Page 32

WE SPENT a pleasant evening in the parlor, alternating between playing games—Charles, unsurprisingly, was excellent at charades, but so was his brother—and taking turns at the piano.

Ida had a lovely voice and a keen interest in playing, and I was a capable replacement when she wanted to give her fingers a rest. By midnight we had easily re-established the camaraderie that we had enjoyed before I’d left for London and slowly trickled off to our rooms, each of us a little further in our cups than we had meant to be at the beginning of the night.

Having exchanged a brief look with Arthur as we parted, I did not head for my suite but rather for the door that would take me out to the garden.

I found him waiting at the archway that led into the hedges, the late-summer blooms of the flowers almost pearlescent in the moonlight, and when he saw me, something almost like a smile flicked at the corner of his lips.

“I wasn’t sure if the look I gave you would be enough,” he said. “You’re quite perceptive.”

“I try my best,” I said, and as I approached him, he turned and walked into the garden.

We walked in relative silence for a while, and while I am no mind reader, I knew he was doing his best to ensure that we would not be caught if one of our companions decided they were also in need of some air.

We stepped into an open area, a fountain in the middle surrounded by benches, and I followed him to one of them, settling myself on the cool marble.

I could not help but wonder if this was a trick he did with Rudolph, if the two of them had sat on this very bench in this same sort of silence.

“Thomas—” he said.

At the same time, I turned to him and said, “Arthur, do—”

I laughed, unable to help it, and he took my hand tightly in his own as though not seizing it right then and there would be utter madness. “What were you going to ask?”

“If you wanted to continue where we left off,” I said, searching his face and finding that he was looking at me with his usual intensity, albeit for a different reason.

Now that I knew his true feelings, I was no longer intimidated by the fierceness in his eyes.

Still, the warning Rudolph had given me was ringing in my ears, and as much as I wished I could forget it, I could not.

I had agreed to let things run their course over the summer, but some silly, naive part of my brain was convinced that I could change his mind.

Having never had a long-term relationship before, much less any sort of real romance, I was still a fool when it came to expectations.

I looked at Arthur in that moment and thought I could change him, and I wonder now if he was looking at me in return and wondering the same.

Instead of speaking, however, he raised his free hand and took my chin in his grasp.

Arthur closed the distance between us, his lips solid against my own, and in no time at all he was kissing me with a fervor I simply didn’t know he was capable of.

I parted my lips to allow him better access, his tongue slick and hot against my own, and I soon found that his hand, which had been holding my own, was now gripping the outside of my right thigh.

Instinctively I shifted to meet his touch, the cool night air sending goose bumps crawling over my skin even as he let go of my chin.

He undid the top button of my shirt and I pulled back, recognizing that we were now at the same point where we had been interrupted earlier.

He seemed unconcerned with being caught, and the madness that had clearly overtaken him was contagious, so that I only realized the danger of the situation in the aftermath; at the time, being found seemed secondary to having him before he changed his mind.

He considered me briefly, searching, before he leaned back in.

Mouth on the sensitive skin of my throat, he continued to undo my shirt, leaving my bare chest exposed to whatever ministrations he desired.

His slim fingers slid over my left nipple, a thrill going through me at the touch, the sensitive skin stiffening at the merest sensation.

I gripped his shoulder with one hand, pressing my face against his blond hair and breathing in his scent.

His hair was slightly perfumed, his curls soft against my skin, and I could think of no one I had ever taken to bed before who filled me with such a strong feeling of hunger.

I was no saint, but Arthur Ashford made me desirous of things I had never lusted after before.

I let my free hand go to his waist, my breathing soft as his mouth moved lower, teeth scraping against my collarbone in a way I knew was meant to leave a bruise on my dark skin.

He forced my shirt back over one shoulder, briefly raising his head to look at me.

His mouth was pink, lips slightly swollen, and he pressed his thumb against my chest with a little more insistence.

“Look at you,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made every inch of my body thrill with desire.

Under his touch, I felt almost virginal.

“Do you know I dreamt about this the first night you were here?”

“Dreamt about undressing me in the garden?” I asked, pulling him into another kiss as he pushed my shirt over my shoulders.

I helped him remove it, shrugging it off so I could lay it over one arm of the bench, and he quickly moved to unlace my trousers.

I was half-anticipating him to stop at this point so when he hoisted my legs up into his arms in order to fully pull the linen down over my ass and ankles I let out a small yelp of surprise, grabbing his shoulder to keep myself steady.

“Did I frighten you?” he asked, pulling my pant leg down over my right boot but leaving them hanging from my left ankle; in this state of mostly undress I was at his mercy, and the thought was titillating. “I would not let anything happen, I swear it.”

“I know, I just wasn’t expecting it,” I said, struck momentarily by the darkness of his green eyes in the full moonlight.

Absently, I twisted my fingers in his hair and he tilted his head to meet the touch, briefly allowing his eyes to close.

I swept my thumb under his eye and over his cheekbone, and he looked at me again, tightening his grip on my thighs and forcing my legs back so my knees were nearly touching my chest. The next moment, he had slid off the bench onto his knees before me, twisting me on the bench so I was exposed to him, only the thin layer of my underclothes separating me from the night air.

He made short work of my underthings as well, and soon I was posed naked before him, my entire being on full, unabashed display.

My cock hung heavy and semi-erect between my legs, my dark bush of hair concealing the very base from him, and I was unbothered by his examination of my nude body.

After all, if I was to believe what he and Rudolph had told me, I was the first naked man Arthur had seen other than Rudolph.

Besides, I knew—without sounding overproud—that I was a handsome specimen of a man.

My dark skin was unmarred by any blemishes or scars, and while I was perhaps a little stouter than my taller counterparts, I was well-proportioned and had never had any complaints about my looks.

The longer Arthur gazed upon me, however, the more self-conscious I became, and when it felt as though an entire minute had passed without him making another move, I finally spoke.

“Do your knees not hurt upon the stone?” I asked, and he raised his head from where he had been gazing at my navel. I was briefly stunned by the look in his eyes, an expression of such intense consideration there that I hardly knew what to do with it.

“You’re beautiful,” he said as though he had really, truly realized it for the first time. “I am just taking it in. The sight of you.”

My pulse quickened in my throat, and I was overcome again by that strange sinking feeling that by agreeing to this short-term romance, I was closing off a path that would have suited me exceptionally well; while I could say with confidence my attraction to Rudolph was solely physical, the avenue of having him as a lover would have been a path with perhaps less heartbreak than was coming my way.

“You better take advantage of it before someone comes,” I said, and he looked at me thoughtfully before grabbing my knees and forcing them apart.

Whatever I expected from Arthur was not what I got.

Within moments of pressing my legs apart he was kissing my inner thigh, drawing up a deep bruise that would linger for days.

With one hand he pushed my right leg up onto the bench and kept the left gripped tightly in his hand.

I was struck with gratitude that I had bathed upon my arrival at the estate, and that Felix had the foresight to provide perfumed soap.

I would have to ask him later if he had known this was going to happen, the thought that perhaps Arthur’s intentions with me were so abundantly clear that they had made even his staff take notice.

He kissed along my thigh before nuzzling his face into the crux of my leg, his cheek hot against the side of my cock, which by now had begun to grow hard.

Arthur sighed softly, breath sending a chill over my skin before he pulled back and, without hesitation, took the throbbing head of my member into his soft and skilled mouth.

I let out a small whimper, fingers digging into his scalp as he slowly took me deeper, his tongue pressed flat against the underside of my cock.

It was clear that he had perfected this, and my mind went, unbidden, to the image of Rudolph on this same garden bench, spread-eagled with a lord’s face between his thighs.