Page 13

Benedict hustled me past the guards at the entrance to the ducal apartments, throwing a quick, “If anyone tries to get past you, stab them,” over his shoulder as he did.

“He doesn’t mean that!” I called back, not reassured at all by one of the guards laughing as soon as we were out of sight, and then we were down the hall and through my bedroom door. Benedict kicked it shut behind us with a crash that made me wince, and then let me go so abruptly I went stumbling into my bed, catching hold of the post and pulling myself upright again.

I turned to find him advancing on me with focused intent, eyes glittering.

“That was entirely unacceptable,” I said. “And I absolutely did not —”

“Oh, you absolutely did. Get on your knees.”

“—want you to cause the scandal of the century— what? ”

He took another step. My spine pressed against the bedpost as I tried, uselessly, to back up. “You wanted to play games with me, Lucian. Fine. I played. I came to the reception, and the moment I saw you—do you know how transparent your eyes are, sometimes?” He reached up and stroked his fingers down my cheek and around my jaw, tipping my chin up. My own fingers ached with the force of my grip on the post behind me. “You wanted me to show everyone I’d come when you called. And I did. You should be grateful I brought you back here before I collected on my part of the bargain.”

“Grateful,” I choked. “Grateful? Come when I—you and I both know that’s not what they saw. What any of them will think.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my tone. It’d really started to sink in, what had happened in that ballroom. How deeply I’d humiliated myself with my delusions of being something I wasn’t—and that no one who mattered would really believe I could be. “I played and lost, Benedict. Don’t mock me by pretending otherwise.”

“Lost?” His voice had an odd note to it, something off. His jaw tightened. “Fine. You didn’t want them to see? All right, I fucking did. Get on your knees or I’ll put you there.”

“Bloody well put me there, then, because I’m not going to kneel for—oh!”

With one hand on my shoulder pressing me down, and the other tugging on my waist, he had me on my knees in two seconds, and then instead of my shoulder he had my hair in his grasp. Benedict pulled my head back. Not violently, but irresistibly, enough that the skin of my neck felt stretched and I had trouble getting a full breath.

“Imagine they’re all watching,” he said. “If I’d done this after the dance. Because they might as well be watching, if you’re right about what they thought.” He tugged at his trousers with his other hand, cursed, and then spread his hand over the bulge of his erection. The buttons whispered out of the buttonholes, the placket falling open.

If I’d had his powerful magic, I’d have liked to think I’d have used it for only the most important, meaningful tasks, not for opening up my pants to get my cock sucked.

But I was a man—of course I’d have used it to open my pants to get my cock sucked.

And also because I was a man, without any more moral fiber than any other despite my title and my pride, my own cock throbbed and tented the front of my silk breeches. I knew if I could look down I’d see a damp patch on the pale silk.

“I think you know what to do, don’t you?” Benedict asked. But it wasn’t really a question, of course. He’d taken his cock in hand, and the thick, purplish head pointed right at my mouth. The scent of him rose up, salty and sweet. “Everyone in the ballroom knows what you’re doing right now, Lucian. Every single one of them’s picturing you on your knees for me. And every single one of them is jealous.”

All of them. Every aristocrat and footman, the ambassador, Lord Griset and his smirking friends, dancing and drinking and talking about me—and I couldn’t even try to deny it. They would be agog at the way Benedict had dragged me off, reveling in any lewd speculation they could invent. Benedict putting me on my knees would be the very least of it.

It should’ve withered my erection like a delicate vine in the first frost of winter, but instead my cockhead twitched, more moisture seeping out. I quivered like a hound on a leash, and for a moment I wished they truly were there watching. They would be jealous, all of them, because who could honestly claim to have never thought about what it might be like to have Benedict’s attention, his desire? Of course, he had some nerve, saying it out loud.

The instant my mouth opened he leaned in, his cockhead nudging insistently at my lower lip.

“You’re incredibly arro—mmm—gant,” I slurred, as his cock pushed in. “Thinking they’re jealous over your, oh, your coc—mmm.” If I didn’t swallow, I’d have my own saliva dripping down my chin, but I couldn’t swallow except around his cockhead, wrapping my lips tightly, and then he went deeper, and I started to stroke with my tongue, teasing the ridge of the glans with the tip of it.

Benedict thrust lightly, bumping the roof of my mouth. I blinked away the droplets gathering on my eyelashes. His face went wavery for a moment, reforming with his mouth open and his eyebrows raised.

He shook his head. And laughed. The fucker laughed , as if he found the way I’d started to slurp and whimper around his thick cock amusing .

“Jealous of me, not you. Lucian.” He thrust again, this time filling my mouth completely, stretching my lips obscenely wide. “How could you think I meant—fuck—jealous of anything but your mouth? Your perfect fucking mouth, Dromos fucking save me,” and he broke off in a moan as my throat convulsed, milking him hard enough that it probably hurt.

My perfect mouth. He’d called it pretty when he fucked it the first time, and sweet once or twice since when he had me rouse him with it before he took me, but…perfect.

My perfect mouth, with everyone jealous of it, envying Benedict , not me.

He couldn’t possibly believe that.

But his fist clenched in my hair, his eyes widened, and as I forced myself onto his cock, bruising my own throat to take as many inches as I could, he groaned, shuddered, and spent down my throat in thick, hot pulses, too deep for me to taste.

He’d brought me so close to spending myself, so incredibly fucking close, and before he’d even pulled out of my mouth I was tearing at the front of my breeches, desperate to bring myself off, moaning around his softening cock as it rested on my tongue.

“Yes, fuck,” Benedict said, almost drowned out by the rending tear of my silk breeches. I’d given up on the buttons and didn’t have magic to fall back on. My hand wrapped around my straining cock at last, the relief enough to take me out at the knees if I hadn’t already been on the floor at Benedict’s feet. “Just think if they could see you now, Lucian.”

He released his grip on my hair in time for me to curl in on myself, spending all over the floor, shudders running up and down my body. I tipped forward and leaned my forehead against his hip, moaning into the soft velvet of his doublet, my hand still wrapped around my slippery cock.

“If they could see me, they’d despise me,” I murmured.

Every cell in my body seemed to have grown immensely heavy, sinking down into the earth, even though my mind spun in circles. Had I lost the game I’d played? Or had Benedict even been my opponent in it, the way I’d thought?

“No, they wouldn’t despise you,” Benedict said, and he pulled back, the motion toppling me over. He caught me under the arms and hauled me up, wrapping me in his arms as I found my footing and swayed into his chest. He bent and kissed my ear. “They’d only be twice as jealous of me. Come on. Into bed.”

Bed. No, we hadn’t… “I thought you were going to fuck me and then I’d take a bath,” I complained. Oh, fuck, I was complaining—about not getting fucked. Maybe he wouldn’t notice. And then he chuckled and held me tighter, and yes, he’d noticed. Damn it. “Not that—I want a bath. I hate those receptions. The Surbini ambassador’s trying to screw us on trade negotiations, and Lord Zettine’s clerks passed it through without comment. Which means they must have some reason for—mmph!”

Benedict cut me off with a kiss that crushed my lips and drove every thought of Lord Zettine’s clerks out of my mind. A fresh current of energy trickled through me, reviving parts of my body I’d thought had been exhausted.

No, I couldn’t really believe I’d lost anything at all, not when Benedict bore me back onto my bed, sucking gently on my lower lip, working his way down my throat with flicks of his tongue and soft caresses, with no immediate urgency.

Only desire, and the desire to please—because I couldn’t believe this could all be for him, not really. He might enjoy unlacing my shirt and pressing his lips to my breastbone, undoing each tiny waistcoat button and breathing hotly on my chest through the thin linen that covered it, mouthing over a nipple and glancing up at me with a smile when I squirmed and gripped his shoulders.

Clearly he did enjoy it, because his cock had hardened again, brushing against my inner thigh as he slid down my body.

But he couldn’t enjoy it that much only for its own sake. He had to be taking some pleasure from mine.

He’d been the first to make this a game, taunting and challenging me, telling me how he’d make me enjoy his touch despite my protests. And I’d set out to win, trying to ensure that the tide of public opinion turned in my favor as much as it could, at least, since I hadn’t been able to keep my body from responding to him.

It hadn’t occurred to me until tonight that Benedict might really want us both to win—at least here, when we were alone without the politics and jealousies and ambitions of the court.

Except that we couldn’t ever be entirely without those things, or escape them, could we? Benedict had left for two years, but he’d still returned. And while he hadn’t explained that decision, some of it had to have been the inability to outrun responsibilities we’d both been born and bred to.

“Someone asked me, oh, that feels—” Benedict had eased my breeches down enough to nibble at my hipbone, something he’d already discovered drove me rather mad. Something about the proximity to my cock, and the sensitive skin there, and a nerve ending that transmitted eager need to all the ones lower down and farther in, where I wanted his touch the most. “I can’t think when you’re doing that,” I gasped.

“That’s the idea.” He’d laid me out on the bed at an odd angle, with one of my feet hanging off the end and the other off the side, and he sat up to start tugging at my shoes and maneuvering my legs. “Someone asked you what?”

Gods, I shouldn’t say anything. This topic would surely lead to trouble.

But we were playing a game. Whether we played it on the same side or meant to strive for winner take all, we truly couldn’t avoid the reality of our lives, even here. And I had to have some idea of how he meant this to end. Would he simply finish things between us once he thought I didn’t need his constant protection anymore? Did he have ambitions for the throne, despite his protestations? Or to be the power behind it, which seemed far more likely?

Benedict dropped my shoes to the floor and lifted his head, eyebrows raised, waiting.

My heart juddered so hard I couldn’t get a full breath, and I had to force down the thick lump under my vocal cords.

“Not in so many words.” My voice shook too, and I clenched my hands in the bedding to try to steady myself. “If I meant to marry you. She didn’t approve. Ow! Careful.”

“Sorry. I think I tore your stocking.”

He had, and possibly the skin beneath it. He smoothed his hand up my calf, pushing the stocking back up, and began to loosen the cuff of my breeches. With his head bent down to look more closely at what he’d been doing, he’d hidden his expression from me.

Benedict didn’t speak, moving on to the cuff on the other side with efficient motions that were very careful indeed. Exaggeratedly careful, even.

“It doesn’t matter. So it’s rather absurd, isn’t it? It’s not even legal. Unless you have some arrangement with Lord Zettine to make it legal so you can take the throne that way.”

Benedict looked up at last, face as blank as I’d ever seen it, gray eyes shuttered to an opaque slate. “I’d have thought your objection would be your disgust at the idea, not its illegality.”

I couldn’t read his tone any more than his eyes. And clearly my attempt at turning it into a joke hadn’t been successful.

“Well, yes, of course,” I stammered out. “It’s a horrid thought, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t matter, because it’s impossible,” he snapped, lips curling back in something close to a snarl. “Now do shut up, Lucian. We need to fuck and take care of my curse so you can take your bath, I think.”

I blinked at him in shock at his sudden anger, a cold, stunned numbness spreading down through me, leaving me shivering in its wake.

Well, that answered one of my questions, anyway. How many times had he told me how little he wanted to take or even share the power of my throne? I’d never believed him. But now I did, down to my bones. He didn’t want to be the Crown Duke of Calatria or anything adjacent, not even as a consort.

Perhaps particularly as a consort.

It should have made me deliriously happy, overflowing with relief: my most obvious rival, removing himself from the running. That furious threat he’d made years ago before he left Calatria, to keep me chained to my bed while he ruled in my name, spending his nights using me and his days doing whatever he pleased? That would never come to pass.

But that numbness only spread, leaving my limbs clumsy and awkward as Benedict finished getting my breeches off and arranged me to his liking. My waistcoat hung undone, my shirt loosened and pushed up over my stomach, and he’d left my stockings on, leaving me bare only from the hips to the knees, with him kneeling between my legs fully dressed except for his open trousers. He’d taken a moment to shed his boots and sword belt when he got me on the bed, but he still could’ve been visiting one of those houses of ill repute Lady Violetta objected to so strenuously, ready to go back downstairs and drink for another hour before he chose another companion.

I felt infinitely more exposed than if I’d been completely naked, with only the part of me he wanted to use put on display. Wanton. Debauched. And still sticky from spending on the floor.

Benedict leaned down, bracing himself by my shoulder and stroking his cock to full hardness, looking down between my legs.

Ennolu help me, but my breath came faster and my cock filled under his attention. I couldn’t keep still, restlessly opening myself for him, bracing my feet on the bed and spreading my thighs.

Benedict whispered under his breath. I’d never grow used to it, I didn’t think, no matter how many times I experienced his magic: the frisson all along my limbs, my hair prickling, as a tingling slipperiness spread inside me and slicked my hole.

He bent down and kissed me as he lined up his cock, circling his hips, using his hand to work the thick head into me without hurting me. That had to feel spine-meltingly good for him, the way my tight hole stretched barely enough to let him wedge his cockhead inside my rim.

It did for me, anyway, and I moaned into his kiss, my arms wrapping around him, my clawing fingers gouging furrows in the velvet of his doublet.

Benedict lifted his head enough to look into my eyes. Nothing existed but him, filling my vision, filling my mind, about to fill my body.

“Shhh, Lucian. You can take me.” He kissed me again, lingering, and pressed forward, his cockhead embedded in me now. “You take me better than anyone ever has.”

He slid in slowly, so slowly, still working his way in with swivels of his hips, the thickest part of his shaft eased with another dollop of magically summoned oil. He thrust, and the last couple of inches of him sank in all at once, his balls between my cheeks and mine flattened by the weight of his body pressing down. The thick brush of his hair tickled my cock.

I panted into his mouth, stuffed and transfixed, and brought my knees up to try to ease the pressure, only for him to rock forward, working his cock inside me. Up and down and deeper and deeper, until the buzzing under my skin became almost unbearable and I writhed beneath him, throwing my head back and moaning.

It seemed to go on forever, that thorough, deliberate claiming of my body. Sweat stuck my shirt to my skin, dampened the silk stockings he’d left on my legs, beaded on my temples and upper lip. Benedict licked it off, bit at my jaw, and thrust harder at last, his cock driving into me mercilessly.

The luxurious velvet of his doublet caressed the head of my cock, so soft, and the edge of a band of silver-thread embroidery caught on the ridge of my glans, not enough to hurt, but enough. More than enough.

I spent first, ruining his doublet and my own silk waistcoat.

He spent a moment later, ruining me, filling me so deeply I didn’t think I’d ever be free of him.

Benedict dropped his head onto the bed beside mine, shuddering with an aftershock of his pleasure. His cock twitched inside me. My little sigh sounded more like a sob.

“I’ll go start your bath running in a moment,” he said, muffled by the bedding. “One moment.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Horrid. Marrying him, spending the rest of our lives like this, would be horrid and impossible and awful, although we didn’t need to be married to spend every night—but no.

No.

Impossible. He’d said so.

And I wouldn’t start desperately rationalizing, arguing my way to a different conclusion to this, even inside my own mind, because if I did that I’d have to think about why I would even try in the first place.

“Lucian? Are you all right?”

Impossible.

“Yes,” I said.

No.

But I’d lost the game, and that was that.