Page 5 of The Wrong Rake
“Sit down,” Simon said. “I’m not suggesting you watch anything at all. I propose a practical demonstration. Although I suppose you are very welcome to watch at the same time.”
***
A practical demonstration. Harry tried, and failed, to find any other interpretation of the words, staring at Beaumont in frozen shock. That mobile mouth quirked up at the corner, and those black eyes glittered with wicked intent.
Sit down. Sit, in that chair a few feet to his left, and then Beaumont would…give that practical demonstration of his supposed inability to ruin a woman’s reputation. But Amelia had been definite in her insistence that nothing untoward had occurred between her and Beaumont in private; they had, in fact, spent very little time together alone, merely a few moments here and there. Almost all of what had passed between them had been quite public indeed.
Even if Harry discounted the possibility of Beaumont as a man who consorted with both men and women, a fellow who preferred his own sex would still be entirely capable of raising expectations in a lady that he could not, and would not, meet. He could be as malicious and as callous as a man who did enjoy the company of women.
Sitting down, and allowing Beaumont to offer his demonstration, would prove nothing.
Harry’s cock pressed insistently against the placket of his breeches, and his blood ran hot, pounding violently through his veins.
That mouth. Although not a few women had performed the implied act for him, Harry had experienced another man’s mouth only once, in a moment of drunken weakness after the storming of Badajoz. The long, frightful battle and the longer, equally horrific sack of the city had left him exhausted, sick at heart, tattered in clothing and in spirit, and with a furrow in his upper arm from a musket ball that had nearly done for him. He had controlled his men rather better than some other officers had done, but it hadn’t been nearly enough.
Captain Dunn had found him in the aftermath, once Wellington had at last restored order to the city. And in that little, quiet room that had belonged to some French officer who had likely become one of a towering heap of bodies in the carnage without, Dunn had gone on his knees and opened Harry’s trousers, pleasuring him with eager desperation.
They’d never spoken of it. Dunn had died at San Sebastian. Harry could hardly recall his face, his voice.
But Beaumont’s face, Beaumont’s voice…those filled his senses now, smooth and handsome and seductive. That body, so slim and taut and strong. Those long legs that Beaumont would fold to the ground as he bent his head over Harry’s cock.
He’d ruin his fine breeches kneeling on the floor like that, just as Harry had already ruined his coat.
Somehow, that settled the matter.
The only other man who’d knelt for Harry lay rotting in a shallow grave in Spain after countless battles, days and weeks and years of killing and hunger, of mended, threadbare shirts and endless marches.
And this man, this debauched rake, had been prancing about England ruining reputations and setting himself up as the owner of a bloody gaming hell, drinking and dancing and fucking and wearing satin sodding breeches.
Harry would put him in his place.
And then he’d laugh at his absurd lies and shake the bloody truth out of him.
He sat in the chair, spreading his legs to give Beaumont room to work, and looked up at him, eyebrows raised.
Beaumont sucked in a hard breath and went very rigid.
“Well?” Harry said. “Are you all talk, then?”
“No, indeed.” Beaumont seemed to force himself to ease, hitching himself up off the edge of his desk where he’d perched himself again, his movements slow and languid, every inch the dandified libertine from the fine lace at his wrists to the diamond glittering in his cravat to the lascivious smirk on his damnably pretty face.
Beaumont whipped a square of snowy white linen from his pocket, clearly with a view to laying it on the floor to kneel upon.
And that wouldn’t bloody well do.
Harry lunged and tore it from his hand, crumpling it into a ball and tossing it over his shoulder as Beaumont stared at him, mouth agape and eyes wide as saucers.
“On the floor or not at all,” Harry rasped. “If this is really something you relish as much as you claim, then you won’t mind smudges on your knees.”
He expected argument, anger, expostulation. But instead, he received swift obedience, and he was the one sucking in a sudden breath as Beaumont shrugged and folded gracefully to his knees between Harry’s feet.
With the candles off to the side of the room, Harry had an excellent view of Beaumont’s profile: his long eyelashes casting sultry shadows on his flushed cheek, his perfectly shaped nose, the dark slash of his peaked brow and the soft waves of black hair at his temple.
And his lips, pink and plush, a little parted as he gazed down between Harry’s legs at the growing bulge there.
Harry fought the urge to preen a bit—but he didn’t fight it that hard, really. Sod it. He had more than most men could boast; why not flaunt it? Parting his thighs a tad further, he slumped down in the chair slightly, the motion pushing his hips up a trifle.
His cock and bollocks ached now, heavy with need. God, how long had it been since he had anyone? A Belgian woman the night before Waterloo, and since then—not a touch at all of this kind. Anticipation thrummed through every limb, skittering along each nerve and making his toes and fingers tingle.
