Perhaps that was part of the problem. Maybe the boy was important to his survival, his disposition, his happiness.
What the bloody hell? I am going mad. No. I went mad years ago. There was no reason at all for these maudlin thoughts. For a certainty, the boy had created a nice diversion, but he’d refused Wentworth. It was time to get on with his life. If only he could force himself to think of something other than Hector. Coming back to his estate, where he and Hector had fucked, had been a mistake. For the past handful of days, he had been unable to concentrate on the accounts or anything else, for that matter. That beautiful, sculpted, young body came to mind every time he closed his eyes.
“Hell and castration.”
He’d walked around half-erect most of the time Hector occupied his home. Even now, he expected to have the lad appear in the hall, in his study, in his bed. It would not happen. He’d burned that bridge spectacularly.
He prided himself on being a good tactician, so he made himself face the facts. He and the Somerville family were through. Totally and completely through.
Wentworth retrieved and stowed the accounts book he’d been attempting to work on in an oak chest along with his other business papers. He had always been a man who made a decision and stuck by it. This odd indecisiveness would drive him insane. Time to seize the present with both hands and wring a better future for himself out of the ether.
Walking around the room, he purposefully touched each and every artifact from his travels. A brass elephant from India, a walking cane with a hidden ivory-handled sword from Spain, a porcelain plate from Portugal, and the elaborate paper dragon from China. Especially China. His hand lingered on the dragon, which matched the colors of his Axminster carpet.
A bruising ride to Kent, just for the hell of it, would be the first thing. He would clear his mind with activity, then focus on laying precise goals for the next year. A sound idea. That was the way to proceed.
He looked out the window to the sunny meadows as a knock rattled the dark-paneled door. Annoyed at the interruption, he said much too loudly, “Enter.”
Smith entered, immaculately turned out as usual, his posture ramrod straight. The only thing out of place on his butler was the enormous beak of a nose.
With ringing, imperious tones, he announced, “Lieutenant Baker of the Fearless to see you, my lord.”
Oh, now, what’s this? He had not seen Red Jon, as the midshipmen called him, in more than a year. This could be the diversion he needed. “Send him in, Smith.”
He rubbed his hands together and walked to his desk, straightened his waistcoat, and posed with one hand on a leather backed chair just as the large lieutenant stalked in.
Wentworth believed the sunset-blond, ruddy-skinned man was of Irish origin, but Jonathan had never admitted to such humble roots. His name was so conspicuously British that Wentworth suspected the family changed it at some point in order to assimilate.
He was tall, brawny, and had muscles upon muscles along with an appetite for unbridled sex that bordered on frightening. Yes indeed, this certainly could be the distraction he needed.
“Lieutenant, welcome.” He moved around the chair and offered a hand. Jonathan’s grip was firm, callused, and lingering.
Not taking his eyes from the watery-blue gaze, he said, “Smith, bring round a tray of tea and sandwiches. I am certain our guest is hungry after his journey.”
He knew the well-mannered butler bowed before he heard the door close, but he did not see the gesture. All he saw were Jonathan’s greedy eyes almost stripping him with their sensual perusal.
“It has been a while, Jonathan.” Wentworth slipped into their previous intimacy, now certain of Jonathan’s reason for visiting.
“One year, six months, five days, and eighteen hours, my lord.” The words were more a caress than an address, too casual to be polite, but then, considering what they both had in mind…
“Last time we met, I was Captain to you.”
“Last time we met, we were on patrol around Portugal.” He smiled slowly from one side of his mouth. “With a hundred other sailors nearby.”
Wentworth returned the smile. “So, what brings you here today?”
“Simply passing through. I have business in Ashford, thought I’d give my solicitations.”
“Good. Good indeed.” Jonathan did not likely have business anywhere but here, but he would not bruise the man’s pride by questioning his affairs.
A maid brought in a tray, and they busied themselves pouring tea and wine and devouring cold meat and cheese sandwiches. Men, especially horny men, had to eat, after all.
They discussed the navy and acquaintances they had in common. It was good to have someone with mutual interests with whom to chat. When the tray emptied and a light intoxication hummed through him, he strategically advanced the conversation.
“I was thinking, you have come at a good time. You must stay the night. I will have another place setting laid. Dine with me. Seems I am in need of distraction at the moment.”
The younger man stiffened briefly, lips drawn in a slight frown before shifting in his chair. Jonathan tilted his head down, his gaze half-visible behind tawny brows. “Thank you, my lord. I would indeed enjoy being with you. As it is, I have plenty of time.”
The choice of words did not escape Wentworth’s notice, nor did he miss the feral smile slipping into one of calculation.
✥ ✥ ✥
Later that day, and after they both changed for dinner, Wentworth could not remember what they ate as he walked into the study with his guest half a step behind.
Wentworth spent a portion of the meal staring over the table into Baker’s familiar pale blue eyes. Eyes that were not brown. But Baker’s eyes bordered on unpredictability, seductive but volatile. His temperament changed from moment to moment, and his ideas and purpose seemed to shift with mercurial fluidity. He had seen this part of Jonathan’s personality before, and it had always been an aphrodisiac.
The other part of the meal he spent fending off Jonathan’s foot, which toyed with his legs and, damnation, at one point his crotch. The lieutenant had always been bold, but in the privacy of Wentworth’s mansion, he was positively brazen.
Walking to the sideboard and the glass decanters sitting there, Wentworth looked over his shoulder. “Port or whisky?”
He saw only the lieutenant’s broad back as he closed and locked the door.
Shivers crawled up his spine.
The door secured now, they could do whatever they wanted in privacy. He’d not asked Jonathan to lock the door. Hector had done that task numerous times without being asked. So why did this event seem like a violation?
Knowing Jonathan’s sexual appetites were not completely wholesome had never bothered him because, his own sexual appetites were not wholesome either. Jonathan was an aggressive lover, sometimes bordering on cruel.
Wentworth could enjoy cruel right now; he needed the punishment. He could do what he wanted without worrying about emotions, stepping on toes, or being gentle. He could be as rough as he wanted and take out some of his frustration. In return, he would get back rough. Sometimes, he needed, craved rough. Sometimes the pain disciplined him for all his sins, made him forget his losses, and somehow made his sorry life and his bad deeds palatable.
Jonathan turned and stalked toward him, eyes half-lidded, one brow cocked with a promise of forbidden pleasures.
That look inflamed Wentworth’s cock while it disturbed his soul. He lived to be in control. He was trained to be in control, but sometimes, in the early days of their relationship, Jonathan took that from him. The experience had been awkward, uncomfortable, salacious as an orgy in hell presided over by the devil himself. Was he ready to struggle for sexual supremacy? He certainly felt as though he needed punishment after abusing Hector, but…he was not quite certain.
“Neither port nor whisky. I want you.”
Jonathan grabbed him at the nape of his neck and pulled him close. The kiss demanded Wentworth’s attention with
tongue and teeth. He had a moment of pain when Jonathan’s tooth caught his lip, but then sheer sexual tension took over and he forgot the discomfort. This kiss he understood. It was a play for dominance.
And it tasted like duck and potatoes.
The kiss tasted like dinner, not like Will, not like Hector. In fact, it only tasted like food. Baker smelled of cologne, wool, and food. He had no distinct smell of his own. That alone made his erection flag.
Jonathan was the only man he knew who did not have his own smell. Rather peculiar. Scents were important. They created memories, connection, and desire, and he had none. His aroma changed depending on what he wore, what he ate, who did his laundry.
Funny he’d never noticed before.
Jonathan palmed the front of Wentworth’s trousers and rubbed up and down, but Wentworth’s member, only half-engaged, did not respond. What the hell was wrong? He’d satisfied his lust with Jonathan many times over the past five or so years when they were in the same port or, less often, when on the same ship.
Now, memories of tea-colored eyes ghosted across his mind. Goddamn. What bloody lousy timing. Now was the moment to fuck and nothing more. Nothing else was important right now. No complications, no attachments—just coupling, plain and simple.
He needed this physical distraction so he could overcome his grief and refocus his thinking.
The lieutenant laid an openmouthed kiss on him, practiced and near perfect as he pushed Wentworth’s jacket down his arms, then pulled off the starched cravat. Without breaking the salt ’n’ gravy kiss, he unbuttoned and removed Wentworth’s shirt and then loosened the top button of his trousers because Wentworth could do nothing but stand there like an idiot.
Just stood there because he felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Trousers loose, Jonathan slipped a hand through the flap and grabbed Wentworth’s cock. “Too much to drink?” he asked.
“I…”
Jonathan leaned in. “I live for challenges.” He dived in for another kiss, teeth pinching against lips. The hand around his cock squeezed and yanked while his tongue thrust in, mimicking the act that should naturally follow. Rutting. Fucking.
Wentworth closed his eyes and endured the onslaught. He put his hands on the other man’s shoulders for balance, not an embrace, but the lieutenant growled his pleasure as if the touch was a lover’s caress.
The kiss was coarse, not playful and enticing like Hector’s would be—back when he could still kiss him. He found himself wishing the hand on his cock was smaller, gentler, loving. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to pay attention to the friction. That would help, would it not?
He could do this. Wanted to do this. He’d shared pleasure with Jonathan many times in the past. Fifteen, maybe twenty times. It had always been pleasurable, if sometimes slightly painful. Their first time together, he even let Jonathan fuck him. He had to don soft cotton breeches for a few days after, but at the time, that had taken the edge off his lust and filled a base need. However, he had not allowed a repeat.
Jonathan growled again.
Opening his eyes, Wentworth saw his prick lying in Jonathan’s brawny palm, looking for all the world like a dying snake.
“Want me to suck you instead, or do you need to bend over and let me take you?” Jonathan flexed his hips and shoved a properly engorged cock against Wentworth’s thigh. “Think that could bring the limp member to attention?”
He pushed Jonathan away and half turned. Breathing deeply, he refastened his pants and walked to the fireplace, where he placed his forearm on the mantel and looked into the cold grate, suddenly wishing for a fire to warm the chill settling deep in his bones.
Impotence.
It had never happened to him before.
This night’s endeavors proved that his own hand was better than empty, hollow sex. “This is not suitable for me at the moment.”
“Suitable? Suitable! It is perfect. What are you talking about? Come, let me remind you how perfect it can be between us. We have always been perfect together,” Jonathan purred in his deep baritone as one glistening bead of sweat rolled from his left temple to his granite-hard jaw. “It shall be ideal again. You’ll see. Today, tomorrow, next week, months from now, we can have all this, and have it all the time.”
Wentworth looked at the delicate gold clock on the mantel. It was ten thirty-six. He wondered why that seemed important. Now it was ten thirty-seven.
A gnawing in his gut that felt suspiciously like guilt came to the forefront of his attention. He felt as though he was being unfaithful to Hector. That was the problem. Why would he feel this way? This was not infidelity. They had exchanged no vows. They never even discussed anything past their fortnight together, let alone a commitment to mutual affections. Granted, Hector had professed wanting more. That sunny boy had even mentioned love.
Swallowing a lump in his throat, he reminded himself Hector had stormed out and left him. Sent no word he’d reached London safely. Wentworth had spent several days wondering and worrying until his men came back with Princess after delivering Hector’s trunk. The sturdy horse arrived in fine form, so he had to assume Hector made the trip without mishap. Or at least made it physically unharmed.
His remorse grew as he considered what kind of harm to his spirits Hector had sustained at his hands.
Trying to control his emotions, he fought down the nagging shame that made his heart thump as though any moment Hector would walk through that study door and find him committing an act of infidelity. He had to place things in their proper perspective.
He found his perspective when he remembered his return to London three years prior.
✥ ✥ ✥
Autumn 1806, London
Will had changed, his agreeable temperament now impatient, hard, ruthless. His scar and limp more noticeable. Wentworth wanted nothing more than to scuttle the conversation, tired of listening to how the next bloody battle would do this, or win that, or kill so many. “Will, you are a man of science, a doctor. You’re sworn to save lives, not inflict wounds and misery.”
Will glared at him, tossed back his drink, and limped off through the dim, crowded ballroom to find gloomier company.
It would be easy to lose his temper and discard their long-standing friendship. But Wentworth’s actions set events in motion that precipitated Will’s downfall and his cavalier attitude toward life.
Some days, it seemed, Will possessed a desire to get himself killed.
Better pursue him before he started an altercation that led to a duel, but just then, he noticed a man with wide, luminous dark eyes glancing at him from the edge of the dance floor. He’d noticed the man and the glance a few times already, so he stared back. This time the gaze held. The young man was beautiful, and Wentworth knew him, but damnation, had he improved with age.
All thoughts of Will vanished as Wentworth made his way across the dance floor, under the flickering chandeliers, no easy feat in such a crush, to reacquaint himself with the man with those beautiful eyes.
Hector Somerville was no longer a lad.
✥ ✥ ✥
At the time, he had felt guilty over his attraction to Hector after so many years of devotion to Will.
Ironic that now he felt shame for kissing another man, when he’d been unable to make himself kiss Hector. He would get Hector back once he determined how to achieve such a lofty goal.
Jonathan was uncharacteristically quiet and still.
Perhaps it was the void of activity that dragged Wentworth back to the present.
Jonathan stood in the middle of the room, straight and strong, a few years younger than Wentworth. He was handsome and all male, with no-nonsense thin lips and a broad nose and jaw. But instead of fucking, he stood here flat-cocked, remembering a party and large brown eyes.
Ridiculous, considering his lust the first time he’d seen Jonathan, who’d been laughing, head thrown back, light mane falling across his shoulders while standing on the deck of the HBMS Juno. Amused at another cr
ewman’s joke, he personified masculine beauty. Wentworth had been unable to do anything but stare. When Jonathan noticed him, lust sparked between them. Wentworth had known they would be together that night.
That was the first time Wentworth had done some of the things two men could do together. He walked a little crooked for a week and suspected the lieutenant, a midshipman back then, was forced to put his breeches on slowly and gently for a few days after.
But there was nothing now—no interest, no lust, nothing. Why was this the first time he noticed emptiness in those pale eyes? As if the sea and sun had sucked away all sense of moral decency from the darkened, temperamental mind that lurked behind them. Baker did not seem quite stable.
Within a few hours of their reassociation, Wentworth decided it would be best to keep him at arm’s length.
Chapter Twelve
“It’s the Somerville milksop, isn’t it?” Something sparked in those sea-spray eyes.
Diplomacy would work best in this situation, but Wentworth truly felt like striking out at Jonathan. He wanted to inflict pain so that he was not the only miserable one. Instead, he went for something in between. “Perhaps you should leave tomorrow. Go on about your business. It would not do for you to linger here when you have important tasks to attend to.”
“It is him, isn’t it?”
“Him?”
“That sniveling little brat I saw you leave Somerville’s house with. Horatio or whatever his name is.”
Wentworth narrowed his eyes in warning. “What do you know of that?”
“I attended the christening. I know the Somervilles, so of course I went to pay my respects. Imagine my surprise to see you pull up, knowing your history with the family.”
Wentworth’s blood started to boil. No one knew his history with the family. How did this man find out?
“He is too young, too immature for you,” Jonathan said. “He has done nothing with his life as far as I can tell. You deserve…You need a real man.” He stood there, hands on hips and muscles flexing.
“Hector Somerville is none of your concern. I suggest you drop the topic.”
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