Lex stopped when he was fully seated. His hips pressed flush against Barnaby’s arse, and the heat of him was extraordinary, a close, slick grip that pulsed with Barnaby’s heartbeat. He dropped his forehead to Barnaby’s collarbone and breathed, his arms shaking with the effort of holding still.
Barnaby’s hand found the back of his neck. His fingers curled into the short hair at Lex’s nape, and he pulled Lex’s head up so their eyes met.
“Move.”
Lex moved. He drew back slowly, the drag of Barnaby’s body along his shaft sending a jolt through his gut, and pushed backin. Barnaby’s breath hitched, and his fingers tightened on Lex’s neck. Lex did it again, pulling out until just the head of his cock stretched Barnaby’s rim, then sliding home in one smooth thrust. Barnaby’s back arched off the mattress, and his cock jerked against his stomach, leaking a fresh thread of precome that ran sideways into the crease of his hip.
Lex reached between them. He wrapped his hand around Barnaby’s cock and stroked, his grip firm, his thumb sweeping over the wet head on each pass. The double sensation hit Barnaby like a current. His whole body clenched, his thighs locking around Lex’s waist.
“There you go.” Lex kept his hand moving, matching the rhythm of his hips, his strokes slow and deliberate. “That’s it, Barns. Stay with me.”
Barnaby’s hips rolled up to meet each thrust, finding the angle, adjusting. When Lex shifted his weight and drove deeper, Barnaby’s hand shot to the headboard rail. His whole body went rigid, not with panic, but with pleasure so sudden it looked like it had frightened him.
“There?” Lex angled the same way and thrust again.
“Fuck.” The word came out of Barnaby’s mouth like it had been punched free. His head pressed back into the pillow, his throat long and pale, and his cock swelled in Lex’s fist. “There. Yes. Please.”
Lex gave it to him again. And again. Short, targeted thrusts that hit the same spot, and each one drew a sound from Barnaby that was louder than the last. His composure was gone. His hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, and his body moved with Lex’s in a rhythm that was instinctive and greedy.
Lex looked down at where they were joined. His dark hands against Barnaby’s pale thighs, his fingers spread wide enough to span the lean muscle from his hip to his inner thigh, the size of them obscene against Barnaby’s narrow frame. Hiscock disappearing into Barnaby’s body on each stroke, the rim stretched pink and tight around his shaft, and Barnaby’s hips lifting to take him deeper every time.
He wrapped his hand tighter around Barnaby’s cock and stroked faster. Barnaby’s hand flew from the headboard to Lex’s forearm, his fingers clamping down, and the noise he made was raw and unguarded.
“Lex…I can’t…I’m going to—”
“Yeah, you are.” Lex lowered himself onto his elbows, their chests pressing together, Barnaby’s cock trapped between their stomachs, and drove into him with his full weight.
Barnaby came with a shout. His body locked around Lex, his legs clamping tight, his arse clenching in hard, rhythmic pulses that gripped Lex’s cock and pulled the orgasm out of him before he was ready for it. Lex buried himself deep and came inside him, the release crashing through his gut and his thighs. He pressed his face into Barnaby’s neck and groaned against his skin.
They lay still. Lex’s full weight was on Barnaby, his arms trembling, his cock still inside him, and Barnaby’s legs slowly loosened from around his waist. Their breathing was ragged and overlapping.
He pressed his mouth to Barnaby’s jaw. Then his cheek. Then the corner of his eye, where the skin was damp. Barnaby turned his head and caught his mouth in a slow, clumsy kiss.
After a long moment, Lex shifted. He pulled out carefully, and Barnaby hissed at the loss, his hand grabbing Lex’s hip. Lex looked down. Come was smeared across Barnaby’s stomach, and a thin trail of it ran from his swollen hole down to the sheet below. Barnaby’s cock lay soft and spent against his thigh, still flushed, still twitching with aftershocks.
Lex sat back on his heels and looked at him. Barnaby Fitznorman-Bicester, Marquess of Ashworth, heir to the Duke ofChatham, was lying in his childhood bedroom covered in come, his legs still open, his hair wrecked.
Lex leaned down and kissed his stomach, just above the navel. Then he swung his legs off the bed. A hand clamped around his wrist.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m grabbing a towel, Barns. You’ve got come on your—”
“I don’tneedto be clean.” Barnaby’s voice was hoarse and irritable, which was his default register when he’d been emotionally levelled and hadn’t yet rebuilt the scaffolding.
Lex didn’t comment. He lay back down. He pulled Barnaby against his chest, mess and all, and Barnaby came without resistance, tucking his face into the curve of Lex’s neck. Their legs tangled. Come smeared between their stomachs, and Barnaby pressed closer instead of flinching away from it, his arm heavy across Lex’s ribs, his fingers curling into the hair on Lex’s chest.
Florence whined from her basket by the radiator. A single, hopeful note.
“No,” Barnaby said, into Lex’s neck.
Florence settled.
Lex’s hand found Barnaby’s hair. He stroked it back from his damp forehead, and felt the last of the tension drain from Barnaby’s body in a long, shuddering exhale that warmed the skin beneath Lex’s jaw. He kissed the top of Barnaby’s head, and Barnaby’s arm tightened across his ribs.
They slept.
Chapter Twenty-Six
