Page 25 of Centerpiece

Holburn rolled Remi over to pin him to the bed and repeated himself, perhaps a little grumpier this time.“There you are.”His breath was warm on Remi’s nape as he brushed aside Remi’s shoulder-length hair and he followed his complaint with soft kisses.“Sleeping inthatbed instead ofourbed?”More kisses followed, as well as his hands slipping down Remi’s ribs to his hips and then beneath him to find his cock.Remi whined immediately, for it had been a long fortnight and with those in the house reluctant to touch him for fear of offending their lord and lady, that left only the village blacksmith, and for that, Remi had to go to him.And that tumble, lovely though it was, wasn’tthis.

Remi liked a fuck but somehow, somewhere, Holburn had become the one in control of Remi’s itch.He could command others to scratch it or do it himself, but he had to be involved or it wasn’t enough.It wasn’tright.

“I was worried you’d finally found some other bed worth staying in.”Holburn tugged Remi’s earlobe with his teeth and then bit lightly at his neck when Remi’s cock twitched.“But my good girl was waiting for me, and so frustrated.”He clucked his tongue but Remi didn’t think he was sorry.“Nearly shaking now.Wet as can be.Shh now, settle and I’ll take care of you.”

“Don’t mind me tumbling in a footman’s bed, but you mind me staying in a footman’s bed?”Remi wondered breathlessly, squirming to get his legs apart so that Holburn might find it easier to take him.Remi wouldn’t even need to spend right away, only to be filled and have it be Holburn doing the filling.That would satisfy him enough.“I’m always yours for the taking.Was your journey an easy one?”he asked, growing fainter as Holburn’s teeth nipped harder.“Where’s Ali?”

“Easier if you had been there.”Holburn pulled Remi’s hips up and back.He was already hard.

Remi buried his warm face in the pillow below him.“Ali couldn’t give you a suck in the carriage?”Not if Hilde was with her, but Remi had known that before he asked.He teased a duke these days, and that duke squeezed Remi’s thighs in response as if he meant to be menacing, though Remi loved it and nearly everyone in the region knew it.

But then Holburn slowed, and stopped, and just before Remi could whine at him to take him rough and dry as he was, Holburn flipped him over and pinned him by his wrists.Remi’s legs were a tangle under him.His back was to the bedding and he was trapped beneath Holburn’s weight.He shivered for it, looking up to meet an unexpected frown.

“You are a lovely hole, Remi sweet,” Holburn said in the voice that he used when discussing official acts and requests from the King.“But you are not only a hole to us.You do know that after all this time?”

Only two years.Not long at all in the life of dukes, who tended to live longer than farmers and definitely lived longer than thieves.And within a few months, Holburn and Ali were going to start on the matter of heirs.That would change things.Remi knew that even if they didn’t.

Nobles had servants to care for their wee ones, but neither of the Graces who kept Remi in their bed were the kind to ignore their children.Remi would be more page than ever once that happened.There simply wouldn’t be as much time for frivolities.

Remi was fond of that word, even if Holburn was displeased by how Remi used it.

“Oh, I see,” Holburn murmured when Remi met his eyes but then glanced away.“My suspicions were right.Thatiswhy you really stayed behind.To get used to that terrible, lonely bed?”

“Holburn.”Remi pushed out a breath and reflected that he sounded like Ali when he said the name that way.Exasperated and yet happy, Hilde had described that tone once.“It’s a fine bed.Better than all but this one.”

“Do I seem tired of you?”Holburn settled more of his weight onto Remi before sitting up.He was still hard.

Remi kept his hands where Holburn had pinned them both because it pleased him to and because he knew Holburn thought Remi pretty in such a pose.

“No.”He had to answer truthfully and wanted to answer truthfully, even if the truth was strange.

Holburn shook his head to get his curls out of his eyes, then placed his hands on Remi’s chest, stroking Remi’s nipples and cupping his flat breasts while watching his face.

“Ali wanted—and needed—you with her while she evaded preaching priests and monks, and found ruins to sketch.”Aside from his flush and his stiff cock, Holburn could’ve been sitting at his desk discussing tenants and crops and plans to redirect streams.“You would have liked seeing their gardens, which were truly incredible.”

“Oh.”Remi bit his lip and Holburn paused in his attentions to his nipples to draw Remi’s bottom lip out of the way of his teeth.

“They had a library, and some wonderful wine—I brought some back with me, and you might like it.And I would have found you in that library, or in those gardens, or among those ruins, and taken care of you.As Ali would have, monks or no monks.Anyway,” Holburn moved one hand to the base of Remi’s throat but let it rest there, a whisper of a promise, “you should have heard what those monks got up to.Of a hundred men all sworn to chastity, I’d say only ten or fifteen actually managed it.”

His lips twitched with his amusement.

“Oh,” Remi said again, once more out of breath.“Do you think they would have taken me?”

“You could tempt a....”Holburn stopped, then pursed his lips.“Are the guards still afraid that I’ll be angry if they touch you?My poor Remi.”He stroked the side of Remi’s face.“No one to please you all this time?”

“They’re so handsome,” Remi complained.They could bugger him or have him as their girl.He wouldn’t mind either.“But it wouldn’t be right anyway.”He drew Holburn’s hand back down to his nipples, elated when Holburn smiled at him for asking and wanting instead of merely agreeing.

Holburn gave him a pinch.“Why wouldn’t it be right?”

Remi blinked up at him.“You have to be first and last.Just like in the capital.You have to be there.And they’d never do it with you around.”

Holburn opened his mouth, said the first several words of the Lord’s Prayer, then shut his mouth again.His hands stopped.

“And you believe that I wouldtireof you?”His voice was rough and he leaned in again to hold Remi to the bed.“What of Aliette?Do you believe she would?”

Ali, petting Remi’s face and cooing at him in encouragement while he was thrust forward and drawn back onto yet another cock, and then, while he was shaking and tired and so sated and pleased, and everyone else was gone, she would do the job herself with a well-polished beast on a belt around her hips before letting Holburn step in to finish him.

But there was also Ali, who had wanted to take Remi into some ruins with her while she drew.Remi knew that would have ended with her forgetting the hour, and him pulling food from a pack for them, and then falling asleep on her skirts and waking to her sketching his face.

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