Alec was aware that he ought to be as nervous as a cat in a chimney as Trent swept him into his rooms. He ought not to have asked to see them at all. But it had been such a pleasant evening, and he was exceedingly relaxed after being plied with good food and alcohol. And the company had had great effect on him too.
Under this roof, for the first time, he’d seen people living their lives outside the bounds of society’s rules, and living them, to all appearances, very well. Miss Blume and Miss Wilfred had been together eight years entire, they’d said. And Mr. Simpson had been Mrs. Simpson’s “honeycake” for twenty. Then there was the tragic figure of Mr. Stockbridge, who looked so lonely and sad. He appeared to have retreated from love entirely due to his tragic past.
Alec could be Mr. Stockbridge in twenty years. Yes, he very well could be, only worse. On the course he’d been on, he wouldn’t even have the comfort of good friends surrounding him.
And then there was Mr. John Trent, handsome and clever, vibrant and brave. The touch of his hand during dinner.... Alec had barely tasted the Christmas pudding.
“It’s chilly in here,” Trent commented. “Let me stoke the fire.”
He added another log and encouraged the embers to flame while Alec looked around.
The top floor of the house had a slanted roof, but the shortest part of it was high enough to walk without stooping. The parlor was large and minimally appointed. There was a Jacobean settee with a curved back, worn but still serviceable. A small cherry table and two chairs sat near a cupboard with a dry sink and curtained cabinets. There was a shelf full of books and a door which likely led to a bedroom since no bed was in evidence. Under the window was a good-sized desk that was solid though scratched and rough in spots. On top of it were a stack of paper, an inkwell, and a pile of books.
It was a pleasant space, and clean, and dear God, he was alone with Trent in his rooms.
“Would you care to come warm yourself?” Trent asked. He was by the fireplace looking at Alec, who was still standing at the closed door.
Alec blinked and went over to the fireplace. He held his hands out to the flame. They were shaking just a little.
“I have a bottle of wine,” Trent offered.
“No. No thank you. I’ve had quite enough already.”
“Have you? Let me see.” Trent placed his fingers lightly on Alec’s jaw and turned his head. His gaze swept Alec’s face, reading far too much probably. “Mmmm. The pretty brown of your irises has turned positively black, Mr. Allston.”
His fingers slid to cup Alec’s jaw, gently caressing, and he stepped closer. He was taller than Alec by a good head, and this close, Alec had to tilt his head back to meet Trent’s eyes. It was a vulnerable position, and surely that was why his heart was pounding so furiously.
“You’re trying to seduce me,” Alec murmured, which he intended to be a saucy remark, but it came out breathless.
Mr. Trent smiled. “Am I? Is it working?”
Alec said nothing, but it was. It definitely was.
“Come sit down,” Trent said, his voice rough.
He led Alec by the hand to the settee and encouraged him to sit. Then he dropped to his knees between Alec’s legs, forcing them to spread farther. Alec didn’t move, didn’t breathe. The heat in Trent’s eyes was nearly unbearable.
“If I were to seduce you, it might go something like this.” Trent placed his hands on Alec’s knees and ran his palms slowly, ever so slowly, up his thighs. Alec gasped and gave a shiver, but he didn’t pull away. When Trent’s hand reached his hips, he moved on to Alec’s waistcoat and continued up in a long, firm stroke—over his ribs and chest to his shoulders, which they cupped and squeezed momentarily. Then back down the same slow path—over chest, ribs, hipbones, thighs, and back to his knees.
Trent paused there, watching Alec. “Do you want me to stop?”
Alec licked his lips and focused on trying not to expire. He shook his head. Trent’s hands moved again, the same path, his palms pressing firmly. Thighs, hipbones, ribs, chest, shoulders, squeeze. And back down again so slowly it was torture.
Alec made an involuntary sound. It took everything he had not to slump on the settee and raise his hips.
Thighs, hips, ribs, chest—Alec felt the touch over his nipples this time—shoulders, squeeze.
Trent’s touch was so decisive, so sure, as if he were calming a beast, and yet not like that at all. Because there was electricity where he touched and a sensual knowing in his hands that flooded Alec’s body with anticipation and slow-burning fire.
It felt wonderful. It had been so long since anyone had touched Alec in any way. Not since he was a child. But Trent’s touch had the effect of causing everything in the center line of his body, everything Trent’s hands weren’t touching, to ache and throb in a most spectacular fashion.
“Good lord,” Alec whispered, not meaning to say it out loud.
He was lost. He was truly lost. A simple touch, and he was utterly surrendered. Trent could do anything to him now, and Alec only prayed that he would.
Please don’t stop. I’ll die if you stop.
Trent did it once more, agonizingly slow. Knees, thighs. This time his thumbs were spread wide, so they skimmed up the inside of Alec’s legs. And as his hands continued up to his hipbone, his left thumb passed over Alec’s cockstand, trapped beneath the wool.
“John!” Alec cried out, squirming.
“Oh. I love the sound of my name on your lips,” John said, his voice deep and raspy.
Ribs, chest. He massaged Alec’s chest this time, somehow knowing just where his nipples were through the layers of cloth, rubbing them, then on to the shoulders. Squeeze. “Say it again.”
“John. John, please.”
This time, when John moved his hands back down, Alec couldn’t help but tilt his hips up in need, just a little, but John saw.
He leaned forward and buried his face against Alec’s waistcoat, rubbing against the fabric and groaning. Alec moved to hold his head there, but Trent was already gone. He sat back on his haunches.
They stared at each other, breathing hard. John’s face was flushed, and in his position, the cockstand in his pants was obvious, proving that Alec wasn’t the only one affected.
“I want to take you to my bed,” John said.
“Yes,” Alec replied at once.
John smiled slowly. He cupped Alec’s calf through his thick stockings, slid those warm hands down to his ankles, and slipped off Alec’s shoes. Then he palmed his feet, rubbing them through the wool.
“John,” Alec complained, writhing on the settee. Now that he’d agreed, he wanted to damn well get on with it. He was in his twenty-eighth year and a virgin. This was beginning to feel like exquisite torment.
“Let’s get these off,” John said, apparently meaning the stockings. “I want to feel your bare skin.”
“Yes,” Alec said again.
A doubt flashed through his mind. Was he really going to do this? He remembered the long conversations he’d had with William about the divine blessing of overcoming bodily lust. He’d taken comfort in that at the time.
But that flash of memory was like a will-o’-the-wisp in the face of what he felt right now, with desire pulsing through his blood, the heavy ache in his groin, the desperation to be touched, to have this go on and on and never end. He wanted to be touched, kissed, loved, physically, by this man. By John Trent. Like the good food at his table, like the laughter of his friends, John was rooted entirely in the here and now, in the flesh of life. And it appealed entirely.
He’d been a fool to ever think himself above the need for this.
His fingers fumbled on the buttons of his waistcoat. Instead of undressing himself, Trent moved to help Alec. His fingers went to the front fall of Alec’s breeches, and he undid the side buttons, one at a time. He licked his lips, eyes hot, and lowered the flap. He untucked Alec’s long shirt, pulling it up until Alec’s member sprang forward, and then another man’s hand was on him for the first time. Alec put a hand to his mouth to stop from crying out loud.
Lord, he was rigid and aching. A bead glistened at his tip. He should feel shame being thus exposed in front of another person, in the clear candlelight. But with John’s hand around him, and his eyes staring hotly into Alec’s own, as if he were the most desirable creature on earth, there was no room for shame.
“Say my name.”
“John,” Alec gasped.
“I want you, Alec. More than I’ve ever wanted anyone. Tell me you want me.”
“I do. I want you. God help me.”
John smiled and lowered his head.
Alec couldn’t believe Trent meant to do... that. He wanted to push him away in embarrassment, but he restrained himself. John was the experienced one, and he let himself be guided. He grasped John’s shoulders and clung hard as John licked. His tongue swirled around the head of Alec’s prick, causing him to cry out at the intensity of the tickling sensation. Then he drew the head into his mouth, suckling on it like he would a sweet.
“God above,” Alec breathed, clutching John’s shoulders harder. He closed his eyes, wanting to focus on the sensation. He’d heard of this act, but he’d always thought it sounded so base. He’d never imagined it would happen to him, nor that it would feel so heavenly, or so... giving, like John was pleasuring him with sweet devotion.
John suckled him in soft, drawing pulls, slowly taking more and more of him in. The texture was much softer and wetter than his own hand, yet the suction caused a delicious amount of friction. It was the most intense thing he’d ever felt.
He was so focused on memorizing what was happening that his crisis hurtled towards him suddenly. He pushed Trent away.
Trent sat back on his heels, wiping his mouth. He looked at Alec worriedly. “Is something wrong?”
“No! No. I was just... I was about to...”
John’s face softened, and he ran the tip of his tongue along his upper lip in a tease. “It’s all right if you spend. We have all night. I’m sure you can go again.”
“No, not like this. I want… I want to be naked with you in your bed.” Alec could hardly believe his own boldness. He really was rolling with abandon down the slippery slope. But he couldn’t care less, not with his prick still wet from John’s mouth.
“Hmm. You, entirely bare. Sounds good to me.”
He tugged Alec’s breeches down his thighs in one smooth jerk. He undid his garters and stockings while Alec worked on getting his top half undressed. He stood in nothing but his open shirt, his cockstand jutting obscenely. Trent quickly stripped his own clothes off and pulled Alec into the next room which contained, happily, a bed.
They scrambled under the covers. The bedclothes were cold, but John’s body was warm and silky and strong, and there was a very great deal of it.
Alec took a moment to push back the covers and look his fill. John was thickly made with well-muscled shoulders, arms, and chest. He was sturdy around the waist, and there was dark hair in abundance on his chest and between his legs. His prick was impressive, red in color, and of good size. The hood was entirely retracted from a wide head. The sight of him so aroused made Alec’s own cock throb in sympathy.
He’s in that state because of me, because he wants me, Alec thought, hardly able to believe it.
John ruined the view by half rolling on top of him, but that had its advantages as well.
“May I kiss you?” John asked.
“I’d like nothing more.”
So John did.
Alec had shared a few ardent presses of lips with William. This was nothing like that. John’s mouth was slightly open and gently sucked at his mouth as it had his prick. Alec groaned at that memory, and Trent’s tongue slipped into his mouth. He sucked back hungrily and groaned again when John’s hand found him under the covers and began to stoke.
For a moment, the pleasure was overwhelming, and he could only feel. Then he reached out for John, wanting to make him feel good too. Only he had no idea how much the feel of John’s prick sliding through his hand would increase his own arousal. The very idea of it made him delirious, that he held John’s prick, that John felt the intense pleasure he felt as the glans slid through his hand.
They were on their sides, John devouring his mouth, touching each other in increasingly frantic rhythm. And Alec thought: I don’t care. The earth could fall away, and I could die tomorrow, but I wouldn’t trade this moment for anything, not anything in the world.
John pressed forward, moving Alec onto his back, and climbed on top of him. He lay between Alec’s thighs, and that was even better—the heavy weight holding him down, the press of all that flesh, the tickle of John’s hair against his chest, the way John’s tongue in his mouth overwhelmed all his senses, the thrust and grind of John’s prick against his belly, the waves of pleasure as his own prick slid along John’s hipbone.
His ankles hooked around John’s calves to hold him in place. His hips arched up, seeking as much pressure as he could get. John stopped kissing him to grasp both his hands, interlocking their fingers, and stretching them over Alec’s head, leaning his upper body up so that he could look into Alec’s eyes and so that their lower bodies were forced even more firmly together.
Oh yes, oh yes. He knows just how to do it. He knows just how to touch me, just how to look at me, look into my heart while exciting every part of my body. How did I ever, ever... God... that’s.... How did I ever think I... wanted before, loved before? Before there was John.
“Alec. Say my name,” John gasped, as his body clenched and shook.
“John.”
Feeling his lover’s release, warm and slick between their bellies, Alec gave a final shudder, clenched John’s hands, and fell over the moon.