“Oh?” Beckett walked him slowly back against the wall.
Jack allowed it, pulling Beckett in those last couple of inches to bring their bodies together. “Indeed. Would you care to hear about it?”
“Don’t have to be in the servants hall for another half an hour.” He shrugged. “If you want to tell me, Your Grace, I s’pose I’ve got time to listen.”
“Oh, you’re a difficult one, aren’t you?” Jack breathed. Beckett bared his teeth at Jack in a feral grin, and Jack lovedit. His jaw tightened and his eyes heated. It went to show how much control Jack had over himself that his voice was still light and teasing when he continued, “I like to get an alpha on his knees?—”
Beckett made a rude sound.
“—and get my dick in his mouth?—”
Beckett snapped his teeth at Jack, and Jack laughed out loud.
“Or I like to get him on his belly?—”
Beckett heaved an impatient sight.
“Cards on the table, lad,” Jack said, abruptly growing tired of the game. “I want you. What will you allow me?”
“Depends what you can earn, Your Grace. I’m not one for planning ahead. Me, I like a tussle. We’ll see who can get on top, and we’ll go from there.”
Jack’s breath caught.
“Yeah?” Beckett said. He drew his hips back, worked a hand between them, and rubbed Jack’s hard shaft. “You like the sound of that?”
“I do.”
He squeezed warningly. “You can’t stick this in my arse. Anything else you fancy? Fight me for it, Your Grace. And I’ll fight you for it.”
Jack’s black eyes glinted in the falling dusk.
Beckett leaned in and said, “By which I mean, if I pin you, I’m going to do whatever I want to you, short of getting inside you. And you’re gonna let me. Hear?”
“You’re welcome to try.”
“All right then. Same.”
If Jack had his way, they’d have gone to his bed and wrestled it out right then.
Only Beckett peeled himself off the big, aroused man, stepped out of reach to rearrange business in his breeches andstraighten his waistcoat, and informed His Grace that he had duties to attend to. Curtains to draw, lamps to light.
It was a test. Both of them knew it.
Jack let him go.
If he’d insisted, Beckett would have gone with him. He’d have tussled with him and no doubt come multiple times that night, and they’d have been done. One night only.
He wasn’t any man’s plaything.
Fucking was easy to come by. Jobs like this were not.
Jack had guests for dinner the next night, and Beckett made sure to be the one standing at Jack’s chair, though Marl had assigned Hapton the position. Beckett and Hapton had a running dice game going, and Hap jumped at it when Beckett offered to zero what Hap owed him if he’d switch.
Jack didn’t like having Beckett behind him one bit.
Good. That was the whole point.
He didn’t like it, but for a disappointing while, Beckett thought he wouldn’t cave.
