Worst case, he’d have spent decadespunishingArden, who’d have stood by andlethim, and?—
“Beckett.” Jack gripped Beckett’s jaw and lifted a hand to push Beckett’s hair from his stinging eyes. “Beck.”
Beckett jerked his head, trying to shake Jack off.
Jack held tighter. He laid his mouth softly over Beckett’s and whispered, “I’m here, love. I’m right here.”
Beckett made some sort of stupid noise then. Soft. Practically a whimper. First he kissed Jack like an omega would, now he was making noises like one?
He just…it was just…he wanted the reassurance. That was it. That was all. He loved/hated giving up dominance for Jack but he still…he had his hands braced on Jack’s heaving ribs, about to shove him up and off and take his turn to scramble back on top, and he…he didn’t.
Instead, he threw his arms around Jack’s broad back and drew him closer, needing to feel his weight, his strength, and, yes, his cock.
But that wasn’t the bit that mattered.
Jack’s heart beat against his, steady.
Steady.
Jack huffed a quiet laugh. Beckett bit him for it, then sucked gently on his neck.
Jack began to move. “How about,” he whispered, “we do it like this for once?”
“Don’t need?—”
“After all, as you so eloquently put it, I am old and knackered.”
Beckett snorted. Jack was vibrating with energy, as much as Arden had been when he was splashing around in the sea.
“Knackered,” Jack said firmly, “and it’s late. I want to get up early. The sooner we’re back in town, the sooner we can go and meet Arden at Avendene, yes? So. Like this, my love.” He flexed his big, beautiful body, pushing his hips into Beckett’s then curling away, then doing it again. His weight shifted as he moved over Beckett, watchful black eyes on Beckett’s face. “All right?”
Beckett’s mouth opened to say no, he wanted a proper wrangle, and last one to finish had to do cleanup.
Instead, he said, “Please.”
He forced himself to meet Jack’s eyes when Jack stroked his cheek. “I understand, Beckett. I do.”
Nice. Good for him. Beckett didn’t.
He wasn’t about to ask Jack to explain it to him, though. He lay beneath this man he loved with all that he was, and he yielded. More than he ever had.
They moved together softly in the bed, the ropes beneath the prickly mattress creaking, the worn linen bedclothes rustling. His head was full of Jack’s breathing, and of his own; pants, soft moans, the intimate sounds of kissing, of skin brushing skin.
Beckett even let Jack get a kiss in on his neck, which he didn’t always allow.
It raised the hair on his body in a rippling rush, a shiver of sensation, and he found himself dropping his head back, arching his throat, offering more.
If Jack did this for Beckett, Beckett’d be a shit about it. He’d get teeth around Jack’s Adam’s apple with a warning pinch. He’d mark him up good. He’d grip a fistful of hair and keep him there until Beckett was done chewing.
But Jack…gods. Jack was tender with it.
His warm lips slid gently over Beckett’s throat, and his tongue traced the long length of his artery. He pressed a gentle kiss to the the hinge of Beckett’s jaw and would have stayed there if Beckett, hips rolling ceaselessly into Jack’s, hadn’t dragged Jack’s mouth to his.
Jack hummed questioningly, rocking, rocking, rocking into him.
Beckett had never had it this slow. Not even with Jack, on one of the rare summer afternoons they’d stolen when both of them had the time for it. When they’d shut themselves away in Jack’s bedchamber and gone at each other like the world was about to end and they had to get a lifetime of loving in as quick as they could.
He didn’t goad Jack on, though he could have. Could have turned the tide right easy, let Jack know he didn’t need this softness.
