Page 44 of Once a Gentleman
Chapter Eighteen
When Andrew’s head stopped spinning, he lifted it at last from where he had let it hang down between his shoulders.
Kit lay sprawled beneath him, eyes closed, though his chest still heaved with exertion.A thrill of triumph went through him, for he had done precisely what he intended. Kit’s cheeks and lips were flushed like summer roses, and his arms lay limp at his sides. He was utterly debauched, conquered, his prickly pride and all his stubborn resistance laid waste before Andrew’s ardor.A fine sheen of sweat glistened on that sweetly curved upper lip, so red and tempting, and Andrew wanted to lick it off, to nibble at that absurdly plush lower lip, to draw out a soft whimper, a flutter of those long eyelashes, perhaps even a glimpse of his lovely eyes all glazed with pleasure and surrender.
Even with his cock softening inside Kit’s body—and he glanced down with a shudder of something like ecstasy, to where they were still joined together—he wanted to thrust again, force his prick deeper, take Kit again and again until he could do nothing more than lie there andyield.
And at the same time, he could have spent hours doing nothing more than worshipping Kit’s loveliness all over again, running his fingers through his soft curls and licking at that long, slender throat, kissing and nipping at the small pink buds of his nipples, burying his face in the dip of Kit’s waist, stroking the slim but strong muscles of his arms and his legs. He would kneel before him and kiss every inch of his skin until his gorgeous hard prick strained toward Andrew’s mouth. Taste him again, in those secret places Kit had opened to him.
Andrew shivered with it, the need to have him again in every way he could. To make that surrender final enough that Kit could never revoke it.
Aching tenderness and exulting triumph, both driving him to keep Kit in his bed, and in his arms, and never allow him a moment’s regret.
At last he bent and softly kissed those lips that had driven him mad for so long, prised them open with his tongue and slipped within. Kit let out a faint moan, and his eyelids did flutter, but his eyes remained closed. Andrew closed his too and explored Kit’s soft mouth at his leisure, stroking and teasing and savoring.
Kit stirred beneath him, making Andrew’s cock slip half out. Andrew lifted his head with one last press of the lips. Kit made a little moue of distaste, his eyes opening halfway, slits of bright green peering up at him.
“It might hurt a little when I withdraw from you,” Andrew murmured, almost against Kit’s mouth. He could hardly bear to break the silence they’d created between them, a silence made up of their slowing heartbeats and their mingled breath, of the distant sounds of the household and the background hubbub of Portsmouth outside the windows. “Lie still, love, and I’ll be careful.”
The endearment slipped easily from his lips, just as it had when he had pushed inside, felt the overwhelming heat and tightness of Kit’s body for the first time.
He almost wished he could recall it, although what did it matter? Men said all kinds of things during pleasure, and in its aftermath. Kit wouldn’t take it seriously.
No one out of his leading-strings would take such a thing seriously.
Andrew had only once before in his life fancied himself in love: with a fellow midshipman who shared his berth aboard the second ship on which Andrew had served, when he was only eighteen. He had jerked himself raw to thoughts of Harry, spun wild fantasies of the two of them sailing off for exotic adventures—with Andrew as captain, of course, and Harry as his trusted lieutenant. It had all been wildly melodramatic. But he’d never acted on it, even at that age and in the grip of turbulent passion. He knew his career mattered more than a tight arse and a pretty smile.
Those feelings had faded as if they’d never been within a month of Harry marrying the girl his parents had picked out for him and transferring to another ship. Andrew had seen him twice since then, exchanging friendly handshakes and a few courteous words.
Harry had grown something of a paunch, and a truly hideous mustache.
In any case, he had always assumed that he had experienced love, and that all those poets, if one read between the lines, had described it quite accurately, if inadvertently so: as an inconvenient, temporary irritation of the nerves.
This…felt unnervingly similar in some ways, particularly as Andrew had believed himself past the age when he could be taken so strongly by lust. He had the same near-overwhelming longing to touch, to hold, to consume; and yet he had an even stronger urge to do whatever might make Kit happy, even if that meant denying himself the satiation of his own desires.
Of course, it could not possibly be something as absurd as love. He wanted Kit; he wanted to please him,becausehe wanted him; he wanted to protect and care for him with his body and his soul and his fortune, with everything he possessed, because Kit needed someone to look after him, being so alone in the world, and being so stubborn and proud withal.
That was all.
He pulled out slowly and gently, soothing Kit’s slight wince and murmur of discomfort with a steadying, caressing hand on his hip, and clambered off the bed.
The washstand yielded some fresh water left in the pitcher, and Andrew filled a cup of it for Kit to drink before he wet a towel and took both cloth and cup back to the bed.
Kit had barely stirred, still splayed on the bed in a messy sprawl of long, slender limbs.
None of Andrew’s imaginings had prepared him for the perfection of reality, and he had imagined Kit’s nude body rather thoroughly.
“There’s no hot water, of course,” he said. “My apologies.”
Kit opened his eyes a little, blinking at Andrew in apparent bewilderment, lips curving slightly. Andrew’s heart gave a painful, miserable squeeze, and he started, spilling water from the cup all over his hand and wrist. Kit’s eyes…
No. He had been wrong, an utter fool. He was, indeed, very much in love. Hopelessly so. Inconveniently so, and with a full measure of irritation to his nerves. And his love was founded on admiration of Kit’s mind and his talents, his strength of character and his perseverance. He loved more than Kit’s heart-stoppingly beautiful body, and would love him as much if he had a paunch and an ill-advised mustache. He had fallen in love as a man, with a man’s mature judgment, and in full possession of his faculties—which meant the condition was unlikely to be temporary.
In short, he was well and truly buggered.
“I beg your pardon?” Kit said, and Andrew started again, realizing he had been stood there with water running down his arm, gaping at Kit like an idiot.
What had he…he looked down. A cup. A towel.
