Chapter 35
JACK
“Another letter from Avendene for you.” Nolan dropped the missive onto Jack’s blotter and set the morning’s third cup of coffee beside it.
Jack removed his reading glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose and rub the corners of his gritty eyes. He cracked a huge yawn. “Anything else? Did Crewe respond yet?”
It was his last piece of business. If the blasted man would do his lordly duty and sign off on the Quinton purchase as Jack had been badgering him to do since, it seemed, the beginning of time, then Jack would be free to go home to his men. He’d given Beckett some space with Arden, and—
Nolan shook his head.
“Fuck’s sake,” Jack grumbled. “If he doesn’t hurry up and sign the documents, I’ll go over to his house my damn self, drag him down to his study, and stand over him while he—no. Hah. I’ll send you over.”
Alpha or not, Crewe would bend to Nolan. He always had.
Nolan’s face pinched, making Jack laugh. “Please do not,” he said.
“You can handle him.”
“I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole.”
Nolan was the son of Jack’s childhood tutor, and he had a lifetime of experience when it came to managing alpha lords. He’d been taught alongside Jack and had bullied him through his studies, when Jack wasn’t busy brawling around and getting into scrapes.
If Crewe didn’t get off his arse and let Jack do his job and go home, he would send Nolan over. Nolan could take a ten-foot pole with him if he wanted, and he could do whatever he liked with it, as long as he got Crewe to pull his weight.
He shared this with Nolan, took a sip of his coffee, then opened the letter.
“Jack?” Nolan said from the doorway. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Hmm?” Jack glanced up. Nolan hurried back across the room, frowning with worry.
Jack flipped the letter over, flattened it on the desk to hide it from Nolan’s innocent eyes, and then realised that Arden had drawn on both sides.
He grabbed a ledger from the stack off to one side of his desk, and shoved the paper under it. “Yes?”
“What is it? Is there a problem?”
Besides all of the blood rushing from his head to his cock when instead of a letter, he opened up an exquisite and lovingly detailed sketch of Beckett?
Nude?
No. No problem at all.
“It’s fine. It’s from Arden. It’s fine.”
Nolan squinted at him.
“It’s a letter from Arden, that’s all.”
That was not all.
Arden had drawn the sketches and addressed the envelope. The rest of the words, however, were written in a blunt, slightly uneven hand that Jack recognised as Beckett’s.
He waited until Nolan had left before sliding the sheet of paper out from under the ledger.
Did it even count as a letter when all it said was, Come and get it?
The sketch beneath the words showed Beckett lounging like a prince in a bath. Jack wondered what Beckett had thought when he saw himself. He wondered if Beckett saw the same emotion behind the lines that Jack did.
Probably Beckett would have taken one look at the sketch, said, Give it here, and sent it off to let Jack know that they were done waiting.
What Jack saw was a powerful young man, staring at the viewer with heat and demand in his eyes.
Jack touched a light fingertip to the beloved face.
There was something else in Beckett’s expression as he looked at Arden. It was something Jack was already familiar with, having seen it on Beckett’s face for years, though he’d wager that Arden himself had no idea he’d captured it with his pencils.
Love.
“Mhm,” Jack said to himself in the silent room.
Heat, demand, protectiveness.
Grace, power, possessiveness.
And hunger.
So much hunger.
Around the edges of the main sketch were a few quick studies.
A strong throat, sharp jaw, firm lips. The bulge of a bicep, an arm lying loose along the rim of the tub, hand dangling relaxed.
A flat abdomen with a scattering of coarse hair below the navel, drawing the eye down to the hint of an impressive alpha cock.
The rest of Beckett’s body was shown in unflinching detail, but Arden hadn’t quite had the nerve to draw that.
Yet.
The fact that Beckett was lounging around in Arden’s tub, the very one Jack had watched Arden bathe in months ago, said volumes about how things were going between them.
Come and get it.
All right.
He would.
By the end of the day, Lord Crewe still hadn’t deigned to sign the documents Jack had been waiting on.
Nolan, being the long-suffering and noble friend that he was, stood up from the dinner table, informed Jack that he’d return with the documents in an hour, and Jack made preparations to leave at first light.
Nolan did get Crewe’s signature, although it took him significantly longer than an hour.
“Do not ask,” he snarled at Jack when he marched into Jack’s study at eleven o’clock that night, his ash-brown hair spilling out of its usual tidy queue, his fussy cravat a disaster, and what Jack was certain was stubble rash around his tightly pursed mouth.
Jack put his hands up and tried not to smile.
He failed.
Nolan swatted him with the packet of documents and dropped them on the desk. “I need a drink, godsdammit.” He stalked out.
Jack went to bed and barely slept a wink at the thought of finally going home and seeing his beautiful boys.
Beckett would scoff if Jack called him that to his face. Arden would blush and smile hopefully, not quite believing that Jack meant it, but liking it anyway.
He didn’t bother to send a message ahead to warn them of his arrival. They knew full well that he was on his way. Whether it was Arden’s idea or Beckett’s to send him that sketch, they’d joined forces to bring him home.
They knew he was coming.
They also knew full well what to expect when Jack arrived.
Beckett did, at least.
He set out on his fastest horse, changed mounts twice, and made it to Avendene in excellent time. It was late evening when he passed the Lodge where he’d recovered from the suppressants.
It seemed a lifetime ago.
He shifted with impatience in the saddle, the leather creaking. His horse, a sweet but moody mare called Ginny, jerked her head up and down, mouthing at the bit. She no doubt sensed Jack’s own mood.
She was also signalling that she was more than ready for her stall, which she knew was only another ten minutes away.
Jack shifted again. He was, he realised with a hint of incredulity, nervous.
He hadn’t been nervous about his performance in bed since…he blinked at the darkening land before him.
He didn’t think he’d ever been nervous. Not even when he was a virgin still.
It wasn’t in his nature to feel nervous, any more than it was in Beckett’s. Perhaps that was an alpha blessing. More likely it was down to the fact they were both arrogant bastards.
Poor Arden. He was the least arrogant man Jack had ever met, and now he was trapped between them for good.
Jack’s cock thickened, though he hadn’t meant it like that.
Arden.
Between them.
Gods.
Ginny tossed her head and, at his signal, lengthened her stride into a ground-eating trot.
Finally, the house came into view. The building was vast and imposing, but welcoming with its myriad of golden windows. The lights of Avendene shone out.
Ginny pulled questioningly at the bit, her tail swishing.
Jack patted her powerful neck and let her have her head.
She broke into an eager if tired canter, purposefully directing her steps from the road to the clipped grass that ran alongside it.
Instead of continuing straight, she swung in an arc towards the left wing, which housed the stables at the back.
Jack breathed in deep lungfuls of the damp night air as they closed on the house. It was almost full dark now. In the far woods, a vixen suddenly barked, her cry shrill and demanding.
Anticipation rose in his blood.