Page 40 of A Gathering Storm

And still Ward couldn’t formulate a sensible answer.

“Whatever you’ll allow,” he croaked at last with a painful honesty.

Nicholas smile-frowned, brows furrowing even as his silvery gaze gleamed with unexpected humour.

“All right,” he said slowly, stepping a little closer, though not quite touching yet. “Tell me this. Have you done anything like this before?”

When Ward nodded, Nicholas looked surprised. “I thought—” he began, then cut himself off. “That is, if you don’t mind me saying so, you seemed . . . rather unused to kissing.”

Ward’s cheeks warmed at that deduction. Had he been gauche? Obviously unskilled? It was a mortifying thought.

“Iamsomewhat unused to kissing,” he finally managed to get out. “But I’ve had ample experience of other acts between men. Fellatio. Sodomy.”

Nicholas’s eyebrows rose at that bald assurance. “Sodomy!” he exclaimed. Then he gave a soft laugh and said, “My, you do know how to woo a fellow, don’t you?”

Embarrassed as he was, Ward couldn’t help but laugh at that and, for once, didn’t even cringe at the barking sound of his mirth. “Wooing is not my forte,” he admitted.

Nicholas’s smile was amused. At length, he raised his hand and softly brushed the pad of his thumb across Ward’s cheekbone. Ward shivered with helpless pleasure. He wanted to press into the simple touch and beg for more.

“What do you like best of the things you’ve done?” Nicholas murmured.

Ward swallowed, still feeling a little gauche. “All of them. I had a good teacher.”

“A lover?”

“No,” Ward replied shortly. “A whore.”

Nicholas’s eyes widened at that, and his stroking thumb stilled. He appeared shocked, and Ward felt ashamed for calling Alfie a whore.

“That’s not fair,” he said quickly. “He was a . . . a courtesan, I suppose. Can a man be a courtesan? Well, anyway, he was very sought after. Very beautiful and skilled.”

After a long pause, Nicholas said, “But he didn’t kiss you?”

“No,” Ward agreed. “We did most things together, but not that.”

There was a brief, awkward pause, then Nicholas said, “Well, I can’t match your experience. Gabe and I—the man you saw with me that evening, by the stream—we used to suck one another mostly, and once I let him bugger me—” He broke off, laughing shortly before saying, “That was awful.”

Ward frowned. “Awful? Why?”

Nicholas seemed surprised at the question. “Well, it was painful, of course,” he said, cheeks reddening. “And humiliating too.”

“It oughtn’t to have been,” Ward said, reaching out. He placed his hand on Nicholas’s forearm. Beneath Ward’s palm, through the layers of tweed and linen, Nicholas was warm and vital and so very alive. And suddenly Ward wanted to just strip him, tear his clothes off, have his way with him. Show him just how good fucking could be, the way Alfie had shown him. How good it was when you were shameless and abandoned and pursued your pleasure as determinedly as a hound pursued a hare.

Nicholas had a mulish look about him now. “It mightn’t be painful for the man dipping his wick, but I can assure you that the man being fucked knows all about it. Though I don’t expect your courtesan told you about that.”

“Actually, I’ve tried both—dipping my wick, as you put it, and being fucked—and I can tell you that I liked both very well.” Ward smiled sweetly, enjoying the astonishment on Nicholas’s face. “Though probably I most liked being fucked.”

Yes, he knew how good it felt both ways, and he knew a great deal more besides. Knew how it felt to suck and be sucked, to have his balls played with and his nipples pinched, his cock rubbed and stroked by another man’s hands, another man’s shaft . . . Had Nicholas triedthosethings?

“Youlikedbeing buggered?” Nicholas exclaimed.

Ward stepped closer so that their chests were brushing, and he had to tilt his head a little to meet Nicholas’s eyes.

“I loved it,” he whispered.

Nicholas’s chest rose and fell, his gaze flickering between Ward’s eyes and his mouth. Ward could feel the warmth of the man’s breath against his lips.

“If you use oil, or something similar,” Ward continued in a low voice, “and spend time preparing your lover, there’s no need for any pain. Or humiliation, for that matter.”