Page 12 of Centerpiece

He nearly bit his tongue, although he was certain now that Holburnhadread Agreeable’s desires and had chosen to ignore them.Holburn was too clever to have missed them.But embarrassment made Agreeable glance away before their eyes could meet.

“That wouldn’t have been payment.”Holburn was quiet.“It would have been extortion.”He blew out a vexed breath and then spoke again before Agreeable had looked back at him.“It would have been taken through force, even if it didn’t seem so.”He explainedextortion, but still didn’t make any sense, which might have been why he went on.“Your choice was a beating, losing a hand, or hanging,orallowing me to use you.Do you see?”

Agreeable had wanted to be used, but couldn’t manage to get the argument out withhangingstill in the air.“I suppose it was,” he allowed, “as you say.Thisextortion.”He tripped only a little over the word.

Holburn swept onward like winds before a storm, as seemed to be his way.“And your friends, your lads.Would you be welcome among them if you were not so agreeable?”

“You don’twantto approve of them,” Agreeable grumbled under his breath.“They all are....If I were a better thief, or a better hunter, certainly I’d be welcome.Probably even without that.”

“Probably.”Holburn was dry as dust.

“I see what you’re saying,” Agreeable informed him, because he did and he was full of feelings with no name that he knew.“But I really don’t mind.”

“Imind.”Agreeable’s stubborn jewel insisted.“I’d rather not have someone merelyagreeable.Or, if I did hire someone, I’d want it to be an exchange done honestly and not done out of fear of pain or death.”

He wasfrustrating.He either made sense or he could convince Agreeable of anything.

“Not exactly flattering, is it?”Agreeable would grant him that much.“To be only a choice slightly better than death?”

“No.”Holburn eased back against his pillow.“So you understand now?No insult was intended.”

Agreeable kept his grip on the blanket over his lap.“I wasn’t insulted.But...”He worried his lip for another moment.Holburn had flattered him.He ought to try the same.“From the start, I was thinking of you and ploughing.It wasn’t a hardship to offer.Are you going to try to sleep now?”He rushed out the question before Holburn’s silence could go on any longer.

“I should.”Holburn didn’t sound pleased by the idea.Maybe he thought sleep wouldn’t come easy.

Agreeable’s wouldn’t.Partly that was due to worry over trying to sneak away later.But mostly it was realizing that Holburn had considered fucking him and had wanted to, even if he had believed it wouldn’t be right to do so.

Even hotter than before, Agreeable threw the blanket over the back of the chair.“You’re like priests should be,” he decided aloud, marveling at this fact but also annoyed by it.“And prettier than most of them.”His insides were quaking at the thought of Holburn wanting to do right by him while also wanting to tumble him.“I could help settle your mind, if you like.Because I want to.Because Ihavewanted to.Since you first got me against the door, I did.”Holburn’s heavy focus was making Agreeable’s head swim.“I imagined using my mouth on you.That’s more than just being agreeable, isn’t it?”

Holburn sat there, burning at Agreeable from across the room, but didn’t move.“Yes.”

Agreeable felt a frown start to form.“You still don’t—oh.Ifyoucome tome, you still won’t be sure.And if you tellmeto go toyou, you have the same problem.”He reasoned it out loud, confused and trembling inside for Holburn’s strange,goodnotions and for what Agreeable was going to have to do about them: he would have to go to Holburn and perhaps state his desires again.He might not have ever done that, with anyone.Holburn was dangerous, opening Agreeable up to new ideas like this.

But instead of continuing to shake like a scared rabbit, Agreeable rose, smacking the palm of one hand against his thigh to help banish the weakness carrying all through him.

“That you’re concerned...it’s doing things to me.”He revealed it breathlessly once at the side of the bed, already moving to put a knee to the mattress.Then the soft give and the fine blanket stopped him and gave him a new worry, and he dropped to the floor to remove his shoes.His cheeks flamed when he stood back up, but Holburn was smiling.

“I could have taken care of any damages.”

Agreeable shook his head; he could be stubborn too.But then Holburn tossed aside the blankets over his lap and his chemise was thin enough to show how much he liked the idea of Agreeable in his fine, soft bed with him, and that was something too.Something to make Agreeable briefly press his thighs together like an excited maid on her wedding night.

Oh, plenty got hard before having a go with him, but for whatever hole he offered; never from anticipatinghimlike this.Holburn wanted Agreeable here as much as he wanted Agreeable to desire him in return.

Agreeable clambered onto the bed, knees catching on his skirt so he fell onto hands and elbows with his face nearly planted onto Holburn’s thigh.It scarcely slowed him.Agreeable brushed aside the scarf ends now impeding him and burrowed beneath the linen of the chemise to get as much cock in his mouth as he could.

Holburn hissed, a wonderfully surprised sound as if even he hadn’t expected Agreeable’s eagerness.He wasn’t all-knowing and wise.He was just a man as he’d said, tugging his shirt up with one hand while reaching for Agreeable with the other, swearing words no man of faith should know when Agreeable shifted farther onto the bed to take his prick into his throat and feel the tickle of short hairs against his nose.

Holburn neither pushed him down to keep him there nor hauled him back up.His hand clenched and unfurled over the top of the scarf, and then he sighed and said, “Eager creature.If I were in your lads’ place, I would take this every night.”

Lust spiked in Agreeable’s belly, dripping heavy into his blood like candlewax.He pulled back to catch his breath, his head at Holburn’s hip, although he couldn’t say if Holburn had urged him to lie like that.He felt Holburn’s touch through the scarf, soft and appreciative.Agreeable’s eyes stung.

“Good girl?”he heard himself ask, shivering despite the heat because even saying it himself pleased him although he didn’t know why.

Holburn could have pushed him back to work at his cock and Agreeable would have welcomed it, but his quiettskand thumb at Agreeable’s cheek kept Agreeable silent and near-content.

Holburn put his fingers to Agreeable’s lips, which Agreeable parted for him to remind him his mouth remained empty.Yet Agreeable didn’t complain at the slight intrusion.He sucked on the tips he was given and was generous with his tongue and attention.Whenever Holburn withdrew them to trace his lips or to tease him, Agreeable waited, strangely calm, mouth open, for them to return.

“Do they take your mouth or do you use your mouth as you please?”Holburn wondered, wet fingertips finding the freckles over the bridge of Agreeable’s nose.

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