Page 31 of The Soldier's Scoundrel
“Holy Jesus,” Rivington mumbled. He was sprawled in his chair, legs wide, head thrown back. Jack had been telling the truth when he admitted to having dreamt about this for years, the chance to bring Oliver to this incoherent, boneless satisfaction.
Jack raised his eyes to the other man’s face. This was what he had seen in the orangery all those years ago: Oliver Rivington stripped of all his fine polish, lips parted, eyes half closed, cheeks pink with lust. He had longed to know how it would feel to utterly undo a man like Rivington. But now he knew that it wasn’t a man like Rivington who caused his heart to beat so riotously, it was Rivington himself. Oliver. And Jack was in terrible danger of becoming foolishly fond of the man.
Jack flicked out his tongue one last time, reveled in the final shudder that passed through Oliver’s sated body. When Jack rose to his feet, he had to adjust his trousers to accommodate his aching prick.
“Come here.” Rivington looped a lazy finger into Jack’s waistband and tugged him close. “Let me.” His voice was gravelly with pleasure.
“No.” Jack set his jaw, clenched his fists at his sides, a stance better suited to a brawl than a lover’s bedside, but he’d feel safer in a boxing ring than in any proximity to Rivington’s languorous grin.
“I want to.” Oliver licked his lips, and Jack had to suppress a groan.
“I don’t,” he ground out. “I can’t.”
Oliver stared pointedly at the part of Jack’s body that argued otherwise.
“That isn’t what I meant.” Jack meant that he couldn’t do this—feelings and tenderness and all the other fine things he was never meant to have. He couldn’t have those things with anyone, let alone Oliver Rivington. He couldn’t let himself even think about those things, and, at the moment, that meant not putting his prick anywhere near Rivington’s mouth. Summoning up a cool disinterest he didn’t feel, he said, “Perhaps I don’t feel like tutoring a nobleman’s son in the finer points of cocksucking.”
“And what makes you think I need tutoring?” A flash of amusement glimmered in the man’s absurd blue eyes. He shot Jack a filthy smile that landed like a cudgel to the side of Jack’s head. “Give it to me and I’ll show you how wrong you are.” He reached up and took hold of Jack’s cravat, pulling him down for a kiss. Helpless, Jack groaned into the other man’s mouth.
Oliver unfastened Jack’s trousers and curled his palm around Jack’s cock, giving it a few slow strokes. But he didn’t lean forward to take in his mouth, perhaps sensing that this was a line Jack wouldn’t cross tonight. Instead, he rubbed his thumb over the head, then spread the moisture down the shaft.
“Come for me, Jack,” Oliver murmured, his voice low and entreating. “Let me see.” The need in his voice transformed this act into a favor Jack was doing Oliver, which was absurd and also exactly what Jack needed.
Jack braced himself on the back of Oliver’s chair and squeezed his eyes shut. He wrapped his hand around Oliver’s fist, showing him the pressure and rhythm he needed.
There shouldn’t have been anything special about it, it was just an ordinary cock-stroking. There was no reason for it to be any different from any of the dozens he had gotten over the years, in back alleys and spare rooms. It wasn’t even so very different from when he took pleasure in his own hand.
But when he finally came, it was with the sound of Oliver’s whispered encouragement, the feel of Oliver’s warm hand. He felt exposed and helpless, caught unawares as a trespasser, a poacher, the basest kind of lowlife.
Jack Turner knew he was in deep, deep trouble, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
CHAPTER TEN
Oliver took a deep breath before rapping on the door to Jack’s room. Last night, Jack had left Oliver with hardly a word, eyes averted as he awkwardly readjusted his clothes. Now Oliver feared that Jack meant to avoid him, the all-too-familiar ritual of pretending an ill-advised encounter had never happened. But Oliver had deliberately arrived at Jack’s door at an hour that was too early for the man to have conceivably left the inn.
Jack came to the door in only trousers and a shirt, the latter of which he had obviously thrown over his head when he heard Oliver’s knock. Oliver tried to keep his gaze from lingering on Jack’s chest, bulky muscles almost visible through overlaundered linen. That tiny glimpse made him blush as if he hadn’t spent most of his life changing and bathing around men in far less clothing.
When he finally dragged his gaze up to Jack’s face, Oliver realized that he could see the bruise on his jaw from where he had hit him yesterday. Between that bruise and the still-unhealed scrape from his mishap escaping that building earlier in the week, he looked like a prizefighter or a pirate.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, vaguely gesturing at Jack’s face.
“Don’t be,” Jack muttered.
“Did you put anything on it?”
“Shut up about it.” Jack hadn’t shaved or brushed his hair, and his shirt, while clean, was wrinkled. That only added to the piratical quality of the man’s appearance this morning.
Oliver tore his gaze away from Jack and took in his surroundings. Jack had only brought one valise with him but it appeared that he had strewn its contents around the room in a single layer of detritus. Jack’s office hadn’t been like this, and Oliver realized with satisfaction that the office’s tidiness likely owed more to the skills of Jack’s servant than it did to any of the man’s own habits. And he had had the nerve to suggest that it was Oliver who couldn’t survive without a servant? Ha! That bit of information was getting filed away for later.
“Are you certain you were once a valet?” he asked, striving for a light tone. “You must be the most slovenly person I’ve ever met.” Stranger still, Oliver recalled Jack’s expression of distaste when he referenced the vicar’s linty coat and Miss Barrow’s untidy parlor.
“I’ve earned the right to be slovenly,” Jack growled, hastily shoving aside what looked like dirty linens in order to clear a chair for Oliver.
“I daresay you have.”
He hadn’t planned on sitting—more like collecting Jack and bringing him to visit the next person on their list. But now that Jack had gone to the trouble of clearing the chair he felt like he ought to sit, so he did. “What are these?” He gestured at the table beside him, where cards were laid out as if for a game of solitaire. But these weren’t playing cards. They appeared to be blank calling cards, with lines of handwriting on them.
