Chapter Sixteen
THEIR GUESTS DIDN’T depart for another three years.
It seemed that way to Rollo, anyhow. When they did, Lord Lyndon suggested, in a tone brooking no disagreement, he and Rollo retire to the drawing room.
Whereupon he dismissed Greaves, ordered Rollo to sit, locked the door behind them, and let out a prolonged, frustrated sigh.
“You vex me, pup,” he declared, pacing from the door to the window, where he looked out, his hands clasped behind his back.
“You are not the first to make that observation, my lord. I believe that honour belongs to my father’s valet.”
Fitzsimmons made a huffing noise. “But perhaps my vexation is of a different nature. One which I am…at a loss as how to resolve.”
Rollo could think of several ways, beginning with a renewed exploration between the man’s legs.
His lordship cleared his throat, then addressed the garden. “I have bedded countless women. Too many to recall. I am not proud of it. I have not always treated them with the respect and common decency they deserved.”
Rollo knew the rumours well, thanks to his father’s gossip of a valet. Lord Lyndon Fitzsimmons—recklessly extravagant, a notorious rake. A man of insatiable appetites, housing a mistress in Brighton, a widow in Richmond, a married countess in Wessex.
“Only a good man would have the courage to acknowledge that,” Rollo answered carefully. “So do not be too hard on yourself.”
“Huh. That is a kind sentiment, sir, but misplaced. And I have committed many other, even more severe sins. Directed at people whom I love.”
“But you are reformed, are you not? Since settling back in Goule?”
Rollo suddenly found it vital Lord Lyndon answer in the affirmative.
“Entertaining dull provincial folk at lunchtime and building somewhere to house the local poor and infirm are but feeble reparations. Five homes—ten homes—would be insufficient.”
Abruptly, Lord Lyndon turned from the window and paced back again to take up a position in front of the mantel. He drummed his fingers on the cold marble, then raked them through his unruly hair. “But I have never swived a man.”
This admission he directed towards a small oil painting of an ugly child clutching an even uglier black dog. Not one of his own. “Though I wanted to, once. And thanks to you and your persistent…existence, that want has reared its swollen head again.”
Rollo bit back the smart witticism at the tip of tongue. I’m maturing, at last.
“You once held a tendre for your…ah…playroom friend,” he hazarded instead. “But it was not reciprocated?”
“It most certainly was.” Affronted, Lord Lyndon huffed and folded his arms. “Except it was not to be, and…and I request you question me no further on the matter. The subject is…well, it is painful.”
“And now you have developed an inconvenient tendre for me. Am I correct?”
Fitzsimmons’s gaze narrowed. “Damn your eyes, pup. And damn your insistence on that ridiculous word. There is nothing tender about this uninvited business of…of desire and affection. It is harsh and unmannered and pricks like a thorn.” Once more, he strode to the window.
“In case I do not make myself clear, my tendre for you is an affliction to which I’d have rather not succumbed. ”
“You are implying I am irresistible?” Rollo teased.
“Like a shiny red apple laced with arsenic, yes.”
Rollo found Fitzsimmons’s petulant attempts to express his needs charming and his awkwardness seductive. Nonetheless, with burgeoning needs of his own, Rollo decided the time had come to help Fitz along a little. He dabbed at his forehead with his pocket square, then dug a finger under his collar.
“Miss Eliza was correct in her observations, my lord. It is awfully sticky today. If you have no objection now that the ladies have departed, I shall relieve myself of my coat.”
The lord turned and, as Rollo rose to his feet, tramped back to the fireplace, his fists clenching and unclenching. Making more of a song and dance about things than strictly necessary, Rollo tugged ineffectually at his cuffs.
“I do so adore the latest fashions, but goodness, these tight sleeves can be a devil. I’m of a mind to call for Greaves to assist.”
“No!” Lord Lyndon strode to his side, mere inches away, close enough for Rollo to breathe in the warm woodsy, masculine musk of him. A flush spread across Fitzsimmons’s cheeks. “No,” he repeated more evenly. “My untrained service will suffice.”
He removed the coat with surprising gentleness, easing out each arm before pushing the garment from Rollo’s shoulders.
“And your cravat,” the lord added, his voice rough as a saw edge. “You…remove that too.”
His big hands fisted at his sides as if untrusting of them. “Tell me, pup. When men like you…like… like us…when they… what if they are not…not compatible? What if…” His eyes darted down Rollo’s half-dressed frame. “What…dammit, what if they both desire the same thing from their… ah…liaison?”
“Then they simply take it in turns, my lord.”
Fitzsimmons’s jaw dropped, his expression aghast. “And do…do you…”
Cravat in hand, Rollo hid his smile behind it.
Him flying to the moon was more likely. He drank in this big beast of a man, chest hard as whinstone, tying himself up in knots like an anxious virgin.
The same man whose flinty gaze weakened Rollo’s knees while stiffening his cock, a man capable of devouring Rollo’s soul for breakfast. And then he spared a glance down at himself, at how his cinched waistcoat hugged his tiny, girlish middle, and at the sunny yellow cravat dangling from his fingers.
“Look at me, my lord.”
Two dark eyes, blazing with need, lifted to his.
And Rollo continued. “One should never, ever assume a man’s preferences.
But look at me properly and then consider yourself.
How you like things in bed. How it pleases you to pleasure a woman.
And how I bent so readily at your feet and served you.
” He permitted himself a small smile. “I will hazard a guess that you enjoy playing the part of… the ship’s captain.
And I am very much accustomed to, and savour, the role of first mate. ”
Below the proud set of his jaw, his lordship swallowed, once, contemplating. Then nodded. “Understood.”
His gaze slipped down to Rollo’s slight chest. “Unfasten that waistcoat.”
Two curt instructions later, Rollo was stripped of every item bar his drawers and his trousers, which both sagged at his knees, held there by his boots. Fitzsimmons’s hand drifted to his jutting member, and he gave an audible swallow.
“Face the wall, pup. Put your palms like so.”
Rollo shuffled around. A cool breeze drifted in from the open window, caressing his bare arse. Or perhaps that was Fitzsimmons’s fingertip, mapping out his curves. Slowly, he lifted his arms and braced his palms either side of his head. “I’m to be pinned like a hydrangea.”
Behind him, Fitzsimmons snorted. Then a firm hand gripped his hips. The other roamed over Rollo’s buttocks as Fitz brought his mouth to Rollo’s ear. “Perhaps. But they are the fairest blooms in my garden.”
Rollo shivered. Again, a light fingertip traced down his crease. An impolite thigh shoved between his legs.
“I want these more apart,” his lord demanded.
Rollo spread as much as his yoked knees permitted.
Fitzsimmons’s hot breath gusted against his cheek in a long, hot sigh. “How eagerly you please me, first mate.”
The finger stroked his crease relentlessly. Teasingly light, too much yet not enough. Every pass skimmed, not settling where Rollo craved it most. With a frustrated moan, he arched back into the touch. Fitzsimmons kneaded his bare buttocks.
“This…” He breathed harshly, cupping one of them. “This is carved from the finest marble.” He groaned as, once more, he tracked the line of Rollo’s crease down to his ballocks, this time cupping them from behind. He rolled one gently between a finger and thumb. “You are well sculpted, pup.”
Rollo canted his hips, thrusting against nothing.
His cock throbbed, seconds from spending, untouched.
He followed orders, though his hands were not tied, merely held in position by that scorching breath against the back of his neck, praising him, promising him, owning him.
And that damnable finger glided up and down his crease, tapping against his drawn-up ballocks, almost, but never touching, his quivering hole.
Beads of perspiration trickled down his temple; moisture leaked from his swollen shaft.
“Fitz…I…”
For the briefest of seconds, Fitzsimmons stepped away, leaving Rollo on the edge of freefall. And then a sharp smack rang out, searing his arse with a flash of pain.
“That’s for the devil inside of you,” Fitzsimmons purred, but before Rollo’s yelp of shock had chance to leave his mouth, a warm palm soothed his smarting cheek.
Then smacked it again. “Your bottom infuriates me, pup,” he crooned, smoothing away the pain again.
Rollo melted into his hand, gasping with pleasure.
“The way it moves whenever you walk away from me.” Fitzsimmons half laughed as if marvelling at his own foolishness. “Such a pretty shade of red you have turned. I am inclined to put the whole thing over my knee and give it another good, swift spank.”
The devil inside Rollo wanted that too, and he pushed his arse out in search of the delightful sting.
The devil inside Fitzsimmons didn’t respond.
Instead, he spat, rubbing the wetness into Rollo’s crease.
He hawked again, adding to it. Then, huge, hard, and wanting, Fitzsimmons bare cock slotted against the groove.
Two large hands covered Rollo’s, trapping them against the wall.
“I look at you, and I want so many things,” Fitzsimmons groaned, thrusting hard. “You tempt me, pup, you tease out my every weakness. You make me so I can think of nothing but this.”
Rollo whimpered, writhing with need. “Please,” he begged. “Please, I need to—”