Page 5

Five

Peregrine

For as long as he lived, Peregrine would never forget the way Alexander looked while tied to a bed, hair tousled and gleaming in the lamplight, his stomach pearled with his orgasm. And for as long as he lived, he’d never forget the way Alexander’s cock felt as he stroked it. Hotter than a brand, harder than steel. Yet soft and velvety too, like pure heaven in his hand.

For the sake of his own sanity, Peregrine didn’t take a shift guarding Alexander’s door that night or the next morning. He didn’t think he could listen to Alexander rustling around in bed or sighing his put-upon sighs, and he didn’t know how he’d respond if Alexander came to the door and tried to talk to him.

No. He did know how he’d respond. He’d push his way through that door and shove Alexander back onto the bed. And this time he wouldn’t leave Alexander’s cell with a cockstand still straining his pants.

Let me make you feel better.

I’m so very good at it.

Instead, Peregrine went to his cell and slept a little, waking with the sun to begin working his way through a list of things needing to be fenced soon. He’d been marking the papers for less than an hour when he heard a knock at the door.

“Yes?” he called.

Will, the youngest of their band and the person guarding Alexander today, pushed his head into the room. “Lord Alexander says he can’t fall back asleep because his bed linens are too scratchy.”

Peregrine stared. “Too scratchy?”

Will shrugged.

“I suppose,” Peregrine said slowly, “he could have some other bed linens if we have them.”

“Thanks,” Will said, and then left the room and closed the door behind him. Peregrine shook his head and then went back to the inventory sheets, unsure if captives were supposed to complain about their bed linens, but also certain that it probably didn’t matter, since Alexander had already proved himself to be a deeply vexing captive.

Let me make you feel better.

Well, perhaps not entirely vexing.

A few hours later, Peregrine was eating lunch in his room and finishing his tallies when he heard another knock. It was Will again.

“Yes?” Peregrine asked as the thief stepped into his room.

“Alexander says he doesn’t like the beer we’ve served with his lunch and wants wine instead. Is that permissible?”

“Yes,” Peregrine said, his patience fraying a little. “That’s permissible .”

Not ten minutes later, Will was back. “Alexander says his wine is too sweet and he wants to know if we have a more mature vintage.”

Peregrine tossed his quill on the table in exasperation. “No. You may tell Lord Alexander that he’ll be drinking water from the trough if he has any more complaints about his beverages.”

Will looked at little surprised at Peregrine’s flare of temper—and Peregrine was surprised too. He never let his emotions creep toward the surface, even with his closest friends. Lyd, who still only knew the scantest details of why he wanted to kill Reginald Dartham, who had never seen him seethe in anger or weep in the dark—or even laugh.

It was safer that way, and better for all involved.

But with Alexander Dartham, Peregrine’s curated restraint unglued itself. His lapse in control last night, his irritation today...

The spoiled rake was taking Peregrine apart bit by bit. If only he’d stop being so here , so present , so impossible to ignore—but there was no ignoring Lord Alexander Dartham. There were those dark eyes and that full mouth, there was his unabashed vulnerability, the way he asked for things and tried for things.

There was his earnestness, equally unabashed, as if it had never occurred to him to lie, even about something as gravely important as escaping.

With a cautious nod, Will left to give Alexander his answer, and Peregrine scrubbed his hands over his face. He had to find more control when it came to Alexander Dartham. Otherwise, he’d be entirely undone by the time he received the ransom from the duke, and he didn’t know how he’d be able to do what he needed to do after?—

No. He wouldn’t think about that right now.

A hundred things could happen between now and then, and he needed to keep his focus on the duke instead.

Speaking of, he stood and left his cell in search of Lyd to see if there’d been any messages from Chagford. He found her in the sanctuary, her head bent over a note.

“News from Far Hope?” he asked, suddenly anxious about the answer. If it was news from Far Hope, if the duke was going to pay the ransom, then that meant Peregrine would have no more use for Alexander. It meant Alexander would become a liability rather than an asset and his death would become Peregrine’s best weapon for hurting the duke?—

His mind reared away from those thoughts like a shying horse, and he drew in a relieved breath when Lyd said, “Nothing from the duke yet. But our friend in Exeter sent this.” She waved the note, an avid glitter to her blue eyes. “The duchess is leaving for Far Hope. She hadn’t felt well enough to travel yesterday and that’s why she didn’t go with her husband or Sandy.”

“You want to intercept her,” Peregrine guessed.

“Yes,” Lyd said.

“To rob her?” Peregrine asked. There was no judgment in his tone, only curiosity. He was keeping a captive, after all, and planning that captive’s murder, so he hardly had a moral high ground here.

Nor did he want one.

Lyd’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know,” she admitted after a moment. “After everything she’s done to me, robbing doesn’t feel like enough.”

When he’d first met Lydia, she’d been pickpocketing in London, one in a thousand thieves struggling to survive. But when she’d made the mistake of pickpocketing him , she’d done it so adroitly and with so much fearlessness that Peregrine had been more impressed than annoyed. He’d offered her a job as a fellow knight of the road, and she’d accepted, with the caveat that any Dartham they came across would be hers.

He’d been astounded that someone else could hate that family as much as he, but after hearing Lyd’s story, he’d recognized a kindred spirit. A distant cousin of the duchess, she’d been shipped off to live with the duke and duchess after her parents had died of smallpox, and they’d attempted to marry her off at sixteen to a cruel man. When she’d refused, the duchess had locked Lyd in her room for weeks, keeping her a prisoner until Lyd managed to escape through a window. Lyd maintained that scraping out an existence as a thief—even as a woman alone, and in the rough crowds of London—had been infinitely preferable to marrying the person the duchess had chosen for her.

The duchess had been adamant about the match because the suitor in question would take Lyd without a dowry, which meant the dowry and the family property Lyd was supposed to bring to a future marriage would stay in the hands of the duke and duchess. That property included Lyd’s family home and her family land—the very place she’d grown up. A place she would never see again while it belonged to the Darthams.

“What she’s taken from you is something impossible to replace,” Peregrine said to Lyd now. “I understand why robbing her of some clothes or jewelry wouldn’t feel like enough.”

Lyd swore, looking out over their piles of fabric and silver goods. “Sometimes I want so much to hurt her,” she said after a minute. “But other times I don’t know what I’d do if I saw her again. If I’d have it in me to hurt her after all.”

“I understand,” Peregrine said. Lord Alexander Dartham was the still-living proof of that. “Do you know if she’s leaving today or tomorrow?”

Lyd shook her head.

“You may want to plan on watching the road for a day or two, then. Pack food and take Ned and the others. I’ll stay here with our prisoner.”

She looked at him. “You’d rather stay with the brother of your enemy than go out to rob your enemy’s wife? Are you sure you’re still Peregrine Hind, infamous highwayman?”

Will trotted up before Peregrine could answer, looking a little sheepish for interrupting. “Sandy wants to know if you have any books here.”

“ Sandy? ” Peregrine repeated. “He’s Sandy to you now?”

“ Books? ” Lyd asked at the same time.

Will held up his hands, as if indicating helplessness in the face of the circumstances. “He says he needs to occupy his mind, and we did play All Fours for a bit, but he kept winning and said it wasn’t challenging enough to be any fun.”

“Are you sure he was winning and not cheating?” Lyd asked, the doubt clear in her voice.

Peregrine sighed, his irritation flaring all over again. “I’ll assume care of our prisoner for now. Lyd, take the others. And ride safe.”

A few minutes later, Peregrine knocked on the door of Alexander’s sacristy.

“Enter,” came the magnanimous reply, and Peregrine pushed open the door to see his prisoner on the bed, lounging on one elbow. The borrowed shirt exposed a sculpted shoulder and the curve of his collarbone, both illuminated by the window high on the wall. His hair was still sleep-tousled, and his feet were bare; his shirt was rucked up enough that Peregrine could see the dark line of hair leading down from his navel.

He looked like someone had spent the night fucking him into the mattress.

“You want books,” Peregrine said.

“I’m bored,” whined Alexander.

You’re trouble . But Peregrine didn’t say it. Instead, he said, “The others are leaving, but I’m staying here. I think you’ll find that I’m less amenable to requests for things.”

Alexander dropped his head back with a fractious noise. “But it’s so dull in here. What else am I to do?”

“You’re a captive,” Peregrine said impatiently. “Your entire existence is to wait until something happens.”

Alexander sat up. “Play cards with me.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll cheat.”

“If I did,” Alexander said, giving him a mischievous grin, “you could always punish me.”

A slow bloom of heat unfurled inside Peregrine. His voice was graveled with it when he spoke. “And how would I do that?”

“You could tie me up again,” Alexander said, coming to a sitting position and then to his knees. He kept his eyes on Peregrine’s the entire time. “You could tie me up all sorts of ways, you know, not just on my back. On my stomach, or bent over the bed, or...”

Peregrine had to swallow to keep himself from agreeing. Or tackling Alexander to the bed and finally putting his lips to the full curves of Alexander’s mouth.

It would be so much easier if Alexander weren’t so playful, so goddamn happy . When was the last time Peregrine himself had felt playful?

Happy?

“I will be tying you up again,” he said, deciding then and there what he’d do with his captive today. He told himself it was for practical, preventing-escape reasons, and not at all for reasons of seeing Alexander bound in silk. “But not to the bed. Come with me.”

Four hours later, they were alone in the sanctuary as the light slowly died outside and the shadows began to gather in the corners. Peregrine had bound Alexander’s hands and then had dragged him along while he attended to the day’s tasks—caring for the horses and fixing the wheel on one of the carts they used to haul goods to Chagford or Buckfast, and then finally making a simple dinner of roasted pheasant, apples, and bread for them to eat.

The playfulness hadn’t left Peregrine’s captive as Peregrine had worked, and Lord Alexander had spent most of the afternoon perched on a barrel, kicking his bare feet against the wood while he pestered Peregrine with an unceasing number of questions about everything from hay to types of hammers to when Peregrine would take pity on him and at least let Alexander bring himself to satisfaction.

Each time Alexander asked that last question, Peregrine couldn’t keep himself from looking over at his captive—all sparkling eyes and breeches obscenely tented from the effects of having his wrists bound—and it would nearly stop his heart. It was like having a spoiled princeling about, and Peregrine should hate it, should hate the pretty pouts and the coy demands, but the honesty shining in those impish glances and scrawled inside those flirtatious questions made hate impossible.

In fact, Peregrine felt lighter and lighter as the afternoon went on, like Alexander was a glow of lamplight in a room he hadn’t realized had grown dim. And seeing Alexander aroused from being tied up, with those half-lidded eyes and flush-stained cheeks...

Repeatedly, Peregrine had to remind himself that Alexander was a Dartham , and moreover, his captive. He shouldn’t feel anything but grimly determined while he was around. He shouldn’t have to catch his breath whenever he saw his captive lord staring at his silk-trussed wrists with fascination and undisguised arousal.

When it was time for dinner, Peregrine tied the free end of Alexander’s rope to the arm of his chair and then watched as, despite his bindings and his visible erection, his captive ate as prettily as if he were in front of the Queen herself. In contrast, Peregrine himself ate quickly and efficiently, an inevitable consequence of war and four years on the run from the law.

“You eat like a soldier,” said Alexander after a moment.

“I was a soldier,” Peregrine said somewhat automatically, and then immediately wanted to unspeak the words. He knew Alexander was trying to learn anything useful that would help him escape while also ingratiating himself through any means possible, including friendship. Peregrine probably shouldn’t even be eating with him now, if he was honest, but it was nicer than eating alone, and Alexander was so very lovely to look at, and sometimes he said the funniest things.

Sometimes he almost made Peregrine smile.

“Of course you were,” Alexander said. “And now you’re a knight of the road. Isn’t that how all the stories start? A valiant soldier returns home after the war and finds his home taken away from him, and so the only recourse he has is to steal from the very men who robbed him in the first place?”

It was too close to the truth, and Peregrine struggled not to react. “You’re thinking of Robin Hood, or maybe the Royalists after the Civil War,” he said carefully. “Times long past.”

Alexander didn’t seem to miss how Peregrine sidestepped his remark, however. “So what then makes a modern-day soldier take to the road?”

“What makes the son of a duke spend his days carousing and cheating at cards?”

“I never cheat, I only strategize ,” Alexander said, taking a dainty sip of wine. “And it’s more nights than days, you know.”

“But there’s no other work your brother would rather put you to? No responsibilities waiting for you at Far Hope?”

Alexander’s expression shuttered, and it was as if a light had gone out. He didn’t like this line of questioning any more than Peregrine had liked Alexander’s.

“There’s plenty waiting for me at Far Hope,” Alexander said cryptically.

He set down his cup and turned to face Peregrine. On the far side of the room, the fire burned in its improvised fireplace and cast Alexander’s elegant features in a reddish glow.

“What?” Peregrine asked his captive, who was now staring at him with an unsettling expression.

“I was just thinking,” Alexander said in a velvet voice, “that I should show you why it’s worthwhile to keep a rake nearby.”

A dark heat crawled up Peregrine’s thighs and down his belly. He should ignore it; he knew he should. But it burned so very hot inside him. It had been kindled and stoked by seeing Alexander so coquettish all day, and Peregrine couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this. Maybe he never had.

“Is that so?” Peregrine asked in a gruff voice.

Alexander gave him a secretive smile. He slid easily from his bench to his knees, graceful as a dancer. Within a few sinuous crawls, he was in front of Peregrine’s chair.

Peregrine knew he should tell Alexander to stop, to go back to his bench. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Instead, he angled his chair and spread his legs, feeling his control slip and slip and slip as his captive moved between his feet.

Alexander brought his bound hands up between them. Peregrine had tied them so that they were separated by a few inches of silk—so he could still eat and use the privy without help—but now his captive held them folded together, like he was praying. Like he was supplicating Peregrine for a favor.

“Let me taste you,” Alexander said, his voice a low, wonderful purr that no doubt had wooed many men and women to his bed over the years. “How long has it been since you’ve had your cock sucked, Peregrine?”

Too long , Peregrine thought, but he didn’t answer out loud. He did another thing that he absolutely should not have and untucked Alexander’s shirt, so he could lift it and see underneath. So he could see if Alexander’s organ was pushing against his breeches like it had been last night.

It was.

“If you’re wondering if I am inflamed,” Alexander said, somewhat dryly, “the answer is yes.”

“Is it because your hands are bound, or because you sincerely wish to do this?”

Alexander peered up at him through dark lashes. “Why can’t it be both? If it comforts you, I’d want to do it even if I wasn’t your captive,” he added. “Please, Peregrine. Just a little. Just a taste. Let me taste you.”

Peregrine didn’t know how to say no to this. He needed to say no—Alexander’s family had killed the only people he’d ever loved—and aside from that very large consideration, he wasn’t the kind of man to use someone else for pleasure when that someone else was a prisoner.

But Alexander’s hands were so warm through the fabric of his shirt as they pressed against his stomach, as they slowly plucked at the linen until it was completely untucked and the buttons of his breeches were exposed. And Alexander’s eyes were so pretty like this, glittering under their dark fringe of lashes, and his mouth looked so soft, and knowing that he was hard as he knelt between Peregrine’s feet...

And then Peregrine’s breeches were unbuttoned and his cock was free, heavy and tumescent and pointing at the ceiling. Alexander’s exhales shivered over the sensitive skin of Peregrine’s shaft, sending bolts of sensation right through his body and making him swell even more. The skin stretched over his crown was so tight that it shone in the firelight.

His captive gave him a wicked grin. “I think you might need this.”

Peregrine grunted. He did, but this was the last person whom he should take it from, and— oh God. Alexander’s tongue ran a wet stripe up his cock and Peregrine nearly fainted. With another wicked grin, Alexander bent over him and took him into his hot, slick mouth.

Peregrine had forgotten. Fuck, he’d forgotten. How it felt to be inside a lover’s mouth, and how much better it was than his own perfunctory hand. He’d forgotten everything else that came with a moment like this—Alexander’s gorgeous hair spilling over Peregrine’s lap, and the soft noises he made as he sucked, and the flirtatious flicks of his gaze up at Peregrine, as if to say, See? See? Aren’t I so good at this?

He couldn’t be sure if it was his hatred of the Darthams or concern for Alexander that made him press his fingers under Alexander’s chin and force Alexander to pull away from his work, but whatever it was, it twisted inside Peregrine like smoke off a bonfire, billowing and thick. “This doesn’t change anything,” he told the younger man. “This won’t change anything.”

“It won’t?” Alexander asked innocently. His lips were wet and slightly swollen from pleasuring Peregrine, and Peregrine couldn’t take it anymore.

He leaned forward to kiss his kidnapped rake.

Alexander’s mouth tasted of wine and sex, and it was so sweet on Peregrine’s tongue, so silky and inviting. Alexander’s tongue fluttered gently against Peregrine’s, almost like he was surprised, and then he whimpered as Peregrine deepened the kiss, plundering Alexander’s mouth like it was a chest of valuables stashed under a carriage seat. He stroked his tongue against Alexander’s and then bit gently at his lower lip before pulling back.

“I’m not going to set you free, no matter how good you suck me.”

“Hmm,” Alexander said, a sly curve to his mouth. “Maybe not. Maybe you’ll decide to keep me instead.”

Before Peregrine could figure out how he felt about that idea, Alexander’s hair was spilling all over Peregrine’s lap once more, and his tongue was doing something incredible around his slit, and then Peregrine was inside Alexander’s mouth again, feeling pressure and suction and wet, wet heat.

The peak that gathered inside Peregrine’s belly was ferocious and frightening—the kind of peak that would tear through him like a musket ball if he let it. And he was going to let it, because Alexander had been right: he was very, very good at this.

Just as his thighs tensed, Alexander looked up and met Peregrine’s eyes. In the dim room, the dark sapphire of the rake’s gaze was nearly impossible to make out, but Peregrine still had the strange feeling that he was seeing the color of something very important.

Something like the color of happiness itself.

His cock swelled against Alexander’s tongue and began pulsing seed deep into his throat—which Alexander seemed to relish swallowing, because he didn’t stop until Peregrine’s cock was completely sated, and Peregrine was drained of every last drop.

Peregrine’s head dropped back, his heart beating fast, his body trembling. Never, not even in a soldier’s tent on the Continent, had he been so expertly and enthusiastically pleasured.

Alexander knew it too, because when Peregrine finally looked back down at his captive, there was a smug expression on his lovely face.

“Told you,” Alexander said.

“You did tell me,” Peregrine agreed, turning to the knot that held Alexander’s bindings to his chair. Alexander watched him with the smugness fading into confusion, and then he laughed as Peregrine stood up and swung him over his shoulder.

“I didn’t even have to escape this time to get carried off by my big, bad highwayman,” he teased as Peregrine grabbed a candlestick with his free hand and then strode into the sacristy.

He dropped Alexander unceremoniously onto the bed, then set the candlestick down. “Clothes off,” Peregrine said. “If you’d like.”

“Oh, I’d always like ,” Alexander purred. “I only have one request.”

Peregrine slanted him a look. “Softer sheets? Better wine? Books? ”

“No,” Alexander said with another grin the devil himself wouldn’t have been able to match for its mischief. “I want your clothes off too.”