Page 40 of Once a Gentleman
Chapter Seventeen
Turner’s eyes flicked to the open, half-filled trunk.
And he stopped dead, mid-step, his foot stumbling down awkwardly.
“You cannot possibly be—”
“Not eight hours ago I agreed to a week’s notice on condition that I would receive no further insult in this house,” Kit said thickly, far beyond courtesy, far beyond dignity, far beyond giving a damn for anything but telling Turner precisely what he thought of him. He oughtn’t to have torn up those first two letters. He ought to have nailed them to Turner’s face. “And then at breakfast—well, if you can call it that, because it’s more like Mrs. Felton’s revenge upon you for all those nights you keep the household awake until near dawn—well, there I find some whore of yours—do you dare tolaughat me?”
For Turner had let out a crack of what could be nothing but laughter, despite the utter lack of hilarity in anything Kit had said. He felt his blood nearly boiling in his veins, his scalp fizzing with the pressure building up within.
“He called me your ‘secretary’!” Kit cried, rather nonsensically, overcome with rage, fingers twitching to wrap themselves around Turner’s throat. Only the memory of how little it had served him to hit him in the face last time prevented him from trying again.
“I know he did,” Turner retorted. “And I have just had it out with him for doing so, only Hewlett, he’s not a wh—”
“And yet he was dreadfully quick to assume that I am! He is not the first, as you may recall, to address me as yoursecretaryin that tone—”
“That is a reflection upon me, not upon you!” Turner cried, sounding harassed beyond bearing. “No one bloody well believes that I truly do have a bloody secretary!”
Kit surged forward, all but spitting in his fury, until he stood near enough to touch, too near, but Turner was like a lodestone drawing him in.
“It is a reflection upon both of us, and yetyourlack of character isn’t the subject of breakfast-table insults. I set a condition, Turner, a simple one, that one might think would be easy enough to meet: that I would not be called a whore for seven days running. And I believed that you would ensure it, like a fool, I thought it might even be difficult to depart at the end of the week because you would be so solicitous of my comfort, that you would care enough to—”
Kit stopped abruptly, horrified, nearly biting through his lip—but too late. He had already let spill his own weakness and pathetic hopes, shown clearly that he wanted to stay, to be persuaded to do so.
That he hadexpectedTurner to do so.
He waited a moment, expecting disbelief, laughter, mockery, a diatribe on his presumption and idiocy.
Instead, Turner went pale and pinched around the lips, and his eyes narrowed.
“Care enough,” he said at last, very low. He stepped forward, looming over him, his eyes fixed on Kit’s face with paralyzing intensity. “You wonder if Icareenough to—to beg you to stay, perhaps? To offer you anything, anything at all, if you will only give me one more week of your presence? Even though you won’t consort with me, even as a friend. Even if you despise me.”
Kit’s head whirled; Turner did not mean to say—he could not possibly mean what he seemed to mean. “It is your pride,” he said, faltering a little, his surety of his own unassailable rightness shaken. “You—cannot bear that someone should leave you, tire of you, rather than the other way—”
“Mypride?” Turner demanded, his voice rising sharply. “My pride, insisting that I beg you to stay. My pride, that drives me to humble myself before you?” He took one more step, until his chest almost bumped Kit’s, until Kit could feel the heat of him. “You—you—”
Turner broke off, breathing heavily, cheeks flushed.
And then he cursed under his breath, seizing Kit by the shoulders and kissing him, hard and brutally, bruising his lips against his teeth and invading with his tongue. Kit tried to shove Turner away, but he was held so close he couldn’t get his arms between, and he battered ineffectually at Turner’s shoulders while his mouth was so thoroughly ravished he could hardly breathe. Kit’s back bowed as Turner let go of one shoulder to wrap his arm around his waist and yank him roughly against his body. He must stop this, shove Turner away, protest…
His hands found purchase on Turner’s shoulders at last, his fingers digging in rather than pushing him away. His heart pounded, a dull, ecstatic ache had begun in his bollocks and the base of his cock and deep within him, and nothing mattered but Turner’s lips, hot and sure, and his big hands pressing Kit close. He melted, Turner’s hard cock against his belly the last straw.
How long had it been since he kissed or was kissed? Far too long, an endless drought, and he soaked up the taste of Turner’s mouth like a thirsty rose in a late-summer shower. Drank in the hard muscle against him and in the arms around him, the strength in Turner’s hands and the intent of his touch.
Turner tore his mouth away, only to attack the delicate skin just below Kit’s ear, mouthing along his jaw and nibbling at his throat. Kit let out a shameful, helpless moan, knowing Turner would triumph over him, take everything Kit had to give and then despise him later for his wanton surrender.
But that thought fled, overwhelmed by the flick of Turner’s tongue against his skin, the heat of Turner’s harsh breaths, the way one strong hand had moved down, down, stroking over his hip and grasping at the swell of his arse.
“Oh, God,” Kit gasped, clutching at Turner’s shoulders so hard it had to hurt, and Turner growled, fastening his lips to Kit’s neck just above his cravat, sucking and nipping until Kit cried out, his cock throbbing almost painfully, simply from this.
The clock had only barely struck eight before Turner came to his door. The sun shone through the windows in a flood, with all the world going about its business outside. Servants could be passing in the corridor and hearing Kit’s sounds of pleasure. They would all know Turner had made him another conquest, and they would laugh and shake their heads, and they would feel nothing but disgust and pity.
Kit hardly realized they were moving until the backs of his legs hit the edge of his bed, and he only had time to open his mouth to protest before he toppled over, Turner pushing him inexorably down, pressing between his legs. Turner’s hard cock thrust against the hollow between his thigh and his groin, and he wrapped a hand in Kit’s hair, tugging him back to ravage his throat, nuzzling under his collar and cravat. The velvet canopy blurred above him as everything in the world narrowed down to that hot mouth devouring him and the weight of Turner’s body.
Every part of Kit’s body screamed to continue, to sink back into the bed and yield until Turner had taken everything he had.
No, he must stop, he must put an end to this before it was too late, although it was already far, far too late, and what did it matter now…
