Chapter 30
BECKETT
He’d wanted to stay with Arden at Greylag. Jack wouldn’t have minded.
But Beckett was doing his best here.
He’d given Arden better memories of him to dwell on—memories of Beckett chasing him over the golden sand, lifting him into the air, turning him into Jack’s arms—and now he knew that he had to give Arden the space and time to miss him.
He hoped that when Arden thought of him, he thought of Beckett smiling, not scowling. Holding him gently, and letting him twist free to run again, not holding him down and making him beg.
Arden had blossomed under Beckett’s smiles so quickly. Too quickly, really.
Beckett had mentioned it to Jack as they rode away, Arden’s slight figure on the steps of Greylag growing smaller and smaller and finally vanishing.
When Beckett had turned for a final look before the curve of the road obscured the view, Arden had still been waving.
“He has been dying for someone to love him his whole life,” Jack had said flatly.
Beckett had shifted in the saddle with discomfort, making it creak beneath him. His mount, a mare from Greylag’s stable, had tossed her head with disapproval. “Ain’t right,” he’d muttered. “Everyone should get someone to love them.”
“I agree,” Jack said. He added with satisfaction, “Now Arden has two.”
“You think he could love me back, an’ all?”
Jack had shot him a smile. “I think he’s well over halfway there.”
“Not that I earned it,” Beckett said. “Yet. I will, though.”
“I know, my love.”
A few hours after leaving Arden, they were tucked up for the night in The Hare’s Rest, one of the nicer inns on the road to Sevennis.
They ate a hearty stew supper chased with a pint of stout apiece at in the taproom.
Up in their chamber, Jack wrote his fancy love letter to Arden, Beckett growled at him for poking fun at Beckett’s message about holding hands, and the whole time, Beckett had an itch at the back of the neck.
An uneasy prickling, whispering that his omega was alone and he shouldn’t be.
He shouldn’t be.
It was just one of those things, Beckett told himself. He’d be feeling the same way if they were all at Avendene and Arden was in the next room, just out of sight.
One of those alpha/omega things, that was all.
Nothing to worry about.
Arden was fine.
Jack pulled back from kissing him. “Am I boring you?” he asked with enough edge to bring Beckett back to the present, to the bed they were sharing, and to the fact Jack had a thigh between his and, until a moment ago, his tongue in Beckett’s mouth.
“Yeah,” Beckett said, because he was in the mood to get Jack stirred up.
Jack gave him a fierce smile.
“S’all right, though,” Beckett said. “Been a long day. Old man like you’s probably a bit too knackered to really get going. Whyn’t you lie back and I’ll jerk off on you?”
“Oh,” Jack said with a dangerous glint in his eye. “It’s like that, is it?”
“Yeah.” Beckett pecked him sweetly on the lips, the way Arden would.
“Why don’t you lie back instead?” Jack said, and did his best to pin Beckett to the mattress.
Beckett saw it coming in the way Jack’s muscles tensed before he lunged. Beckett was a brawler. Grew up scrapping in the slums, got paid for it as adult, and though he’d been living soft since he came to Avendene, there’s some skills you don’t ever forget.
Jack, though? You’d think a duke wouldn’t have the first clue how to handle himself. Not really. Not beyond a sexy romp in bed.
That’s what Beckett had thought when they first started up, at any rate.
Turned out Jack had got in his own fair share of scraps with the stable lads and servants around his age when he was growing up, as well as a fair portion of the village children.
All of whom, Marl had told him, had been determined to get their licks in before Jack grew up, became the duke, and started thinking he was better than them.
He drew quite a bit of attention from the local bullyboys looking to grind some humility into him, Marl said, alphas and betas alike.
Once, an omega. And didn’t eight-year-old Jack go around hissing about that one for weeks?
She was the blacksmith’s daughter, and she’d kicked Jack’s noble arse clean into her papa’s horse trough.
Beckett had been amazed.
He’d thought little Jack was all but carried around on a silken cushion, like some of the high-born omegas do with their lapdogs.
Marl had near burst with laughter at that comment. Couldn’t run and share it with Mrs Foley fast enough.
Point was, Jack knew just fine how to fight, and he fought dirtier than Beckett, which took some getting used to, refined nob as he was supposed to be.
So him showing his hand before he went for the flip was deliberate, and Beckett met him halfway.
They had a time of it that night, getting overheated in the small room, thrashing and grunting around, knocking the bed about until the ceiling of the taproom below them most likely rained plaster dust.
Both of them taking out their sexual frustration on the other.
Beckett let Jack have it, in the end.
He was still tender-feeling about nearly losing the man. Sometimes he woke in the night with a racing heart, thinking that he could…he could have gone the rest of his life, decades and decades of it, without Jack.
He’d have had Arden, possibly, but only if he’d pulled his own head out of his arse.
Worst case, he’d have spent decades punishing Arden, who’d have stood by and let him, and—
“Beckett.” Jack gripped Beckett’s jaw and lifted a hand to push Beckett’s hair from his stinging eyes. “Beck.”
Beckett jerked his head, trying to shake Jack off.
Jack held tighter. He laid his mouth softly over Beckett’s and whispered, “I’m here, love. I’m right here.”
Beckett made some sort of stupid noise then. Soft. Practically a whimper. First he kissed Jack like an omega would, now he was making noises like one?
He just…it was just…he wanted the reassurance. That was it. That was all. He loved/hated giving up dominance for Jack but he still…he had his hands braced on Jack’s heaving ribs, about to shove him up and off and take his turn to scramble back on top, and he…he didn’t.
Instead, he threw his arms around Jack’s broad back and drew him closer, needing to feel his weight, his strength, and, yes, his cock.
But that wasn’t the bit that mattered.
Jack’s heart beat against his, steady.
Steady.
Jack huffed a quiet laugh. Beckett bit him for it, then sucked gently on his neck.
Jack began to move. “How about,” he whispered, “we do it like this for once?”
“Don’t need—”
“After all, as you so eloquently put it, I am old and knackered.”
Beckett snorted. Jack was vibrating with energy, as much as Arden had been when he was splashing around in the sea.
“Knackered,” Jack said firmly, “and it’s late.
I want to get up early. The sooner we’re back in town, the sooner we can go and meet Arden at Avendene, yes?
So. Like this, my love.” He flexed his big, beautiful body, pushing his hips into Beckett’s then curling away, then doing it again.
His weight shifted as he moved over Beckett, watchful black eyes on Beckett’s face. “All right?”
Beckett’s mouth opened to say no, he wanted a proper wrangle, and last one to finish had to do cleanup.
Instead, he said, “Please.”
He forced himself to meet Jack’s eyes when Jack stroked his cheek. “I understand, Beckett. I do.”
Nice. Good for him. Beckett didn’t.
He wasn’t about to ask Jack to explain it to him, though. He lay beneath this man he loved with all that he was, and he yielded. More than he ever had.
They moved together softly in the bed, the ropes beneath the prickly mattress creaking, the worn linen bedclothes rustling. His head was full of Jack’s breathing, and of his own; pants, soft moans, the intimate sounds of kissing, of skin brushing skin.
Beckett even let Jack get a kiss in on his neck, which he didn’t always allow.
It raised the hair on his body in a rippling rush, a shiver of sensation, and he found himself dropping his head back, arching his throat, offering more.
If Jack did this for Beckett, Beckett’d be a shit about it. He’d get teeth around Jack’s Adam’s apple with a warning pinch. He’d mark him up good. He’d grip a fistful of hair and keep him there until Beckett was done chewing.
But Jack…gods. Jack was tender with it.
His warm lips slid gently over Beckett’s throat, and his tongue traced the long length of his artery. He pressed a gentle kiss to the the hinge of Beckett’s jaw and would have stayed there if Beckett, hips rolling ceaselessly into Jack’s, hadn’t dragged Jack’s mouth to his.
Jack hummed questioningly, rocking, rocking, rocking into him.
Beckett had never had it this slow. Not even with Jack, on one of the rare summer afternoons they’d stolen when both of them had the time for it.
When they’d shut themselves away in Jack’s bedchamber and gone at each other like the world was about to end and they had to get a lifetime of loving in as quick as they could.
He didn’t goad Jack on, though he could have. Could have turned the tide right easy, let Jack know he didn’t need this softness.
He didn’t need it.
Wanted it, though. Craved it.
He licked out at Jack’s lips, met his tongue, and they fell into it, kissing as deeply and slowly as they were moving.
Fuck, it was good. It was good. He’d never…with Jack, he hadn’t thought he’d ever…or that Jack would want it like this. That Jack could be like this. Maybe…
Maybe one day he’d think about letting Jack…
He held Jack even closer, though he was almost suffocating under the man’s solid bulk.
He smoothed his palms over Jack’s arse, giving him a half-hearted pinch before letting himself do what he really wanted, which was hold him like he’d hold their omega.
Just hold on to the hot, sleek skin, feeling the beautiful muscles flex as Jack rubbed his body over Beckett’s.
He even slipped his fingers between Jack’s hard cheeks.
Jack let him. Trusted him.
Beckett tore his mouth from Jack’s and came like that, holding Jack as tight as he ever had, his throat exposed and Jack sucking on his neck as Beckett gasped and moaned his way through it, shaking, his thighs and buttocks clenching as he shoved up into Jack, begging for more of that friction, that weight, even as it slowly edged towards being too much.
Jack fucked his hips hard into Beckett’s until Beckett had finished and his open-mouthed pants had become satisfied purrs. And then Jack slid an arm under Beckett and turned them, putting Beckett on top. He straddled Jack and pushed up to sit on his Jack’s restless thighs.
Jack spread himself out for Beckett, long and lean and powerful against the rough bedclothes.
Beckett looked his fill, running his hands over Jack’s chest and down his sides. He stroked teasingly over his hipbones and the heavy planes of muscle before taking hold of his shaft.
They didn’t speak. They didn’t have to. He knew how Jack liked it well enough.
He leaned over Jack, one hand spread possessively wide over Jack’s heart, and their eyes locked as Beckett jerked him hard and fast to the end.
It was Jack’s turn to make all the noises. Low groans and rough pants like growls, finishing with a long, shuddering moan that was arousing enough Beckett’s own spent cock gave a feeble kick.
Jack smiled up at Beckett and gestured him closer, even as he quickly bent his knees up and knocked Beckett forwards.
Beckett caught himself with a hand to either side of Jack’s ribs and shook his head. “Let me get a cloth.”
“If you must.”
Jack sprawled there like a big lazy beast, sighing and stretching. He watched as Beckett rolled off the bed and strode over to the washstand.
The water was unpleasantly cold, but Beckett wasn’t about to call for more at this time of night.
He grabbed the cloth they’d used to wash up when they retired, poured a clean bowl, and swished the cloth about.
He wrung it out and cleaned himself off, earning an admiring sigh from Jack.
He dried himself with the thin towel and then, without letting himself think it over too much, he went over to the bed.
Jack reached out for the cloth. He stilled when Beckett—not blushing or anything like it, he’d just exerted himself and his cheeks were supposed to be hot and red—ignored him and tended to Jack briskly.
Beckett blotted him dry and lobbed the cloth and towel in the general direction of the washstand before climbing on top of him.
Jack slung an arm over his waist and wrangled them around, putting them face to face. He propped himself up on an elbow and looked down into Beckett’s eyes for a long moment. He read the warning there, and didn’t say anything.
He leaned over Beckett, blew out the candle, and pulled him close.