“Yes.” Inexorable.
It would have taken barely any pressure at all. Jack gripped his prick in the circle of thumb and forefinger and moved them rapidly back and forth, and—wisely leaning into the inevitable—said, “Now,” just as Alan’s body hurled itself over the edge.
It was like being wiped clean. Impossible to worry about anything, to feel tense about anything, when every molecule of the body was awash with pleasure like that. Alan sank deliciously back down from it and into awareness that he’d spattered his chest with his own release—Jack had taken aim, the bastard—and that the still-erect Jack had pulled out of him, leaving a sharp ache.
“What’s the matter?” Alan asked. It sounded more like wazzmadah? He coughed and tried again. “All that talk, and you can’t see it through?”
Giddy daring filled him. He would say anything. He would do anything. He looked at Jack’s hard, reddened length and then right into Jack’s pleasure-blown eyes, and licked his lips. “So much for my pretty face. You won’t even get your precious prick near it.”
It took a second to register. Jack went almost blank with surprise, and then bright with a danger that Alan wanted to burn up in like a moth. Jack leaned down and grabbed hold of Alan’s hair, lifting his head with one hand—that did hurt, the new angle of his neck, but Alan wouldn’t have tapped out for a fortune—and moved up his body, kneeling over him, using the other hand to work his prick hard and fast until his shoulders bowed and the white lines of his own release hit Alan’s neck, and chin, and mouth.
Candle wax, Alan thought stupidly. His blood roared in his ears.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Jack presently.
He lowered Alan’s head again but didn’t seem able to look away from him. Alan wanted to say, I know, but could only bring himself to stare back.
After a second Jack levered himself to the side and settled onto his back, and Alan managed to sit up. He pulled up his knees, then put them down again. His backside gave a mild twinge when he moved. He felt as if he’d been beaten for dust, hung in the sunshine, and then re-laid on a comfortable floor.
He also felt covered in the results of two spectacular climaxes, and had a halfhearted go at wiping himself clean with his hands. Then found himself hesitating before touching the bedcover, which was ridiculous given what had just taken place on it.
“We made a mess of you,” Jack said, sounding far too pleased.
Alan leaned down and licked his way vindictively into Jack’s mouth, wiping his hands all over Jack’s shoulders and the dark hair of Jack’s chest in the process. His lordship could see how he bloody well liked it.
He realised his mistake when Jack groaned against his lips and hauled Alan closer against him, and met Alan’s tongue with his own, and Alan’s senses flooded with the hot, indescribable scent that was Jack’s cologne layered over the exertions of their bodies. Jack kissed like an argument. Alan slid his hand to the nape of Jack’s neck and argued fiercely back.
The way you write kisses, they’re—devastating.
Alan had two languages and would still have to invent another to properly describe the way it felt to kiss Jack Alston. What had begun as deliberately filthy was unravelling into something perilously close to tender. Alan was clinging to Jack now, his knee slung over Jack’s leg. He could wrap himself around that thigh like a ribbon around a maypole, and be kissed forever, and be happy.
He was smiling at that image when they drew apart, and a mirrored smile appeared on Jack’s mouth. He drew Alan in again for a lighter, quicker brush of lips.
Something moved in Alan the way he imagined worlds moved in the dark of the universe.
He tried to breathe around it.
“You’re a wonder, Cesare,” said Jack. “That was exactly what I needed. No, stay there,” he added, when Alan began to move away. It was one of those aggravating casual commands, but for once Alan didn’t need to push against it. His body was happy to flop back and obey.
Jack himself climbed off the bed and wandered naked towards a door connecting through to a tiny bathroom. Alan rolled onto his side and admired the view, both going and coming; Jack returned quickly with a flannel and a towel.
Alan held his hand out, expecting more flinging.
“I thought I told you to take what you’re given,” said Jack.
“I thought we agreed I’d throttle you if offered bath attendants,” Alan shot back.
Being thoroughly fucked had been wonderful, yes, but this was a revelation: the surprising care in Jack’s motions as he scrubbed and wiped both himself and Alan clean with the cool soaked flannel.
“This is an army thing, isn’t it,” said Alan, turning over when directed to. “Everything scrubbed and dusted and folded.”
“And polished,” said Jack. He circled the flannel over Alan’s arse, idly running his thumb down the crack. Alan caught a noise in his throat and made a grab for the towel.
Once dry, he retrieved his clothes and dressed. Jack stripped the top cover from the bed in another efficiently military motion, and Alan drew one of the golden cushions onto his lap as he leaned against the headboard. He watched with a pang of disappointment as Jack’s body disappeared again beneath trousers and shirt. That chest, and those thighs, and that cock. Forget stately homes: Alan could write articles about this. His lordship Baron Hawthorn has a well-appointed figure, its architecture too rough to be described as strictly classical, dating back to the year—how old was Jack, anyway?
Alan swallowed a laugh and set the cushion aside. “I should…” He tilted his head towards the door.
Jack paused on the last button. “Why?”
Alan cast a speaking look at the rolled-up, debauched bedcover.
“Alan, we’re in a house so full of inverts that Wilde could write a play about it, on my family’s ancestral land. And there’s still a while before we have to change for what will no doubt be an exhaustingly long dinner and strategy session.” Jack came and stretched his legs out on the other side of the bed, sitting up, propped against pillows. “Another army lesson. Rest when you can. Stay.”
He was probably right about dinner. Lord Cheetham and Bastoke were expected midmorning the next day, so tonight the final touches would be put on their plan for the gala: the ambush that would prevent Bastoke’s ritual from ever taking place. A final snatched island of pretence and calm was a tempting thought.
Jack captured Alan’s hand where it was fiddling anew with the golden fringe of the cushion. “I can tie you to the bed, if that’s what it takes to make you rest in it.”