Page 43 of To Defend a Damaged Duke (Regency Rossingley #2)

BENEDICT’S TIREDNESS SEEPED through to his bones.

He was foot sore. Head sore. Back sore. His thighs burned too; it had been some years since he’d crouched up in the saddle.

God, that race seemed a lifetime ago now.

Rich food, late in the evening, had his belly aching.

Even his nerves were frayed from being flattered by ladies and from flattering them in return.

Far from becoming a social pariah after being caught on the balcony with Mrs de Villiers, his currency had increased tenfold.

Finally, Benedict heaved himself into his waiting carriage. His eyelids drooped. With a grateful sigh and a very ungentlemanly, loud belch, he sank back into the plush seat.

“Is there space in there for another?”

Benedict’s skin couldn’t even summon the reserves to blush. “I…ah…didn’t anticipate anyone would hear that.”

“Hear what, Your Grace?”

Benedict’s lips, sore from ceaseless talk, would never be too sore to break into a smile upon hearing that dear, amused voice.

“So,” the voice asked again, its wild honey timbre coursing through him like a balm. “Is there room?”

“In my heart?” Benedict prised his eyelids open. The effort was worth it. “No. You already occupy every square inch.”

The carriage door closed as Tommy took the seat beside him. Like a seamless puzzle, his smaller fingers slotted neatly between Benedict’s. His warm thigh rested loosely alongside.

“I’m so sorry,” Tommy whispered, squeezing his hand, “that you had to endure all of that.”

“Yes,” agreed Benedict, the one word encapsulating his thoughts. “But it is done. I am free from scrutiny, and Francis is set to marry.” He heaved a sigh. “And yet…Lyndon…his happiness, his mind, his sanity… He is a constant worry to me.”

A cushion of stillness settled around them as they jolted over the quiet cobbled streets.

How marvellous it would be if Tommy could accompany him home, lead him to bed, and wrap Benedict up in his arms. To wake him early and make love.

Soon, he would ask Tommy to join him on another trip to the lodge so they could do just that.

For now, though, he would make do with the pad of Tommy’s thumb gently soothing across his knuckles, curing his aching head.

Savouring it, sinking into the lull of his horses’ hooves, Benedict’s eyes drifted closed.

*

“THIS IS NOT my house,” he observed thickly, roused by the sudden quiet. Benedict wiped a hand across his gritty jaw, blinking into the night. “Nor is it your club.”

“No.” Tommy untangled their hands. “We are outside Rossingley’s town house.”

More company? Benedict needed his bed, not drinks and conversation, no matter how comforting. Instead of climbing down, Tommy shifted in his seat, turning towards him.

“There is something I must tell you, Benedict. I have…I have a few empty rooms above Squire’s. Four, to be precise. As we speak, three are being furnished and turned into bedchambers, which will be available to my patrons should they require an overnight stay.”

Benedict nodded. On the vanishingly rare occasions he’d overindulged, he’d done the same himself, at White’s. Though he didn’t know what this had to do with Rossingley. Or himself. “And the fourth?”

Tommy hesitated. In the dim light, Benedict fancied his skin took on a rosier hue.

“It is being furnished as a bedchamber also. But, should it please you, reserved for your use and mine. The presence of the other bedchambers means you may come and go as you please, at night and in the morning, and nobody will think anything of it.”

Benedict sagged back in the seat. A bedchamber, here in London.

To share with Tommy. Night after night. Year after year after year.

Such a glorious thing, squeezed in amongst his fatigue and despair.

More wonderful than any Gold Cup, more wonderful than a dukedom.

A small, tired smile crept across his face.

“As a single man without wife and issue,” he ventured, “it would not be so unusual for me to spend several nights a week at my club.”

“Not unusual at all,” agreed Tommy. “Nobody would think anything of it.” He brought Benedict’s hand to his lips. “I believe we are employing a strategy referred to in the magical trade as misdirection .”

“Misdirection.” As a declaration of love, Benedict’s romantic, poetic mind couldn’t find fault. “How I wish I could kiss you properly right this minute.”

Tommy’s kissable lips widened into a grin. He opened the carriage door. “If you wait another few minutes, you can. And more, if His Grace wishes it. Our own bedchamber is not yet ready, but I believe I can offer you the next best thing.”

Benedict faltered. “You’ve lost me.”

“Rossingley runs an unusual household.” Tommy glanced up at the solid, austere property.

“His staff is… ‘Specially curated’ is how he describes them. Put more simply, they comprise the biggest bunch of fruits in the whole of London town, this side of a molly house.” Lest Benedict’s groom overhear, he pressed his mouth to Benedict’s ear.

“Frankly, poppet , you and I could fornicate on the stairs, and no one would take a blind bit of notice.”

As Benedict’s chin dropped in wonder, Tommy added, “But, don’t fret. That won’t be necessary. I have reserved us a sumptuous bedchamber for the night.”

*

FUNNY THING, TIREDNESS . There one minute, dashed off the next.

Benedict had every confidence the bedchamber was magnificent—Rossingley didn’t stint on luxury.

But for all he cared, it could have been a tiny garret at the top of a molly house, accommodating nothing but a narrow cot with a single mean pillow.

The simple reason? His beautiful Tommy was in it, and he was removing Benedict’s evening coat, his waistcoat, his cuff buttons, his shirt.

He crouched at Benedict’s aching feet, detaching first one dance slipper and then the other.

Stockings unfurled and breeches followed.

Throwing aside the coverlet, he laid thick towels in its place.

“I have a bowl of hot water, soap, and many more towels. Lie back, close your eyes.”

Tommy washed him first—his face, dabbing and drying in turn, sprinkling kisses across Benedict’s clean cheeks, his nose, his eyelids, his forehead. Kissing his mouth, Tommy lingered awhile to taste him, to love him.

He took his hands, one by one. Tommy cherished the palms and each finger, cleansing where so many had grasped them that day, so they were new and Tommy’s alone.

Leaving a trail of lather and soap, his strong fingers glided under Benedict’s arms. He bathed the nape of his neck until it no longer itched with dried sweat.

Benedict’s body thrummed back to life; he smelled the citrussy, almondy fragrance of the soap; and he began to smell himself, his own heady arousal.

And then the washcloth and the soap travelled lower, to the dark pelt of his chest, so different to his lover’s and yet so loved by him.

They moved across the planes of his belly, soft and tender, and its thick arrow of coarse hair.

Tommy lingered there, too, until Benedict’s hips shifted.

His prick rudely vied for attention. It was rewarded with a tiny peck on the tip.

“Patience, my love.”

Water droplets tickled the hairs on Benedict’s shins as Tommy’s lips caressed the inside edge of one knee and then the other. He nudged apart Benedict’s thighs. He flexed his knees, bent his hips, exposing Benedict’s shadowy, most intimate groove. The warm cloth slipped in there too.

And then the pad of a soapy finger pressed against his hole. Benedict tensed.

“You must stop wriggling.” Tommy’s lips curved into a grin against Benedict’s thigh. “You are a veritable worm.”

“I cannot.” His face burned, and he squirmed some more. “Even my bones are mortified.”

Tommy cut his objection short by crowding the damp fingers of his free hand against Benedict’s lips. “Hush, Your Grace. Let me worship you. Every part of you.” His grey eyes crinkled. Benedict could barely meet them. “Shall I have to distract you with more misdirection?”

“What? Yes, no! But surely, there are some parts that—”

Sharp teeth bit down on Benedict’s thigh.

“Ow!”

Tommy’s fingertip slid inside.

“Oh. Oh, I…”

“Shh.” Tommy’s other hand muffled Benedict’s protesting words. His obscene mouth closed around one of Benedict’s ballocks, suckling on it like a tit. Benedict did not think he had ever felt so utterly hamstrung .

And then, Tommy’s mouth left his ballocks to fit over his jutting prick.

Burying him to the hilt. He drew his teeth back along Benedict’s shaft, circling—nay, teasing—the head and swallowed again.

Swallow, bury, repeat, swallow, bury, repeat as though measuring the length and checking for accuracy.

Or, as though hell-bent on his lips forming an unholy union with that criminal, inquisitive finger.

He swept back and forth, back and forth, imprinting over and over upon a singular sensitive nubbin, a diabolical nubbin that had Benedict cursing, writhing, and begging for more.

In fact, if not for the fingers of Tommy’s other hand, lewdly jammed in Benedict’s mouth, it was exceedingly possible the entire household would be privy to his pleasure.

Was that…was it two fingers? Oh Lord, it was.

It was two fingers. And one mouth, one bleeding, scorching tunnel of a mouth.

Benedict felt skewered, like a fish dangling on a hook, except with no desire for escape.

Quite the opposite in fact. Leaning into it, he clutched the short strands of Tommy’s hair, shoving his hips up and Tommy’s head down, burying his lips into the tight curls at his groin.

The pressure of his release swelled. “I’m…I’m…”

Truth be told, he didn’t know what he was; words and conscious thought dissolved in a miasma of need and want and Tommy’s mouth.

And in his fingers; those damned undignified, magnificent fingers.

With whitened vision, a spine-tingling shudder, and an even more undignified roaring noise, Benedict’s embarrassment dissolved in a tidal wave of release.

Demanding, unstoppable, it pulsed from him in the blink of an eye to last, infinitesimally, for years.

“Benedict,” said Tommy softly from his spot between Benedict’s quivering thighs.

Benedict had a suspicion he’d already called his name a few times.

Silvery threads of spend speckled his lover’s reddened upper lip as though he’d looted a spider’s web.

Benedict’s prick jumped alarmingly when Tommy swiped it with the tip of his tongue.

Tommy’s eyes flicked down to it. “Again? So soon?”

“If so, then it is a miracle, and the only organ of my body left alive,” Benedict croaked.

Very deliberately, Tommy crawled up Benedict and straddled his hips. With long, slow strokes, grinning down, he fisted himself. His other hand reached behind.

“I have not…I did not know.” Benedict gesticulated vaguely. If the pretty man on his lap wasn’t doing that , he would have screwed his eyes shut. “That…one could…that a finger…”

“Two fingers,” Tommy pointed out.

Two fingers . “That it felt…that I could…like that.” Hysteria edged his breathy chuckle. “I fear that, for all these years, these lonely years, I have been eating eggs without salt.”

Tommy’s abbreviated laugh ended on a soft moan. A solitary pearl of wetness glistened at the tip of his cock, like a tiny shimmering piece of him. On instinct, Benedict reached out to catch it, then touched his finger to his tongue.

Tommy moaned again, dampness glimmering on his brow. “Touch yourself, Benedict. Watch me as you touch yourself.”

“I can look nowhere else.” Unbidden, Benedict’s hands went to his groin, his sensitive member already stiffening. “The devil’s own serpents couldn’t drag my eyes away.”

Like a voyeur at a paper peep show, he frigged himself hard as Tommy, lost in pleasure, teetered on the precipice.

His fist flew back and forth; his chest heaved ragged, harsh breaths.

A crimson flush spread across Tommy’s smooth chest. Benedict followed the path of it with his palm to pinch the flat disc of a nipple, then pluck at the other.

Tommy’s crisis rolled though him. The first spill seared Benedict’s cheek, the second plastered his neck, the third splashed his belly. The fourth mingled with Benedict’s own. If any more issued forth it was lost between them as Tommy slumped in his arms. This time, neither of them moved.