Julian stared at him, an expression of bewilderment on his face. “Really?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow but not pulling away.
Courtenay was certain he had ruined the moment, had destroyed his chances of having even this. “Yes, really,” he said. “Since you came with me to Carrington the first time.” Maybe even before that, but it wasn’t as if these things began at obvious moments. Falling in love wasn’t like a bird hatching from an egg, for all both events were rather messy and fraught with vulnerability.
“That’s what I had suspected,” Julian said, his brow wrinkled, as if Courtenay’s declaration required him to reorganize the contents of his brilliant mind.
“Had you now?” Courtenay shouldn’t be amused when he was worried that at any moment Julian might put his breeches back on and leave him forever, but he couldn’t imagine a world where he didn’t find all Julian’s strangeness amusing and adorable.
“You shouldn’t have wanted to be around me after finding out I wrote that book,” he said with the air of man mentally calculating sums, “but you stayed with me when I was sick. I . . .” And then, in a totally different voice, “I liked that.”
Courtenay’s heart started to pound. “Why did you like it?” He didn’t need to hear that Julian loved him in return. It wouldn’t matter—they’d part company one way or the other, and giving a name to the thing between them wouldn’t change that. But Courtenay was used to wanting things that didn’t make any sense.
“Because you’re my favorite person,” Julian said simply.
Courtenay thought his days of being shocked were over and done with. He thought he had heard everything it was possible to hear, in bed or out of it. But at Julian’s words, he thought his heart might stop beating. There was no other declaration that could have laid him so bare or pleased him so much.
“I think you might be my favorite person as well,” Courtenay said, and felt something like a blush rise to his cheeks, as if this statement cost more than his earlier profession of love. His heart felt near to bursting. “I probably ought to get on with fucking you before you change your mind,” he added, wanting to get back to safer, more familiar ground.
“Do you have oil?” Julian asked.
Of course he had oil. Did he think Courtenay intended to fuck him dry? “In that drawer,” he said, gesturing.
Julian got the oil and put it within reach and then leaned back down so his body covered Courtenay’s, relaxing over him with a sigh.
Courtenay rolled them both over and kissed Julian until he was squirming beneath him. Yes, this was what they both needed. This was what they had, this connection, raw desire and unchecked passion mixed with just enough affection to complicate things badly.
“Yes,” Julian breathed, arching his body to meet Courtenay’s, desperate and pleading.
Courtenay used his knees to push Julian’s legs apart, then bent down to swipe his tongue over the man’s rigid cock. Julian nearly sprang off the bed at that, so Courtenay kept going. The last time—the only time—Courtenay had done this to Julian, Julian had used his mouth with a vigor Courtenay hadn’t ever expected from the polished and urbane Mr. Medlock. But now he was almost docile, lying prone on Courtenay’s bed.
Courtenay understood that. Sometimes it felt right to be the one doing the fucking, the taking, the doing. Other times it was lovely to have all that done to you. For you. He would do anything to, for, or with Julian that the man wanted.
He teased the head of Julian’s cock with his tongue, licking around the crown and into the slit before drawing him down deep into his mouth. He slid his finger into his mouth before stroking lower, finding Julian’s entrance and pressing in. He paused when he heard Julian’s gasp and felt him clench around his finger, but then tasted the salt of his desire and continued on. Everything about this felt right, felt like they ought to have been doing this forever, Julian open and yielding, Courtenay kneeling with something like devotion, both of them giving themselves up to this. To one another.
He added another finger, then curved and twisted them so his fingertips would touch the spot he sought. Julian moaned, and Courtenay pulled his mouth away so he could properly see Julian’s face. How had he ever thought Julian ordinary-looking? He was perfect. Looking at him felt like the answer to a question Courtenay had been asking for as long as he could remember, a question that wasn’t formed with words.
Still stroking Julian, he reached for the oil and slicked himself up. “How do you want it?” he asked, needing to know exactly what Julian wanted from him so he could deliver precisely that. He knew Julian would have an answer and he wanted to know what it was.
Julian rolled over and tucked his knees under his chest. Courtenay groaned and stroked himself, admiring the sight of that round arse before lining his cock up with Julian’s entrance and starting to push in. He felt Julian reflexively tighten around him, so he paused, gritting his teeth and digging his fingers into Julian’s hips. Then Julian pushed back and Courtenay sank inside with a groan. “Oh, God, Julian. The way you feel.” He stayed still for a moment, savoring the tightness and the heat wrapped around him, appreciating the dip of Julian’s spine and the strength of his shoulders and back. Julian was resting his head on his folded arms, and the half of his face that Courtenay could see was a study in agonized pleasure: lips parted, eyelids heavy, beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
“I never want to forget what you look like right now,” Courtenay groaned as he started to move. “You look like you belong to me.” It was half a lie, because Courtenay knew that he belonged to Julian. Or maybe it was all the same thing.
Julian turned his face into the pillow and said something that might have been “I do,” or might have been anything else. He was pushing hard against Courtenay now, encouraging him to go harder, faster, more. Courtenay did. He put one hand on Julian’s back, bracing himself but also holding Julian still, and with the other hand he grasped Julian’s prick. It was as hard a cock as he’d ever felt in his life, and at the first touch Julian cried out in pleasure, the beginnings of his release spilling against Courtenay’s hand.
Courtenay felt the stirrings of his own climax, and gave Julian more, gave them both more, because the two of them were all that he knew to be real and true and important.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Julian lay collapsed on his stomach, Courtenay an unseen weight half on top of him, equally inert. They lay there until Courtenay’s breathing became so regular Julian thought he had to be asleep. He tried to slide out from under Courtenay, but Courtenay’s arm tightened around his chest.
“Stay here,” Courtenay said, his words muffled by Julian’s hair.
It would be so easy to say yes, to linger with his back pressed against Courtenay’s hard chest, basking in the illusion of safety. “I need to get back.”
“Your arse will be in no condition to get on a horse.”
“Yes, well, thank you for that,” he said, putting some sourness into his voice for no reason at all other than the fear of what lay on the other side of his crumbling defenses.
“That’s what you wanted,” Courtenay said. “That’s what you came for. Tell me.”
Julian, besotted idiot that he was, didn’t care that a trap had been set for him. Of course he’d reassure Courtenay that the urgent fucking he had given had been exactly what Julian had craved. “You know it was,” he admitted. His prick was pulsing again at the memory, and he could feel Courtenay’s length hardening behind him. “I want to feel it as I ride home. I want to remember that you were inside me.”
Courtenay groaned and buried his face in Julian’s neck, and the solid warmth of him was almost enough to make Julian want to stay here.
“I need to leave,” he said, wriggling out from Courtenay’s grasp.
“Stay here,” Courtenay said again. “At Carrington Hall, I mean. There’s nothing remarkable about that—a gentleman availing himself of another gentleman’s hospitality instead of making a long trip at the
end of a day.”
“I missed you,” Julian said once he was standing firmly on the floor, safely away from the temptation of Courtenay’s embrace. The problem was that now he could see Courtenay, beautiful and rumpled, his hair everywhere, his lips swollen from kissing.
“I missed you too,” Courtenay said, a smile playing on that wicked mouth. “So stay longer.”
If he played his cards right, there would be plenty of time later on for lingering in bed. But he now had to get to work if he wanted to undo some of the mischief Courtenay and Standish had gotten up to. Julian stepped into his breeches, trying to put something, anything between him and Courtenay’s body.
“Missing you is profoundly inconvenient, I’ll have you know. I have things to do and places to be, and all the while I’ll feel like I’ve mislaid a piece of my soul and I won’t get it back until I see you again. That can’t be normal.”
Courtenay stared at him with mute astonishment before stepping forward and taking his hands. “That’s a lovely thing to say. Didn’t think you had it in you, Julian.”
“Bollocks.” Julian tried to pull his hands away, but Courtenay held fast. “You can’t tell me that this is how people always feel when they love one another.”
Courtenay pulled him closer, so Julian could feel the warmth coming from his body. “I’m not the seasoned expert you take me for,” he murmured into Julian’s ear, “but I gather it’s a common experience.”
“How dreadful.” Julian put some sham chilliness into his voice, mainly because he liked when Courtenay tried to cuddle him out of his frosty moods. Indeed, Courtenay’s hands were now sliding suspiciously low along Julian’s hips and arse.
“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” Courtenay was doing a bad job of suppressing a smile.
“How can you stand it?”
“There’s only one way. By being together.”
Much, much later, after they had returned to bed and gotten dressed once again, Julian cleared his throat.
“If you and I are to remain . . . friendly, and carry on with this plan of not missing one another, first I need to clean up the mess you all made about this duel. Eleanor may be a genius about rocks but I wish you’d all leave polite society to me.”
Courtenay’s arms were around him again. “Gladly. We did what we could to protect you. You have two people—three if you include Standish, which seems only fair—who love you and don’t want to see you die or harmed,” he murmured. “That’s not a bad thing.”
Julian felt his defenses crumbling, his heart scattering into fragments that he’d never collect.
Julian was sitting in the library at Carrington Hall, his hands clasped in front of his mouth, obviously deep in thought. He had insisted that they remove immediately to the main house so his plotting could disguise itself as a normal social call. Courtenay had agreed. Of course he had. He’d like a lifetime of opportunities to acquiesce to Julian’s every whim.
Tea was carried in by a curtsying housemaid and Courtenay asked that she also bring up a plate of biscuits or whatever sweets the kitchens could come up with on such short notice, and she returned with a tray heaped with raisin-studded saffron buns and an entire treacle tart, as if the cook had been waiting for an opportunity to send up a feast.
Courtenay had the impression that the staff were doing their best to impress him. On his first day here, he had gone down to the kitchens himself and apologetically requested that a tray of something, anything, be sent up to him. He had been astonished to find that he remembered the cook from when he was a boy. Stranger still, she seemed pleased to see him. “It’s right to have the master here,” she had said, and he had heard the sentiment echoed repeatedly by people in the village. He belonged here. And while it offended his egalitarian principles that he was welcomed principally by virtue of his being the lord of the manor, he supposed beggars couldn’t be choosers, and he was glad for the warm welcome he received, regardless of the cause. He was going to try his damnedest to earn their respect.
He poured out two cups of tea. By now he knew how Julian liked it—sweet beyond all reckoning and nearly as white as milk. He put a thick slice of the tart and a buttery bun on a plate and set it before him. Julian absently picked up the bun and took a bite out of it, making a happy, satisfied sound that Courtenay delighted in.
“How do you find the best pastries?” he said, popping the rest of the bun into his mouth.
“I really don’t,” he said, although he probably ought to take credit for it. “This is just what the kitchen sent.”
“Your cook must be in love with you.”
“She’s sixty years old and knew me as a baby.”
“Well, you must have some talent in inspiring bakers to ply their craft excessively well, because I swear that every morsel I’ve eaten in your company has been better than anything else I’ve ever had.” And then he paused, a forkful of treacle tart halfway to his mouth, and blushed deeply, as if realizing what Courtenay had known for weeks now. “I suppose it’s the company. It’s part of your sinister charm, no doubt. Do you still have that pistol?”
Startled by this abrupt change in conversation, Courtenay asked, “Do you mean the one you shot my wall with?”
“Yes, because I know it shoots straight.”
Courtenay retrieved the pistol from the drawer where he had decided to keep it—it was a strange thing, distributing two trunks’ worth of belongings across a house of this size. He figured he’d find out what Julian was planning soon enough. Meanwhile, Julian had risen from his chair and was pacing the length of the room. The man never looked happier than when he was scheming. “It’s loaded,” he said, handing it carefully over.
Julian took the pistol and held it, his finger off the trigger, then proceeded to lock the library door. “Now sit in that chair,” he said gesturing to the chair he had just vacated.
Courtenay complied, faintly amused by the fact that Julian had a deadly weapon in one hand and a half-eaten saffron bun in the other.
Then Julian raised the pistol and aimed it at him.
Courtenay didn’t move a hair but he braced himself. This must have shown on his face because Julian dropped the pistol to his side. “I’m not going to shoot you, you pillock!”
“That’s a relief,” Courtenay said with feigned nonchalance.
“I needed to know where to aim the bloody thing to make it look right, and it’s the whorl in the paneling just next to your left shoulder.”
“Quite,” Courtenay said, his heart still beating madly.
“You really thought I was going to shoot you and you sat stock-still!”
“I knew you weren’t going to actually harm me. Maybe wing me. Draw a bit of blood for whatever fell purpose you’re entertaining.”
Julian was staring at him. “You trust me that much?”
“You’re a terribly good shot, so I knew you wouldn’t hit anything vital.”
Julian slid the pistol onto the nearest table and crossed the room in three strides. “I wasn’t going to shoot you at all.”
“Well, I understand that now,” Courtenay said, not quite grasping why Julian had that look on his face. But then Julian was sitting astride his lap, kissing him fiercely, and he didn’t care anymore.
If Julian had ever thought he understood the faintest, sorriest thing about love, he now knew he was wrong. Love was somebody aiming a pistol at your heart while you sat there and acted like it was perfectly fine because you trusted them. Courtenay perhaps had always known that, had always been open to that kind of love and trust and the danger that came with both.
Julian would learn how to exist alongside such an unreasonable emotion. Somehow.
But first he had a wall to shoot.
“Come over here,” he said, extracting himself from the circle of Courtenay’s arms and getting to his feet. Courtenay at his side, he turned and aimed at the spot in the paneling he had marked out. He braced himself and fired the pistol, sparing only the briefest of glances to confirm that
he had hit his mark. Then he pressed one last kiss to Courtenay’s mouth before they’d be interrupted by the servants who would inevitably come running.
“What’s our story?” Courtenay asked.
“I tried to shoot you because of the malicious falsehoods I mistakenly believed you spread about my sister. I missed.”
“While I was sitting. Unsporting of you.”
“I was outraged, you see. And later on, when you forgive me, it will be that much more magnanimous of you. Lord Courtenay, having sowed his wild oats, returned to a quiet life at his ancestral seat. He was accosted in a most vicious manner by the common son of a merchant.”
“Why did we have tea before the shooting?”
“I wanted to take you unawares.”
“Very unsporting indeed.”
“But now I’ve vented my spleen and I feel the score is even. After your servants come—ah, I hear pounding at the door, so you might as well open it and assure them there isn’t a corpse—I’ll go back to Lady Montbray and then to London. The duel will be quite unnecessary. Nobody will be firing any pistols anywhere near you, not while I’m still breathing.”
Courtenay let in the butler and assured him that all was well and that he and Mr. Medlock had merely settled a dispute in a rash way. Julian took his leave, coolly shaking hands with the man he loved while ten wide-eyed servants looked on.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It turned out that there was nothing like getting shot at to stir up local sympathy. If Courtenay hadn’t known what Julian was capable of, he might have thought it a mere coincidence. But since he knew Julian was nothing less than a genius, he understood that this response was exactly what Julian had intended.
The magistrate called on him the very evening of the incident to inquire if Courtenay was in need of any assistance, and then proceeded to enjoy one of the last bottles remaining in the Carrington cellars while bemoaning the sad behavior of today’s youth.
The Ruin of a Rake Page 22
