Chapter 11
BECKETT
Beckett slouched against the wall opposite the duch’s chamber, arms crossed over his chest. He stared at the door in front of him, as if he could see right through it if only he tried hard enough, to where his little omega—Jack’s little omega—was no doubt splashing happily in his bath, pink and warm and satisfied.
He’d better be satisfied. Beckett had never worked so hard to pleasure a man in his life.
And if he wasn’t satisfied? If he needed more?
Beckett would give him more.
Jack had gone in earlier to check on the duch while Beckett waited, and when he’d come back out, he’d done his best to kiss Beckett witless.
As wound up as Beckett was right now, that wasn’t difficult to do.
They’d parted, panting into each other’s mouths and holding each other tightly. Beckett thought he’d be able to come again, if Jack was up for it, and said as such.
“I’d like nothing more,” Jack had replied with a groan, “but these damned suppressants will have me in agonies if I try it. I expected them to have worn off by now. No such luck. I think they’re worse.” He’d grimaced, asked Beckett to bring Arden down to his study when he emerged, and left.
Beckett had expected his drive to fuck would have worn off, too, but it hadn’t. It swirled around in his gut, fizzing at the base of his spine, radiating out and stiffening his cock.
It kept him restless and on high alert. Even though the duch’s steps were light, Beckett’s sharpened senses could track him moving around in his chamber as clearly as if the door was wide open.
Beckett stood, arms still crossed and hands balled into fists, and watched the door handle turn.
This was where a good footman would leap to open the door for the duch.
Today, though, Beckett wasn’t a good footman.
Today, he didn’t attempt to anticipate the duch’s needs. He didn’t even bother to straighten from where he lounged against the wall.
He waited.
The duch opened the door. He was neat as a pin. His hair was brushed back from his delicate face, his clothes were tidy and elegant, and his posture was upright and graceful.
Beckett scowled.
That hair, he thought fiercely, should be bunched in Beckett’s fist. Those clothes in shreds on Beckett’s floor. That poise gone, as he writhed and prettily begged beneath Beckett, and Jack, and—
The duch took one look at him, squeaked, and backed into the room, using both hands to haul the door shut.
Beckett sighed.
He pushed off from the wall and rearranged his face into the bland, expressionless mask a good footman should wear at all times when on duty. According to Marl, anyway. Beckett had reluctantly practiced in the mirror until he achieved it. It would never come naturally to him.
“That’s because,” Jack had said once, amusement dancing in his dark eyes as he slowly rocked over Beckett, “you don’t really have what it takes to serve.”
Beckett had been shocked then angry at the comment.
He’d let Jack know about it by flipping him onto his back.
Jack had flipped him in turn, and they’d rolled off the bed in a hearty scuffle until Jack had pinned his shoulders and said with a breathless laugh, “I meant that you are a born leader, and that climbing the ladder to earn the position will be hard for you—”
“I’ll show you fuckin’ hard,” Beckett had growled, and worked them both to an orgasm so loud and overwhelming that he swore the windows rattled in their frames.
Jack wasn’t wrong.
Beckett did struggle with orders. Didn’t like to admit it. He wanted to tell people what to do, not be told. One day he would, but the climb…yeah. It was frustrating.
Probably good for him, for his control, but frustrating.
He didn’t think he’d ever manage to be a proper servant around the duch, though, no matter how much he practised. All he wanted to do when it came to the duch was command.
He was about to rap lightly on the door and do it right now, command the duch to come out. Before he did, the door opened again.
The duch clung to the handle and sent Beckett a vague, polite smile that made Beckett want to bare his teeth in response and insist that the duch look at him. The duch cleared his throat. “Good morning.”
“Your Grace.”
“I…am going downstairs,” he announced.
“Very good, Your Grace.” Beckett stood aside.
The duch scurried past, shoulders hunched almost around his ears. Beckett’s lips twitched as he stepped quietly after him. The duch didn’t glance back until he was at the end of the corridor, when he peeked over his shoulder.
He was trying to get another of his sneaky looks at Beckett. Unfortunately for the duch, Beckett was on his heels.
His gaze bounced up to meet Beckett’s in dismay.
Beckett politely raised his eyebrows, as if he had no idea what that little gasp was about.
The duch whipped to face forwards, and scuttled ahead.
Beckett should have given him space, of course.
He didn’t.
He knew that the duch was going downstairs to find Jack. He knew that Jack was going to kiss him. Jack had told him so, watching Beckett for his reaction.
“He’s sweet,” Beckett had said. To his utter mortification, he’d added, “Be gentle.”
Beckett stayed close behind the duch. The odd little thing couldn’t seem to decide what pace to proceed at.
First, he scurried.
Then, as if embarrassed to be scurrying, he slowed down to a ridiculous, self-conscious amble.
Then his shoulders tightened all the way back up to his ears and he scurried again.
In the end, Beckett took control. Let someone try and tell him off about it.
He was the one who had helped the omega through his heat.
It was only a matter of hours since he had the man on his cock.
Beckett was obeying his alpha instincts, that was all, to soothe and protect. No one could blame him for it.
He reached out and set a hand on the duch’s vulnerable nape.
The duch stopped suddenly and Beckett bumped into him. He gave the duch an encouraging little push.
“His Grace is waiting, Your Grace,” he said.
“Right. Yes.” The duch sprang away. He didn’t get far; Beckett made a soft, reproving sound, firmed his grip, and set their pace at comfortably brisk.
There was no more stopping and starting, no more jerkiness. Good.
He escorted the duch along the corridors and down the stairs. He was aware that a couple of the other footmen at their duties stopped and watched them go with blatant curiosity. They’d have done that anyway when they saw Beckett, since everyone knew what Beckett had spent the whole night doing.
Or perhaps they were staring at the situation in his breeches.
It wasn’t what you’d call appropriate, after all, for a footman to go striding through his master’s residence fully aroused. Shoved up right behind his husband, too.
They arrived at Jack’s study and Beckett didn’t waste time letting the duch get himself into another tizzy about it. He reached over his shoulder, knocked once, and opened the door without waiting for a response, ushering the duch ahead of him.
Jack was sitting behind his enormous, carved desk with a fancy blown-glass pen in his hand and a sheaf of gleaming parchment before him.
For all he looked like he was hard at work, Beckett would lay good odds Jack was doing nothing more than doodling while he waited for his husband to be delivered for kissing.
Slowly, he set down the pen and leaned back in the comfortable chair. “Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” the duch replied.
Beckett should probably stop scruffing the duch like he was a kitten.
He let go, and immediately ruined it by drifting a hand down the duch’s side to rest on his hip.
Ah, well. Did his best.
Jack got to his feet and strolled over. He paused, his gaze turning calculating as he waited to see if Beckett would allow it.
Beckett nodded. He’d try.
Jack lifted the duch’s chin on a curled knuckle, lowered his head, and hovered just out of reach as the duch quivered and strained subtly towards him.
Jack shot Beckett an apologetic look before saying to the duch, “This is to be our first proper kiss as married men. Do you want it to be just the two of us, or—ah.”
He couldn’t say who was the most surprised, him or Jack, when the duch reached back and grabbed Beckett’s thigh with a loud smacking sound.
Beckett didn’t even try to hide the fierce grin.
Jack didn’t hide his pleasure, either. Beckett shifted closer, pressing himself flush against the duch. Fingers fretted at his thigh, and he caught the small hand and lifted it. He set it on Jack’s shoulder, even as he wrapped an arm around the narrow waist and tugged him closer to his own body.
“Yes?” Jack asked. “Like this? All of us together?”
The duch nodded hesitantly.
Jack didn’t kiss him. “Why, darling? Is it because you want your alpha here with you? Or because you feel you should allow him to be here, because you think your claim on me is somehow less and you are deferring to him?”
Oh. Beckett stepped back sharply.
The duch had been using him as a support, more than likely unaware of it, and he wobbled.
Jack aimed a quelling look over the top of the duch’s head, silently ordering Beckett to stay. Beckett narrowed his eyes. Jack narrowed his back, even as his lips twitched.
“Jack,” the duch said faintly.
“Arden?”
“Don’t…that is a terrible thing…you must know that I…”
He petered out.
No one stepped in to fill the silence.
“You must know that I…I w-want him here. He should be, I think? If that’s all right with you?”
“Of course it is,” Jack said. “It’s why I asked—”
“Not you,” the duch interrupted, and astonished both Beckett and Jack when he turned to look up at Beckett. “If that’s all right with you?”
Beckett frowned. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
The duch shifted with discomfort. “Um. Because Jack is your lover and you might not like it if he kisses me?”
“He’s your husband.”
“But your lover.”
“Right. And I’m your lover.”
The duch’s cheeks scorched, and his pupils expanded even as he hummed in nervous assent. “That was just last night, though. For my…for my heat. You and Jack have a proper relationship, and I’d hate to insert myself—oh.”
Beckett decided that everyone had danced around each other’s feelings for more than long enough.
He stepped into the duch’s space, cupped his face, and lifted him up onto his toes for a firm kiss. He took a moment to revel in the dazed expression and the rosy, parted lips, then turned him by the shoulders and pushed him into Jack’s arms, following him in.
Now Jack cupped the duch’s face—that fine skin, so soft and hot—and leaned down. Once again, he hovered above the duch’s lips. This time, the duch wasn’t having it. He stretched up with a little bounce and pressed his mouth sweetly to Jack’s smile.
And that, apparently, was it.
He dropped flat.
Beckett spun the duch, caught his chin with bossy fingers, and leaned down.
“Like this,” he said, resting his lips over the duch’s hot ones.
He nudged the duch’s lips until the duch parted them hesitantly.
Beckett flicked out his tongue. The duch’s eyes were screwed shut, a faint crease between his brows.
Beckett watched him as he glided his tongue slowly and obscenely alongside the duch’s, and then he watched Jack.
Drawing back softly, he turned the duch to Jack. “Now you try,” he whispered in the duch’s ear.
The duch didn’t even open his eyes. He reached blindly for Jack, pulling him down. Jack went easily, smiling when the duch pressed their mouths together again and sort of mashed them about.
He was hopeless.
Beckett would have to teach him how to please an alpha, he could see that.
But…perhaps not today. Not now.
He ached and he burned, and although he was pleased that the duch had wanted him there for this moment, it was time for him to go.