Gods, Jack was a sneaky bastard.
“Done filling your face with pies, Your Grace?” Beckett said, and looked back over his shoulder.
Jack leaned in the doorway, big arms crossed over his chest. He, too, had lost his frock coat and cravat, and was in shirtsleeves. His black eyes glinted in the low candlelight.
Beckett was suddenly, viscerally aware that Jack was blocking the only exit to the room.
“Not here,” Jack said. “Not even as a joke anymore. All right?”
Beckett frowned, securing the towel around his waist.
“I’m notYour Grace. I’d rather you didn’t call me that outside of our bedchamber either, but I understand if you want to. But not here.”
Beckett crossed the room to stand before him, toe to toe.
They gazed at each other. Jack was taller, older, bigger, more powerful.
Where it counted, they were equals.
Beckett leaned in. He didn’t touch. Didn’t grab. Just brushed Jack’s smile lightly with his own. “As you command,” he said.
Jack caught the back of his neck and held his mouth for a savage kiss. “I was trying to have a moment there.”
“Yeah,” Beckett said. “Gonna be a night for it, I reckon. Got to have someone keeping their perspective.”
“That’s you, is it?”
“It ain’t going to be our little duch, now, is it?”
Jack’s smile widened. “No,” he said softly. “I suppose not.”
“Come on, then. Your water’s gettin’ cold.” He ran a hand down Jack’s arm and then his fingers somehow tangled themselves with Jack’s. Must be all that time he’d spent with Arden, he thought crossly.
He didn’t let go, though.
He tugged Jack over to the washstand and set about stripping him. He’d meant for it to be brisk and teasing. Instead, his movements were slow and…and gentle…as he unbuttoned Jack’s shirt for him, and eased it out of his breeches.
He kept his gaze on Jack’s the whole time.
They didn’t do this, but?—
Theyhadn’tdone this. They did now, he decided.
He wanted to.
Beckett moved behind Jack and slid the shirt from his shoulders, easing it down the length of his arms. Beckett’s breathing slowed as he uncovered the beautiful, heavy musculature of Jack’s back.
He hummed, and ran a hand gently down the channel of his spine to the small of his back, stopping at the upper swell of his arse, which rose now above the loosened breeches. Jack’s skin shivered under his touch, tensing and relaxing in quick succession.
Beckett pressed his smile into the hot skin between Jack’s shoulder blades, and let it become a soft, lingering kiss.
He stroked Jack again, another full sweep of his spine from shoulders to arse.
Strange to think that he hadn’t really taken the time to ogle his lover like this before, though they’d been knocking boots foryears. Oh, he’d seen the front of Jack plenty, as they fought to pin each other, and he’d seen the back of him now and then, but on those occasions he’d been busy sliding over him, fucking between his thighs, biting at him.
He hadn’t gentled him like this before, and Jack?—
Jack shivered under his touch again and snapped out a hand, catching Beckett’s wrist as he turned to face him.
