Page 59 of The Ruin of a Rake
Julian rolled over and tucked his knees under his chest. Courtenay groaned and stroked himself, admiring the sight of that round arse before lining his cock up with Julian’s entrance and starting to push in. He felt Julian reflexively tighten around him, so he paused, gritting his teeth and digging his fingers into Julian’s hips. Then Julian pushed back and Courtenay sank inside with a groan. “Oh, God, Julian. The way you feel.” He stayed still for a moment, savoring the tightness and the heat wrapped around him, appreciating the dip of Julian’s spine and the strength of his shoulders and back. Julian was resting his head on his folded arms, and the half of his face that Courtenay could see was a study in agonized pleasure: lips parted, eyelids heavy, beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
“I never want to forget what you look like right now,” Courtenay groaned as he started to move. “You look like you belong to me.” It was half a lie, because Courtenay knew that he belonged to Julian. Or maybe it was all the same thing.
Julian turned his face into the pillow and said something that might have been “I do,” or might have been anything else. He was pushing hard against Courtenay now, encouraging him to go harder, faster, more. Courtenay did. He put one hand on Julian’s back, bracing himself but also holding Julian still, and with the other hand he grasped Julian’s prick. It was as hard a cock as he’d ever felt in his life, and at the first touch Julian cried out in pleasure, the beginnings of his release spilling against Courtenay’s hand.
Courtenay felt the stirrings of his own climax, and gave Julian more, gave them both more, because the two of them were all that he knew to be real and true and important.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Julian lay collapsed on his stomach, Courtenay an unseen weight half on top of him, equally inert. They lay there until Courtenay’s breathing became so regular Julian thought he had to be asleep. He tried to slide out from under Courtenay, but Courtenay’s arm tightened around his chest.
“Stay here,” Courtenay said, his words muffled by Julian’s hair.
It would be so easy to say yes, to linger with his back pressed against Courtenay’s hard chest, basking in the illusion of safety. “I need to get back.”
“Your arse will be in no condition to get on a horse.”
“Yes, well, thank you for that,” he said, putting some sourness into his voice for no reason at all other than the fear of what lay on the other side of his crumbling defenses.
“That’s what you wanted,” Courtenay said. “That’s what you came for. Tell me.”
Julian, besotted idiot that he was, didn’t care that a trap had been set for him. Of course he’d reassure Courtenay that the urgent fucking he had given had been exactly what Julian had craved. “You know it was,” he admitted. His prick was pulsing again at the memory, and he could feel Courtenay’s length hardening behind him. “I want to feel it as I ride home. I want to remember that you were inside me.”
Courtenay groaned and buried his face in Julian’s neck, and the solid warmth of him was almost enough to make Julian want to stay here.
“I need to leave,” he said, wriggling out from Courtenay’s grasp.
“Stay here,” Courtenay said again. “At Carrington Hall, I mean. There’s nothing remarkable about that—a gentleman availing himself of another gentleman’s hospitality instead of making a long trip at the end of a day.”
“I missed you,” Julian said once he was standing firmly on the floor, safely away from the temptation of Courtenay’s embrace. The problem was that now he could see Courtenay, beautiful and rumpled, his hair everywhere, his lips swollen from kissing.
“I missed you too,” Courtenay said, a smile playing on that wicked mouth. “So stay longer.”
If he played his cards right, there would be plenty of time later on for lingering in bed. But he now had to get to work if he wanted to undo some of the mischief Courtenay and Standish had gotten up to. Julian stepped into his breeches, trying to put something, anything between him and Courtenay’s body.
“Missing you is profoundly inconvenient, I’ll have you know. I have things to do and places to be, and all the while I’ll feel like I’ve mislaid a piece of my soul and I won’t get it back until I see you again. That can’t be normal.”
Courtenay stared at him with mute astonishment before stepping forward and taking his hands. “That’s a lovely thing to say. Didn’t think you had it in you, Julian.”
“Bollocks.” Julian tried to pull his hands away, but Courtenay held fast. “You can’t tell me that this is how people always feel when they love one another.”
Courtenay pulled him closer, so Julian could feel the warmth coming from his body. “I’m not the seasoned expert you take me for,” he murmured into Julian’s ear, “but I gather it’s a common experience.”
“How dreadful.” Julian put some sham chilliness into his voice, mainly because he liked when Courtenay tried to cuddle him out of his frosty moods. Indeed, Courtenay’s hands were now sliding suspiciously low along Julian’s hips and arse.
“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” Courtenay was doing a bad job of suppressing a smile.
“How can you stand it?”
“There’s only one way. By being together.”
Much, much later, after they had returned to bed and gotten dressed once again, Julian cleared his throat.
“If you and I are to remain... friendly, and carry on with this plan of not missing one another, first I need to clean up the mess you all made about this duel. Eleanor may be a genius about rocks but I wish you’d all leave polite society to me.”
Courtenay’s arms were around him again. “Gladly. We did what we could to protect you. You have two people—three if you include Standish, which seems only fair—who love you and don’t want to see you die or harmed,” he murmured. “That’s not a bad thing.”
Julian felt his defenses crumbling, his heart scattering into fragments that he’d never collect.
