Page 13 of The Wrong Rake
Beaumont blinked up at him and stirred in his arms, rubbing his body over Harry’s in a way that made his breath catch. “We don’t need a bed,” he said, and then added, in an ashamed little whisper, eyelids flicking down to hide his gaze, “I liked being on my knees for you.”
One part of Harry—a large and growing part, currently trying to stab Beaumont in the stomach—wanted to take him up on that offer, drop into the chair by the fireplace and push into the wet, delectable heat of his mouth.
But he couldn’t. Not this time. Not when he meant to prove that he could give as well as take.
He had little knowledge of what Beaumont might want him to give, but that wouldn’t stop him—improvisation had gotten him far during the war, and he’d survived. This needn’t be any different. Another type of campaign, but a battle to be won nonetheless. Even if the battle were mostly with his own ignorance and near-uncontrollable lust.
“On the bed,” Harry said, and began to shuffle Beaumont sideways, already working at tugging his shirt from his trousers, wanting skin. Acres of perfect, silky skin, his for the taking…and perhaps he would be greedy, after all. But he’d be damned if he didn’t make Beaumont scream.
Into the pillow, perhaps, as they were in a public inn with thin walls and many people about.
But scream all the same.
Beaumont’s eyes widened, and he tried to reply, but Harry swooped in and kissed him breathless, kissed him until his own lips felt swollen and well used, tipping him back onto the bed and following, a knee pressed between Beaumont’s spread thighs.
And bloody hell, that willowy body writhing beneath his, Beaumont’s gasps and muffled—fuck, protests.
Harry raised his head and shoved up on his elbows at once to lift his weight from the man under him and have a good look at his face. It made him want to dive back down and kiss him again, all parted lips and wild hair and wilder eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “Forgive me. You seemed willing, more than willing—”
“And so I am! But if you ruin another of my coats, I shan’t so readily forgive you this time!”
For a moment, Harry could only gape at him like an idiot. His coat. His bloodycoat, at a moment like this? The urge to tear it off of him as swiftly as possible, to make him forget anything as absurd as the state of his fine clothing, struck him strongly.
But no.
No, he had indeed ruined one of Beaumont’s coats, not to mention his well-tailored satin breeches—albeit rather by proxy, for he hadn’t been the one to stain them, only the cause of it. But he had already played the blackguard, and Beaumonthadforgiven him, as evidenced by his presence in Harry’s bed with his legs spread.
He could and would do better.
And so he restrained himself, ducking down to kiss Beaumont again as softly and carefully as he had the first time, savoring the sweet press of his lips and the way he opened so readily, so trustingly.
“I’ll be careful of your bloody coat,” he whispered against Beaumont’s lips. “Sit up and have it off, then.”
It took both of them a great deal of maneuvering to accomplish it, but Harry managed to valet Beaumont out of his damnably tight coat without letting him off the bed entirely—if he did, he felt convinced the man would slip away somehow. Of course, it took three times as long as it ought. He had to run his hands over Beaumont’s shoulders, peel the coat from him, watch his lean body twist and contort, the tender dip in his waist and the tantalizing jut of his hipbones. By the time he’d finished, with Beaumont murmuring encouragement the while, his cockstand had all but forced its way out of his trousers. He ducked down for one swift kiss before he dashed to the chair and laid the coat carefully over the back, turning around with a flourish.
“Have I redeemed myself?” he asked, prowling back toward the bed.
Beaumont grinned, making him look five years more carefree. “That’s yet to be seen.” He began to unbutton his waistcoat, showing Harry precisely what he intended his redemption to consist of.
The other night, Beaumont had taken him by surprise with that kiss of his, knocking him entirely off-balance.
His turn.
Rather than lie down on top of Beaumont again, Harry dropped to his knees at his feet, and he had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes widen and his mouth drop open in shock. Harry had never had another man’s cock in his mouth, and he certainly didn’t take the same pleasure in being manhandled that Beaumont seemed to do. But that didn’t mean he didn’t understand a little, in that moment, what could appeal to a fellow in taking such a role. Gazing up—a point of view he never had given his six feet and more of height—allowed him to see the long, slender line of Beaumont’s throat, the proportion of his shoulders to his trim waist, the curves of his high cheekbones and the way his hair curled around his ears. Harry wasn’t and never would be a man with much appreciation for art in any form, but from here, Beaumont looked like something painted by an old master, a work that would hang in a gallery in a great house somewhere.
And as he laid his hands on Beaumont’s knees and slid them slowly up his thighs, pushing them open as he did, he could certainly enjoy the view that afforded him. Beaumont’s cock pressed against the placket of his trousers as insistently as Harry’s, a long, slender ridge against the cream-colored fabric. If Harry leaned forward, mouthed over that tantalizing bulge, would Beaumont moan and writhe, wrap his legs around Harry’s shoulders? Would he spend in them, spreading a dark stain over the cloth?
Harry nearly groaned aloud, picturing that in his mind.
Bloody hell, it might be worth it.
But no, he’d promised not to ruin another of Beaumont’s coats, and he thought that the rest of his wardrobe was probably included in that promise, in spirit if not in the letter.
And so he reached for Beaumont’s buttons instead, undoing both sides at once, one with each hand, finding good use for the dexterity of a man who could load and fire three rifle shots a minute. Beaumont leaned back on his own hands and stared down at Harry’s, their gazes intersecting on the way the placket peeled back an inch at a time, exposing first the flushed, shiny head of Beaumont’s cock—and he sucked in a satisfyingly abrupt inhale as that met the cool air of the room—and then the shaft, bit by bit. Harry hadn’t seen Beaumont’s cock yet. It matched the man, longish and slender, elegant and graceful.
When the placket lay at last on Beaumont’s lap, with that lovely prick framed in the opening of his trousers, Harry laid his hands on Beaumont’s thighs again, as much keeping himself in check as pinning the man down.
