Chapter 22
BECKETT
Beckett couldn’t have conjured up a reply if his life depended on it.
Or his mam’s.
He’d spent so much time, that night and from the moment he’d first laid eyes on the duke, thinking about how it would go between them.
The problem was, every single one of those conjured scenarios had started with both of them dressed, and every fevered and imaginary encounter began with a tussle.
Coats were torn off. Shirts ripped at the seams and fell to the floor in shreds. Breeches were hauled down over quivering buttocks.
The usual.
So he was completely and utterly wrong-footed when he let himself into the master’s bedchamber with a cocky stride, only to see the duke already stark bollock naked and sprawled out on his bed like a hussy.
To his shame, Beckett couldn’t help the small noise of surprise and sheer want that escaped.
His Grace lounged against a mound of creamy pillows, naked body gleaming in the soft light.
Lounging wasn’t all he was doing.
On and off throughout dinner, he’d delicately taken the stem of the wineglass between finger and thumb and slowly stroked it. Up and down, up and down. Now, he had his entire hand wrapped around that huge alpha cock of his, and he was stroking himself the exact same way.
Beckett pulled the door shut behind him.
He locked eyes with the duke and held his gaze as he stalked across the room, not stopping until the fronts of his thighs touched the edge of the mattress.
Jack should have looked vulnerable. He was naked. He was on his back. He was right there, spread out for the taking, but…
It was a lure. Temptation.
Beckett narrowed his eyes.
He wasn’t stupid.
Jack narrowed his eyes back at Beckett. Unlike Beckett’s, his expression was one of amusement, not suspicion. His hand didn’t stop moving.
Beckett tugged his shirt out of his breeches, and had it up and over his head in an instant.
“All right.” He dropped his shirt carelessly to the patterned rug that sat beside the enormous bed.
“We can play it like this. I’d been expecting a good rousing fight for it, but if Your Grace wants to jump ahead and give it up from the start, that’s fine by me. ”
Jack didn’t say anything. Just smiled and lifted a pointed brow at Beckett’s groin.
Beckett frowned and got the fall of his breeches unbuttoned with trembling fingers. He shoved the breeches down to his thighs, realised that he’d forgotten to unfasten them at the knee, and that was when the bastard lunged.
In other words, when Beckett had hobbled himself.
Maybe he was stupid.
Jack hauled him onto the bed, rolled him, and dropped on top of him.
Beckett slammed his hands, palms flat, on Jack’s wide shoulders, and heaved upwards. He levered Jack’s upper body back a couple of inches, but that was all he managed. “Arsehole,” he said. It lacked anger.
Jack flashed him an arrogant grin that had Beckett growling. Beckett bucked urgently beneath him, felt that alpha cock slide against his, and his growl turned into a moan. He didn’t feel too embarrassed about it. Could barely even hear it under Jack’s moan, after all.
Beckett hesitated and then, slowly, he let his hands fall to land beside his head. Jack was lying between his legs, or at least as far between them as he could wedge himself, considering Beckett was still hobbled by the breeches that were cutting into his lower thighs.
Far enough that their bare cocks were touching, though.
They lay there, breathing hard, and contemplated each other.
He’d never done this before. Lain beneath a man. He wasn’t about to tell the duke that. Jack, in turn, seemed surprised that he’d wrestled Beckett into the position with so little fuss.
“Get off,” Beckett said firmly.
Jack shook his head. “I don’t believe I will.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then get my breeches off yourself.”
Jack laughed as he pushed back to kneeling.
Beckett stayed where he was. Yeah. Let the duke undress him. Why not? He’d never done that, either. Had someone take his clothes off.
Jack laid a hand on Beckett’s lower belly, making the muscles jump in response. “You’re beautiful,” he said abruptly.
Beckett goggled at him.
“Come, now. Why so shocked? You must have been told that many times before.”
He hadn’t, actually.
Jack hauled Beckett’s breeches down. He paused to take off Beckett’s shoes and drop them to the floor before stripping him of the bunched-up breeches and undergarment. “Well, you are,” he said. He gripped Beckett’s knees, and a thin curl of sensation glittered like a snare line in Beckett’s chest.
No one had touched his fucking knees before, either.
He’d have smacked Jack away, but Jack was already skimming those big hands up his thighs, bringing them up to press flat and firm on his abdomen against before curling them up and around to palm his waist.
Just, Beckett thought indignantly, as he’d grip an omega to help them bounce on his cock.
Jack smiled and dragged a hand down and in. He bypassed Beckett’s erection and quickly, shockingly, slipped his fingers behind Beckett’s balls and between his cheeks. He stopped short of his hole, though. “I want to fuck you,” he said.
Beckett exploded into action at that, and the room was filled with the creak of the bed, the rustle and rip of sheets, and grunts and swearing, then laughing as they grappled for dominance.
Now he was on firm ground.
Now he knew where he was and what was what. This scuffle was what he’d expected, not being laid out on silken sheets to be stroked and admired and told he was beautiful.
And oh, what a grapple it was.
Their limbs twined and slid together. Muscles tightened and relaxed. He gripped hard enough to bruise, and felt a burst of fierce delight that he’d have more than enough bruises of his own coming out of it.
He couldn’t say who started to hump who, but for argument’s sake, it was Jack.
Beckett was on top. They were facing the wrong way on the bed. The coverlet was hanging off, the pillows were all over the place, and Jack writhed beneath Beckett.
Beckett knew full well how to pin a man.
If he wanted to immobilise someone, he could do it, no problem.
Why would he want to immobilise Jack, though?
He was enjoying himself just fine, thanks, feeling His Grace’s fine skin slide over Beckett’s own, hot and smooth.
Feeling those sleek muscles swell and bunch against his. Feeling that big body strain for it.
Jack reached up and dragged Beckett down until his lips were a breath away. Beckett blinked down at the black eyes watching him. Still watching, Jack dragged him that last inch.
Their mouths met.
Air puffed out of Beckett’s nose at the press of Jack’s lips against his. It was cautious, but not tentative. A request, not a plea.
Beckett smiled. Jack’s lips followed the curve of his own, and he gave a quiet laugh.
Beckett kissed the laugh clean out of him. He threaded a hand through the side of Jack’s thick black hair, much shorter than Beckett’s own, and fisted it. Beckett licked aggressively into Jack’s open mouth, and Jack thrust as aggressively back.
Yes, Beckett was lying on top of Jack, but Jack was holding him there.
Yes, Beckett was driving his tongue deep into Jack’s mouth but Jack returned the favour even as he dropped his free hand to Beckett’s arse, hauling Beckett’s body against his and rolling his hips up with a sensuous, powerful flex of his spine.
Beckett spread his knees and dug them into the mattress, rocking his hips down with equal power.
It was all-consuming.
He liked rubbing off against someone as much as the next person. This wasn’t rubbing off. Or, it wasn’t just rubbing off.
His entire body was sensitised. He couldn’t get enough. Jack kissed him and kissed him as they worked their bodies together.
Kissing was fine. Kissing was good. Beckett was good at it. Usually. Now, he was a panting, gasping mess. He whined low at the back of his throat, and that was what broke through the daze.
He snatched his mouth away and shoved back and up to his knees, straddling Jack. Glaring, he wiped the back of his hand over his mouth.
Whining was not a thing he did.
Jack stretched beneath him lazily. Their breathing was harsh and loud in the room. No. That was Beckett’s breathing. He was indignant all over again when he realised he was the only one making the noise. Jack’s face was flushed but his chest rose and fell evenly and his body was utterly relaxed.
Beckett, meanwhile, was as riled up and prickly as a hedgepig. He was rigid and trembling and furious.
“It’s all right,” Jack said. “It doesn’t mean anything. I don’t think it means anything.”
Beckett grunted and rocked on top of him.
He’d meant to shove the man down into the mattress, to remind him that he was being straddled, that he was on the bottom.
Only Jack set his hands on Beckett’s hips, encouraging the rock, and Beckett did it twice more before he realised he was sitting on the man’s dick, not rubbing his own against it.
“Is it that you don’t like kissing?” Jack said curiously when Beckett smacked his hands off his hips and slid abruptly backwards. He took hold of Jack’s shaft and gave it a rough tug. Jack hissed through his teeth, arching his neck. He didn’t look away from Beckett.
“Kissing? It’s all right,” Beckett said with a nonchalant shrug.
“You’re good at it.”
“Thanks.”
“Love the way you yield for me. Ah.”
Beckett tugged harder.
“Mhm,” Jack said, curling up into the pain rather than away. “Such a sweet mouth you have. Soft and gentle. Letting me take—”
“Fucking…I’ll show you who’s takin’…” He leaned down, braced his hands either of Jack’s head and ducked down, pressing his lips to that infuriating smile. He bit at Jack’s mouth over and over.
Who was taking it now, huh? Who was yielding?
Jack, that’s who.
Beckett slowed his punishing kisses down to gentle brushes over those hot, damp lips. He coaxed them open and glided his tongue in and out lazily, the way he wanted to glide his cock into this man’s body.