Personal Relations by Anna Butler

Author:Anna Butler
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: romance mm, anthology, contemporary gay romance, mm romance, romance modern, london, anthology gay, romance gay

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Candlelight

January, 2013

It's not that Kit Lewis is a vain man. Truly he's not. He knows he has a handsome face, a lithe body and more charm than is good for him or anyone around him—he's not blind and he has a perfectly serviceable mirror—but Kit isn’t really, truly, horribly vain. He's just aware of his attributes. Come to think on it, he's very aware of his attributes and how to use them to his advantage. But he's not vain.

Before he tangled himself up with John Hogarth, Kit spent a lot of time trotting around the block with anyone he could persuade to trot with him. He's always been open-minded, taking his chances where he sees them. Because of those aforementioned attributes, he's wined and dined a lot of women and he's wined and dined a lot of men. Opportunistic, John said once, and his tone was not approving. John had seen pretty clearly that the Kit Lewis of those years was devil-may-care and casual, body-hungry and heart-free, and no one who deliberately set out to hold him would succeed. Not the sort of man you'd want dating your sister. Or your brother. Or you.

Kit swears he's a reformed character these days. But as a result of his rash, youthful experimentation, if anyone's experienced in all the arts and wiles of allurement, it's Kit. It stands to reason that he's seen every possible shift and stratagem, the little deceptions that enhance the good and hide the bad—the eyes made bigger and brighter with kohl, lips reddened and softened ready for kissing, cheekbones highlighted to accentuate the good bone structure underneath, skin dusted with powder to even out the tone and hide the blemishes. And he has, of course, noticed how candlelight flatters and compliments, how it makes the skin and hair glow with soft gold, and how the shifting shadows make everything softer and gentler.

So when he's the one who wants to make a good impression, memories of all these harmless enhancements flit through his brain, reminding him of this effect or that as he sifts through them to decide which might give him an edge. Not that he really needs one, of course, since Kit Lewis is practically in the thesaurus as a synonym for 'alluring'.

All right. Maybe Kit's a little vain.

There's a limit to his vanity, though. He's not averse to darkening his eyelashes to make his eyes more noticeable, for example, but he draws the line at kohl. If you ask him, he'll admit that he tried it once. I can't use it, he once confided to one of his dearest friends and now business partner, George Richards. Nearly put my damned eye out with the kohl pencil and, believe me, having to dab at a red and weepy eye all through dinner does not give your date the impression you're irresistibly sexy. They're more likely to be worrying about catching pink-eye.

George's response isn't recorded but it wasn't likely to have been sympathetic. He tends to look on Kit's entanglements with a cynical eye.

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