Chapter 24
ARDEN
“Nothing,” Arden said, and closed the distance between them.
Jack held out a hand in demand. Arden took it, and Jack tugged him gently between his parted thighs. “You can tell me anything. Whatever is on your mind, you can speak freely.”
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“It’s difficult to do,” Jack said, with a questioning lilt in his voice.
“I was wondering…it’s been weeks, and you never wrote anything about…I suppose I…I was just wondering…”
“About Beckett?”
Arden nodded.
“Why do you think asking about Beckett would hurt my feelings?” Jack drew him closer and palmed the backs of his thighs.
“Because my husband has been here all of three minutes and I’m already asking about another man?” Arden said.
“Not just any man.” Jack’s hands drifted up and down Arden’s legs. “Your lover.”
Arden choked.
“Your lover,” Jack repeated, smile widening. “Your big, strong, alpha lover.”
“I still can’t believe I have a lover.” Arden put his hands to his cheeks. “I haven’t even slept with my husband yet, and I took a lover.”
“So well, Arden. You took him so well.”
Arden gasped in outrage.
Jack grinned up at him. “You know that I want you to have a relationship with Beckett. It makes me happy that you’re asking about him. Whether you want that relationship to be physical, romantic, or simply cordial, it’s your choice. You get to choose.”
“And Beckett?” Arden heaved a sigh. “What about him? Does he get to choose anything about this whole situation? There he was, minding his own business, loving the most wonderful man in the world, thinking he’s safe from mewling omegas—”
Jack groaned and tipped his head forward, pressing it into Arden’s stomach. “Arden, I am sorry. I couldn’t let Lassit suspect for even a second that I had any interest in you, or he’d have made sure I never saw you again.”
“You barely saw me after that, anyway,” Arden reminded him. “And now Beckett is supposed to share you with me, and…and take orders from me, and—”
“From what I heard, you couldn’t order Beckett if your life depended on it.”
Arden blushed. “That’s not true. I asked him for more tea once.”
Beckett had been the one to answer the bell and Arden, startled, had all but shouted the request from across the room before Beckett had even stepped over the threshold.
His shout had sounded more like a feeble squeak, and Garvey was the one to bring the refilled teapot ten minutes later.
“My darling.” Jack pressed a kiss to his stomach, then rubbed his cheek over the spot. “You asked. So politely, I’m sure.”
“Of course.” No need for Jack to know about the squeak.
“How did Beckett respond?”
Arden hunched in on himself. “He glared at me and didn’t come back.”
Jack made a sympathetic noise.
“Jack, does Beckett even like omegas?”
“Yes.” Jack was holding Arden’s hips, rubbing light circles with his thumbs.
It made it hard to concentrate. Arden swayed, chasing the gentle touch.
“Do you remember what I told you in my study a few weeks ago? That I wanted Beckett to take you first? He is an experienced man. He’s been with omegas before.
He—oh. Sweetheart. You don’t like that, do you? ”
It was ridiculous. Arden had no claim on Beckett whatsoever. “No,” he said, loathing the thought of an eager omega lying beneath him as Arden had, taking him into their body as Arden had, and doing all of it with much more grace and skill than Arden had. “No, I do not.”
“You should tell him one day.”
Arden gave him an appalled look.
“Trust me, helping you through your heat was no hardship for Beckett. I only wish I’d handled the whole business better.”
Arden should have left it there, but he couldn’t. “And if it had gone differently…if you’d been able to take me to Avendene yourself and introduce us, and Beckett and I had got to know each other first…” He trailed off.
“Go on.”
“If you’d asked him to do it, and he said he didn’t w-want me, and that he didn’t want you to have me either. What would have happened then?”
Jack stared at him thoughtfully, and took his time. “Then, unless you’d gone into heat, Beckett wouldn’t have had you.” He sighed. “Neither would I.”
“You’d have respected his wishes.”
“I would. Does that make you angry?”
“What? No. It makes me proud of you, Jack. He is your chosen partner.”
“He is. As are you.”
Arden hummed. Reaching out, he fiddled absently with the collar of Jack’s shirt. “You and Beckett were already together. If it wasn’t for Lassit, you wouldn’t ever have asked me to marry you, though. Would you?”
Jack didn’t hesitate. “I wouldn’t,” he said regretfully, holding Arden’s gaze. “I wanted something else for you.”
Arden had asked.
He had no right to feel that awful withering sensation in his chest at the honest answer. It wasn’t too bad, though. Most of him was satisfied. Pleased, even. He’d trusted Jack to speak plainly. Jack had.
Excellent.
Jack slid his hands up to hold Arden’s sides. “You are…innocent.”
Arden had a brief and visceral flashback to lying on the rumpled sheets of his bed, with Beckett working inside him as Arden cried out. All while Jack watched.
He didn’t feel innocent.
Jack made a soft sound and touched his lips gently to one throbbing cheek then the other. “I didn’t think you would ever have a heat.”
Arden turned his head and pressed a clumsy kiss to Jack’s smile.
“Mhm,” Jack said. “Softly, Arden.”
Arden tried again, reining in the desperation that flared up in him whenever he got his mouth on Jack’s. Or Beckett’s.
“Softly,” Jack murmured again, fingers tangling through the back of Arden’s hair. “Like this.” He held Arden firmly and laid his lips to Arden’s. Arden gasped and tried to push forwards. Jack’s chest heaved under his in a low laugh. His fingers tightened. “Wait,” he chided.
Arden’s breath fractured, but he managed to do it. He licked his lips and waited.
Jack rested his mouth on Arden’s for a moment. He lifted away, returned for another light press, then did it all over again.
Arden melted for it. Into it. He stopped trying to grab for the sweetness and let Jack layer kiss after kiss upon his hot mouth. He licked his lips again, inadvertently catching Jack’s. Jack licked back and Arden pulled away sharply, blinking.
He stared into Jack’s dark eyes. Leaning in without looking away, he pressed a kiss soft as a moth to Jack’s smiling mouth.
“Do you like it better this way?” Jack asked. “Do you like it gentle, sweetheart?”
Arden sighed, squirming closer and hiding his face in Jack’s neck. “Yes,” he mumbled, and daringly dabbed his tongue against the warm skin that was right there.
Jack rubbed a hand up and down his back. “Enough for now?”
Arden nodded. For a lovely quiet moment they sat together, Arden sprawled all over Jack, and Jack seemingly happy to just be with him.
Arden was the one to break the silence—and the comfortable mood along with it. “Why didn’t you think I would have a heat?”
Jack stiffened the merest fraction.
Arden sighed. “It’s because I’m so old, isn’t it?” he said mournfully.
“Yes and no.”
Arden patted Jack’s chest. “I thought so.”
Jack had been stroking his hair. He tangled his fingers at the back once again and tugged. Arden burrowed closer, not wanting to look at him. Not wanting to see the sympathy on his face.
Jack was insistent, though. “You’re not old. You’re only thirty-one. But most omegas,” he said slowly, once Arden had given in and met his gaze, “have their first heat between the ages of eighteen and twenty. If they’re unfortunate, they do it sooner, and it’s how they present.”
“Oh,” Arden said, feeling, if it was possible, even more inadequate. And elderly. Then he said it again, with a hint of wonder. “Ohhhh.”
Jack narrowed his eyes. “Why do you say it like that?”
“Like what?”
“As if something makes sense.”
“Because now I understand why everyone was so dramatic about Clarke.”
Jack stiffened and pushed Arden back to see him better, holding his upper arms.
Interesting. Unless Arden was very much mistaken, Jack was about to be dramatic about Clarke, too.
At Arden’s tiny smile, Jack’s eyes narrowed further. “Who is Clarke?”
Abruptly, Arden stopped finding it amusing. “No one.” He glanced at Jack from under his lashes. “An alpha I once knew.”
“Arden,” Jack growled.
Arden caved at once. “A f-footman at Dalbryn.”
Jack was silent for a second, then he laughed out loud.
Arden scowled at him.
“A footman?” Jack chucked his chin.
Arden swatted his hand away, which only delighted his rude husband more.
“Let me guess,” Jack said. “He was tall? Muscular? Dark hair and eyes?”
“Yes! Do you remember him?”
“No,” Jack said, still brimming with amusement. “It seems, my darling, that you have a preference when it comes to your alphas.”
“No,” Arden protested at once. “He wasn’t…it wasn’t like that. I didn’t feel anything for him, not like the way I do for you and Beckett. It wasn’t the same, Jack. At least…” He wrinkled his nose. “Not for me.”
The amusement drained away. “For him? Clarke?”
“In retrospect, I suppose that…how strange. Yes. He pushed me—”
Jack growled again. There was nothing teasing about it. “He did what?”
“He pushed me down.” Jack didn’t need to know that he’d chased Arden first. Caught him. “Other servants came when I called out. I didn’t know what set him off. I thought he was drunk.”
“He was probably in rut. It can feel like being drunk.”
“Oh. Was it…? Did I do that to him?”
“No. You didn’t ‘do’ it to him any more than Beckett ‘did’ it to you. He sensed a compatible partner. An omega open to—”
“I assure you I was not open to anything! I didn’t even know I was an omega. That was the day I presented.”
Jack’s face tightened. He hushed Arden gently. “Another omega on the estate set him off, then.”
“We didn’t have any other omegas. I was the only one.”
Jack didn’t say anything.
“Was I open to it?” Arden said after an awkward silence. “I didn’t want him, Jack. I didn’t. I’ve only ever wanted you.”