“I just wanted you to know,” Elias said, feeling light-headed, his chest tightening with apprehension, “I think we could try doing the thing now.”
“The thing?” Augustus asked.
“The thing where you fuck me.”
Augustus froze. Elias could practically hear his heart beating out of his breast.
“Are you sure?” Augustus whispered. He withdrew his hands from Elias’s ass.
“Yes.”
“No, I mean, are you really sure? You’re not just thinking with your dick right now?”
Elias pondered this. “I suppose that’s possible. But I’d already made up my mind when I woke this morning.”
“Maybe you should sleep on it again.”
“Why?”
“Because…”
“You think I’m not ready?”
“No! It’s not that, I just want to make sure this is something you want to do.”
“What the fuck did I just say?” Elias scrambled into a seated position, straddling the pianoforte bench. “Why won’t you take me to bed today?” His dick ached. He wanted Augustus now.
“Er.”
Elias reached out and seized the front of Augustus’s rumpled shirt in his fist. “You would make me wait? Now? After you’ve been wanting to do this for a month?”
“Longer than a month,” Augustus muttered.
“Well? What’s the problem?”
Augustus sighed. “It’s the gentleman in me. What say you I leave you to yourself until the end of the week, and if you still feel the same way, we’ll give it a try?”
“Fuck.” Elias flopped back onto the pianoforte bench. He tried to get his dick to settle down by thinking of Lord Nelson. “You’re killing me, Westwood.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Elias had never known a longer week. Bess noticed Augustus’s absence right away.
“Where’s your beau?” she asked the next afternoon.
“If you mean Augustus, who’s not my beau, he’s gone until the end of the week,” Elias muttered, picking at his breakfast.
“Why?”
“We’re going to have sex, but he wants to make sure he’s not pressuring me,” Elias said, sighing.
Bess was strangely quiet for the rest of the day. That night, after the tavern was closed and they were tucked into bed, Bess hissed at him.
“Are you awake?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I think Augustus isn’t a bad person. I know he was a highwayman, and he stole from you, and that’s wrong, but I don’t think he’s evil anymore.”
“Anymore?”
“Anymore.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve changed your tune.”
“Do you still want to have sex with him?”
“Bess, I want to climb that man like a tree.”
Bess gave a snort of laughter. “Guess that makes two of us.”
“Mine,” Elias snapped.
“Yes, obviously. Like I said, you’ve done well for yourself. He might not be rich, but he’s pretty and he’s kind.”
“Kind!” Elias scoffed. It was not the first word he would use to describe Augustus.
“He puts up with you and your antics, doesn’t he? And the way he walks with you, I have no fear seeing him take you anywhere, I know you won’t break your nose or scrape your knees falling. Not to mention how he looks at you.”
“Oh God, here we go.”
“Sometimes I walk into the room and you’re doing something completely ordinary, like wiping down the bar, and he’s got his face propped up in his hands and he’s just staring at you doing whatever boring everyday thing that you’re doing as though it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. And he’s clearly not doing it for your benefit, or for anyone else’s. He’s doing it because he’s truly perfectly content to just watch you for hours on end. If that’s not outright adoration, I don’t know what is. Maybe he’s just simple. I don’t know.”
Elias could think of nothing to say, so he lay in bed and pressed the palm of his hand against his ribs. His heart thundered up against it.
“Anyway,” Bess continued, and her blankets rustled, “I suppose if I’m to have a brother-in-law in all but law, he’ll do. He’ll do very nicely.” Then, as an afterthought, “Don’t tell him I said that.”
* * * *
When Augustus arrived at the end of the week, Elias could scarcely contain himself. It was Sunday, so the tavern was closed. He had not eaten all day, for Lulu had advised a light meal and Elias was too nervous for even that. Bess was reading to him in their bedroom when there was a rapping at their shutters. “Augustus,” Elias said after he threw them open.
“Eli.”
“Do you want to come in?”
“May I?”
“Wait a minute. Or two. I’m slow.”
Elias crossed the room and made for the door. “I won’t wait up, is that it?” Bess asked.
“Best not,” Elias replied, and slipped from the room.
Downstairs, Augustus was waiting at the doorstep. “I missed you,” he whispered.
“Sentimental fuck,” Elias accused, thinking of himself.
“Yes,” Augustus agreed. He trailed his fingers up Elias’s arm. When he reached Elias’s shoulder, he slipped his hand behind Elias’s neck and dipped his head forward. He pressed his lips against Elias’s as he cupped the back of his head.
“I haven’t changed my mind, you know,” Elias said once they had parted. “I still want to fuck you.”
“And I still want to fuck you.”
There was a pregnant pause.
“Shall we go upstairs?” Elias asked, feeling for Augustus’s hand. He made purchase and pulled him over the threshold.
“God, yes.”
Someone, probably Bess, had left a lit candle in the spare bedroom. They crept into the room and Augustus locked the door behind them.
“You’re very good at sneaking around,” Augustus observed quietly. “I would never have made all those steps in the dark without you leading me.”
“Yes, well, I do better in the dark.”
“I know.” Augustus blew out the candle, undressed, then lay on the bed. “I can do this in the dark too. How’s that?”
Elias sat at the end of the bed. “As good as it’ll ever get.”
“What do you see?”
Elias turned his head to the point from which Augustus’s voice originated. “Not much.”
Augustus snorted. “Get over here.”
Elias crawled across the sheets until he was lying next to Augustus. “Will it hurt?” he asked.
“Lulu said it might, especially the first time. We’ll have to go slowly. You’ve been doing your exercises, right?”
Elias’s cheeks grew warm. “Yes.”
Augustus touched Elias’s shoulder. “That’ll help. Did you like them?”
Now Elias’s face was on fire. He had. The first few times had been awful and uncomfortable, but he had persevered, and it was worth it. “Yes. Eventually.”
Augustus’s hand slid down Elias’s spine to his ass. “Perfect. That’s perfect.”
They kissed. It was soft and warm in the bed, the midnight wind rustling the window pane. For how long they lay there, kissing and stroking each other’s bodies, Elias did not know. Eventually, Augustus’s hands went under Elias’s nighttime shift, lifting it over his head, then snaked back down to stroke first Elias’s dick, then his ass. Elias countered with a gentle massaging of Augustus’s balls. As the kiss became deeper, breathier, and dirtier, Elias felt his dick hardening. Augustus’s hands ran over his ass, his fingers sliding up and down his crack, teasing his hole. They were silent all the while, for Bess slept on one side of their room and Elias’s father on the other.
“Elias,” Augustus murmured after a while. “I want to fuck you so bad.”
Elias sat up straight. “How do I…do you want me to lie down?”
“I think it’ll be easier if I’m on top while we’re stil
l figuring this out. I can see what we’re doing. A little.”
It was sound logic. “All right. Should I be on my stomach or my back?”
“Back? Maybe? Would that be comfortable?”
“We can try.”
“Good. I like looking at you.”
Elias heard a soft tinkling of glass on wood, smelled olive oil, and then felt Augustus trace the outline of his hole. “All right?” he asked as Elias melted into the blankets.
“Yes.”
He was quivering with desire by the time Augustus slipped his first slick finger inside. Elias gave a quiet gasp and arched his back, balling the blankets in his fists.
“All right?”
“Yes.”
Augustus kissed Elias’s bellybutton as he stroked him from the inside.
“Fuck,” Augustus whispered as he continued to manipulate his finger. “Fuck, it’s so tight in there.”
Elias bit his lip and felt about until he found Augustus’s hair. He ran his fingers through it, sighing.
“I can take more than one finger, you know.”
“You can?” There was amazement in Augustus’s voice.
Augustus eased a second finger inside. Elias tensed a moment, toes pointed and knees bending, before he relaxed again and let Augustus kiss his dick and suck his balls, those wet fingers gliding easily within him. Elias’s dick continued to swell until it rose flat against his stomach. Augustus licked the length of its underside, then slid his mouth over the tip.
“Wait,” Elias murmured. “I don’t want to come before…before you…”
“May I?” Augustus asked, sliding his fingers out.
“May you what?” Elias would make him say it.
“May I put myself inside you.” Augustus was between his legs, Elias’s calves balanced in each of his palms.
“Yes,” Elias said, tilting his head back. He felt Augustus hot and hard at his entrance, pressing, pressing… He parted, and Augustus entered bit by bit.
“Ah,” Elias said breathily, trying to be quiet. He knew his father did not care what he did in his spare time, but he still would rather he not break the door down and see his son being sodomized in the spare bedroom. “Ah…”
“So tight,” Augustus murmured. “Fuck, that’s so tight. How are you managing?”
“Fine, it’s fine.” It did not hurt, exactly, but it was not the most comfortable sensation Elias had ever known. He tried not to tense as Augustus inched deeper inside.
“You’re so hard, too, fuck,” Augustus whispered. “I can see your dick. It’s so hard and I’m not even touching it. You like this, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I love that you like it. Fuck.”
The minutes slid by and they began a slow rocking motion together, Elias raising his hips as Augustus pushed in. It hurt for certain now, but Elias wanted more, more, more…
“We need to slow down a bit,” Augustus said, panting. “I’ll come if we go too fast right now. Damn are you ever good at this. They warned me you might…but you’re fine. You want more.”
“I do,” Elias said. He was aching inside in the way he had when he fingered himself, except this time there was a seven-inch cock stretching him open and not his two fingers.
“I’ll fill you up, in time, but right now I just want to savor this. Me, inside you. You, lying here. You’re beautiful, do you know that?”
The hands cupping Elias’s legs were shaking. Did Augustus want to come that badly?
“A few people have mentioned it.”
“Cheeky.”
“Don’t you mean cocky?”
“You’re very cocky right now.”
“Cocky times two.”
“Christ, you don’t stop in bed.”
“I never stop.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Not even if I do this?” Augustus withdrew a bit and then pushed in deep, his hips controlled and gradual. Elias threw a pillow over his face and moaned into it.
“That’s one way to shut you up, isn’t it?” Augustus chuckled.
Elias threw the pillow across the room, and, with a few missed attempts, succeeded in seizing Augustus’s ass, a cheek in each hand. “Fuck you. You can’t shut me up that easily. Now go faster.”
Augustus obliged. Elias kept one hand on Augustus’s ass and raised the other to Augustus’s hair. He grabbed a fistful of it and jerked Augustus’s head backward. “Harder,” Elias whispered, wanting to scream, as Augustus buried his cock deep in his ass. “You can go harder than that.”
Within a minute, Augustus had pressed his forehead into Elias’s chest and moaned, his mouth open, his teeth cutting into Elias’s nipple. Elias felt Augustus’s warm, wet, and sticky cum slide from his hole and down his crack.
“Fuck,” Elias murmured. “Oh, wow.”
“You didn’t come.” Augustus panted.
“No.”
“She said she didn’t think everyone does, not like how we were doing it.”
“That’s fine. I loved that.”
“It didn’t hurt?”
“It did, a little, but I could get used to it. There was this one place you touched inside…it was amazing, as when you touch the front, but different? I felt as though I was going to come, but I didn’t, but it felt so fucking good.” Elias was breathless and elated. So this was that kind of sex. He wanted to do it again.
“You’re making me want to try.”
“Sometime, absolutely.”
Augustus kissed him. “Good lord, you’re fantastic.”
“And you sound like the richest fop when you talk like that.”
“Do you want me to suck—”
“No, it’s fine,” Elias murmured, drawing Augustus against his chest. “I just want you here like this right now. I want your face by my face.”
“I’m going to have to fuck you more often. The only other time I’ve seen you like this is when you were off your face.”
“Shut up,” Elias grumbled, hugging Augustus tighter.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Elias woke early the next morning and forgot where he was for a moment. Bess was not breathing softly in the bed across the room from his, but there was a deeper breather in the blankets right next to him.
“You’re awake,” Augustus whispered.
“Obviously.”
Augustus touched Elias’s wrist. “Do you ever dream?”
“Of course I dream, you idiot. Why shouldn’t I dream like everyone else?”
The hand on his wrist grew hesitant. “Can you…see when you dream?”
“I haven’t seen a day in my life,” Elias snapped. “How could I possibly know what it is to see in my dreams?”
“I don’t know, I just thought—”
“Use your brain, Westwood,” Elias muttered, flopping over so his back was to Augustus and fluffing his pillows.
“Sorry.”
“Why must you be so grossly timid this morning? Where’s your usual spark?”
Augustus kissed Elias’s shoulder. “I’m just a little dazed. Waking up next to you like this was a dream come true for me.”
Elias turned his face into his pillows, hiding his smile. What was he so pleased about?
Augustus combed Elias’s hair with his fingers, then began plaiting it. “I don’t think I ever mentioned it, but I like you,” Augustus said as he worked.
“Hmm,” Elias replied, thinking of breakfast and trying to remember if he was on the side of the bed against the wall or if he could flee easily. He had to use the chamber pot.
“Your hair is so thick,” Augustus said as he tied the plait off.
“Hmm.”
Augustus slipped a hand down Elias’s chest to his groin. “Just like your—”
Elias lurched forward and fell off the bed.
“Careful!” Augustus exclaimed.
“I’m fine, it’s fine,” Elias muttered, staggering to his feet. He realized he had never put his shift back on last night.
“Did you hit your head?”
“No!”
With some difficulty, Elias extracted the chamber pot from beneath the bed using his toes, then relieved his bladder.
“That’s interesting,” Augustus said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’ve never seen a man do as you do.”
“I can’t see where to aim, you idiot, what would you have me do?”
“Good point.”
There was a long silence during which Elias tried to reason where his shift should be after last night’s activities. Augustus gave a low whistle. “Damn.”
“What?”
“Your ass.”
“What about it?”
“It’s rather fetching.”
“Ugh. Where’s my shift?”
There was a rustling, then Elias heard Augustus’s feet hit the ground. “Here,” Augustus said, pressing a ball of cloth into Elias’s hand. Without warning, he kissed Elias’s cheek. “You need a shave.”
Elias threw the shift on over his head. “I’ll talk to Bess about that, shall I?”
“I could do it for you,” Augustus offered.
“I don’t think I trust you with a razor near my throat.”
“I shave myself all the time.”
“When was the last time you shaved another man?”
“Never, but I should learn.”
“Should? Why should you?”
“Why, so I can do it for you all the time. Your hair is very dark and your skin is very fair. I suppose you need shaving often.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Elias crossed the room, touched the wall, and felt his way to the door.
“Why’s that ridiculous?” Augustus demanded.
Elias wrenched the door open. “Your coordination is lacking.”
“Hey!” Augustus roared. “I won’t be shaving you with my cock!” Then, quietly, “Though if you wanted it anywhere near your face again, I wouldn’t object.”
“You are not shaving me!” Elias yelled, and left.
* * * *
“Bess,” Elias hissed when he entered their bedroom.
“Did you fuck yet?” she asked, yawning. There was a rustling of blankets.
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“What?”
“Would you shave me, please?”
“Wait just a minute, you harlot, I have questions!” Bess bounded from her bed and shut the door behind Elias. “Who fucked whom?”
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