Chapter 9
For the first time in Maurice’s life, he didn’t want to be a Duke.
He was a fool. He’d wanted to kiss Sebastian for years and had stopped himself from asking so many times because .
.. he always had an excuse. Sebastian worked for him.
They had become friends, colleagues. He respected him.
The latter was silly since kissing someone he didn’t respect made no sense at all.
And now he’d finally taken that big step and invited Sebastian into his bed, he wanted everything. Love. Happiness. A life lived together.
“We’d better dress for dinner. Cook will be disappointed if we don’t eat.”
Sebastian’s gaze shuttered. It hurt. Maurice’s chest tightened, but he didn’t know how to not be a Duke and he couldn’t fall in love with his stable master.
Dukes didn’t fall in love with the help.
There were rules about that sort of things.
The very thought was absurd. At some point, he’d have to do his duty to the title and marry some woman to beget an heir.
He’d put that off for years, knowing he couldn’t subject a person to such a fate.
It wasn’t fair. He knew what a lonely life it had been for his mother, married for her dowry, and then treated like an old pair of shoes, property that had once been new and exciting and was later faded and forgotten.
“Maurice. Relax.” Sebastian caressed his face and it only made things worse, because he couldn’t have this tenderness as much as he wanted it. If the world was different, if he was different, he might be able to have this.
“I don’t think I can.” His body was sated, and his muscles relaxed, but he wanted too much.
He’d heard of men living together, living small happy lives without being noticed by the world.
There were several clubs in London where people like him could meet, and sometimes people fell in love and didn’t need the club anymore for fucking or companionship.
They became “friends” who shared their finances to make their life a little bit better, and who went about their life without the pressures of society’s gaze.
Maurice suddenly had simple needs. He wanted to see that moment on Sebastian’s face when he’d emptied himself into Maurice again and again.
The joy and the pleasure in Sebastian’s dark brown eyes, shining with love.
Love? Oh hell and damnation. Maurice wanted Sebastian to love him, and if that wasn’t completely and utterly impossible. ..
This was definitely the opposite to simple.
“What is the problem?” Sebastian’s gentle question felt too innocent, devoid of all the complications rattling around in Maurice’s head.
He benefitted greatly from his title and land and money and power, but being a Duke also meant that people paid attention to the minute of his life.
They craved what he had, and they aspired to his life, and they used him for entertainment in the newsheets.
Even in the quietest version of his life, where he stayed at Pewett Downs only coming to town for parliament, he’d be discussed in the society papers.
And a youngish unmarried Duke ... well, he was the main topic of interest among his set.
He couldn’t abscond to the country and live a life with Sebastian. Not if he valued Sebastian’s life.
Fuck.
“You are not the problem. The world is the problem.” He didn’t even know how to articulate all these complex worries and that in itself bothered him. He was a Duke, damn it, accustomed to the world bending to his needs. Not this. He couldn’t...
“Maurice.” Sebastian stroked Maurice’s jaw line. “It doesn’t need to be solved instantly.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No. You understand patience. You breed horses which is an exercise in patience.”
Maurice growled. “What we have isn’t the same as a horse.”
Sebastian chuckled softly. “No. A horse is easily understood.”
“I could spend my life learning everything about you and trying to understand you.” Maurice spilled his soul, as if having Sebastian’s delicious weight on his body and his cock inside him made it impossible to control his mouth.
“If I’d known that the way to bring down a Duke was to fuck him in his bed, I might have done it years ago.
” Sebastian’s soft laughter sent vibrations through Maurice’s chest, and he wanted to say ridiculous things like admit that he’d get on his knees for Sebastian every day if he asked. He rolled them both, so he was on top.
“Dinner. Let’s eat.” He had too many feelings and needed to get away from them so he could take some time to corral his feelings into obedience, except he didn’t want to move—he wanted to stay here lying on Sebastian forever—hence why he had to flee.
If he wore his ducal clothes and ate his ducal dinner, then maybe the world would go back to the way it had been before.
When he’d just been pining and didn’t know how perfect this could be.
Fuck.
Sebastian rolled them again and Maurice closed his eyes as Sebastian’s warm body covered his again, but it wasn’t for long as Sebastian eased himself up, leaving Maurice cold and ... lonely.
“Do you have a cloth?”
“For?”
“To clean you up.”
Maurice sat bolt upright. “I can do it.” It was a step too far to allow Sebastian to care for him, not while his thoughts were so tangled and upset and in awe and just so fucking confused. He wanted more than he had the power to grant. A rather alienating problem for a Duke.