Page 8 of Centerpiece (Infinite Grace #2)

Agreeable kept his grip on the blanket over his lap.

“I wasn’t insulted. But...” He worried his lip for another moment.

Holburn had flattered him. He ought to try the same.

“From the start, I was thinking of you and ploughing. It wasn’t a hardship to offer.

Are you going to try to sleep now?” He rushed out the question before Holburn’s silence could go on any longer.

“I should.” Holburn didn’t sound pleased by the idea. Maybe he thought sleep wouldn’t come easy.

Agreeable’s wouldn’t. Partly that was due to worry over trying to sneak away later. But mostly it was realizing that Holburn had considered fucking him and had wanted to, even if he had believed it wouldn’t be right to do so.

Even hotter than before, Agreeable threw the blanket over the back of the chair.

“You’re like priests should be,” he decided aloud, marveling at this fact but also annoyed by it.

“And prettier than most of them.” His insides were quaking at the thought of Holburn wanting to do right by him while also wanting to tumble him.

“I could help settle your mind, if you like. Because I want to. Because I have wanted to. Since you first got me against the door, I did.” Holburn’s heavy focus was making Agreeable’s head swim.

“I imagined using my mouth on you. That’s more than just being agreeable, isn’t it? ”

Holburn sat there, burning at Agreeable from across the room, but didn’t move. “Yes.”

Agreeable felt a frown start to form. “You still don’t—oh.

If you come to me , you still won’t be sure.

And if you tell me to go to you , you have the same problem.

” He reasoned it out loud, confused and trembling inside for Holburn’s strange, good notions and for what Agreeable was going to have to do about them: he would have to go to Holburn and perhaps state his desires again.

He might not have ever done that, with anyone.

Holburn was dangerous, opening Agreeable up to new ideas like this.

But instead of continuing to shake like a scared rabbit, Agreeable rose, smacking the palm of one hand against his thigh to help banish the weakness carrying all through him.

“That you’re concerned... it’s doing things to me.

” He revealed it breathlessly once at the side of the bed, already moving to put a knee to the mattress.

Then the soft give and the fine blanket stopped him and gave him a new worry, and he dropped to the floor to remove his shoes.

His cheeks flamed when he stood back up, but Holburn was smiling.

“I could have taken care of any damages.”

Agreeable shook his head; he could be stubborn too.

But then Holburn tossed aside the blankets over his lap and his chemise was thin enough to show how much he liked the idea of Agreeable in his fine, soft bed with him, and that was something too.

Something to make Agreeable briefly press his thighs together like an excited maid on her wedding night.

Oh, plenty got hard before having a go with him, but for whatever hole he offered; never from anticipating him like this. Holburn wanted Agreeable here as much as he wanted Agreeable to desire him in return.

Agreeable clambered onto the bed, knees catching on his skirt so he fell onto hands and elbows with his face nearly planted onto Holburn’s thigh.

It scarcely slowed him. Agreeable brushed aside the scarf ends now impeding him and burrowed beneath the linen of the chemise to get as much cock in his mouth as he could.

Holburn hissed, a wonderfully surprised sound as if even he hadn’t expected Agreeable’s eagerness.

He wasn’t all-knowing and wise. He was just a man as he’d said, tugging his shirt up with one hand while reaching for Agreeable with the other, swearing words no man of faith should know when Agreeable shifted farther onto the bed to take his prick into his throat and feel the tickle of short hairs against his nose.

Holburn neither pushed him down to keep him there nor hauled him back up. His hand clenched and unfurled over the top of the scarf, and then he sighed and said, “Eager creature. If I were in your lads’ place, I would take this every night.”

Lust spiked in Agreeable’s belly, dripping heavy into his blood like candlewax.

He pulled back to catch his breath, his head at Holburn’s hip, although he couldn’t say if Holburn had urged him to lie like that.

He felt Holburn’s touch through the scarf, soft and appreciative. Agreeable’s eyes stung.

“Good girl?” he heard himself ask, shivering despite the heat because even saying it himself pleased him although he didn’t know why.

Holburn could have pushed him back to work at his cock and Agreeable would have welcomed it, but his quiet tsk and thumb at Agreeable’s cheek kept Agreeable silent and near-content.

Holburn put his fingers to Agreeable’s lips, which Agreeable parted for him to remind him his mouth remained empty.

Yet Agreeable didn’t complain at the slight intrusion.

He sucked on the tips he was given and was generous with his tongue and attention.

Whenever Holburn withdrew them to trace his lips or to tease him, Agreeable waited, strangely calm, mouth open, for them to return.

“Do they take your mouth or do you use your mouth as you please?” Holburn wondered, wet fingertips finding the freckles over the bridge of Agreeable’s nose.

“Either,” Agreeable managed to answer, although the truth was more the first than the second.

They got impatient to spend, or didn’t want some of the others to think they enjoyed it as much as they did—because it was Agreeable, and not because it was simply a mouth.

But Agreeable was a good mouth, he realized, working his tongue along Holburn’s fingers when Holburn offered them again.

He could have been good for them if they had wanted it.

He licked, and sucked, and waited when he was expected to wait, slowly curling down onto the mattress to better rest against Holburn’s hip.

He’d meant to be used, and still shuddered to imagine choking, his eyes wet, Holburn’s hands at the back of his head holding him down.

But this was new, and good, and worrying.

He wouldn’t be the same after this, Agreeable realized all over again, and pulled away from Holburn’s fingers to whine at last.

“I meant to offer my mouth as home for your cock,” he explained, although his throat was tight now, and the words were strained, and Holburn undoubtedly knew why Agreeable had come to his bed.

Agreeable had walked knowingly to his fate, though tame foxes ended up in snares.

A sad end, he’d always thought. They were beautiful things, for all the trouble they caused.

“Beautiful.” Holburn startled him with that word nearly as Agreeable thought it. “Is that all you wanted to offer me? A home in your mouth?”

Agreeable shook for Holburn to see and feel. “I want you to have me.” He would have felt no shame to say it to anyone, but especially not to Holburn, who would not be surprised and might even be pleased.

Warm and dangerous, Holburn moved, and Agreeable, dazed and unsteady, was on his back on the bed within moments, Holburn settling over him.

Holburn was good and hard now, excited at the thought of a fuck, and Agreeable rolled his hips to feel the pressure of Holburn’s cock against his through his skirt.

A heartbeat later, he stuttered to a stop, his eyes wide and fixed on Holburn as Holburn raised his head to study him.

Holburn’s curls were askew. Agreeable didn’t remember touching his hair and started to reach up to sweep the curls from Holburn’s face but then stopped again, his hand in the air between them. He dropped it when Holburn moved back onto his knees.

Agreeable swallowed. “Let me explain.”

Holburn put his hands on Agreeable’s ankles, first over the skirt, then below it, pushing the skirt slowly upward as he moved his hands to Agreeable’s knees.

He looked into Agreeable’s eyes as he did it, not even glancing away when he smoothed his palms over Agreeable’s quivering thighs or as he urged them farther apart.

Agreeable, still trembling, obediently bent his knees to grant Holburn more room, but his chest was tight.

“Holburn.”

Under the skirt, Holburn traced the length of Agreeable’s cock, not once but twice, and then again. “Good girl.”

Agreeable closed his eyes and moaned. He turned his head but lay there shivering as his skirt was lifted and his legs arranged to fit the man between them.

“I’m not.” A foolish thing to argue when Holburn could see and feel that for himself. “Not a girl.”

“Then what are you?” Holburn had a sure, firm grip, like a man who often had other men and knew what to do.

Agreeable panted as he opened his eyes. “I’m a lad.

A good lad. A good boy.” His hands were restless, first holding to the mattress, then tugging at his dress.

He was hot and the bodice was tight, and his clothing still trapped beneath that rubbed against his nipples.

He wanted to feel cool air on his skin but also offer the rest of him to Holburn’s hands and his warm gaze.

Like a milkmaid in a barn tumble, he was, skirt up, bodice down, but with no breasts to bounce and push up toward Holburn’s hands.

“But I....” Between that idea and the work of Holburn’s hand on his cock, he couldn’t think.

“I like it when I’m your good lass. I can be your good lass. Please, Holburn.”

He tugged the bodice to the side, yanking at the front lacing until he was close to ripping it. Holburn stopped him with gentle touches and then a kiss brushed across his mouth.

“Careful,” Holburn warned, pulling on one of the laces to loosen it for him. “Bare yourself for me while you wait. Can you do that for me?” He bestowed another kiss on Agreeable’s mouth when Agreeable nodded forcefully.

Agreeable didn’t even consider why he would be waiting until Holburn was off the bed.

By then, the bodice was gaping and Agreeable was tossing his hidden breeches and shirt to the floor.

He cupped his breasts—no, not breasts, for he had a flat chest. But many women had those too, and his nipples liked the attention, and he thought he ought to feel shy and maidenly with his dress like this, and his knees up, and his prick red and standing.

He was anything but shy when Holburn returned to him, kneeling between his thighs without any further bothering over whether or not Agreeable wanted this.

He stroked Agreeable’s cock again, watching Agreeable react as though the sight was enough for him, although Holburn was hard as a post too.

He said not a word about Agreeable thumbing his nipples but he watched intently.

And when Agreeable finally had to stop or shake apart right then, Holburn left off caressing Agreeable’s prick, and smiled down at him, knowing and pleased.

“Beg me again.”

Agreeable didn’t hesitate. “Please. I need you to.”

“Good lass,” Holburn answered easily, strangely slippery hands caressing the inside of Agreeable’s thighs and then pressing against his hole. “Good lad,” he added, in a softer voice, fingers teasing when they could have been taking.

He pushed his fingers in while Agreeable was still shaking from the praise, and it burned as it always did, but then also, it didn’t.

Agreeable took Holburn to the knuckles with startling ease, and tossed his head back to frown in confusion but didn’t protest. The wet feel was all over his thighs and dripped to his balls.

He’d make a mess of the fine bedding, but Holburn had promised to take care of any damages.

He’d said so, and therefore, Agreeable could be a mess for him as Holburn must want him to be— her to be.

Agreeable didn’t know which he was or wanted to be more, but didn’t care which when both made him ache.

“Please.” He had been told to beg, and he liked it, even liked that Holburn laughed and quietly reminded him that Agreeable was supposed to be hiding in this room. Holburn’s laugh was lovely, and he was getting Agreeable wet before he ploughed him, and he needn’t have bothered but it felt good.

Agreeable laughed breathlessly back at him and returned to touching himself, biting his lip so he wouldn’t moan too loudly.

He had been taken rough-like many, many times, and liked it for most of them, even the times he was sore after.

But he was Holburn’s good lass for the night.

A good lad with his cock in his hand and his knees bent, and she was dripping wet and empty so she said it again.

“Please. Holburn, I can take you. Please.”

Holburn shushed him again with a kiss to his knee that startled Agreeable into silence.

But Holburn took Agreeable at his word, and entered him in one slow, sure drive forward, a slick hand on Agreeable’s hip to hold him when Agreeable shut his eyes and ground out a raw, shocked noise.

The taking was easy and yet it still surprised him.

Holburn kissed his mouth until Agreeable’s eyes opened. He was a wondrous but strange man. A jewel who could have Agreeable however he wished.

Something Agreeable told him in a whisper against his lips. “However you like. I will stay and be yours until I am sore. Until I can’t move and they will hang me.”

“No.” Holburn, the very devil, kissed him again. He left Agreeable to whimper. “That they will not do. But you will stay and be mine, Agreeable.”

“Remi.” Agreeable closed her eyes and accepted another kiss.

They were no longer soft kisses but they had the same effect on her insides.

He squeezed his thighs around Holburn and Holburn shifted, rocking gently into him and making him gasp.

“Remi, please. I am not agreeable now. You must see. I want you.”

“Remi,” Holburn agreed, tugging the scarf down to bare the bird’s nest of Remi’s short brown hair, then pulling one of Remi’s legs over his shoulder.

Remi scrabbled to get a hold of him, fingers sliding over delicate linen until she was nearly clawing at shoulders of oak.

“Remi,” Holburn’s voice was smoky, “are you ready?”

Remi nodded before opening his eyes, although he would never be the same. “Now, please.”

“Anything for my good girl.” Holburn set him afire with words, roughly kissed his open, hungry mouth before Remi’s startled moan reached the ceiling, then began to fuck him as though Remi was entirely for his pleasure.

As though that was Remi’s pleasure too and he knew it.

As though Remi was his for the night, and he would make proper use of his girl. Of him. Of Remi .

Remi turned his head to moan into the back of one hand. He left the other at Holburn’s shoulder, grip tight in his chemise, and held on.

He would never be the same.

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