Chapter Sixteen #2
“Shhh.” Fitzsimmons shoved two fingers into his mouth, stifling his moans. “You’ll be entertaining the entire household, my precious. And I want you to myself.”
His breath shuddered against Rollo’s nape as Rollo clamped down on the fingers, and Fitzsimmons slickly pleasured himself between his cheeks, every brush against Rollo’s hole an exquisite, unbearable torture.
Wetness dribbled down Rollo’s shaft, a single stroke of a fist and he’d reach his crisis.
Yet he still kept his hands against the wall.
Fitzsimmons’s thrusts turned more erratic, his breathing more ragged against Rollo’s nape. Almost painfully, his fingers dug into Rollo’s hip as every snap of his own brought him nearer to climax.
“Mine, mine, mine,” he panted. “My precious, precious pup.”
A guttural cry escaped his throat, and Rollo gasped as hot streaks of milky release, like the sharp welts of a whip, branded his tender backside.
He felt Fitzsimmons smear it, and then a thick, slippery finger pressed inside Rollo.
Fitz’s other hand reached around to Rollo’s cock and jerked it once, twice.
And Rollo shattered, neither Fitz’s firm hand nor his intrusive finger relenting until Rollo cried out, squirming away from sensations so sharp, so delicious, so unbearable, that for a moment, he quite forgot to breathe.
If not for Fitzsimmons’s strong body, a veritable fortress of warmth and strength, then he might well have melted into a pool of jelly on the nursery floor.
*
“YOUR LEGS, DUCHAMPS-AVERY, they’re trembling.”
Rollo gave a shaky laugh. “I fear my bones have dissolved too. And…Rollo, please. Your hands have been everywhere.”
Taking his elbow, Fitzsimmons guided him to the settee.
Naturally, the offer of using first names wasn’t returned.
Wordlessly, Fitzsimmons hitched Rollo’s trousers back up to his waist, allowed him to collapse in an untidy sprawl, then took his usual seat across from him.
For a long moment, they sat in silence. An overwhelming need for a snooze struck Rollo, and he’d have quite liked to indulge it in his lover’s arms. Alas, that was not to be.
Instead, Fitzsimmons picked up his bow and pressed his thumb against the string, examining the tension.
Then, taking his time, he selected an arrow and nocked it.
His expression had become blank and remote, almost as if the last few minutes had never happened.
My precious. Ah, well. Men uttered all kinds of claptrap when overcome with the force of release.
This man was an utter enigma, which Rollo was too drained to ponder.
As Fitzsimmons brought the bow up to take aim, Rollo allowed his eyes to drift closed.
At least he was no longer a target. He smiled sleepily as a pewter soldier rattled to the floor.
“May I ask why you do that?”
Fitzsimmons let out a long, troubled sigh before selecting another arrow. “Does it offend you?”
Rollo thought for a moment. “Not especially. As long as I’m over here and the pointy end of the arrow is over there.”
Another arrow thudded into another soldier. Just when Rollo thought Fitzsimmons might not answer, he began quietly speaking.
“Not so long ago, I had a terrible urge to kill myself. I planned to drown in the lake or succumb to an accident, a tumble from the roof or some such. Many times, I have climbed up there. Have even settled over the parapet, letting my legs dangle, contemplating the drop. Or agreed to let fate take its course. Would a puff of wind send me over the edge, or would I be spared? Would I trip on a loose slate?” He slotted another arrow.
“I’d wonder if my death would be instant, or whether I’d survive the fall but spend the remainder of my days boxed up in a chair, sucking soup through a straw, and having my arse wiped by a woman paid a lot of coin to make a decent job of it. ”
He glanced sidelong at Rollo. “Naturally, I’d do whatever necessary to make it seem accidental to avoid disgracing Ashington. Though there would be enough evidence suggesting a temporary lack of sound mind.” He smiled thinly. “My artistic endeavours, for instance.”
Two soldiers fell in rapid succession, one toppling the adjacent. “Shooting at these soldiers began as a substitute for shooting at myself. And then became habit. It…it soothed my mind.” He cut through the ensuing pause by adding, “That was not the answer you sought, I’d wager?”
Rollo’s sleepiness dissipated, replaced with a pang of sorrow for the complicated individual to whom he was fast becoming attached. “It was not the answer I expected, that is true.” But strangely, it did not surprise him. “May I ask why? Were you suffering from a deep melancholia?”
“No. I don’t believe I was.” Fitzsimmons made to select another arrow before apparently thinking better of it. “I simply realised I didn’t care for myself very much. And that neither did anyone else.”
“I’m sure His Grace and Lord Francis have always cared for you deeply.”
“Hmm. Perhaps. I fear I have tested that care over the years. Certainly, my existence is not an essential ingredient for their happiness.”
A yawning hush descended on the drawing room, disturbed only by a woodpigeon pottering about outside the window, cooing in a minor key.
Rollo could easily have filled the void with barren platitudes, pointing out that so many at Goule were dependent on Lord Lyndon for their livelihoods, but he doubted it would have endeared him.
So, he said nothing, whilst Fitzsimmons steadily worked his way through his miniature regiment.
“I am afflicted by a terrible jealous streak.” Fitzsimmons’s full lips pursed. “Along with a temper that flares like lit brandy. You witnessed the consequences when Ralph Hart placed his hands on you.”
To think now that Rollo could ever have allowed another man to touch him when this one had been so close! “Your intervention was timely,” he declared. “Though it didn’t feel so at the time. I am grateful.”
“Neither his damned hungry eyes nor mine strayed from you all evening. My jealousy would not allow it.”
You belong to me. Perhaps the sentiments Fitzsimmons moaned at the peak of his crisis held a sliver of truth after all.
His lover let out a long sigh. “Benedict has borne the brunt. I have been jealous of my twin’s birthright for as long as I can recall. It is astonishing, is it not, that two minutes, separating two babes in a bloodied maternal bed, can be of such profound consequence?”
“Amen to that,” agreed Rollo. “My own mother bled out birthing myself and Willoughby.”
“Ah. I was not aware,” Fitzsimmons replied stiffly. “I’m so awfully sorry.”
“You’ll soon get over it.” Rollo threw him a rueful smile.
“But thank you for your kind sentiment. By all accounts, she was a marvellous woman, but one does not mourn that which one has never known. We have our dearest papa, and we have never lacked for love and affection. Neither have I ever been jealous of Willoughby and the weight of scrutiny he will bear in the future as Rossingley.”
“No.” Fitzsimmons regarded him thoughtfully.
“As I have alluded, I have not always been terribly fond of myself. Growing up alongside Benedict, I was aware that I was stronger, possessed of greater intelligence. That my father favoured him in all ate into my soul.” His dark gaze flicked up to Rollo.
“I resented that my twin would one day become Ashington, and I tormented him. I drew Father’s ire, which was never far from hand at the best of times.
I was disruptive and grew to despise them both. ”
Rollo would need a far better understanding of the man to parse whether “my precious” and “you belong to me” were meaningless blandishments.
But there was no mistaking Fitzsimmons’s softly spoken words now as anything but brutal truths.
They were all there, laid out in the crack of his voice, the white shine to his knuckles, the abrupt turn of his face towards the fireplace, away from Rollo.
If they’d been seated closer, he’d have taken the other’s hand in his own.
“Are you still envious?” Rollo asked. “As your brother learns to live with all the weight that being Ashington entails? I, for one, would not walk in Willoughby’s shoes for every leaf of tea in China.” Rollo pulled a face. “I’d have to force myself to marry and beget children, for one thing.”
Fitzsimmons nodded acknowledgment. “History will remember Benedict as an excellent, dutiful duke in every aspect except that one.”
Rollo’s discreet papa had never alluded to the Duke of Ashington’s preferences. Though Rollo had always suspected as much, and now Fitzsimmons had all but confirmed it.
“So it is down to you, my lord,” Rollo replied lightly, “to keep the Fitzsimmons in heirs. After all, you are next in line.”
Fitzsimmons gave a half-hearted shrug. “Yes, it is true that I am next. But who knows which of us will perish first? Francis, however, is far younger and already married. And has begat a son. I daresay more will follow.”
He hesitated. “But in answer to your question, yes, I do still envy Benedict. It is a failure of my character. Though I no longer possess sufficient arrogance to believe I would perform the role better than he.” Fitzsimmons sorrowful eyes shone with unspent tears.
“He is kinder, generous, and…and a finer man in all respects. I know that now.”
“Whatever you perceive to be your failings, your honesty is above reproach, my lord.”
Fitzsimmons huffed a miserable laugh and picked up his bow. “It is hard won. At the cost of losing my dear twin brother’s trust.”
Rollo had heard enough. He rose to his feet. “Put down your bow and stand up,” he ordered. “Lift your arms away from your sides, like so.”
Demonstrating, he raised his own arms to shoulder height and walked over to the befuddled lord. Amid much grumbling, he hauled Fitzsimmons up.
“What the devil for?” Fitzsimmons demanded, though he complied, much to Rollo’s astonishment.
“So that I may provide comfort.” He encircled the lord’s torso with his own arms. “Like this. For both of us.”
Fitzsimmons froze. “I…what in God’s…”
“Shush.”
The great yew outside the window might have yielded more. As Rollo squeezed tighter, Fitzsimmons tensed. For a moment, it felt more like they were wrestling than embracing.
“What the dickens do you need comfort for?” Fitzsimmons groused. “You’ve only just had your ballocks emptied. Is that not enough?”
Rollo eyed him sternly. “I have been so unbelievably homesick these last few weeks. Rossingley is far, far away from this drawing room. My papa is a fair and reasonable dictator—our home is short on rules. One of them, however, is that when a person suffers distress, another seeks to comfort.” He squeezed Fitzsimmons’s middle again, for emphasis.
“Like this. We both need this. You, because dwelling on the past saddens you, and me, for my homesickness, even though my family live forever in my heart and in my soul.”
“I’m astonished there is room for them. Your heart is clearly jammed full of trite, romantic flummery.”
Rollo grinned. The Fitzsimmons of whom he was growing awfully fond had returned.
He turned his head to rest it against the soft white linen of the other’s shirt.
Woodsy cologne filled his nostrils, and a solid thump resounded in his ear.
Rollo wished they were in a bed instead of the middle of the drawing room.
Still barely tolerating him, Fitzsimmons remained stiff as a tree trunk.
Rollo braced his feet. “Drop your shoulders, Fitz, and place your arms around me as I am doing to you.”
“This is even more foolish than sword fighting,” Fitzsimmons muttered. Nonetheless, two strong arms curled around Rollo’s narrow back. For several minutes, they stood that way, one rigid as a pencil, the other trying his damnedest not to grind his fresh cockstand against a firm hip bone.
“Tell me,” Rollo asked. “When were you last embraced?”
Fitzsimmons’s low chuckle rumbled beneath Rollo’s ear. “Is that what this is?”
“It’s a facsimile of one, yes. More of a work in progress. Very much like your oils. We could call this one A Study in Discomfiture.”
Another rolling chuckle reverberated beneath his ear. “I would cuff you for that.” The lord’s nose and mouth skimmed over the fine ends of Rollo’s hair. “If I didn’t think you’d enjoy it.”
Rollo’s urge to rub himself against the man’s nether regions intensified. “My papa declares a warm embrace a cure for most ills.”
“Sometimes, I feel as though your papa is in this room with us. Surely, he doesn’t believe this…this thing we’re attempting to be even more efficacious than oil of lavender?”
Rollo giggled. His lordship’s posture had softened, now less a pencil or a tree, more a malleable but sturdy willow branch. Progress indeed. “That very much depends upon where one is applying the lavender oil, my lord.”