Page 27 of The Wrong Rake
That thought was enough to make his cock half hard in his satin breeches.
This time, when he drew in the deepest breath he could, it didn’t taste terrible. He still despised the odor of London, but this was Simon’s home. And Harry knew that if it meant having Simon in his life, his bed, his arms, he’d grow used to it.
Enough. He’d conquered his fear to fight the French. Cowardice in the face of entering the club and claiming his lover would be absurd, even if this felt as momentous as stepping onto a battlefield.
Harry strode across the street and up to the door, knocking firmly when he reached it. A footman he recognized from his previous visit smiled the moment he saw Harry standing there.
“Welcome back, sir!” he said, bowing and stepping aside to usher Harry in. “Mr. Beaumont is in the gaming parlor. He asked me very particularly to keep an eye out for you. In fact,” the lad went on, lowering his voice conspiratorially, “he’s asked me to do so every day this sennight.”
Harry couldn’t have helped his answering grin if he’d been paid a million pounds. “Thank you,” he said, with feeling. And then, greatly daring, he added, “Put my hat somewhere safe, would you? I won’t be needing it again until tomorrow.”
“My name is Stewart,” the footman said. “Ask for me if you need anything at all.” He winked, took Harry’s hat, and waved him on.
This time, when Harry walked into the parlor of Perdition, he couldn’t have cared less for the shouts of the players, or the smoke in the air, or the scantily clad young men and women circulating among the guests. He had eyes only for one man, and it took him a mere moment to find him in the crowd. How could he mistake that glossy black hair, the set of Simon’s shoulders in his perfectly tailored coat, the sound of his voice?
Simon had been halfway across the room directing one of the servants, but as Harry stopped in the doorway and stared, he spun about, as if Harry’s gaze on him had been a physical touch.
When he saw Harry, he stopped for a moment, frozen, his mouth open, and Harry’s heart pounded like a kettledrum. Would Simon be glad to see him after all? Had he changed his mind? Had Stewart been mistaken?
But then, even across half the room, he saw Simon’s dark eyes soften. It was like the dawn breaking, watching Simon’s wide, mobile mouth curl into a smile, his whole face lighting up. Harry waited, rooted to the floor. He’d wondered if he’d imagined how lovely Simon truly was.
Well, he bloody hadn’t, and Simon in the flesh was a hundred times more alluring, more perfect, than in Harry’s daydreams.
Simon crossed the room, dodging around a drunken reveler and striding through the space in front of the door until he stood only a foot away. “Harry,” he breathed. “You kept your word.”
“Yes,” Harry managed, and lunged, wrapping his arm around Simon’s waist and all but dragging him out of the parlor, heedless of the eyes on them, caring nothing for anything but having Simon alone, and quickly.
Laughing and protesting in a way Harry knew was feigned, Simon allowed himself to be hurried out of the parlor and through the hall and chivvied up the stairs. They clattered up to the floor where the owners had their rooms, and Harry flung open the door to Simon’s, pulling him in and slamming the door behind them, twisting the key in the lock for good measure.
When he turned, Simon had already begun to tug at his cravat. “I can’t wait for you to do it,” he said. “I need you, Harry, I need you now—”
And then Harry was on him, bearing them both down onto the bed, landing with him in a tangle of limbs and messy kisses and hands everywhere, his and Simon’s, tearing at their clothes and caressing as if they’d been apart for months instead of a mere week. Simon’s lips tasted of wine and of Heaven, as soft and delicious as ever. More so, for all the hours Harry had spent dreaming of them.
Simon writhed under him, rubbing against Harry like a cat.
“Will I need to—fuck, Simon—will I need to hold you down again?” Harry gasped, and bent to latch onto Simon’s neck, sucking a mark there, flicking with his tongue, savoring the cries he wrung from his lover.
“Hold me down, or tie me down, or—God, Harry, you feel—get your bloody breeches off and get inside me!”
Harry got both of their breeches off, and his own coat and cravat, and managed both pairs of shoes, but then Simon was bare from his lean stomach down to his toes, and everything in between…and he dropped to his knees by the bed, pushing Simon’s legs apart.
“You’re even better like this, half-dressed and debauched,” Harry said, gazing up at Simon’s flushed face and rumpled hair, his shirt open and twisted around his torso, and his hard cock begging for a touch. And then lower, the curves of his arse, cheeks parted by Harry’s hands to reveal that pink, secret place between. “And I will be inside you. But I’ve been thinking of something else.”
He had, late at night when he took himself in hand and wished some magic could transport him instantly to this very bedchamber. Simon had moaned and squirmed when Harry touched him between his legs, used his fingers to slick and ready him, stroked him after when Harry’s spend trickled out of him. He clearly loved it when a lover played with his sweet arse.
And he’d clearly loved it when Harry sucked his cock.
Harry might not have been the most experienced as a lover of other men, but he had a fertile imagination, and he’d put the two together in his mind.
He leaned in, breathing hot on the smooth curve of Simon’s arse cheek. “Is this something you’d want?” he asked, and dared to press his lips to Simon’s hole.
The low, helpless groan Simon let out answered the question well enough, and Harry flicked his tongue, tasting heat and musk andSimon. Oh, but that wasn’t bad at all. In fact, that was something Harry could grow very accustomed to.
“Oh, God, Harry,” Simon cried, spreading his legs, his hands landing one on Harry’s shoulder and the other in his hair. “How do you—bloody hell, oh,oh,” as Harry licked him again, smiling against his skin, wishing he had the presence of mind to manage stroking his own cock while he pressed his lips to Simon’s tight, sweet hole.
Another lick, a kiss, and Simon grew noisier and noisier, moaning and whimpering, his legs shaking. Harry pressed him open, steadied him, and kissed him again, deep and filthy, pushing his tongue inside.
“Please,” Simon moaned. “Please, don’t finish me like—I’ll spend, and I’ve been wanting you in me so badly!”
