Page 30 of Seduced By a Scoundrel

That show of acquiescence only encouraged Derrek. He adjusted his hold to pull Jeremy fully into his arms and thrust his tongue in to explore Jeremy’s mouth. The sensation of invasion sent warm, swooping pleasure through Jeremy’s gut, sending blood straight to his groin. He melted into Derrek’s larger, firmer body, instinctively closing his arms around him and gripping Derrek’s shirt.

If Derrek had stopped there, Jeremy’s panic might have been eased and he might have settled and felt ashamed of himself for his outburst. But Derrek wanted more. He lifted Jeremy clear off his feet, pivoting and carrying him to the settee.

Jeremy let out a gasp of surprise as Derrek laid him back on the settee, then covered his body with his own. It felt glorious to have all that weight and heat on top of him. Even the fabric of Derrek’s shirt and breeches was not enough to hide the hard bulge that pressed into Jeremy’s thigh as Derrek devoured him with another kiss.

It was carnal bliss, and Jeremy felt himself spinning in it. He moaned as Derrek ploughed his mouth and shifted his thighs open a bit so that the important bits of both of them could press together. Even fully dressed, it felt wonderful.

“Jeremy,” Derrek growled as he shifted to kiss Jeremy’s cheek and jaw and neck. “I’m sorry. I won’t ever leave your side again if you do not want me to.”

Jeremy was incapable of words, but he did manage to groan in response and grip Derrek’s shirt tighter. He wanted the man. He wanted to experience everything that Derrek had teased and hinted about for the past fortnight. Derrek was right, they were secluded in the woods where no one knew how to find them. They could rut like horses outside in the garden, completely naked, and no one would ever see them.

“Derrek,” he gasped, kissing him and brushing his lips along the rough stubble of Derrek’s jaw. “I want you. I want?—”

The scent of burning was suddenly overwhelming. More than that, when Jeremy turned his head toward the smell, he spotted smoke curling up from the pan of sausages he’d left on the stove.

With a decidedly ungentlemanly curse, he pushed up, attempting to roll out from under Derrek.

Derrek wore a ravenous look, and the bulge in his trousers was prominent. For a moment, he looked indignant that Jeremy would stop what they’d started so abruptly, but he quickly smelled the burning and saw the smoke as well. “Bugger,” he growled, climbing off the settee and allowing Jeremy to get up.

Jeremy made a mad dash for the stove, only barely remembering to wrap the handle of the pan with a cloth before grabbing it and running the whole thing outside. Still not thinking clearly, he tossed the sausages, pan and all, onto a patch of green grass. The hiss of hot meeting cold filled the air.

“So I suppose it’s bread and cheese for supper again,” Derrek said, coming out into the darkness behind him.

Jeremy winced as the catalog of stupid things he’d done in the past five minutes struck him. “I am sorry,” he said, turning to Derrek. His face felt as red as a berry, and he hoped Derrek couldn’t see it in the darkness. “I wasn’t thinking. I should not have done that.”

“Burned our supper or thrown yourself at me like a strumpet?” Derrek asked, teasing in his voice.

“Both,” Jeremy said, taking the question seriously. He bent to pick up the pan, though he rolled the ruined sausages into the singed grass as he did. “I will prepare something else for us.”

“Or we could forgo supper and eat each other instead,” Derrek suggested with a twinkle in his eyes that Jeremy noticed as they stepped back into the cottage.

Jeremy was tempted. He was sorely tempted. But with the weight of shame now pressing down on him and his emotions steadier than they’d been when Derrek had arrived home, he did not see how he could let himself be that free.

“I am sorry for shouting at you,” he said, avoiding Derrek’s gaze as he walked back to the stove. “I was upset and frightened. I should not have been, I know. I am perfectly capable of walking a familiar path alone. I was worried about you is all. Those feelings got the better of me.”

Other feelings had gotten the better of him as well, but he wasn’t certain he wanted to face that quite yet.

Derrek hovered close as Jeremy fumbled through preparing them something different to eat. Jeremy could feel the conflict of what to say and whether to attempt to continue their previous activity rippling from him.

“I truly am sorry that I was unable to be there for you when you expected me,” he said in a quiet voice. When Jeremy turned to him, his brow was furrowed. “I understand if you wish to keep me at arm’s length for a bit longer.”

Jeremy puffed out a breath and turned to face him. “It’s not that,” he said, forcing himself to meet Derrek’s eyes. “If not for the sausages, I would have given you everything and probably have been glad of it. But I am so unsettled right now. This might sound laughable and childish to you, but rather than buggering like two dockhands, could we not simply sit together on the settee after our supper, I do not know, reading or engaged in some other quiet activity such as that?”

Derrek’s tense, frustrated expression melted into a smile. “Yes, I believe that would be lovely,” he said. “I will even read to you, if it would soothe you.”

Jeremy smiled, though part of him still felt as if he were giving Derrek the thin end of the wedge. “Thank you,” he said. “And I am certain we will resume our previous activity at some point.”

“Just not tonight,” Derrek finished his thought. He did not seem to have any ill feelings about it.

Jeremy smiled at him, and for a moment he second-guessed his decision not to go to bed with Derrek that night. He wanted him, really he did. But the more he thought about it, the more he felt that an evening of closeness with a book might be just as lovely. Especially since he had no feeling of certainty at all that they would be able to continue that sort of intimacy once Conroy’s plot was foiled and he no longer needed protection.

Eleven

Jeremy Wilkes was a tease and a flirt, and the man did not even know it.

For days after their near consummation, Derrek ambled around, kicking himself for not taking action to put both of them out of the sensual misery they quickly fell into. Now that Derrek knew what it felt like to have Jeremy panting and ready underneath him, now that he knew the taste of Jeremy’s lips, the pinch of his grip, and the sound of his moans of pleasure, he wanted more.

At the same time, he had to admit there was a certain sweetness in merely sitting close on the settee together, enjoying each other’s company as they took turns reading from one of the cottage’s few books. What they’d found on the small shelf beside the fireplace were mostly moralizing tomes or old collections of sermons, but they’d read them aloud to each other all the same, giggling over their contents and how deeply the authors would have disapproved of everything they were doing and who they were at their cores.

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