy offers, fairly jittery.
"Nah," Thomas drawls with a languid wave of his hand. Jimmy wiggles in his chair then, uneasy, as if holding down the sudden impulse to run and hide, so Thomas pauses for a moment, wondering if he should just stop teasing. But oh, there's just some kind of perverse delight in seeing Jimmy squirm and suffer a little.
"What about um… many kisses? As many as you like?" Jimmy's eyelids flutter rapidly, like little anxious birds, and he drops his voice in a last attempt to please Thomas.
"Or how about you come to my room tonight? I could undress you and- you know … touch you a little, if you like," Jimmy adds with a timid shrug, the look on his face completely stripped of bravado, and Thomas's heart turns into something as soft and sweet as cotton candy. Even so, he tells Jimmy,
"Still. Not. Good. Enough."
There's a stretching moment of silence before Jimmy, at last, nods tensely, bowing to the obviously inevitable.
"Alright. Fine." He briefly wets his lips, glistening pink and soft, and Thomas aches to kiss them right then and there.
"Look Thomas, the thing is, I have a really- oh god, I can't believe I'm actually saying this-" Jimmy puts a hand to his forehead as Thomas watches his face twist into various expressions; of course, he finds every single one of them adorable and hilarious in equal measure. "I have …" here, Jimmy's voice is barely a whisper, "a hyper sensitive gag reflex. I'm going to try if you want me to but-," Jimmy trails off to take a stuttering breath and Thomas gapes at him for a second. Certainly, the promising fantasy of Jimmy taking care of him in such a delicate way does heavenly things to Thomas's body, but as much as he hates admitting it: Jimmy's nervousness, deeply uncharacteristic and therefore so, so endearing, turns him on even more. Thomas can hardly resist the urge to rub a palm against his growing erection.
"This is not what I meant either, so calm down, love. You look like you're going to war, " he clarifies, noticing immediate relief on Jimmy's face. "And you bloody well know you never have to do anything you're not comfortable with just to make me happy. But I do want-" Thomas purses his lips; having Jimmy in his mouth is such a divine thought indeed, but there's still something else he craves.
"Want what?" Jimmy demands.
"Something sweet; even sweeter than you."
Jimmy's eyebrows shoot up in confusion. "Sweeter than … me?" he repeats, utterly puzzled, as if Thomas had asked him a question about the meaning of life.
Thomas rises from his chair and places a hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "You're a bright lad, Jimmy-boy. I'm sure you can come up with something" he says, giving it a fleeting squeeze before retracting his hand. "I'll be in my room. Waiting for you." The smugness on his face stands in awkward contrast to the way Thomas's hands are trying to conceal the obscene bulge in his trousers as he exits the servants' hall, leaving behind a baffled Jimmy.
"Sweeter than me… sweeter than me… ," Jimmy mumbles the words like a prayer, the frown of concentration on his face deepening as he absently flicks away a few crumbs from the table.
He blinks.
Oh.
All of a sudden, Jimmy slaps a hand to his forehead before springing vigorously to his feet, sending the chair flying to the floor in the process, but he couldn't care less, really. Anticipation bubbling in the pit of his stomach, he runs off to the kitchen. Laughing.
Because Thomas is right, after all.
He's Jimmy Kent - and smart is his second middle name.