Precious Possession

By Clare London

Lucas Fides has inherited his Victorian family’s auction house, good looks and a keen, passionate mind. But he has far less control over his body’s desires than his business, hiding an illicit and unspoken love for his boyhood friend and dependent, Valentine. As a result, Lucas suffers recurring, deeply erotic dreams, where a mystery lover demands and guides his sexual responses.

When the auction house runs into financial difficulty, Valentine introduces a new client to Lucas. Gideon Arnaud is a mysterious and charismatic man who seems to scorn society’s restrictions. He offers Lucas a spectacular collection of jewels for auction and also his intense, seductive attention. He appears to know more about Lucas than any stranger should. Affronted by Gideon’s bold pursuit, Lucas puts up a spirited defence, despite being increasingly exhausted by his dreams. His heart is already committed to Valentine, even if he thinks it’s his secret alone. When Valentine announces his engagement to Lucas’s sister, Lucas’s pain and frustration are almost intolerable.

Torn between his need for Valentine’s comfort and the determination to avoid Gideon Arnaud’s disturbing presence, Lucas becomes more vulnerable by the day, until his loneliness forces his desire out of his dreams and into the light of day. The consequences will change his life forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Mar 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781611520910

Clare London

Clare took the pen name London from the city where she lives, loves, and writes. A lone, brave female in a frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home, she juggles her writing with the weekly wash, waiting for the far distant day when she can afford to give up her day job as an accountant. She’s written in many genres and across many settings, with novels and short stories published both online and in print. She says she likes variety in her writing while friends say she’s just fickle, but as long as both theories spawn good fiction, she’s happy. Most of her work features male/male romance and drama with a healthy serving of physical passion, as she enjoys both reading and writing about strong, sympathetic and sexy characters.Clare currently has several novels sulking at that tricky chapter 3 stage and plenty of other projects in mind . . . she just has to find out where she left them in that frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home.All the details and free fiction are available at her website. Visit her today and say hello!Join up for her newsletter at http://bit.ly/2WpHlyK and receive a free short story!Clare also writes as Stella Shaw and launched her Love at the Haven series of rent boy romances in 2021.Website + blog: http://www.clarelondon.com / stellashawauthor.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/clarelondonTwitter: https://twitter.com/clare_londonGoodreads: http://bit.ly/2lNSfC2Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/clarelondonBookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/clare-londonInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/clarelondon11/Quids&Quills: http://www.quidsandquills.com (accountancy for UK authors)

Book preview

Precious Possession

By Clare London

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2011 Clare London

ISBN 978-1-61152-091-0

Cover Photo Credit: curaphotography

Used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

Cover Design: J.M. Snyder

All Rights Reserved

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

NOTE: This story was originally published in the anthology Masquerade by Eternal Press.

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Precious Possession

By Clare London

The night was thick with the damp, silent fog of autumn and the moon was a sickly spot behind the mist. Its tendrils seeped through the walls of the London house, its soot-laden breath making the servants shiver in their ragged clothes, as they slept huddled together for warmth in their meagre quarters.

In the master bedroom, the young man moved sluggishly under his comfortable covers, the room still warmed by the embers glowing in his own fireplace. His pale, handsome face was less than peaceful in his sleep, his closed eyelids flickering with swiftly passing emotions.

The house was silent, apart from the usual night time sounds of creaking boards and the hiss of the night air as it slipped through the oak doors connecting his room to the corridor outside. The sleeper was still unusually disturbed. His long fair hair was loose around his neck, wisps tangling across his cheeks as he shook his head in denial of something that no one else heard.

For a moment his strong, slender body tensed, and arched up gently from the mattress. His lips were moist with saliva, moving silently, forming the shape of words. They were full lips, though drawn back in a grimace as they struggled with phrases that were both unintelligible and unspoken. The sheets rustled underneath him and the cord of his dressing gown slid off the end of the bed on to the floor. Then his hand moved slowly up under his silk nightshirt, and a soft gasp escaped his mouth.

The voice was within him again; he knew it as certainly as he knew he dreamed. It carried the sweetness of a caress and the aggression of a cancer. There was no recognizable form to it, nothing but the warm slipperiness of naked skin, and the hot, fragrant whisper of breath on his neck. He couldn’t have explained how a voice could be incarnate, but he