Page 36

Thirty-Five

KILMARNOCK ABBEY, EDINBURGH - SEPTEMBER 15, 1816

TOM

This was my favorite place in the entire world. Sunk deep into the feather mattress of Xander’s bed with him curled along my side as our sweat cooled in the firelight. I used the opportunity to run my fingers through the hair he would never allow me to muss during the light of day. Every so often, a shudder would run through me when my body remembered the things he did to me, the way he spoke.

His breath was soft against my chest. He traced nonsense patterns in the hair there. Occasionally he froze before returning to the soothing designs. After the fourth time, I caught his hand in mine—the one that wasn’t tangled in his silken waves. It was a temptation impossible to resist, and I pulled his hand to my lips and pressed a kiss on his fingertips. A filthy thought crossed my mind when my lips met his finger, but I brushed it aside for another day. I was far too spent for such teasing, so I set him free to resume his drawing.

“Tell me,” I demanded, my lazy tone discordant with the contentment I felt.

“What?”

“Whatever is causing that little divot right there,” I said, pressing a fingertip to the line between his dark brows.

Broad shoulders rose and fell at my side with his sigh. “I need to discuss something with you and I do not wish to.”

“Does it have anything to do with your conversation with Sorcha the other day?”

His stubble brushed against my chest with his nod.

“Tell me.”

“She asked me to raise the babe as my own.” He left the sentence to hang there, alone, in the crackle of the firelight.

“And you agreed?”

“Not yet. I wanted to speak with you first. But… I should— I would like to if her mind remains unchanged.”

My heart clenched and then refused to unclench, and I felt my blood run icy. “I see,” I choked out.

“She wants the babe to have the benefit of my name.”

The world turned sluggish, moving in slow motion even as my thoughts raced ahead. It was selfish, the question echoing again and again in my mind. Where does that leave me? There was a child in question, an innocent babe. I knew what happened to bastard children, I’d seen it with my own eyes. Michael may have made something of himself, but he’d also born the cost of my father’s poor choices. It was unquestionably the right thing for Xander to do—give the baby a life.

“When will you—” wed her remained unsaid, trapped in my tight throat.

“As soon as I decide, I suppose.”

“And it is… legal?” Even as I asked, I knew the answer. By law, Sorcha was the daughter of Mr. McAllen and bore absolutely no relation to Xander.

“Probably not. But I feel confident we can find a loophole of sorts, somehow.”

The marriage wouldn’t be consummated, I was certain of that. So why was my stomach threatening to revolt?

“I know it is probably not what you intended, when you set off for Scotland,” Xander said. “But it would be in the best interests of the child.”

“No, of course the child should have a name.” My throat bobbed with a harsh swallow.

“So you believe that I should?”

“You are right. It is best for the child.” I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears welling up, grateful his head was still tucked into the nook between my arm and chest. “When should I—” my ragged breath broke off the end of the sentence. “Go?”

Xander shot up to face me, hand pressing down on my chest for leverage, grinding away the knot there of his own tying. “Go! Go where?”

“London, I suppose. Or Kent. The weather may cause difficulties.”

“Oh, you do not wish to? It is too much?” His voice was strained and his expression unreadable, all wide eyes and angled brows. But something in the words, a note of incredulity gave me pause.

“I cannot watch you with a wife, Xander,” I explained, feeling the overwrought exhaustion settle in my form.

“What wife?” His hand flung out in a perfectly Xander gesture before he lost balance, propped the way he was, and it slammed back down on my chest. Whether it was his weight or the words that forced the breath from my lungs, the effect was the same, a breathless, desperate, hopeful inhalation.

“Sorcha.”

“Why in the damned hell would I marry Sorcha?”

“To give the babe a name!” I moved to sit up but his hand was in the way.

“You thought… Christ, Tom, I planned to lie! Not bind myself in holy matrimony to my niece. What the hell is wrong in your head?”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d consummate it. How was I to know you were planning to lie?”

“Fuck, did you think I was sending you away?”

“What else was I to think?”

He pressed more of his weight into the palm on my chest. “We’ve had this conversation. You made your choice! You’re stuck with me. I was offering the opportunity for you to change your mind. You’re barely more than twenty years old— I wasn’t certain you were prepared to act as a father to a babe. But now, I’ve decided you’re staying here with me. You’re not allowed to leave.”

The pressure of Xander’s hand was nothing against the weightless elation seeping into every pore of my body. “This bed? Or…”

Fingers curled possessive above my heart. “Yes, the bed. You’ll die here.”

“A little death?”

“Thomas Grayson, are you angling for something?” The teasing insinuation, delivered in a low timber had my cock twitching in interest.

“I did not think I was being particularly subtle.”

“You were not. But while you are not yet two and twenty, I am thirty and it seems I lack the stamina to satisfy you.”

The hair of his forearms was thick and coarse when I clasped it, catching as I dragged my nails along it. “I have no complaints in that respect.” I laced our fingers together and brought them together to the headboard. The effort aligned our lips and I stole a filthy kiss.

“You still have my spend inside you and you want more. So greedy…” he tutted when we pulled apart. It was a performative effort, belied by his own rapidly stiffening cock pressed against my side.

The still-dawning relief, his words, our kiss; it all had my heart racing. Xander untangled our fingers and held mine against the headboard in a silent command. Cold air rushed in as he unfurled himself from my side and abandoned our bed.

My whimper was instinctive, impossible to restrain in the face of an absence of contact and an exceptional view.

I watched with concupiscent eyes the smooth, carved marble flesh of his arse as he bent to retrieve some item or other from wherever we flung it.

When he turned with two pieces of cloth, one in each fist, I was unsurprised to find one black and one white fluttering rectangle.

My swallow was loud against the ambient crackling fire and the pad of his footsteps. The bed dipped under his weight and he raised the black cravat between thumb and forefinger along with his brow.

“Yes?”

In lieu of an answer, I brought my free hand up to join the other. Xander’s pink tongue dipped between his lips. Then he caught the hand and moved it to the post. Instinctively, my fingers curled around it as he looped the fabric around the wood, then my wrist and tied it off with a simple knot.

The image of his strong, masculine fingers twisting in his fine silk cravat for the purposes of restraining me, keeping me with him forever. It would be etched in my memory until the day I died.

“Comfortable?” He interrupted my nodded response to add, “Words. This only works with words.”

His insistence forced a sliver of sobriety and I tested the restraint, first gently, then with a bit of strength. I was positive that if I twisted my wrist the right way, I could free myself. But Christ, I never wanted to be free.

“It’s so good.”

Those sturdy fingers trailed up the length of my arm with a teasing delicacy that left me breathless.

Without warning, Xander shifted to throw a leg over my thighs, straddling me.

“Fuck!” No utterance had ever escaped me with less forethought. But the sight of his darkening cock beside my own was too much to bear in silence.

His smile was teasing as he repeated his flirtatious trail in reverse up my free arm—still fastened with nothing but a desire to please to the headboard.

Unlike his, my cravat was a plain cotton lawn in an unremarkable white. When Xander finished trussing me up for both of our pleasure, I was left to appreciate the contrast in fabrics.

“That one?”

I tested it. There was no pinching or undue tightness, but the reality of both of my hands rendered useless above my head sent my heart fluttering.

“Perfect.”

“And your shoulders? Nothing aches?” Even as I felt myself sinking into dazed, sensual fervor, I fought to consider my shoulders.

“No, no pain.”

Assured of my comfort, Xander traced intoxicating lines along my chest and stomach. “I finally found the benefit to your long cricket limbs.”

The laugh escaped my chest in a single huff.

But then, arresting chocolate eyes found mine and mirth was the farthest thing from my mind. “In twenty minutes, when you’re begging, I want you to remember that you asked for this. You chose me. You were made for this, for me.”

“Xander?”

“Do you remember that first time in the shed?”

“Vividly.” Every moment with Xander was etched in my memory—always.

“You’ll remember this vividly too. Now, I need a word for you to say if you wish to stop.”

“Snuffbox,” I supplied with almost no thought. “But I won’t wish for you to stop.”

He raised a brow at my choice but said nothing. Instead, he located the oil from atop his trunk. I used the opportunity to lick a stripe along his side while he was close.

When he pulled back, it was with a reproachful look and a familiar vial in hand. The clink of the stopper pulling free—a signifier of ecstasy to come—now drew blood to my cock.

Slowly, Xander trailed a stream of oil over my prick. For a brief second, it was cool before warming with my flesh. Again my cock danced at the sound of the stopper knocking against the neck of the bottle.

My lungs worked too quickly, and half-heartedly, I was left lightheaded with needy anticipation.

Finally, after an eternity, Xander set the oil beside the bed and drew a feather light fingertip along the line of my cock.

Thoughtless, my hand went to reach for his, to curve his palm around my member. When the cravat snapped against my wrist, it took a moment for understanding to burn through the fog of lust.

Xander’s smile was pleased in response to my whimper. “I’ve barely begun, and look at you. Already weeping for me,” he murmured as he caught the bead of liquid that escaped my cock.

He brought that finger up to my lips, then dipped it inside when they opened on an astonished gasp. I was intimately familiar with his taste, but I’d never experienced my own. As I swirled my tongue obscenely around his finger—aiming to tempt the man—I could only wonder what we tasted like together.

Christ, he’d made a deviant of me. I’d never had such thoughts before Alexander Hasket had shown me pleasure beyond my wildest imaginings. Now I was depraved, feral, desperate. If there was something Xander could do to or with me that wouldn’t leave me begging for more, I didn’t know the name of it.

He pulled his finger free, grumbling, “Later,” when I chased after it.

My lower abdomen clenched at the thought of his graveled promise. “Like this?” I shrugged so there was no mistaking my meaning.

“Yes.”

Apparently having tired of teasing, Xander’s mouth found my cock, taking me to the hilt in one practiced swallow.

Both hands jerked against the restraints, frantic for the grounding touch I’d become so accustomed to. His hands, his hair, anything to keep myself tethered to earth. But he’d already done the tethering. Xander had ensured I wasn’t going anywhere. No, I was left to watch, helpless, breathless, as he inflicted unendurable pleasure upon me.

The sounds ripped from my chest were pathetic, whiny, and all his. He slid a hand up to tweak a nipple and my hands shook in their bindings. My hips circled in a relentless search for more, harder, too much, too fast, not enough. It wasn’t until the fifth time he backed off when I thrust forward that understanding dawned.

“You’re a cruel monster.”

He pulled off my cock with a soft pop leaving it cold and lonely. “You’ve just now made that discovery?” With a prowling, cat-like grace, he climbed the length of me to cup my cheek. “You’re not in charge here. The sooner you learn that, the easier it will be on you.” The tenor with which he delivered the devastating line was a soft, sensual, teasing caress of my mind.

“Xander…”

“Shhh, I’m going to feed you my cock for a bit. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

If it was possible to get harder, I didn’t know how. I didn’t know anything except how to nod for him.

Behind my head, he adjusted a few pillows, ensuring the angle was just right for me to take his— fuck I was going to die . My thoughts were sluggish and tinged in a warm, flossy glow. Every single word, every single action, brought me closer to my ultimate state, a babbling, mindless mess devoted to nothing but sucking, fucking, worshiping this man.

Warm hands found my shoulders and squeezed. “Still fine?” he asked, tone different, severe.

He wanted an actual answer. I swam to the surface of the sensual pool I’d melted into the bottom of to consider properly. My shoulders were stiff, tight, but with lust not discomfort. My wrists chafed against the fabric that bound them, but the bite was pleasant. “Yes, yes,” I choked out.

“Good, because you’re going to look so pretty with your lips wrapped around my cock. And I wouldn’t want to be interrupted.”

My descent back to the depths of loving depravity began with those two sentences but was seemingly endless. Why did my gut twist and flip in ecstasy every time he called me pretty? And why was it so damn obvious, if his smirk was any indication?

He adjusted so he knelt overtop me, one foot by my ear, the other knee by my shoulder, and his perfect cock right there . I strained, trying to reach the hard flesh with mouthwatering desperation.

Hushing me again, his thumbs dragged over my burning cheeks. “Every time I think it’s not possible for you to be any prettier, you manage it.”

And then, finally, at last, his delicate flesh met my lips. His cock was weeping and I allowed myself a brief revelry in the knowledge that he was as affected as I was, swirling my tongue to gather the evidence.

“Oh, no. We’re not doing that. You’re going to lay there and take what I give you like a good boy.”

Fuck!

Objectively, he was being quite gentle, loving, with me, fucking my mouth in slow, shallow thrusts while he braced against the very headboard I was tied to. But the lack of agency, of control, was intoxicating. My only responsibility was to lay here and allow the man I loved to find his pleasure with and in my body. I was there to be pretty, to be good, for him.

“You’re doing so well.”

My eyes fluttered shut at the praise, letting it seep into my skin, become a part of me, until it was a fundamental truth of my being.

“Eyes on me,” he demanded. They snapped open instantly, eager to fulfill his every whim. “Do you see what you do to me?”

I had been falling, lost in a sea of sensation and dizzy thoughts. But Xander… The telltale splotchy darkening of flesh that indicated a flush, covered every sinewy muscle of his chest, his abdomen, his arms, the lines of his cheek. His eyes, too, were black as pitch, swallowed by his pupils. Those lips, so recently wrapped around my cock, were parted, damp. Sweat glistened at his temple, sliding in rivulets to land on his chest. A few drops were navigating the forest of hair to trail down, down, down. I hoped they would land on me. And his cock, his beautiful cock, was impossibly hard and weeping—for me.

“You see now, you see how perfect you are for me?” He must have sensed my nod because he buried himself to the hilt and paused there before pulling out of my mouth. I chased after him, earning a condescending chuckle that had my cock twitching.

“We’ll give your pretty mouth a break. Play with your pretty hole.”

The sound that escaped my chest was unrecognizable. My lungs fought for air, but it seemed no matter how great my gulps, it was never enough.

He slid to the side and down my body. Once there, he tapped my knees, not that I needed encouragement to open for him. His hands drew soothing lines down my trembling thighs as he settled between them.

“You don’t even need oil, do you? You’re still dripping my spend.”

“No, no, I don’t need it.” My voice was rattled and hoarse.

“What do you think, should I fuck you every morning so you can go about each day with the evidence of my desire leaking out of you? Would that help you remember that you’re wanted, needed, essential?”

“Yes, God yes!”

He hummed, then slipped a too-light hand along the crevice of my arse. And then, without a hint of his usual warning, he slid two fingers inside.

“Fuck!”

“I don’t have to warm you up. You’re already stretched for me, aren’t you?”

“Yes, yes.” I babbled, hips circling as he probed for the spot. The spot that usually left me in this wanton, pleading state. What would it do to me when he located it and I was already there?

On the third stroke, he found it and my heart shot from my chest. My arms wrenched against the headboard in my frenzied thrashing.

Now that he’d struck it, he was relentless in his destruction of my sanity. Whether it was seconds, hours, or days, it didn’t matter. Not when he pressed down, rocking his finger there in unceasing, exquisite, agony.

In great shuddering gasps, I spilled across my chest as I succumbed to white pleasure.

The world returned beneath dreamy, sensual waves. First there was the sound of Xander’s groan, sending a shudder of pleasure down my spine, then the sensation of his seed joining with my own in the divots of my abdomen. His hand swirled there, mixing it like paint, before he brought a hand to my lips. Instinctively, I opened, savoring the offering on his finger before he pulled it back and cupped my face in a filthy kiss.

I was still lost in the tingly, blissful numbness that always accompanied my postcoital moments with Xander, but this—tonight, it was more. Stronger, brighter, it left me feeling softer, more languid and loose-limbed, in spite of my still-trapped hands.

He was responsible for directing this kiss because I wasn’t capable of more than allowing him to take his fill. Our spend, still on his hand, began to cool on my cheek before he finished with me. For one brief moment, he allowed himself the luxury of collapsing against me before he reached for the knots on the cravats.

They came free from the posts, still wrapped around my wrists when I reached for him. My shoulders protested the movement but it was a pleasant ache.

Xander’s breath was ragged even as mine had slowed like that of sleep. He wriggled underneath me to rub my biceps, collarbone, shoulders—still leaving a mess wherever he went. It took a moment to identify the additional dampness—seeping from his eyes into the crook of my neck.

“Xander?”

“You’re so damn beautiful. Where did you come from? You cannot be made for me like this. It’s not possible.” His voice was thick and hoarse with overwrought adoration.

I swallowed the knot of emotions. “I was though. I was made for you and you were made for me. And whatever comes next, it will be well.”

“Even if I’m making a father of you at one and twenty with absolutely no notice?”

“Even then.”

He sighed and pushed himself off me with a weary look at the mess he’d made of us.

“Christ, we’re going to need a bath.”

“I will not be the one to ask someone to draw it. Can you imagine? We’d never hear the end of it.”

“We may not even now. You were a little loud at the end.”

“Worth it.” My grin was lecherous as I shoved a hand beneath my head. The slight twinge in my shoulder was easily ignored as long as I could luxuriate in the sight of him. Naked and covered in us, I relaxed as he located and then discarded various shirts and handkerchiefs to find a suitable rag.

“There is an obvious solution,” I said when he finally returned with a length of toweling.

“What is that?” He wiped, somewhat effectually, at his artwork on my stomach.

“The lake, right outside.”

His face twisted in disgust before he consciously fought for something neutral. The effect was rather that of a distraught puppy.

“Not tonight then,” I said, laughing. “But you’re going to need a bigger rag.”

“This was so arousing, essential, when I did it,” he whined, gesturing at his chest.

“It was…”

“Remind me of this next time.”

“Absolutely not. If you thought I was capable of speech in that moment, you were grossly mistaken. And even if I had been, you could not have paid me to stop you.”

“Hmmm.” He paused his fussing for a moment, a pleased, self-satisfied smile slipping over his face.

I cupped his cheek and pulled him down to press my lips against his. “I love you,” I whispered when we broke apart.

His lips slid to one side in his signature, odd little facsimile of a smile.

“I love you too.”