knew the risks. She’d made her choices in full knowledge of what might come.
Lyle smacked him across the arse. The impact jerked him forward and out of his emotional stupor. God help him, but he was going to do this. But on his terms. No more being dictated to by Lyle, and no more pansying around playing go-lightly. If they were going to fuck … well, they were going to fuck.
‘Take off your breeches too.’
Lyle’s head twitched, bird-like, in surprise. Then he settled his ruffled feathers and did exactly as he’d been told. Naked he really was a marvel. He had an arse to rival that of a Roman god, though not quite as pale as alabaster. Thighs that were feathered with soft golden hairs, and loins … there was no denying that’s where Darleston was primarily looking. Lyle’s prick stood proud. Long and uncut, it reached halfway to his navel. It was striped with pale-blue veins, like some Oriental piece of china. Thankfully, it wasn’t quite as fragile as a vase.
‘So you’ve missed me,’ Darleston remarked. ‘In all these years there’s never been anyone else that turned your head in the same way? No one who’s fucked you halfway to the moon and back? No one who crept inside your head and steamed up all those naughty fantasies you concoct while you date Miss Nancy and her four sisters?’
‘Robert, when I toss myself the only pictures in my head are of you … and the adorable little vadelect I had in Bangalore.’ Lyle’s grin stretched wide, growing infectious the further it spread. Darleston smiled along with him. Bangalore? He wanted to ask, but the story could wait for another night. Instead, he perched on the end of the divan and tapped his middle finger against his lips. Slowly he wetted its tip.
‘Know where this is going?’
‘I know where I hope it’s going.’ Lyle rolled onto all fours.
‘Uh-uh! Face to face. If we’re going to do this, let’s do it properly. I want to see you come and know that you’re mine. And if I so much as think your thoughts are straying towards Emma then it’s over. Truly over. I can’t go through that again.’
He could see a myriad questions racing through Lyle’s mind, but his lover seemed to sense that this wasn’t the time. Lyle turned and lay flat upon his back.
‘I think you’re more likely to think of her than I.’
‘Maybe.’ Darleston covered him, still fully clothed. He didn’t intend to remove a stitch. Instead, he pinned Lyle down and kissed him, revelling in the heat and the clash of their tongues. As their lips made merry, his hands were at work, brushing lightly over Lyle’s arms and torso. When they parted, it was only so that he could take a breath and turn his attention to Lyle’s flat, penny-shaped nipples instead. He sucked hard, drawing the little teat into a point. He palmed Lyle’s cock at the same time, working it up and down until Lyle’s contented groans had lapsed into euphoric silence. Only then did he tease the entrance to Lyle’s arse with his wetted digit.
Fiercely hot, but eager and willing in his acceptance, Lyle writhed beneath him, lifting up his hips to allow for a deep penetration. One finger soon became two, then three. Finally, Darleston accepted Lyle’s hands fumbling at his waistband and feeling their way inside his frontfall. His cock bucked in appreciation of the touch. He let Lyle guide him home. Butted up against him, and slid deep.
It really was that smooth and that quick.
Too perfect, really. He did so like a bit of torment.
He pulled Lyle’s hair, raked his teeth along his jaw and began to fuck like he truly meant it. The little yelp of pain Lyle gave in response fired Darleston’s senses. So too did his lover’s retaliation, right down to adding more bruises to his already marked rear.
‘Bite me again,’ Lyle hissed into his ear as they were rocking smoothly together with the whole universe collapsed in upon itself and centred on the tip of his cock.
Lyle guided him over towards his throat. Darleston sucked hard. He nipped a little but didn’t let his teeth break the flesh. He left a mark though, a deep-purple bruise like a stamp of ownership. He’d known lovers who gave one another love-bites in lieu of wedding rings they couldn’t legitimately wear. He didn’t want to wed Lyle, he just wanted to sink deeper inside him, until he was no longer sure where their bodies met, or what part of this pleasure was his and what was Lyle’s.
He added another mark to Lyle’s throat. Let him cover it with his cravat tomorrow. He’d still know it was there.
Darleston’s temperature reached fever point just before his body gave in to the little death. Sweat coated every inch of his skin. His clothing stuck to him. Only in the areas where their bodies met skin to skin did he feel true contentment. Next time, maybe he would take his clothes off. Then again the discomfort added something, and he liked that it was only Lyle who was exposed.
He looked down into his lover’s eyes as his nerve endings began to sing. His orgasm knocked him about like one of Hill’s champion boxers, leaving him punchdrunk and dizzy, full of light and air. He collapsed against Lyle, aftershocks still racing along his shaft, each one provoking a sigh of pleasure.
‘That’s right, Robert. Give it to me. Let go now.’ Lyle’s hands kneaded the tension from his shoulders. Darleston floated, acutely aware of the feeling that he’d somehow returned home.
His dexterity was shot to hell and his fingers and thumb refused to make a proper fist around Lyle’s cock. He worked it anyway, staying inside his lover’s body until he’d wrung every ounce of pleasure out of them both. Only when Lyle’s high had mellowed to a contented afterglow, and warm semen coated his fingers, did he finally release him.
Darleston rolled onto his back and sucked Lyle’s gift from his fingertips.
‘How long are you planning to stay?’ Lyle propped himself up on one elbow so that he could make eye contact. The tops of his cheekbones, his temples and the tips of his ears were flushed with a pinkish glow. The hint of colour gave him an almost boyish air, while the glow in his hazel eyes suggested embarrassment over his own eagerness for an answer.
‘Not until after the boxing. Though I haven’t specified a set length to Hill.’
‘So it wouldn’t be unreasonable to draw it out into a few weeks.’
‘I suppose,’ he said, a tad dubious.
Joy replaced hope in Lyle’s eyes. Lyle curled against him, wrapping a thigh over his legs and nestling his head in the crook of Darleston’s shoulder. ‘I’m glad our paths crossed again. I truly meant it, what I said about thinking of you. You’ve always been in my thoughts.’
‘Yes,’ Darleston drawled, feeling pleasantly lethargic and sated. ‘Me – and the vadelect from Bangalore. I trust he’s still in India and not secreted about the house.’
Lyle’s laughter rumbled up from deep in his chest. ‘Robert, if he were, I’d definitely share him with you.’
CHAPTER THREE
Emma woke obscenely early, just as she had every morning she’d ever spent in Field House. The moment the scullery maid opened her door to lay the fire she snapped out of her repose. She kept as still as she could, faking the even breaths of sleep as she listened to the sounds of intrusion. Sometimes, if she were lucky, she’d
