It was good there was no reproach in Josh’s tone, because Peter felt the stab of shame all too deep without it. How many singular moments of Josh’s misery was he responsible for? No. No, he would not think about that now; he was too much of a sailor to waste time on the past. The present had to be seized. “He who hesitates is lost, Mr. Andrews. You will believe it, I assure you.”
Josh stooped to retrieve his lost shoe. When he turned back, he seemed to have regained his composure with it. He insinuated himself just close enough for Peter to feel invaded, tilted his head to one side and watched Peter’s face with a frankly admiring look, the worship clothed in playfulness. “I’m not an easy man to impress, Mr. Kenyon. What makes you think that a night of unbridled sexual perversion is going to change my mind?”
“Hm.” It was hard to fight the desire—to laugh from sheer joy, to take the taunting young captain by his lapels, slam him into the pillar and firmly prove to him that he was underestimating the persuasive power of Peter’s prowess—but this really was not the place. “Am I to understand you’re suggesting more than a single night?”
“I was thinking along the lines of the rest of my life.”
The laughter broke free. And yes, free was how Peter felt. Free from social obligations, free from his own ridiculous expectations, from a wearisome hunt for something he didn’t really want. Free like a man-of-war leaving harbor with a stiff wind in her sails and every man aboard looking forward to the adventure. This was no tying down to the earth, no prison of domesticity. It was the life he loved given back to him, perfected by not having to be lived alone. And he had no idea how to express any of that in a way that would not be horribly embarrassing to hear.
“That will be acceptable.” He watched with an intense pride as Josh’s white smile lit up his face, bright as a hunter’s moon. It didn’t after all need to be said. Andrews—as always—already understood. No romantic words were required, only the truth, and that, too, was an unutterable comfort. “On my oath before God, Josh, I swear it. If it is within my power—for I am not the master of the sea nor of the service, but if it is within my human power to arrange, this time I will stay with you for the rest of our lives.”
Epilogue
The shutters were closed and the doors locked, Peter’s servants sent home. There was no one to see the proud uniforms lying discarded on the floor, no one but Josh to admire Peter’s long, elegant form spread out on the bed like an offering, the white bandage about his shoulder his only covering. Lamplight shone gold on the sheen of sweat over his heaving chest, drowned in the darkness of his pleasure-drugged, dilated eyes.
But Josh, kneeling over him, sinking slowly, inch by inch, onto his hard cock, felt as though the whole world was watching. He leaned down, feeling his own prick slide luxuriously against Peter’s sweat and oil damp belly and captured Peter’s little, breathless whimpers in his own mouth. Peter’s good hand let go its death grip on the sheets and closed bruisingly on Josh’s thigh, mutely begging for more.
“Mine,” Josh gasped, looking down fiercely at Peter’s need.
“Yours,” Peter replied, awestruck. “Oh, God, yes. Yours, please.”
About the Author
Alex Beecroft was born in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and grew up in the wild countryside of the Peak District. Alex studied English and Philosophy before accepting employment with the Crown Court where she worked for a number of years. Now a stay-at-home mum and full-time author, Alex lives with her husband and two daughters in a little village near Cambridge and tries to avoid being mistaken for a tourist.
Alex is only intermittently present in the real world. She has led a Saxon shield wall into battle, toiled as a Georgian kitchen maid, and recently taken up an 800-year-old form of English folk dance, but she still hasn’t learned to operate a mobile phone.
You can contact Alex on [email protected].
To learn more about her other books and upcoming projects, visit her website and blog on www.alexbeecroft.com or come and join in the ongoing chat at http://alex-beecroft.livejournal.com.
He didn’t think he had a heart. Until he lost it.
Lessons in Love
© 2009 Charlie Cochrane
Cambridge Fellows Mysteries, Book One
St. Bride’s College, Cambridge, England, 1905
Jonty Stewart is handsome and outgoing, with blood as blue as his eyes. When he takes up a teaching post at the college where he studied, his dynamic style acts as an agent for change within the archaic institution. He also has a catalytic effect on Orlando Coppersmith.
Orlando is a brilliant, introverted mathematician with very little experience of life outside the university walls. He strikes up an alliance with Jonty and soon finds himself heart-deep in feelings he’s never experienced. Before long their friendship blossoms into more than either man had hoped.
Then a student is murdered within St. Bride’s. Then another…and another. All the victims have one thing in common: a penchant for men. Asked by the police to serve as their eyes and ears within the college, Jonty and Orlando risk exposing a love affair that could make them the killer’s next target.
Warning: Contains sensual m/m lovemaking and men in punts.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Lessons in Love:
Just how they’d ever got themselves invited to a rowing club party was a great mystery, particularly to Orlando, who’d just tagged along after his friend as usual. The intense strain they’d been under had been eased by the first glass of the black and bubbly, and life became rapidly rosier with every subsequent one. Orlando had only managed three and that had been enough to make him almost incapable.
Jonty had been forced to remove him from the gathering before he disgraced himself. There had been vague mutterings about “too smoky in here, feel the need of a good wash” and some fumbling at waistcoat buttons. Jonty had retained enough presence of mind to whisk him out the door and past the college fountain, which he’d eyed longingly.
“Could do with a good shower, Dr. Stewart,” Orlando had mumbled at the time and had made an attempt to remove his jacket.
“Not here, you clown! In the middle of St. Thomas’s and in the middle of winter.”
Orlando had merely looked blearily at him in reply and they’d slithered through the streets back to the sanctuary of Jonty’s rooms. There, the need for cleanliness seemed to overcome Orlando again. “Could do with that bath now, Jonty.”
While St. Bride’s had been behind the times in many things, it had been forward thinking about bathrooms. And an endless supply of hot water. Orlando removed his jacket and began an attempt on his waistcoat buttons. Tricky little buggers these proved, all of them seeming to be too big to pass back through the holes from whence they came.
Jonty stood in silent amazement, a rapid wave of both realisation and sobriety passing through his brain. He’s going to take off all his clothes, here, in my rooms, and take a soak. In my bath. Then he’s going to sober up and find himself naked, in my bath, and I daren’t even begin to guess what he’s going to say or do then. I’m not sure I know what I’ll do, except pray I can resist seducing him.
Orlando had successfully removed his waistcoat and was trying to get the upper hand on his shirt buttons, which were putting up a manly resistance. “Don’t fancy a dip yourself, Jonty?”
If you were completely sober, most certainly. As it is… “No, thank you, Orlando. I’ll just go and start the thing running. I’d better find you something to dry yourself on as well.” He busied himself in the bathroom, concentrating madly on the mundane acts of ensuring the right water temperature and finding a decent-sized towel.
“Don’t like it too hot, Jonty.” Orlando appeared in the doorway. He’d secured a surprisingly rapid victory over the rest of his clothes and was both naked and brazen.
Jonty focussed hard on keeping his gaze above waist level, which was distraction enough as Orlando had such a lovely, smooth chest, just soft enough to make a luxurious pillow. H
e wondered how it would feel to spend a night nestling on it.
“Then sort it out yourself. I’ll go and make us a pot of tea, I have a feeling you’ll need it in a minute.” The refuge of the English in all moments of stress—I’ll put the kettle on, we’ll have a nice cup of tea. Jonty had laughed often enough when his female relatives had resorted to it, but now the caddy and the teapot provided a wonderful retreat from temptation.
Someone began to murder elephants in the bathroom. Oh hell. Oh spite. He’s started to sing and my misery is now complete.
Eventually the wholesale slaughter (not just of elephants, but of Gilbert and Sullivan, too) came to an end. Jonty heard gurgling water and wet footsteps and an extremely sheepish young man, clad only in towels, slunk into the kitchen.
“Seem to have disgraced myself, Jonty.”
Jonty sniggered. No matter how alluring a sight he was in those towels, Orlando embarrassed was always amusing. “Not half as much as you would have done if I hadn’t dissuaded you from bathing in the fountain at St. Thomas’s.”
“I never tried to do that!” Orlando looked horrified. “Did I?”
“You seemed very eager an hour ago, but luckily your friend Jonty can hold his drink.”
“What else have I done? I seem to be in a state of undress, but I can’t remember anything since drinking that third Black Velvet.”
“You’ve done nothing, honestly, other than strip naked and utilise my bath.” Jonty smiled indulgently at Orlando’s increasing discomfort and pushed a hot cup of tea across the table. “Strong, with plenty of sugar. I think you need the pick-me-up.”
Orlando looked back through the doorway into the main room, saw his discarded clothing and blanched. “Did I…parade around?”
Jonty felt torn between the delight he took in his friend’s discomfort and the concern that the man’s distress caused him. Concern won the day. “No, never worry, you were really quite discreet.”
He hastily put away the recollection of Orlando standing in the bathroom doorway being anything but prudent. The man had such an attractive body, there had been such beauty in its brief moment of shamelessness.
“Should get dressed, I suppose.”
“Have your tea first, I’ve got some Chelsea buns somewhere.” Jonty reached for a tin and extracted two reasonably fresh ones. “Didn’t get a proper breakfast today and very little since. Think we should both eat.”
Which they did, in silence. The buns provided not only nourishment but an excuse not to have to talk, to simply gather thoughts and regroup. Jonty had an inkling they were on the verge of something momentous here, if he could keep his friend focused and calm. They hadn’t touched in any significant way since the night in the Fellows’ Garden; Orlando had made sure since then that they’d barely had the chance to even be alone. Jonty understood his motivation, his fears, but he was still deeply frustrated.
He reached a sticky, currant-covered hand over the table and grasped an equally sugary one of Orlando’s. “It’s just me here with you. Nothing you can do will embarrass or upset me. Always want to sit in the chair next to yours, remember?”
Orlando managed a smile, but the extreme discomfort he must have been feeling was plain. He shivered. “Feeling a bit cold sitting here, Jonty.”
“Well let’s get you next to the fire then. Go and stir some life into the thing while I wrestle another cup out of the pot.”
After a minute or two, Jonty backed into the room bearing a tray with the drinks and some shortbread he’d discovered. Orlando had coaxed the fire into a cheerful blaze and had then dropped onto the mat before it, looking rosy and content in the glow. They ate and drank again in companionable silence, Jonty reflecting all the while that his aunts had probably been absolutely right to swear by the civilising and restorative effects of afternoon tea. Being before the fire together felt absolutely blissful.
Orlando broke the tranquillity. “I feel a bit of an idiot sitting here in a towel, with you fully dressed, Jonty. Should be getting dressed myself, I suppose.” Despite what he said, he didn’t show the slightest inclination to take his own advice.
“There is another solution, of course,” Jonty ventured, “for your embarrassment. Another way to solve the problem. Bear with me for just a moment.” He rose and went into the bathroom, feeling a bit of an idiot as well. This was either going to be a masterstroke or a complete disaster. He found himself a large towel and began to undress.
He hadn’t dared do this in front of Orlando; it would have given the man too much time to become skittish and object. Anyway, the act of disrobing was never an elegant one. The top half was fine, very alluring it had been to watch Orlando stripping off his jacket and waistcoat, but the bottom half presented all sorts of logistical difficulties. There was the significant risk of hopping around with one leg still in your trousers, which made a very unappetising sight, or worse still, being left in just your socks, which was a complete passion killer. Better to show yourself in the best possible light, he mused, removing the last item, the offending socks, and draping the towel around himself. He took a very deep breath and went back into the main room.
“Now we’re equal.” Jonty took his place next to his friend in front of the hearth. Orlando’s jaw had dropped when he saw his friend, draped like a Greek statue, entering the room. Jonty could imagine him struggling to regain his composure but failing.
“You absolute oaf!” Orlando started to laugh, which was a rare enough occurrence at any time and one that always set Jonty off giggling as well. They didn’t stop until the tears were streaming down their faces.
“Oh, Orlando—your face. I’ve not seen you so shocked since that lady from Girton invited you to step outside with her and admire the wallflowers.”
Orlando blushed at the remembrance. Jonty knew he really did hate talking to women and this one had been rather too persistent.
Orlando looked across at his friend and noticed the small, exquisite gold crucifix around his neck. “May I?” He reached over and began to finger it gently. “This is a lovely piece of workmanship. Do you wear it often?”
“Always.” Jonty smiled. “My grandmother bought it for me when I came up to Bride’s as a student. I’ve worn it every day that I’ve been at the college, now and before.”
Orlando kept rubbing the delicate gold chain until his fingers must have grown numb and sought for softer contact. Letting the necklace go, he tentatively traced the line of Jonty’s collarbone. “This is a lovely piece of workmanship, too. And this.” His hand worked its way down his friend’s chest, toying with the hairs that were sparsely scattered along the way.
Desire. Destruction. Destiny.
Ghost Star Night
© 2009 Nicole Kimberling
Thomas Myrdin knows that intrigue is part of life at court, but that doesn’t make his king’s betrayal any easier to take. Yet heartbreak troubles him less than the apocalyptic visions that haunt him. Fiery premonitions that show the world burning in ruins—and the cause, the king’s daughter. Visions and vengeance awaken a strange new power within him, but not even he is sure if he is the kingdom’s savior, the king’s pawn.
Lord Adam Wexley harbors a secret longing for the elegant Thomas, but his duty is to protect the newborn princess. When a sudden threat arises, Adam seeks to procure services of Grand Magician Zachary Drake. Even if it means sacrificing his own soul—and his body.
Drake has seen the worst of kings and courtiers. Now he protects himself with powerful sorcery and the adamant refusal to affiliate with any of the Four Courts. But the grand magician isn’t without weaknesses and Adam may be the one enticement that could draw him to ruin.
In a rising storm of magic with the power to strip away men’s souls, the thread of desire connecting three men could be the kingdom’s last lifeline…
Warning: This story contains men, magic, man-on-man moments, orangutans speaking in sign language, beehive hairdos and an army of soulless janitors that seeks to destroy them all.
“Your hands must be tired,” Drake said.
Adam looked up and caught a hesitant, but definitely sensual smile playing across the other man’s lips. The idea that the magician had a sexual interest in him began to form in his mind. Unlike the other magicians he’d met, Drake’s face was not inscrutable. To him, Drake seemed almost shy, although how that could be possible was a mystery.
“They are a little tired.” Adam set his guitar aside and focused his attention on his host. He still looked as scary as ever. Slim black shirt and trousers. Boots with silver filigree tips. Silver rings. But now Adam noticed a subtle cologne, the glossiness of his hair. His smooth jaw.
Drake had shaved for him. Adam could see that his direct attention made Drake nervous because that hesitant look returned.
Suddenly Adam found himself in much more familiar territory. Indeed, he began to consider the possibility that guitar playing was not the activity that Drake most hoped Adam would engage in during his visit to the Black Tower. This changed everything.
While he was good at playing guitar, Adam’s true excellence resided in the area of lovemaking. He smiled and offered his hands to Drake who took them, sliding his own long, thin fingers across the surface of his palms.
The doorbell rang again. And again. It rang at one-second intervals for a half-minute.
Drake’s face revealed his emotions. First, that he definitely wanted to continue to explore more of Adam’s skin, and second, that he was annoyed by the doorbell and that Adam should do something about it.
“Would you like me to tell them to go away?” Adam asked.
“Since my servant is away, thank you,” Drake said. Adam stood and pressed the button for the elevator intercom.
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