Page 20 of A Lord's Chance
They both begged for each other, and Nobbie grunted as he balanced on his elbows, sweat slick on his chest and temples.
“Lloyd. Fuck.”
“Yes. I need you.” He reached for Nobbie, his slippery oiled hands sliding over Nobbie’s skin, unable to grip him, but it didn’t matter as Nobbie clung to him, thrusting inside with the perfect rhythm. He cried out for more, unable to make words, just begging with every thrust that slid past that point inside him that sent him closer and closer to the edge.
“Nobbie. Time changes when you do this.” His internal clock changed from being regular and predictable to being in sync with Nobbie and he was unable to tell if they’d been doing this for mere minutes or an hour or more. He never lost track of time, except with Nobbie, and surprisingly, it was wonderful (and only a little bit scary).
“Fuck I love you.” Nobbie’s desperate cry as he came made Lloyd’s heart swell to uncomfortable proportions. This was what he wanted. A love that consumed him.
“Good.”
“Good? You’re a funny man, Lloyd.”
Lloyd gulped. “How can you say that while you are...”
“Fucking you into the rug?”
“Yes.”
“Because it’s true. You are perfect for me. Your obsession with time is funny and surprising and you are so welcoming andI love you. I realise that we’ve only known each for a short time and maybe it’s too soon, but...”
Lloyd might’ve agreed, but his father had said he’d known in an instant that his mother was the one for him, so maybe this idea of time and love was a construct.
“It’s not too soon. Time is literally something humans invented.”
Nobbie kissed him, hard with his hands wrapped around Lloyd’s scalp. “My perfect horologist.”
Lloyd’s chest was going to burst, it had expanded so much. “Yours.”
“Let’s be inseparable best friends who live together.” Nobbie rested his forehead against Lloyd’s, just breathing in the same air as each other. He didn’t elaborate on his comment. Was it a joke? Or was he serious?
“You are thinking a lot.” Lloyd was thinking too much, and he hoped, rather than knew, that Nobbie was thinking about the logistics of this too. He wanted it to work, without society noticing, which was almost impossible when he was a young unmarried Earl.
“I have friends who are in similar situations, and it works. People see what they want to see, and it’s not two men in love, usually.”
It made some sense. There were plenty of unmarried men and women among his social set, and some committed bachelors. He could dream, couldn’t he?
“If you think about your story, Nobbie, it shows that love transcends marriage. Of course I will live with you as if we were married.”
“My story?”
“The Duke was in love with Hobart, but he was never able to marry her because of other constraints.”
“Like her being married.”
“Or him. And when they were together, she was technically a widow, which meant their love at least got some time together. I’m sorry that it didn’t work out like in the books.”
Nobbie kissed the tip of his nose. “What books do you read if that’s the story you want?”
“Wait. Please stop teasing me. I’m still trying to reconcile love and marriage and all the things I’ve been taught and what that means for me now.”
“It’s simple. Marriage is a business transaction. Love is love. We can make it into whatever we want.”
In that case—if it really was that simple—there was only one question that mattered. “My house or yours?”
“Both. It’ll confuse everyone.”
“Except the servants. They always know everything.”
Nobbie kissed him again. “Then we’ll employ servants who also want to live with their best friends.”
“Perfect.” And it promised to be. Nobbie belonged in his life, just like the way the gears in a timepiece slotted together with precise engineering pieces, moving together in unison to create a greater piece of beautiful artistic operation.
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If you want to discover Mr Milson’s HEA, his story COMING FOR THE CHAMPION releases at the end of 2024 in the King’s Book Club series set in 1830-31. The expert horologist has been passed over for many a promotion at Sotheby’s and injuries have long ago forced his retirement from the boxing ring. He’s jaded but when he gets asked to fight in a charity match held at the King’s Book Club, he can’t decide if he wants to fight or f*ck The Long Laird...
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