Just a Little Heartache

by Merry Farmer

  The frustration of being so close and so far went double when it came to Niall.

  “There’s no telling when or if Annamarie will send us word of where she is or when she wants to meet,” Niall sighed as he removed his coat and jacket, then sat on the end of the room’s other bed to eat his supper. “We should be ready to hear from her at any moment, or not to hear from her at all.”

  Blake huffed a wry laugh and swallowed the last bite of his pasty, washing it down with beer. “If she doesn’t return the children to me tomorrow, I’m going to the police.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t suggest going to the police the moment we got here,” Niall admitted, his mouth full.

  Blake sent him a tired look. “I trust people too much, remember? I am trying to trust Annamarie to do the right thing in this situation. Frightening her could hurt my cause in the end.”

  Niall narrowed his eyes slightly. “You always refer to her as Annamarie. I don’t think I’ve heard you refer to her as your wife until you said as much to Lady Archibald.”

  Blake crumpled the paper his pasty had come in and stood to remove his coat, something he hadn’t done when they entered the room. “I don’t think of her that way,” he said, turning away from Niall to drape his coat over one of the room’s chairs and toss the pasty wrapper into the bin.

  “No,” Niall said, sarcasm in his voice. “I suppose I’m the one you think of that way.”

  Blake glanced over his shoulder at Niall as he unbuttoned his jacket. Niall had been a bastard since they reached Liverpool that morning, but it was only because he was tired. And distraught. Blake might have been the one in the greatest amount of distress, but that didn’t exempt Niall from feeling it as well. He’d been the same way in the week leading up to the performance of the play at university. In a paradoxical way, Niall in a rotten mood was even more endearing than cheerful Niall.

  Blake shrugged out of his jacket and hung that on the back of the chair, then peeled off his waistcoat as well. There was no point in being modest in front of Niall. The man had already seen everything there was to see and then some. And at the moment, all Blake wanted to do was put on his pajamas and go to bed, hoping that tomorrow brought everything he’d been wishing for since Annamarie left.

  “You’re not wife material,” he said at last, slipping off his shoes, leaving them in the middle of the floor, and opening his suitcase to retrieve his pajamas.

  Niall laughed tiredly. “No, if either of us were to claim that role, it would be you.” He stood and carried his pasty wrapper and empty bottle to the bin, glancing at Blake with one eyebrow raised.

  “Me?” Blake’s mouth twitched into a half grin as he shut the lid of his suitcase and tugged his shirt out of his trousers. “What makes you say that?”

  For a brief moment, Niall stared at him, heat in his eyes. Blake’s insides shivered in expectation as he pulled his shirt off over his head, daring Niall to look longer. By the time he tossed it aside, Niall had stepped away to open his own suitcase.

  “You’re much better as a hostess than I am,” he said, his back to Blake as he fished for his pajamas. “At least, I’m assuming you are. Isn’t that what they teach aristocrats to do? Entertain?”

  “It’s part of the job,” Blake admitted, unbuttoning his trousers. The prospect of being naked in the same room as Niall had him half hard within seconds, but he was well aware there was no point in being aroused at the moment. His prick didn’t seem to agree, though. “Aristocrats have to do something, considering we’re not supposed to be employed in any way. Except for sitting in the House of Lords.”

  “And why haven’t you done that yet?” Niall asked, his back still turned as he shrugged out of his clothes.

  “Not interested,” Blake said with a shrug, stepping out of his trousers and drawers and reaching for his pajama bottoms. “I’ve had no interest in traveling to London.”

  “Are you avoiding me?” Niall asked.

  When Blake twisted to peek at him, he found Niall staring at his naked backside. Staring with craving in his eyes. Blake caught his breath, a shiver passing through him. He could still feel the burn in his arse from that last time with Niall, and going by the look in Niall’s eyes, he wanted to relive those memories and then some.

  “Yes,” Blake answered, meeting Niall’s gaze and holding it. He meant it both in terms of avoiding Niall and inviting him to do whatever he wanted to him.

  Niall snapped away, resuming his evening toilet. “You’d also make the better wife because you’re far more domestic than I am.” Blake could tell he was trying to speak casually, but a new tension had entered his voice.

  “I won’t deny that,” Blake admitted, putting his pajamas on. “I am unashamed to say that I love my home and I love my children. My father used to chastise the hell out of me for doting on Greta and Jessie when they were babies. He said I was no sort of man at all for cooing and cuddling what he called mewling, disgusting infants.”

  “He said that?” Niall turned back to him, an offended frown creasing his brow.

  It wasn’t the frown that caught Blake’s attention, though. Niall wore only his pajama bottoms. His torso was exposed, and the sight of it made Blake’s mouth go dry. At some point in the past ten years, Niall had developed an extraordinarily masculine form. His broad chest was well-muscled with just a bit of tawny hair. His belly was flat and firm, and his waist was trim. Blake’s half-erection hardened to a full-blown cockstand, and he had to slip quickly into bed to stop his arousal from being obvious to Niall.

  “Father was a traditionalist,” he said, hoping discussions of his father would settle his body. “Men were to enjoy shooting, riding, sporting, and whoring. They weren’t to care two bits about feelings, children, art, or especially music.”

  “I bet he loathed your piano playing then.” Niall continued to pretend he hadn’t noticed how turned on Blake was, though Blake was completely certain he was not only aware, he was aroused as well. He guessed as much by the way Niall dashed under his covers as quickly as Blake had.

  “He detested it,” Blake laughed, squirming until he found a comfortable position on his side that prevented the bedclothes from tenting above him. “The only thing that stopped him from demanding I cease playing was how convenient it was as a way to entertain his friends. Well, that and death.”

  “There’s always death,” Niall quipped.

  They both laughed uneasily.

  “To tell you the truth,” Blake sighed, “I was relieved when that fever took him. And to this day I feel like the worst sort of son for thinking as much. I did love him, but his death meant I could be free. I didn’t have to live under his shadow, toeing his line, anymore.”

  “Had Alan been born by then?” Niall asked, shifting to his side to watch Blake.

  “No, Father’s death precipitated the need to conceive an heir,” Blake said. “One of the first things I remember thinking after Father passed was that, once I got that job done, I would never have to sleep with her again.”

  “I’m sorry.” Niall was all sympathy.

  Blake grinned. His swell of emotion could best be described as bizarre, but of all people, Niall would understand how comforting sympathy was where that particular subject was concerned.

  He shifted slightly to stare out the window past Niall’s bed. “After Alan was born, I used to imagine what life would be like if Annamarie left me and went back to America.”

  “You did?”

  Blake nodded, smiling at his old daydreams. “I imagined that the children and I would live a quiet life together in the country, maybe traveling to London on special occasions to see your shows in the West End. We’d travel abroad every summer, tour Italy, Germany, maybe so far as the Orient.” He sighed. “We could go away and not ever have to come back.”

  “You just said you stayed away from London to avoid me, and now you’re saying you daydreamed of bringing your children to see my shows?”

  Blake pulled his gaze away from the w
indow to study Niall. He looked utterly perfect and handsome, lying on his side in bed, his head propped on his arm, which rested on his pillow. Even the wary confusion in his eyes couldn’t dent the blossom of tender feelings stirring in Blake’s soul.

  “It’s a paradox, I know,” he said. “In my fantasies, Annamarie was gone. In reality, she wasn’t.” He shrugged.

  “But now she is,” Niall said. Blake couldn’t interpret the emotion behind his words. It couldn’t be hope, could it?

  “She’s gone,” Blake sighed, shifting anxiously to his back before remembering why he was trying to avoid that position. He was still as hard as iron, and the friction of his movements did nothing to help his state. “So are the children,” he added, hoping that would be the antidote to the desire he couldn’t shake.

  “You’ll get them back,” Niall said, sounding confident, though when Blake twisted his head to look at him, he was troubled by Niall’s frown.

  A strange and prickly thought hit him. “Niall, are you jealous of my children?”

  The flush that splashed across Niall’s face was a dead-giveaway that he was, even though Niall answered, “No. Why would you say that?” He, too, rolled to his back and stared up at the ceiling. Blake could tell by the contour of the bedclothes over Niall’s body that he too was hard.

  The combination of jealousy and arousal had Blake grinning as if Niall had cracked a joke. “I’m flattered,” he said, letting a laugh escape before he could stop it.

  “About what?” Niall asked in a flat voice that only betrayed his feelings more.

  “You don’t have anything to be jealous of where the children are concerned,” he said, grinning wider. “I love them with an entirely separate kind of love from how I love you.”

  His heart skipped a beat as he realized his admission, but as soon as it was out, he relaxed into it. He did love Niall. He’d always loved Niall. He hadn’t stopped loving him for a single second in ten years. And for the first time in those ten years, he felt perfectly comfortable with the emotion, even if everything else in his world was a wreck.

  After a long, heavy silence, Niall said, “I should hope you don’t love us the same way.” He was trying to be cavalier about the comment, but Blake sensed so much more.

  “Do you know what would be perfectly lovely?” Blake asked, his smile growing along with his confidence.

  “What?” Niall asked. The frisson in the air between them was palpable.

  “If Annamarie willingly gives the children back, we should all move to London.” The beautiful daydream was suddenly so real that it stopped the air in Blake’s lungs. “We’ll divorce, of course, Annamarie and I, and she’ll be free to return to New York and take Ian with her. They’ll be happy together, and we’ll be happy in London.”

  “We?” Niall’s single syllable was quiet and rife with emotion.

  “You and me and the children.” Blake stretched his arms and folded them contentedly behind his head. He smiled up at the ceiling as he went on. “My family owns a massive house in Mayfair, but I rather fancy a smaller place, somewhere simple. Maybe near the theaters. We’ll live there in perfect bliss, scandalizing everyone we meet. The duke and the playwright and their family. How dare they be so happy when the life they are living is so abnormal? But we will dare.” He let out a happy breath, closing his eyes and reveling in his imagined future. “We’ll dare because we’ll be happy. And no one will be there to stop us, not my Father, not Annamarie, not the meddling dowagers trying to play matchmaker. It will just be us.”

  Blake let out a breath, then sucked it in hard, as Niall shifted out of his bed. Blake only had time to turn his head, eyes going wide as Niall stepped out of his pajama bottoms. A moment later, Niall slipped into Blake’s bed, settling on top of Blake and nudging his knees apart in order to bring them into blazingly intimate contact.

  “You know why else you would make the perfect wife?” Niall asked, his voice rich with desire as he brought his mouth to within an inch of Blake’s. “Because you are a sentimental fool. And, if memory serves, you strongly prefer to be on the receiving end of things.”

  Blake let out a vocal sigh, sliding his hands along Niall’s naked sides and digging his fingertips into his flesh before saying, “God, do I ever.”

  He arched up to kiss Niall, but the movement proved superfluous as Niall bore down on him, kissing the air right out of his lungs. He was commanding and passionate, and within seconds, Blake felt like putty in Niall’s hands. Their tongues explored each other, and Blake raked his hands through Niall’s hair. He’d waited so long for that moment that it came as a surprise that he’d finally reached it.

  “I tried so hard to stop loving you,” Niall confessed between kisses, fumbling with the buttons of Blake’s pajamas until he could push the front aside to stroke his chest and stomach. His hands dipped lower, shoving his pajama bottoms down and reaching to cup his balls and tease his prick with a touch that was far too light for what Blake wanted. “I couldn’t do it,” Niall went on, kissing Blake’s lips, his neck, and his shoulder. “As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t get you out of my heart.”

  “Neither could I,” Blake panted, wriggling under Niall in an attempt to get his pajama bottoms off. He throbbed with need, wanting to feel every inch of Niall’s body with every inch of his. An impassioned groan escaped from him when Niall licked, then sucked one of his nipples. Only a slight bump from the room on the other side of the wall stopped him from crying out even louder when Niall closed his hand over his cock to stroke him.

  Niall froze at the bump, holding his breath for a moment. They panted, bodies taut with lust and touching in so many places, listening for clues as to whether whoever was in the next room suspected what the two of them were doing. Chances were whoever it was didn’t have the first clue who was in the room next to them, but caution was warranted all the same.

  “Stay quiet,” Niall whispered as he resumed stroking Blake’s prick.

  Blake laughed aloud in response. “You expect me not to make a sound as you have your way with me?”

  Niall paused, lifting himself up enough to grin saucily down at Blake. “You never were any good at keeping quiet.”

  Blake brushed Niall’s sides, circling his hands around to grab Niall’s backside and tug him down until their erections rubbed against each other. “If I had it my way, I’d scream.”

  A tremor shot through Niall’s body. With a hungry grunt, he bent down to kiss Blake again, ravishing his mouth as though it were a prize in battle. Blake groaned as loud as he dared in response, digging his fingertips into Niall’s arse and spreading him. When Niall made a sound of appreciation, Blake slipped a finger along his cleft, fingering his hole.

  Niall swallowed a cry and pushed himself above Blake again. “Do you want this to be over before we’ve truly gotten started?” he demanded, pretending to be angry, though Blake could see the heat in his eyes.

  “No.” Blake shook his head, laughing. “I want it to last all night. I don’t care how tired we are. I’ve waited ten years for you to fuck me again.”

  Niall arched an eyebrow. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not ripping into your arse the way I did that last time again.”

  Blake couldn’t stop smiling or laughing, even though it must have had him looking like a lunatic. “Lucky for you, I came prepared.” He nodded to his suitcase.

  Niall’s eyes flared with surprise and lust. “You didn’t,” he hissed, climbing off of Blake and out of bed. He threw open Blake’s suitcase.

  “In the top compartment,” Blake said. “And you should probably blow out the lanterns while you’re up.”

  “Absolutely not,” Niall said, breathless when he found the small jar of lubricant Blake had cheekily packed for the trip. Niall turned back to him. “I want a good look at your face when I make you come while balls deep in your arse.”

  Blake laughed harder, wriggling in anticipation and spreading his legs wide as Niall unscrewed the jar and helped himself to the c
ontents. He almost begged Niall to let him watch as he spread the lubricant over his outstanding cock, but even the brief glimpse that he got sent him dangerously close to the edge.

  “I shouldn’t show you a lick of mercy,” Niall teased him as he climbed back into bed, spreading what remained of the lubricant over Blake’s arsehole and testing him with his fingers. Blake gasped and clamped his jaw down over the moan that wanted to escape from him. “You’re as tight after ten years as you were that first time,” Niall said, his voice shaking with need.

  “Fuck me like you did then,” Blake gasped, lifting his hips as Niall shifted against him to find the best position. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”

  He didn’t have a chance to say anything else. With perfect command and precision, Niall found exactly the angle he wanted and shoved into him. Blake couldn’t stop himself from calling out at the once familiar stretch and burn of Niall’s cock splitting him. He didn’t care who heard, it felt so good to have Niall inside of him again that tears seeped out the corners of his closed eyes.

  “Ssh,” Niall warned him, leaning closer for a moment as he moved slowly in and out. He paused while lodged tightly within Blake to lean down and kiss him as if to prove the point of the necessity of silence. The angle was too awkward for effective movement, but Blake didn’t mind at all as Niall leaned back, lifting his hips higher so that he could thrust into him with strength and abandon.

  It took a massive effort for Blake not to give voice to how absolutely right and perfect it felt to have Niall fuck him. It had been far, far too long. The sensation of being possessed by the man he loved more than life itself was so beautiful that it felt wrong not to express it with sound. He was splayed in the most awkward and submissive position possible, but he hadn’t been happier in ten years.

  He knew he wouldn’t last more than a minute, but it was still a shock when his whole body throbbed and jerked with orgasm, sending cum spilling across his belly. Niall made a strangled sound of victory as he watched Blake come, and within a few hard thrusts of that, his face contorted beautifully as he, too, came. Blake watched in fascination as Niall’s passion erupted, then melted away, leaving him dazed and satisfied.