“I’m not laughing at you.”
“Well, I don’t think you should laugh at Marl, either,” Arden said. Jack grinned at him, unrepentant. “Can you imagine? He had toexplain.”
For a good few hours, Arden had refused to believe the stately butler. He’d insisted it was nothing more than a fever, until he finally had to accept that no fever he’d ever had before had involved a spasming hole.
Spasming wasn’t all that was happening down there, either. There was a curious softening that he wasnotprepared for, and had him clenching his buttocks tightly closed until they ached.
Fine. Ridiculous and impossible though it sounded, he was having a heat.
It got worse.
Marl had to tell him what else to expect from a heat because, other than hearing snatches of the maids’ conversation that one time, which had given Arden some horrifying images to bury deep down, along the lines of mighty battering rams, clubs, and then swellinginsideyou so you couldn’t get free even if you wanted to, Arden didn’t know.
He didn’t know anything!
He’d thought he could wait for Jack.
“Your Grace,” Marl had said calmly. It was nice that one of them was calm. By that point, Arden couldn’t hold back the pained little grunts that were shocked out of him with every breath. “This is very normal.”
It didn’t feel normal. It felt like he was dying.
“Any alpha on the estate will stand proxy for His Grace. It’s simply the way these things are done.”
Why hadn’t someonetoldhim?
“May I send for?—”
“Beckett,” Arden had gasped. “Please. Beckett.”
So, yes. He was embarrassed.
Worse than that, he was falling into it again, dropping deep into the thick, hot haze of arousal that had stolen first his composure and then his wits, turning him into a hungry,demanding creature he didn’t even recognise. He whined unhappily.
Beckett’s lazy thrusts hitched but didn’t stop. “What’s wrong?” he asked, then gasped when Arden pulsed around him without meaning to.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Arden said.
It was Beckett’s voice.
Arden liked his voice. He’d always liked Jack’s voice, too. Both of them sounded deep and calm and powerful. Beckett’s held something else in it. Arrogance, Arden thought.
And he liked it.
What a fickle creature he was.
What a?—
“Oh,” he moaned. “Ohhhhhh.”
Beckett had increased the speed of his thrusts, and Arden was being bounced lightly against the mattress. He gritted his teeth to hold back the noises he was making. They escaped anyway.
“Again, sweetheart?” Jack said with sympathy.
Arden nodded. “Sorry,” he gasped. “Sorry.”
“Please stop apologising. There isn’t anything to apologise for. This is perfect. You’re perfect. Yes, Beckett, and you.”
Beckett, his harsh breaths catching at the top of each thrust, added a snort of amusement at Jack’s words.
