Page 12 of A Royally Fake French Menage
And from the way my lord tumbled forward over me as I wiped my hand across my mouth after licking him clean, then gently tucked him back into his silk and wool blend pants, I knew one thing with absolute certainty:
My lord was a liar.
And that would never be alright.
The term I used for him wasn’t the correct one for our kind, but we had never played by society’s rules. A tongue in cheek name I’d given him when I first arrived at the house to fullfil a different set of duties before I became his valet a year later and we fell in love. Or I thought we had. Then he left, and I wasn’t so sure.
I straightened around Barclay’s slumped, panting form, stroking his hair. Sweat beaded his forehead. I brushed the moisture back into his hairline, holding his slight physique to my chest. Barclay Augustus Chesterfield might be a giant compared to the slip of a female who he had brought home to play with all weekend, but next to me, he barely came to my shoulder.
I leaned down and licked across his temple, suppressing a moan. “Thank you, my lord,” I murmured, tucking him against me as I used the honorific that used to be a humiliation for him that became a pet name over time when we played together. “Do you need me to take you to your room?”
Barclay always preferred courtesy, and formality. If he didn’t want that, he told me as much directly. And in his home, I played by his rules. On the rare occasion we were out, away from this place, we played by mine.
“Christ, I’ve missed you,” he whispered, pulling away from me to swipe a trembling hand across his face.
I frowned. The hollows beneath his eyes were deeper than I’d initially thought. “Are you sleeping at all?” I snapped, catching his jaw. Turning his face side to side, I studied the sallow color of his skin. Hell, his eye sockets were on show giving him a skeletal look. “What is that holiday that you Americans like so much, All Hallows?”
“Halloween,” Barclay muttered, suppressing a yawn. “It’s nearly evening, Jacques. Genie will need dinner.”
I glanced at the window and frowned. “The sun is still up,my lord,” I said pointedly. “Dinner will not be served until after nine.”As you should remember.
“Christ.” He yawned again. “Neither of us will make it that long. Can we eat in our rooms? Together?” He looked longingly at the door.
A spike of anger lanced through my gut. “Did you come all the way back here,” I asked my voice low. “Just to eatin your rooms?” My rage was barely concealed and completely inappropriate for our relationship—either of them—considering my status, but Barclay appeared too distracted or exhausted to register my emotional opinion on the matter.
Or perhaps he just didn’t care.
The Barclay I remembered cared. A fucking lot. He found every staff member in the house and he knew their names. Their stories. He talked to them about their family. He knew the history of this place. Of the people who worked here. Who made La Borde their life.
A life he was supposed to live. And then he walked away.
From me. From all of us.
“Do you need me to—” I tried again, my mouth snapping shut when he waved a hand in dismissal.
“I’m fine. Thank you.” Barclay had always been good at distancing himself when required.
Me, not so much.
I watched my lord as he walked away from me for the second time in nearly three years, from almost the same situation. He stumbled, placed one hand against a wall that wasn’t where he remembered it.
This time, I wasn't there to catch him.
He looked back as he recovered himself on a nearby chair.
Once, a pretty red flush would have stained the English cheeks I hated when I first met the young lord before I fell in love with the man with the huge heart.
Once, he would have panted for me when I covered his cock with my hand over his pants and stroked him to a delicious, humiliating ruined orgasm that we both craved from him.
Today was nothing like that.
Now, I stood back and let him stumble. Let him fall. Made him recover on his own.
And his cheeks remained pale.
“Are you alright, my lord?” I asked, always the courteous valet as required.
Because in his absence I, too, had become a master of distance. Learned its sharp sting. The ache of an ocean between us. Begged him to return. Back then, I broke all the rules.
