“Checkmate,” Toby announced as he moved his chess piece into position, effectively ending the game.
Lucius glared at the board. “You, sir, are a charlatan,” he finally muttered.
Toby’s expression was all innocence. “Why on earth do you say that?”
“You said you had played chess only a little at school,” the older man reminded. “And yet you have now won three successive games, routing me, in just over an hour.”
Toby relaxed back in his chair beside the library fire, more at ease in Lucius’s company now that the two of them had spent most of the day riding into Kent together. They had stopped only the once, at a wayside inn for luncheon, during which Lucius had entertained him with stories of his childhood in Kent.
They had arrived at the estate late this afternoon. It was one of Lucius’s secondary estates, the ducal seat being in Sheffield. But nevertheless, the grounds and house were imposing and impressive, with a herd of deer feeding on the grassy meadows in front of and beside the house, with a full stable of horses at the back.
After being introduced to the household staff as Lucius’s ward, Toby had necessarily been given his own bedchamber and adjoining dressing room, just down the hallway from Lucius’s rooms. He had used the latter in which to bathe and dress before dinner, but he had no intention of sleeping in the four-poster bed made ready for his use. Once the household was asleep, he intended walking that short distance down the hallway to Lucius’s bedchamber and spending the night with his lover. As far as Toby was concerned, to do anything else would only set their relationship back a step rather than the one forward he wished it to take.
Dining alone together had been most enjoyable, the food excellent, the company even more so. The two men had discussed politics, books, and the theatre, learning they had much in common in all those subjects. But they did not agree on all of them, Toby recalled with a smile. Their politics matched, but the books they had read and enjoyed and the plays they had seen had resulted in lively discussion regarding several playwrights and authors, and most especially Shakespeare. The games of chess, played in the library after dinner, had become even more contentious.
“Why are you grinning in that devilish manner?” Lucius eyed Toby suspiciously.
His smile widened. “Because the reason I only played chess a little at school is because everyone else refused to play with me after I had won the first dozen games I played. Including defeating the school champion and the chess master.”
“As I said, a charlatan,” Lucius muttered before taking a sip of his brandy.
Toby shrugged. “It seems I have that sort of mathematical brain.”
The older man nodded. “Your father said you also sketch?”
“I do, yes.”
“Well?”
“Tolerably.”
“Very well, then,” Lucius dryly acknowledged Toby’s reticence in regard to his own abilities. “I already know of your excellent horsemanship from our ride here today, but are you as skilled at cards, archery, and fishing?”
“Cards, yes, because of the mathematics involved.”
“Some consider it cheating to count the cards.”
“I never gamble for money.”
Lucius’s brows rose. “Then what do you gamble for?”
“Well, previously, it was in the nursery and for colored buttons, but now that I am older and have met you, I believe items of clothing would be more enjoyable. For both of us,” he added huskily.
Damn it, could Lucius really be blushing? His cheeks felt exceedingly warm, in any case. He firmly returned to the previous subject. “How about archery?”
Toby shrugged. “Again, I was the school champion. Fishing I have never been fond of.” He wrinkled his nose. “I do not enjoy baiting the hook or removing the fish once it is caught.”
Lucius knew Toby had no need to “bait a hook” where he was concerned. He had been becoming increasingly enamored with the young man before Toby owned up to his having fantasized about Lucius sexually for years. Since learning of those fantasies, Lucius was completely in the younger man’s thrall.
Where it would all end, Lucius had no idea, and he did not wish to know.
At the moment, Toby wanted to fulfill all those fantasies he’d ever had about Lucius, and Lucius was only too happy to oblige. But he knew the day would come when those fantasies would no longer suffice. That Toby’s eyes would start to roam as he looked for someone younger with whom he might experiment. Eventually, someone with whom he could fall in love.
But for now, Toby was his, and Lucius had decided he would enjoy their time together and face losing the younger man when that loss occurred.
Not if, but when.
“Is it not time to go to bed now?”
Lucius gave a soft chuckle at his lover’s attempt at subtlety. “Could you sound a little less eager, Toby?”
A blush colored Toby’s cheeks. “Why should I when that is what I am?”
Lucius closed his eyes briefly before opening them again. “What if I do not live up to your expectations of me?”
The younger man smiled. “There is no danger of that happening.”
“You sound very certain of that fact.”
“Because I am.” Toby’s smile widened. “I believe my behavior has also been exemplary today.”
Lucius raised one amused brow. “So no spanking tonight?”
He received a glance from beneath lowered lashes. “Not unless you would enjoy it.”
“Oh, I have no doubt I would enjoy it very much.” Lucius rose easily to his feet. “But I can think of several things we might enjoy doing together more.” He reached out a hand, waiting for Toby to place one of his inside it, before pulling the younger man to his feet. The two of them now stood only inches apart. “You are so beautiful.” Lucius gazed at him in wonder. “I have no idea how I have managed to keep my hands off you today and this evening,” he murmured huskily. “So, so beautiful.”
Toby’s nose wrinkled. “If that is true, then until now, it is a beauty that has earned me more mockery than compliments.”
Lucius reached up to thread his fingers through the younger man’s golden curls. “They were idiots who cannot appreciate beauty when it is standing in front of them.”
Toby blushed. “I believe you may be biased.”
“Does it matter as long as I consider you to be both beautiful and desirable?”
Toby glanced toward the closed study door. “Am I allowed to kiss you as a thank-you for the compliment, or will the butler enter unannounced and catch us in the act?”
Lucius chuckled. “I doubt he would care even if he did. The butler here finishes his duties at ten thirty every night so that he can spend time in the cottage on the estate he shares with his lover, the head groom. The two of them have been together for almost twenty years, with my father’s blessing and now my own,” he explained at Toby’s wide-eyed glance.
Toby wondered if Lucius would ever want to keep him. For even a few years, if not twenty. What would it be like for the two of them to grow old together like married couples did? Not that they could ever be married, but Toby liked the idea of belonging exclusively to Lucius for the rest of his life. He had no idea if Lucius would ever feel that way about him too.
“Your father knew about them?” he puzzled.
Lucius nodded confirmation. “As he knew of my own preference and that I would never give him an heir. Luckily, I have several uncles. One of them, or possibly one of their children, will become the Duke of Sheffield when the time comes.”
Toby frowned. “You have never considered marriage yourself? If only to produce an heir?”
Lucius smiled. “Whilst I can appreciate a woman’s beauty or otherwise, as I believe I have mentioned before, I have absolutely no physical response to it.” He sobered. “Nor would I consider it morally acceptable to marry a woman under false pretenses.”
“I believe many men like us do.” Toby frowned. “Some even with the lady in full knowledge of their husband’s preference.” Some women, as Toby knew only too well, were more than willing to ignore their husband’s behavior as long as they could continue to live a comfortable life as part of Society.
Lucius nodded. “That is their decision, but not one I will ever make.”
At least Toby was reassured that, for however long this relationship between them lasted, he would never have to take second place to Lucius’s wife and children.
“I believe you were about to kiss me?” Lucius invited.
Toby pushed thoughts of the future, his own as well as Lucius’s, from his mind. He was determined to enjoy the here and now for as long as it lasted.
His heart raced as he easily read the warmth in Lucius’s gaze for what it was. Open desire. For him. A desire Toby more than reciprocated, his cock having been in a state of arousal for most of the day and evening.
A smile curved his lips as he stepped closer to Lucius, placing his hands on the other man’s muscular shoulders as he lifted up on his toes before pressing his lips against the taller man’s.
Lucius gave a low groan, his hands moving to cup each side of Toby’s face. He parted the younger man’s lips with the tip of his tongue, and the kiss deepened. The passion rose quickly between them until it burned as bright and hot as the flames in the fireplace.
Impossible for Lucius to resist those sweet and pouting lips as he tasted and teased them, seduced by the grace of the young body pressing against his much harder one. Toby’s arms were now wrapped about his neck, low and breathy moans escaping the younger man’s throat as Lucius enjoyed the warmth of Toby’s lips and the wetness of the tongue entwined with and then stroking against his.
Only Toby had ever incited this raw and unadulterated desire inside him, Lucius’s cock as hard as steel against Toby’s abdomen by the time they ended the kiss. His arms remained about the younger man’s waist when he rested his forehead against Toby’s. “I want to make love to you, Toby.” Every day and every night, Lucius added those words to himself but did not speak them aloud, careful to keep a tight rein on his emotions.
No matter what he wanted or how much he knew he desired to keep the younger man for his own, he must never forget that this was only a learning experience for Toby. That Lucius was merely the tutor to a student eager to learn, and that one day, Toby would take that knowledge and use it for the pleasure of other men.
God, Lucius hoped those other men were kind to his fair-haired beauty. That they appreciated all that Toby was. So kind and sweet, accomplished as well intelligent and wise beyond his years. Because if they did not, then Lucius was very much afraid he might be forced to seek them out and cause them bodily harm.
Toby reached up to smooth the frown from between Lucius’s eyes. “What were you thinking about?”
His arms tightened. “I was wondering if a man my age can act chivalrously by carrying you up the stairs and then still have the strength left to make love to you when I get us there.” He again taunted Toby with his remark in regard to Lucius’s stamina.
“Bastard,” Toby muttered without rancor.
Lucius grinned. “But for the moment, I am your bastard.”
For the moment.
Those words ricocheted about inside Toby like an arrow seeking a place to pierce with the intention of causing the deepest pain. His heart was the obvious choice, and that was where it struck, embedding itself like a burr that would never allow him to forget this was a temporary arrangement. That Lucius was only his for now.
He put his arms firmly about Lucius’s neck before using them for leverage to lift himself up and then curl his legs about the other man’s waist. “Take me to bed, Your Grace.”
Lucius’s hands moved beneath Toby’s arse cheeks for added support. “Spoiled brat.”
“Arrogant bastard,” Toby returned as good-naturedly.
“Such sweet endearments we give each other,” Lucius mocked.
They were endearments, Toby recognized as Lucius ably carried him up the stairs. He passed the door to Toby’s bedchamber in favor of lightly kicking open and then closing the door to his own suite of rooms farther down the hallway.
A single candle burned in the bedchamber, no doubt left there by Lucius’s valet, who had arrived earlier today in the carriage, along with several trunks containing Toby’s and Lucius’s clothing for their stay in the country. There were no nightclothes laid out on the bed, telling Toby that Lucius’s nakedness in bed the night before was how he preferred to sleep, alone or in company.
Lucius’s arms moved about Toby’s waist as the younger man slid his feet to the floor to stand within his embrace. The manner in which Toby now avoided meeting his gaze told him of the return of the younger man’s shyness. “I can go into my dressing room and undress and leave you to do the same in here, if that is what you would prefer. You can then wait for me beneath the bedcovers.”
“No! No,” Toby repeated more calmly. “I want to see all of you and for you to see all of me. Last night, I was intent only on the two of us getting into bed before you changed your mind,” he explained as Lucius would have reminded him this was not the first time they had been naked together. “Tonight, I wish to see and touch all of you, and for you to touch and see all of me.”
Lucius inwardly hoped, as the two of them began to undress, that Toby would not be disappointed in the naked body of his much-older lover.
Lucius had kept himself fit over the years with work about his estates and his sporting pursuits, but that did not alter the fact that his was the body of a man in his thirty-ninth year. Hard and muscular, yes, but still that of a man approaching forty. The light dusting of hair on his chest was showing signs of salt amongst the pepper, as was the hair about the base of his rampantly engorged cock.
Whereas Toby’s body was all smooth-flowing and budding masculinity, tender and pale skin stretching over muscles and sinew, with a cluster of golden curls about the base of that long and equally as aroused cock.
Lucius licked his lips as he gazed at that masculine beauty. There was only a light dusting of hair on Toby’s chest about pale pink nipples that seemed to engorge and darken in color even as Lucius stared at them with a longing to taste and pleasure them. He wondered if Toby’s nipples would be sensitive and responsive to the touch of lips, tongue, and teeth.
“You take my breath away!”
Lucius winced at Toby’s breathy comment. “In a good way?”
“In a way that means I cannot wait to touch and caress every inch of you.” Toby gave a pointed glance toward the four-poster bed.
“Then it seems we are both still attractive to the other when completely naked.”
“God, yes,” the younger man confirmed shakily.
“Lie down on the bed for me,” Lucius instructed gruffly. “Here.” He pulled the covers to the foot of the bed and waited for Toby to climb in and lie back against the pillows before stretching out alongside him. “You have very pretty pink nipples.” He stroked the circlet of rosy flesh, heart pounding when Toby groaned as his fingertips grazed the hard center. He did the same with the other nipple, watching as that too hardened and caused Toby to arch off the bed.
“I had no idea… Surely it should not feel so…” Toby broke off with an even louder groan of pleasure as Lucius teased and rolled both those tiny nubs between his fingers and thumbs. “Lucius…?” Toby looked up at him with eyes of dark green with only shards of gold exploding from the irises, his cheeks a fiery red. “Is it quite manly for me to…to react in this way?”
“It is a gift,” Lucius assured. “Not all are as lucky, man or woman, to be as sensitive here as you are. Even so,” he sobered. “If I do anything, anything at all, that you are not comfortable with, then you must tell me. The last thing I wish to do is hurt or distress you.” He lowered his head and claimed one of those tight buds with his mouth, licking and suckling while Toby writhed and groaned beneath him with pleasure.
Those groans turned to a gasp when Lucius bit down on the tender flesh, taking it between his teeth and tugging gently on the nub before sucking deeply at the same time as he flicked the sensitive bud with his tongue.
It became like an addiction to pleasure first one sensitive nipple then the other, Lucius’s fingers plucking and pulling on whichever one was not in his mouth. He did it so that he could hear Toby mewl and groan and cry out when that turgid flesh became oversensitive, and he lifted his head to watch the almost pained expression on Toby’s face as he became totally lost to that pleasure bordering on pain.
“Please…!” Toby groaned in protest when Lucius ceased that dual torment.
“There is so much more of you to pleasure.” Lucius claimed Toby’s lips in a searing kiss for long drugging minutes before ending it so that he might rise up and roll Toby over onto his stomach.
Toby resisted the movement by digging his elbows down into the mattress. “No!”
Lucius ceased all movement. “Toby?”
His jaw tightened. “You told me I might say no.”
Lucius studied him closely. “You are saying no to me turning you onto your stomach?”
Toby gave a fierce nod. “I do not want to be facing away from you. I want to see you, to look at you, and have you see and look at me, when you make love to me.”
Lucius frowned. “Is this because of my previous lovers? Have no fear, Toby, they meant absolutely nothing to me, and I know exactly who you are,” he assured gently.
Toby continued to outstare him. “And I know who you are when we are facing each other.”
“Toby, what—”
“You told me you would stop if I did not like something,” he repeated stubbornly. “I do not like being asked to face away from you.”
Lucius remained silent for several moments, and then he nodded. “Then we shall find another way for what I wish to do to you.”
He hooked his arms beneath Toby’s thighs, his hands on each rounded bottom cheek as he easily lifted the younger man to pull Toby up so that his arse rested on Lucius’s thighs.
“You are far more flexible than me,” he teased after pushing Toby’s legs back until his knees touched his chest. This new position easily revealed the pink rosette between those delicious globes of flesh. “You are beautiful here too,” he murmured shakily. “Dear God, I need to taste you!”
Toby had no idea what to expect next, but it certainly wasn’t to find his arse being lifted higher still at the same time as Lucius lowered his head, and then to feel the moist and hot pressure of Lucius’s tongue against his flesh. The other man licked a wet and erotic path from Toby’s balls to the puckered rosette between his bottom cheeks.
He had barely recovered from the shock of it before that hot tongue lingered to lick against that sensitive rosette, moistening and softening the entrance before his tongue probed against that virgin tight ring.
To look down and see what Lucius was doing to him was… It was…
More erotic than Toby could ever have imagined.
It hardly seemed possible that was Lucius’s head between his thighs. Lucius hands kneading and squeezing his bottom cheeks. Lucius’s tongue seeking entrance inside that forbidden rosette.
“Relax, Toby,” Lucius encouraged hoarsely, his breath hot against Toby’s wet pucker. “Relax and let me in, love.”
Toby drew in deep breaths, desperately wanting to please Lucius. Even so, it took several seconds for him to force the tension to ease from his body, only to then quiver and shake in ecstasy as his body responded to Lucius’s every touch.
His hands.
His lips.
His teeth.
His tongue.
Oh God, Lucius’s wicked, wicked tongue…
It was inside Toby now, probing longer and deeper than he could ever have imagined. It was so deep inside him, it caused black spots to appear in front of his eyes and then fireworks of pleasure to erupt behind his lids as he squeezed them tightly shut.
He arched his back and pushed down instinctively, wanting Lucius’s tongue deeper still, knowing there was something more, if only he could get Lucius to go deeper.
He groaned in protest as Lucius withdrew his tongue completely, only to respond eagerly when that wet tongue was replaced by a long and probing finger.
It touched inside where Toby wanted to be touched, stroking, pressing, and sending Toby to a level of mewling and begging ecstasy he had never dreamed existed.
Lucius was watching him as a second finger joined the first, stretching Toby wider as those fingers began to thrust. Each time, that thrust was accompanied by a light stroke of fingertips to that place inside Toby that made him beg for more.
Lucius intended to give him more. He would give his shameless and responsive lover whatever he wanted and needed. Would happily let Toby take and take until Lucius had nothing more to give.
“Push out as I push in, love,” Lucius encouraged huskily as he added a third finger, allowing Toby the time he needed to adjust to this further stretch and fullness before he began to thrust again. Thick pulses of pre-cum escaped and then glistened on the bulbous top of Toby’s cock.
Toby was so beautiful in his pleasure, almost feral, his fingers digging into the flesh of Lucius’s arms as he begged and pleaded for more more more. He seemed to have no awareness of how Lucius’s heated gaze watched intently as Toby’s flesh stretched about his fingers, that delicate and lovely body demanding and then meeting each deep thrust.
“Come for me, Toby,” he encouraged as he bent to take that beautiful cock into the heat of his mouth.
It was as if Toby had only been waiting for that permission, his body tensing, the muscles inside him tightening about Lucius’s fingers. His cock throbbed and jerked before long spurts of molten cum flooded Lucius’s mouth to slide down his throat.
“You did not take your own pleasure again,” Toby muttered almost shyly minutes later, after Lucius had risen from the bed to collect a damp cloth and a towel. He had bathed and then dried Toby with them before disposing of them and joining Toby beneath the bedcovers.
“I have all the pleasure I need in watching you,” Lucius assured, his arm about Toby’s waist as the young man lay beside him with his head resting against Lucius’s shoulder. “Your pleasure is my own.”
“That does not seem altogether fair.”
“We are not in a competition,” Lucius indulged. “You come so I must also? No, we will do this in our own way.” He kissed Toby’s damp curls. “At our own pace and in our own time. Tonight was not for me, but for you. I did not go too far too quickly?” he prompted uncertainly. “You seemed a little hesitant in the middle of our lovemaking.”
Toby’s gaze avoided meeting his. “I do not like how impersonal it is to be on my stomach facing away from you.”
“I understand.” Lucius nodded. “But it might be easier for you to be in that position when I penetrate you.”
“We will deal with that situation when it occurs,” Toby maintained stubbornly.
“And the…other? Having my tongue and fingers inside you?”
Toby snuggled closer. “It was magical.”
Lucius breathed an obvious sigh of relief. “That is good to know.”
Toby lifted one lid to look at him. “Surely you already know this?”
He shrugged. “I have seen others’ reaction to the intimacy, but have no knowledge of it myself.”
“Why not?”
“I have always been the one in charge of my sexual encounters.”
Toby didn’t particularly enjoy hearing about Lucius’s other “encounters.” But of course there would have been many other lovers before him. Toby had known that. But it still hurt to be lying in bed, in Lucius’s arms, awash with emotion in the aftermath of pleasure, and hear Lucius speak of other men.
Toby frowned. “Are you saying no one has ever done those things to you?”
“I tend to like control in the bedchamber,” Lucius acknowledged.
“I believe I had already guessed that!”
Lucius smiled in acknowledgment of the tease. “It has never been a problem in the past. Most men tend to defer to the title, if not the man.”
“Even in bed?”
“Even then,” Lucius drawled. “I do take my pleasure, obviously, but always under my own terms.”
“And what are they?”
“I do not lose control, and I never allow myself to be penetrated. In any way,” he added as Toby continued to stare at him.
“Never?”
“No.”
“Then I intend to be your first,” Toby stated firmly.
“You have already been that.” Lucius glanced at him. “I have never been on my knees to another man before you either.”
Toby gave a groan. “I still blush to think I dared to order you to do that.”
The older man chuckled. “I still blush to think that I did not hesitate to do it.”
He eyed the other man curiously. “Why didn’t you?”
Lucius felt as if years of a protective barrier about his emotions were slowly being peeled away from him, one layer at a time.
By Toby.
By his honesty.
By the younger man’s totally uninhibited response and pleasure in their lovemaking.
The same response and pleasure he insisted on giving to Lucius.
Each time they were together, even talking quietly like this in the aftermath of Toby’s release, another protective layer was removed from Lucius’s emotions. Until in the end, he knew there would be no barrier left, and he and his heart would be totally exposed. To Toby. Because of Toby.
A part of him instinctively wanted to distance himself from Toby. Physically, as well as emotionally. But another part of him knew it would do no good to do so. Toby was already buried beneath his skin, and it would cause both of them excessive pain for Lucius to rip him out again. He would never, could never, hurt Toby.
Instead, he answered with the honesty Toby deserved. “Because it was you who asked it of me.”
“No one else has ever done that?”
His lips twisted into a rueful smile. “They would not have dared step over the lines I had stated they were not allowed to cross.”
“You let me.”
Lucius’s smile was rueful. “You have no respect for my lines.”
The younger man scowled. “I am starting to heartily dislike the selfishness of your previous lovers,” he snapped. “In fact, I do hate them. Every single one of them. Because they had you first.”
“They did not have me, Toby,” Lucius corrected with a frown. “When I have needed physical release, I found someone to provide it and gave them that same release in return. There was never any emotional involvement, nor any relationships.”
“None?”
“No,” he confirmed.
“That is…sad, in a way, and must have been lonely.”
Lucius could not deny that he had often been suffused with loneliness. But to some extent, it had had been of his own choosing. None of those other men had meant more to him than a fuck or two.
“I cannot undo my past,” he said gently. “But I can and do intend to do better in future. Now that I have discovered there is such a gem as you in the world,” he added indulgently.
There was a teasing glint in Toby’s eyes. “You did not seem to think me such a gem on the day the solicitor read my father’s will and you were named as my guardian.”
“I knew of the arrangement before that day, brat.” He landed a smack on Toby’s arse. “I told you, your father had discussed it with me before he died. What did take me by surprise was the beautiful man you have become.” Lucius still could not believe how close he had come to never having this with Toby, because of his own stubbornness in believing he was not the right man to become Toby’s guardian.
Daniel had known better. In fact, he would not put it past Daniel to have hoped something like this might happen all along. The other man had certainly seemed convinced that Toby’s future happiness somehow lay with Lucius.
In the short term, Lucius reminded himself firmly. He must not ever fall into the trap of believing whatever was between him and Toby could become a permanent arrangement.
“Go to sleep, love.” He rested Toby’s head against his shoulder. “There will be more pleasures for us to discover together tomorrow.”
And the day after.
And the day after that.
For many more days and nights, Lucius hoped.
He knew within minutes, when Toby’s breathing evened out and deepened, that the younger man had fallen into an exhausted sleep.
But Lucius remained awake for many more hours, reluctant to give up even a minute of the pleasure of holding Toby in his arms.