“I am normally rather better than that.” Richard sounded slightly self-conscious. “But my God, touching you. I am surprised I lasted so long.”
“You lasted four years,” David pointed out, and saw the smile light Richard’s eyes.
“Well, if you put it that way.” He tucked a hanging lock of hair behind David’s ear. “I hope I may redeem myself in due course?”
“And perhaps on the bed.” The floorboards were hard, and though David was the smaller of them, that did not make him a featherweight. He clambered off the floor and sprawled over the counterpane as Richard stripped off stockings and breeches without ceremony. The mattress dipped ominously under him as he lay down by David, the two of them body to body and face-to-face.
Richard ran a finger over David’s chest and sighed, a long exhalation that seemed to let something out. “I feared…I thought I had perhaps made you an impossible ideal.”
“I understand that,” David said with feeling. “I think I had to leave.”
“I think you did. Or we should not have come to each other on these terms, perhaps not at all.”
“Ugh. Don’t say that.”
Richard smiled at him. “It is not so, nor it was not so.”
“And God forbid it should be so,” David completed. He wanted to ask, What now? but bit the question back. They had the rest of the night, and with the edge off their need, he intended to take his time exploring the broad body he could finally touch. He slid his hand down Richard’s chest and tweaked a nipple.
Richard inhaled sharply. “Is there anything I should know? That you like, or do not?”
David had a fair idea what had prompted that. “I have no taste for pain.”
“I have no desire to inflict any. Or receive it,” Richard added as an afterthought.
David put an experimental hand over Richard’s upper arm, squeezed as much muscle as his fingers could encompass. “I like your strength. Your size.”
“I don’t.”
David glanced up at his face. “Really?”
“I am too damned large. Too large, too rich, too well born. Thank God I was not the elder son as well. I wonder what sort of man I should have been if I did not tower over everyone’s heads.”
“Melancholy?”
Richard smiled ruefully. “Wondering how I should have fared as plain Mr. Vane.”
“My dear sir. The great Cyprian does not condescend to valet a mere mister.”
Richard laughed aloud, a deep, booming sound that probably carried. David couldn’t care. Richard rolled over, pinning him to the bed, hands gentle on his shoulders, seventeen stone of nobility crushing his chest. David wrapped his legs around Richard’s hips with a groan of pleasure.
“The great Cyprian.” Richard kissed his ear. “Quite right. I should learn my place.”
“It’s here, between my legs.”
Richard reared back, looking down at him. His pupils were wide and black in the dim light. David met his gaze, refusing to drop his eyes.
“God help me, I think it is,” Richard said. “I love you, David. My red fox, my right hand, my flame.”
David couldn’t speak. Then he didn’t have to, because Richard’s mouth was on his, and they were kissing frantically, gripping each other’s faces with desperation. Richard’s strong hand moved under David, taking hold of his arse to haul him closer. David drove his fingers over his lord’s shoulders, down his spine, leaving scratches.
“David.” Richard groaned in his ear, then took the lobe in his teeth, making him whimper. “You make me feel like a callow youth. I need…” He ground his hard length against David’s thighs, and David squirmed to trap it between. Richard sucked in a breath.
“Like that?” David murmured, and felt Richard move his hips, pushing between the flesh. “God, yes. No, lie heavier. Stop bracing yourself. I want your weight.”
Richard lowered himself a little, then more, and the breath hissed out of David’s lungs. Richard was driving between his thighs, hands in his hair, chest pressing him into the bed, and David met his mouth with urgency. He could barely move otherwise. There was too much of the man. It was as though Richard could extinguish him with his sheer bulk, and David shut his eyes and let himself be overwhelmed. Richard grinding faster into him, grunting into his mouth, the solid thickness of his prick rubbing David’s skin. My lord, my lord…
Richard stilled his motion, evidently striving for control. “David. What would you have?”
“You on your back,” David managed. Richard rolled off, and David unpeeled himself from the coverlet and sat up.
Richard lay watching him. David reached out and ran a careful finger down his thigh, nail first, making him twitch. David moved over, silent in concentration, and used all five nails this time, sliding them over the skin of Richard’s inner thigh. That elicited a moan. David smiled to himself and went to work.
He knew this body. He knew it as well as his own, after those years of intent service, even if there was so much that had been forbidden to him before. He knew Richard’s breath, the beat of his heart, the different ways of stillness he had, and he used his knowledge now, roaming Richard’s body with hands and mouth.
“I want to touch you,” he whispered. “I want to touch you everywhere.”
“At your pleasure,” Richard said softly. “At your service.”
David brought his fingers to Richard’s lips, traced them over, pushed inside. Richard caught them in his mouth, sucking them wet, and David rewarded that with a sweep of his hair around Richard’s straining prick and heard a muffled gasp. He pulled his fingers out and ran them down lower, deliberately trailing through body hair, feeling the tension of the man he touched. He brought his hand between Richard’s legs, watched his face. Richard’s lips parted, but he didn’t object.
David lowered his head and finally, after four years and seven months of dreaming, took Richard’s prick in his mouth.
Richard made an airless noise. David tasted carefully, slowly, exploring with lips and tongue, and as he did it, he let his fingers explore too, roaming over Richard’s muscular arse and gently pushing one finger in. Richard’s hand came to David’s head, neither pushing down nor pulling away, just clutching his hair, and David worked him with intent, deep joy, making sure that every movement of his finger was matched by lips and tongue, until he was in Richard to the knuckle.
And now, my lord, here’s something to remember.
David crooked his finger upward, in the gesture that usually meant “come here,” and it brought Richard clean off the bed with a startled yelp of “Christ!,” hips jerking upward so that David had to pull back sharply off his prick.
David grinned at him, deliberately showing off his sharp teeth. Richard’s eyes widened. Then he relaxed, a conscious action, parting his legs a little more.
You’re mine now, David thought. Mine.
He bent over once more, took his master down, and fucked Richard with hand and mouth. Harder now, pushing into him, commanding his pleasure. Richard had his arm over his face to muffle the cries he couldn’t hold back, and David fucked him and sucked him at once, holding back only when he was on the brink, making him wait until he was moaning pleas for release.
David fingered the sweet spot, the rest of his hand plastered against Richard’s skin, feeling his whole body straining, and lifted his mouth away from his prick. Richard gave a groan of agony. “Do you want to come?”
“Please. David, please.”
“What are your lordship’s orders?”
Richard hissed. “Do it, damn you.”
David plunged his head down, meeting Richard’s upward thrust, pushing hand against arse, and felt Richard’s climax throbbing through his groin as if it were his own, the bed shaking with the force of the big man’s spasmodic movements. David swallowed, hard, and again, ran his tongue over Richard’s prick until he heard a whimper of oversensitivity and finally, reluctantly, moved his mouth away.
Richard lay, face flushed, lips pa
rted. His eyes were shut, but he reached out and pulled David down onto him with a powerful hand. “Dear God.”
“My pleasure.” David settled against his chest.
“Really, it was not.” Richard blinked his eyes open. “That was…not an experience I have had before. Is there anything you do not excel at?”
“Plenty. I just don’t do those things, and so nobody finds out.”
Richard chuckled, arm tightening around David’s back. “Wise, as ever. I cannot hope to match your skills, you know.” His other hand was roaming, making David’s skin tingle. “But if there is a way I can please you…”
“Touch me,” David whispered. “However you like.”
And Richard did, kissing his chest and lips and hair, praising him with his hands, murmuring words of worship against his skin until, when David spent in his turn, it was with tears pricking his eyes for the knowledge that he was loved and the terrible awareness that morning would come.
Chapter 9
Richard woke the next morning with hair in his mouth and a weight on his heart that was, for the first time in a while, not metaphorical. David nestled against him, under his arm, head rising gently with Richard’s breathing. It felt as if neither of them had moved from the position in which they’d fallen asleep. Richard’s back hurt. He had no idea of the time, except that the light suggested it was early, or if they were safe to stay there together.
He would have to leave.
Everything revolted at the thought. The previous night had been more than good, more than lovemaking, far more than Richard had had in an age. The sickening discovery that he was unable to satisfy Dominic had taken away his pleasure in lovemaking for years, because he had found himself constantly aware that he might not know what his partner truly felt. That might not matter to other men, but Richard found it impossible to fuck when he didn’t care, and the caring brought a burden.
He’d had a few affairs, of course, men he’d liked and could trust to be honest, but nobody had set his blood alight in a long time, and he hadn’t bedded anyone at all since he and Julius had made a single attempt to find refuge with each other, over two years ago. Richard, guiltily aware that he had chosen Julius in lieu of the pale and slender man he wanted, had spent the entire night trying not to call him “Cyprian”; Julius, all too sensitive to being another man’s substitute, had clearly known something was wrong and withdrawn into icy untouchability. The catastrophic night remained one of Richard’s most embarrassing memories, and he felt fortunate to have been forgiven.
So he had given up. Since he could not have his desire, he had resigned himself to having nothing at all and relied on his hand, which brought no danger and cherished no expectations.
And now he’d had David, and two years of self-enforced celibacy had puffed away like dandelion seeds on the wind. One single night, and the needs Richard had denied so long and so hard were roaring back, demanding action, telling him that one night would not be, would never have been enough.
He didn’t want David’s body for a night. He wanted David, all of him, always.
There had to be a way. And as Richard looked down at the tangled red hair on his chest, wishing for just a little more time, it came to him.
He stared at the ceiling considering, until his path was clear in his mind. It had to be the answer, and now he thought of it, he could not imagine why it had taken him so long to come up with the idea. He nudged David and was absurdly charmed to see that he woke like a cat, with a slow blink into wide-eyed alertness.
“Good morning, my lord. Richard, I mean.” David grimaced. “No, I should say ‘my lord.’ ”
“I wish you would not. David, have you plans as to what you will do with yourself? Do you mean to stay here?”
“I will have to take another post soon enough.” David didn’t sound enthusiastic. “I have money saved, but if Mother’s illness returns, she and Mr. Fleming will need a deal of help. I want them to accept that from me without constraint.”
Mrs. Fleming had looked as healthy as a horse to Richard’s eyes. “Is she unwell?”
“Not exactly. She has a condition that may return or may not. If it does, it will be a long and bad decline with no hope of recovery. Or it may not come at all. I hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”
Richard felt belatedly appalled that he had dragged David through his own mourning for an almost-forgotten parent with this hanging over him. “I had no idea. You did not say.”
“You did not ask.”
Of course he had not. It had not even occurred to him to ask. What he knew about his servants’ family lives had all been brought to him by David. A groom needed a day’s holiday to visit an ailing parent; a housemaid was struggling to help her sister’s family, and an extra couple of shillings on her monthly wage would make all the difference. Richard had left it to David, trusted him not to be fooled, paid whatever was asked because it was trivial to him, and basked in a household’s devotion that he had done nothing to earn.
“May I help?” he asked, knowing it was far too late. “You know that if you need anything at all—”
“I can look after my mother. I have saved a great deal, and I dare say I will find another place without difficulty.”
No question of that. David could take any place he wanted, with another master, and work morning till night in another man’s bedroom, concentrating on another man’s body. On Julius, on Lord Maltravers. The idea was unspeakable.
“I have a suggestion for you.” Richard sat up, making the bed creak, waited until David propped himself on an elbow to listen, and said in a rush, “What if you changed your role?”
“My role?”
“Working for me.”
“I don’t work for you now,” David pointed out.
“You could, as my confidential secretary.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My secretary. Managing my affairs. You do—did it unofficially, after all.”
David sat up too. “But not as a secretary. Mr. Clayburn is your secretary.”
“Clayburn is quite adequate at managing my public business. But I need a confidential secretary for my private business. That was made very apparent to me when you stopped doing it. Dominic has temporarily taken on your role as…” He had no idea of whether the word flashman would amuse or insult. “As go-between with Quex’s. If you were my secretary, you could deal with that and a hundred other matters.”
“And would I share your bed too?”
“That is not part of the offer,” Richard said, rather hurt. “That is and always will be your choice. But you must see, if we were on a different footing…” He trailed off, hoping to see a response. David did not look as though he thought the conclusion was obvious.
It was possible he’d misunderstood Richard’s meaning. “I’m not offering you a sinecure, for heaven’s sake, far less a position as my mistress by another name. You would be superb in the role. I am often asked why I have not made better use of your talents. You would do it magnificently, and it would make you more independent, less at my beck and call—”
“Less of a servant?”
“Precisely. It is a position that a gentleman could take without finding it demeaning.”
David went quite still for a second. “Demeaning.”
“You must see that I cannot ask you to share my bed when you black my boots. It would be grotesque. The inequity of it—”
“My mother does most of the household tasks here.” A note of tension rang in David’s voice. “The rector’s stipend is not generous, and she fears for the future if she should no longer have her health. She does not think it grotesque to clean his shoes.”
“I mean no disrespect to your mother, none in the world,” Richard said with some haste. “It is not that.”
“Then what is it?”
It seemed so obvious that Richard struggled to pin it down. “Well, that Lady Richard Vane would not do household tasks. It is a matter of—of rightness. Were I
married, my wife would share the privileges and duties of my station just as I suppose your mother and the rector do in their place. My wife would not be obliged to clean my shoes, and nor should my lover be.”
“You don’t want me to carry out duties that are beneath you. The…demeaning duties of a valet.”
“Precisely. That is precisely it,” Richard said with relief. David was not usually obtuse. “I’m talking about a position of the greatest confidence. I will double your salary. God knows you would earn it. As an independent professional man—”
“I would still be a servant, would I not?”
“Well, you would be of my household. That is unavoidable if we are to see each other, but I can at least take you out of the servants’ hall. David, I want what we had last night. I want you with me. If you want that too, is this not the answer?”
David looked down at his hands. Richard followed his gaze. They were tough hands, slim but strong, calloused at the base of the fingers, as he’d found when kissing them. Working hands, not like his own.
“But it’s a gentleman’s position,” David said at last, quietly. “Everything you’re offering me is a gentleman’s position. And I am not a gentleman.”
“If you would take my offer, you would at least not be a servant.”
“But I am a servant. I am a valet.”
This was maddening. “You don’t have to be. I am offering you a better post.”
“One quite fit for a gentleman,” David agreed. “Nothing degrading in it. I should rise, my lord. I have household tasks to perform.”
“David?”
“Don’t,” David said, voice harsh. “Don’t say any more. You have said quite enough.”
He dressed with speed and in silence, avoiding Richard’s gaze. Richard watched him, confused and afraid and entirely lost as to where he had gone wrong, until David slipped out of the room without farewell.
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