Chapter 33
ARDEN
Arden sat in the flickering green shade of a vast old chestnut tree on one of the last days of summer, gazing out at the parkland before him.
The weather was hot and fine. A gentle breeze played through the wildflowers growing where the landscaped park blended with the meadow beyond, and tossed the tops of the willows and tall osiers that marked the route of the river.
He’d stripped off his coat, stockings and boots, and was crosslegged in his shirtsleeves.
His sketchbook lay open on his lap and his fingers were smudged with colourful pastels. The scene before him, delightful and picturesque though it was, couldn’t hold his attention. Not when his head was full of something else altogether.
Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply of the mild, sweet air, and let his mind wander where it willed.
In other words, he let himself think of Jack, and Beckett, and that wonderful morning on the beach.
It was the happiest he’d ever been.
A warm sun, a sharp breeze, the magical ocean curling around his ankles and up his calves. His heart pounding with excitement as Beckett chased him and snatched him off his feet, ran him down to the water’s edge and threatened to toss him in.
Jack, strolling to join them with his easy, long-legged grace. Arden wrestling free and rushing over to put Jack between them, laughing and dodging as Beckett gave chase again.
It had been wonderful. It had felt like a beginning.
He opened his eyes and flipped pensively through his sketchbook. He’d almost filled it, and not with trees and flowers and landscapes, either, although most of his sketches did begin that way.
They just quickly morphed into the scandalous images that he was, as it turned out, rather good at.
He’d had no idea.
Before Jack—before Beckett—it hadn’t ever crossed his mind to draw this sort of thing.
He’d sketched figures before. He had many thick sketchbooks crammed with the people back home.
Mostly the servants, going about their business, paying no attention to Arden the child, then Arden the youth, then Arden the young man, hovering about, always sketching.
They were well aware that he was doing it.
Sometimes the local children would scamper up to him and demand a portrait to take home to their parents. He was always happy to oblige.
He hadn’t ever drawn figures like this, though.
The pages were covered with bold, slashing lines that were far from his usual light, whimsical style. Dark, sweeping curves of thick charcoal suggested the flex of heavy muscle. Shadows pooled in intriguing hollows, outlined a cobbled torso, showed the bunch and strain of wide shoulders.
Arden flipped swiftly past the detailed sketches of Beckett’s face at the beginning of the book, of the remembered sneers and the scowls, the lowered brows and the cold light in his eyes, and he paged on to—oh, gods, he could hardly believe he’d drawn that.
But he had.
This one was pure imagination.
He hadn’t actually had a good look at Beckett’s naked arse, as Beckett had been on top of him, or behind him, but if he closed his eyes right now—Arden closed them, and didn’t hold back the smile that came with the memory—he could relive the sensation of it in perfect detail.
The way Beckett’s dense, muscled flesh had bunched and shifted beneath Arden’s hands. The supple resilience of his buttocks as Arden dug in his fingers and hauled him closer, faster.
The glorious rounded shape.
Arden had honestly had no idea until he’d had Beckett’s arse in his hands that backsides were anything other than practical cushions to sit upon. He really hadn’t.
But Beckett’s arse…it was…
He sighed happily.
It was lovely. And Jack’s? Would it feel the same as Beckett’s, or would it be harder? Softer?
…squishier?
He sighed again, restlessly, barely believing he was sitting here fantasising about buttocks, of all things.
But one day, when he was more confident with the whole physical business, maybe he could convince Jack and Beckett to stand side by side, naked? Perhaps they’d pose for him?
Perhaps not side by side, but back to back.
That way, their lovely arses would touch.
They’d be squashed against each other, and…
No. He fidgeted. That was ridiculous, and not at all the sort of thing he should be lounging around pondering.
Especially, he thought once he’d blinked his eyes open, when he had company.
His eyes widened.
Especially when that company was Beckett, the man whose arse Arden was lounging around, pondering.
Pondering for a lot longer than Arden had even realised, considering that Beckett had come down from the house, across the huge lawn, and right up to Arden’s tree without Arden noticing, stopping with the tips of his boots mere inches from Arden’s crossed legs.
He dropped into an easy squat, cocked his head to glance down at the sketchbook, and looked back up with a smile. He leaned in and said, “I’ve got a beauty mark on my bum. Left cheek. Right there.” He tapped Arden’s sketch with a forefinger.
Arden choked and tried to slam the book closed, but Beckett flattened his hand on the page, so all Arden did was slam the book on his hand.
Beckett didn’t flinch.
“Sorry. Sorry!” Arden opened the book and tried to tug it away and snap it shut but Beckett kept his hand flat on it, and kept smiling. Oh. This was mortifying. “It’s…it’s…it’s not…”
“Not my arse?”
“No!”
“You sure?” He tilted his head consideringly. “Looks like it.”
“Well. It’s. It could be anyone’s. It’s just a sketch. Of…of an…”
“Arse.”
“Yes.” Arden couldn’t have stopped himself from returning Beckett’s teasing smile if he’d tried. He tugged the book away and set it on his lap. “Um…hello. You’re home. Is Jack with you?”
“Nah. He’s still in Sevennis. I decided to come and keep an eye on you. He’ll be here in a day or two.”
“Oh.”
“Mhm. Can I kiss you?”
Arden had been staring shyly in the vicinity of Beckett’s chin. At this, he looked up. “Yes, please.”
“Please, he says,” Beckett murmured, then slid a hand along Arden’s jaw, leaned in, and pressed his lips to Arden’s.
He chuckled softly when Arden gasped at the sensation, and held him steady to drop a quick series of butterfly kisses onto Arden’s mouth, his chin, his nose.
Arden laughed and opened his eyes to find Beckett watching him with something like fondness. Barely believing his own daring, he reached out and rested his hand on Beckett’s cheek.
It was warm and rough with stubble, and bunched beneath Arden’s touch as Beckett grinned.
“Is it my turn?” Arden asked, growing brave under that warm approval. “May I kiss you?”
“By all means, Your Grace. Have at it.”
Arden squinted at him suspiciously for the overly polite tone, but decided Beckett was still being playful when he tapped his own lips expectantly.
Arden stared at his mouth. It was a lovely mouth. He had a full bottom lip. The top lip was narrower, with an elegant curve. The deep rose colour made it seem incongruously soft and plush amid the hard planes and angles that constituted the rest of him.
Oh.
Except for his arse, of course. That was hard with muscle, but there were no sharp angles. Just that delightful round—
“Arden,” Beckett said softly.
He wanted to do it like Beckett had. Soft, fluttering, light. Not the desperate mash of his mouth that had Jack telling him to calm, to be easy, but…this, instead.
This.
He caught the corner of Beckett’s smile, blindly adjusted with a little slide to the left, and lifted away. He tried again, and then again. Encouraged by the soft murmurs Beckett was making in response, he sank into it and kept doing it. Sweet little pecks, all over Beckett’s face.
Beckett’s honey-amber eyes were fixed on his, the pupils dark and shining. Colour slashed over his cheekbones. “That was perfect,” he said. His voice was deep and rough.
Arden beamed.
“Like it sweet, don’t you, pet?”
“Yes. Although I did also like it when you…before, not today, but before, when you…that was nice, too.”
“When I what? Got my tongue in your mouth?”
Arden blushed but held Beckett’s heavy gaze. “Yes.”
“Want me to do it now?”
Arden heaved in a short, sharp breath, and shook his head. “No?”
“You tip me the wink when you do,” Beckett said comfortably. “I am ready to give you a good tonguing whenever you fancy it.” He sat down beside Arden, and added, “Wherever you fancy it.”
Wherever? Well, where else could it possibly go? Arden laughed.
Beckett grinned at him. “You let me know.” He picked up the sketchbook from Arden’s lap and flipped it open.
“Oh no.” Arden lunged for it. “Don’t look!”
Beckett twitched it out of his reach, his eyebrows shooting high. “Why not?”
“It’s…they’re…I’m not very good. They are doodles, that’s all.”
“Doodles?” Beckett made a rude noise. “You got my arse perfectly, and you haven’t even seen it proper yet.”
“I have a good imagination,” Arden said primly.
“I’ll say. Let me look?”
“No.”
If this was Jack, he wouldn’t have pushed beyond that.
This was not Jack.
“I want to,” Beckett said.
“Trust me, you don’t.” Arden couldn’t have picked a worse thing to say, could he?
Beckett was instantly suspicious. “Why?” His voice pitched up a little. “You drawing other men’s arses in here?”
Arden gasped. “No! Just yours.”
“Then why can’t I look? What won’t I like?”
Arden’s gaze locked with his. “There are other sketches of you.”
“Other than my arse?”
Arden nodded. “Yes. They were from m-memory, not, um. Not my imagination.”
Beckett smiled at that, looking pleased.
At Arden’s discomfort, that smile slowly drained. “Arden?” he said.
Arden gave a jerky nod.
Beckett opened the book and paged through, starting from the most recent ones that Arden had sketched just this afternoon, and moving ever closer to the ones he’d sketched when he first arrived at Greylag.
“I—” Arden broke off, then tried again when Beckett glanced up, waiting for him to continue. “Um. Never mind.” What was there to say, anyway?