Page 13 of A Devilish Element
Why wasn’t she wed to Rushdale? He’d fled south to avoid heartbreak. Telling himself it was all futile; she wouldn’t want him if she knew, and he couldn’t offer for her without first letting her know. It had just seemed easier, simpler to concede to the other man. No wonder he’d fallen straight into Linfield’s trap.
After no more than a week of study, Linfield had shoved the arithmetic texts aside, and baring his arse as if to receive some schoolboy punishment, given him a sly wink and crooned, “You want to, don’t you?”
He ought to have run from that golden imp. Instead, he’d stood there, tension building like a knot in his stomach and his cock swollen and all too eager to divest him of his dignity.
Linfield’s breeches weren’t around his ankles ready to receive five smart whacks for his badly calculated sums, though Jem had delivered them anyway prior to them fucking all afternoon and into the evening. Linfield had an arse like a peach, and a pucker that seemed designed for no other purpose than to be stretched around Jem’s cock.
He couldn’t deny he’d enjoyed his abuse of that tightly wrinkled hole. That he enjoyed filling Linfield’s arse down to his cobs and spending load after glorious load there.
Linfield wasn’t his first. That had been a guest of his aunt and uncle. The man had bent him over a water trough and buggered him. Had practically drowned him too. He’d cast up his assets the moment the deed was done, and then spent three days shivering in bed expecting to be struck by lightning or drop-kicked to the fiery pits of hell for not only allowing it to happen, but enjoying it too.
When that hadn’t happened, well… he’d made subsequent forays into madness. It had all been very shifty and clandestine until Linfield. Then he’d pursued the act as if sodomy were neither a crime nor a mortal sin. Again, and again… until there was no pretending he was anything other than a deviant who derived supreme pleasure from swiving other fellow’s arses, sucking their pricks or having them do the same unto him.
Tossing himself off in place of nightly prayers wasn’t nearly as satisfying.
“I’m desperate, James.” Linfield irritably sunk his teeth into his lower lip. “What am I supposed to do if you won’t help me? Look at my cock, I’m black and blue. I’m trying.” He pouted with his chin bowed towards his chest. “I just know that nothing is going to work, nothing but your hand, your touch.”
He clasped Jem’s hand and drew it to him, formed around his shaft. “It’s been damn lonely without you. I’ve missed you. Missed us. I’m not cut out for marriage.”
“This is madness.” Yet even as he said it, Jem’s palm covered Linfield curled fist and began to move it in a steady rhythm, causing his lordship’s cock stand to thicken further. “Tell me you’ve missed it too.” Linfield leaned into him, not quite close enough for his lips to brush Jem’s cheek, but close enough so that his breath warmed the skin and sent anticipatory shivers through Jem’s body.
He had missed it—the fucking. Not any other part. Certainly not Linfield’s company. Nor his petulance, temper, or general lack of intellect. “It doesn’t mean we should—” He pulled his hand away.
“We should.” There was no doubt in Linfield’s voice. “We should, James. What’s the point of being prissy about it? If I’m ever going to tup my wife, then I’m going to need your cock in my hole first. It’s a simple fact. Truth is, my prick doesn’t care for her. Shrivels to nothing at the mere thought. Yes, she’s sweet. Yes, I should be grateful she’s no harpy, but if there’s nothing there, there’s nothing there. And the family demands an heir. Jem, all hell will break loose if I don’t provide one. Why do you think we’re rusticating here, and not partaking of the comforts of Bellingbrook? A nagging mama is not going to help my situation.”
“I thought it over the carriage incident.”
Linfield huffed and rolled his eyes. “As if anyone cares about that. No, it is my punishment for my failings. I disappoint. I am not the son my father desires me to be, and no attempt to make me over in his image by providing me with a wife will change that. He desires that I produce a brace of bairns, but…” He took to shaking his head solemnly. “It is not in me, Jem. It’s not just her. I’ve been this way since I emerged from boyhood. Dames can’t get a rise out of him.”
“But you said—”
Linfield pressed his fingers to Jem’s lips, quietening him.
“I’m giving you the facts, Jem. I didn’t say I wasn’t willing to give it another go. Happens I know of a certain lady with a reputation for being able to secure a rise and release from even the most stubborn of members. I’m willing to put the old tallywhacker in her hands, but I’ve no more faith in that experiment than I have in Bell’s daily leechings.”
“Daily?” Jem gulped.
Linfield cupped his hand around Jem’s cheek and forced him to meet his piteous gaze. “You see why I seek your mercy. Will you not help me?”
“How?” he asked, against his better judgement. “I won’t consent to any scheme that sees you going from my arms to hers.”
“Jem…Jem,” Linfield sing-songed while swiping his thumb across Jem’s lips. “It would only be until the seed was planted. And think on it. If there’s no child, who will be blamed? They’ll say she’s barren. She’ll be ridiculed.”
“I can’t. This is just… It is wrong.” He kicked the chair backwards thus jerking himself clear of Linfield’s reach, then stumbled to his feet. His lordship followed, clinging to his open breeches.
“Can’t you, Jem?”
God, that purr. He hated how much it coiled itself around his being and addled his head. He had to keep a clear mind about this. Realistically, how could it ever work? Even supposing he did as he was asked and fucked Linfield until his cock was iron-hard and weeping, and supposing they managed to disengage in the middle of it… Truly, how far down the corridor would Linfield make it before he turned limp and about turned to Jem’s bed?
“It won’t work.”
“You say that as if you’re sure, but how will we know if we don’t try?”
“Because everything you have just said tells me so.”
His lordship’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you need time to think on what the consequences of refusing me might be.”
Oh, how the spoiled boy hated to be thwarted.
