“No?”
“No!”
“So as you know, Your Grace, I’d do it. Also so as you know, Your Grace, I’ll definitely order you one day. And when I do, you’ll be a good boy and do it for me, won’t you.” That wasn’t a question.
“Most likely,” Arden said.
Beckett stood up. A frantic splashing came from behind him as Arden said, “Wait, wait!” and grabbed for his towel.
The temptation to turn around was…Beckett blew out a harsh breath. It was a lot.
Yeah, it was too much. He wasn’t that good a man. He gave in and turned.
He did keep his eyes closed though, which he stated loudly the moment Arden started telling him off.
Beckett stood there, patiently holding out the robe he’d swept up from the floor before he turned. He sensed Arden shift to stand before him. Soft lips pressed against his, there and gone.
“Arden,” he said roughly. “A peek. Let me have a peek.”
The robe he was holding was twitched out of his grasp. Arden said breathlessly, “All right.”
Beckett snapped his eyes open and got the briefest flash of Arden’s body, flushed and rosy from his bath, before he whipped the open robe closed and belted it firmly.
Beckett grinned at him.
Arden, his face absolutely scarlet with embarrassment, stood to one side and swept out a dramatic arm at the bath.
Beckett bent down and removed his boots. “Are you going to wash me?” he said teasingly, to see if he could get Arden to go even redder.
“No,” Arden said, striding over to the small table by the window where he liked to take his morning cup of chocolate.
Beckett stripped down to his underclothes. “Just going to sit and watch, are you?” he said, one eyebrow raised.
“No.” Arden returned with his sketchbook and a pencil.
“You’re going to draw me?” He shoved his underclothes down, kicked them off, and stood before his omega fully naked.
Fully hard.
“If I may,” Arden said.
“By all means, Your Grace.”
Arden beamed, and gestured him into the bath.
Beckett didn’t wait about. He really didn’t ever get the time to lounge about in a nice hot bath. He couldn’t remember when he last had a nice cold bath, let along a hot one. He had a brisk wash at the washstand of a morning, and when he needed a good all over, he did what everyone else did and went out the back to the pump to freeze his balls off.
This was… “Ahhhhh,” he sighed, slipping in. “Fuck, that’s nice.”
Arden finished dragging a chair right to the edge of the bath and sat himself in it, drawing his legs up and resting the sketchbook on his lap. His eyes were about falling out of his head as he stared and stared.
He looked at Beckett from his toes to the top of his head, and down to his face, where he stopped.
“You are beautiful,” he said to Beckett, as if it had burst out of him. He hunched. “Sorry.”
“Why sorry?” Beckett rolled his shoulders and slid a littler lower.
“You don’t like it when I say that. You didn’t, I mean.”
