A Suitable Replacement (22 page)

The words were cut off by the sudden pressing of his face up against the cheap wool of Kelcey's jacket. Rough fingers carded through his hair, Kelcey's other arm almost painfully tight around his waist. Max dug his fingers into the fabric of his jacket and held on tight, shaking with relief. Maybe he had not lost his husband just yet.

When his shaking had eased, he finally looked up. "I didn't do it because I
wanted
to—I—" He pushed away, looked about at the scattered papers, picking them up and balling them angrily until he finally,
finally
, found the one he sought. "This was at the bottom of the stack. Just. Just in case." His own profile, good qualities, bad qualities, everything.

Kelcey took it, read it, then crumpled it up in one of his large hands, reached out and wrapped the same hand around Max's wrist, and reeled him in to plant a bruising kiss on his mouth. Max moaned, held fast to the lapels of his coat, and kissed Kelcey back with everything he had been forced to hold back for the past ten months, three weeks, and five days.

He whined when Kelcey broke the kiss. "Why are you stopping? There should be no stopping."

His face was cupped in those huge, warm, calloused hands. "You seemed so angry that I was … well, exactly the sort of bastard you would expect of a man who grew up with a traitor's brand and—"

"No!" Max burst out. "I was mad you'd been keeping secrets—dangerous secrets—and worried that defying the crown on top of all your other crimes would get you hanged for certain. But I never … I've missed you. I didn't want to do any of …" He motioned to his sitting room. "This. I want to be home with you. I'm sure I should not complain about being a prince, but everyone here knows it's just for appearances sake, to repair damages done and so a child does not have to grow up a bastard. One more week and we announce the divorce, and after that it just takes time for everything to finalize. When all of that is done I can finally go home. I had no idea what I was going to say to you when I returned, assuming you even agreed to see me. I knew Charmaine had found you, but you never wrote and never replied to my letter … I assumed you hated me. I thought the least I could do was what I had tried to do from the start:  find someone who would make you happy."

Kelcey tugged him close again, held him tightly. "I was always afraid my real past would drive you away. It was a worry with your sister, because I felt a bastard for deceiving her so when she had been so kind to me. But with you it was a stomach-eating terror. I was in constant dread of the day it all fell apart. Then it did, in the worst way possible. I'll never forgive myself for what Kerr did to you."

"I think that if I have forgiven the matter, then you must too. You are not the one to blame, in any case. Kerr and Kerr alone was responsible for what happened to me." He hesitated, then finally said, "Charmaine told me he is dead."

"Put the bullet between his eyes myself," Kelcey said, voice level but ice cold.

Max wrapped his hand around the back of Kelcey's head and drew him down into another kiss, feeding at those full lips, relearning the taste and feel of them, almost shaking with it, not letting him pull away until Max needed sorely to breathe. "I cannot believe you're truly here. I did not think I would see you for months yet, if I ever managed to see you at all."

"I did not think—well, I think we both know how we both felt. Um. I have a present for you. It's not much."

"It's from you," Max said. "That makes it everything."

Kelcey looked away, smiling shyly, and strode over to the desk by the window where Max saw a package sat, wrapped in brown paper. Kelcey brought it over to him, thrust it into his hands. "Here."

Bemused, Max pulled off the twine loosely holding it all together and unwrapped the paper. He stared at the object in his hands. "This … this is the box from your mantle."

"That and the contents are all I have left of my family. Well, and the ring I already gave you."

Max blinked, shook his head, held it out. "I could not accept this, it's too important—"

Kelcey pushed it back toward him. "It's a gift, unless you're rejecting it."

"I don't deserve it," Max said.

"That's not for you to decide," Kelcey said quietly. "The key is on the bottom." Max turned it over, and Kelcey showed him the hidden recess. Turning the box back over, Max inserted the key and turned. It caught for a moment, but after a jiggle, gave way with a muted click. Max opened it all the way and stared at the contents, once more at a loss. "This is goblin horn. Honest to gods goblin horn, the kind the government has mostly destroyed because they feared it could help tip magic from mad theory to dangerous possibility."

Kelcey shrugged. "I do not know anything about that, but I know the fact the government—many governments—like to downplay the Hollow Wars was one of many things my parents hated about them. They took pretty much everything my family had ever owned after they were killed or captured. I assume by now it's all been destroyed, or is buried in crates somewhere in a location no one cares enough about to recall. But that box was left behind, because my mother had sent it out to have the lock repaired. I'd broken it playing with a ball in the house one day. Where my parents obtained the goblin horn, I don't know, but they gave it to me that day and told me to keep it safe." He gave a weak smile. "It seems like something you would enjoy more than me."

"You leave me quite speechless, sir," Max said softly. "All these months and I've no present at all for you, and nothing I could offer would match so humbling a token as this."

Kelcey took the box and horn and set them carefully aside on the table, then drew Max in and dragged his tongue across Max's mouth before kissing him breathless a third time. "I require no present, my lord, but I am not opposed to being thanked in an intimate manner." He nuzzled Max's cheek, dragged his nose softly along until he could nibble briefly at Max's ear. "Did you know I once daydreamed about marrying someone as above me as a surgeon, or even a barrister? I thought even a shopkeeper would be more than I would ever manage, that I would be stuck in my dusty, gloomy rooms forever. I never once entertained the notion that I would marry a lord. My wildest imaginings never conceived a day where I would debauch a married prince who was also my ex-husband. Do you suppose such behavior is suitably scandalous enough to make him my husband again? I've heard rumors that ordinary, boring men do not appeal to him."

"You're as ridiculous as my sister," Max muttered. "I do not think the world fully appreciates how grateful they should be that marriage never came to pass."

"Thankfully I have turned my attention to the brother, though I feel he may be worse for my mental state." Kelcey nipped at his jaw. "In more ways than one."

"Oh, I think you're only concerned with one at the moment," Max said, though he could hardly talk. "Come and debauch a prince, then, fiend." He yelped as Kelcey swooped him up and carried him off to the bedchamber.

Inside, a servant had already laid out his robe and a glass of brandy. He had tried to find gin shortly after arriving, but what passed for gin there was truly atrocious. One more thing he missed fervently back home.

He
oofed
as Kelcey dropped him on the bed, then propped himself on his elbows to enjoy the sight of Kelcey kneeling to removed his shoes and stockings. He laughed at the careless way Kelcey threw the items aside before rising to work on the rest of Max's clothes. The heat in his eyes made Max shiver. When Kelcey looked up and caught him watching, Max softly said, "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too," Kelcey replied, and left off undoing his breeches to lean down and kiss him again, making a soft, desperate noise that made Max ache. "I swear to the gods if we are parted like this again I will go mad. It makes no sense to me, but it's true all the same."

Max pulled him up onto the bed, hastily pulled off his own clothes, and set to work on Kelcey's. "The feeling is entirely mutual, sir. Your absence has been unbearable; neither science nor parties nor … private entertainment has been enough to distract me."

Kelcey chuckled as Max finished with his clothes and climbed on top of him, straddling Kelcey's hips. "Private entertainment, hmm? I should like to watch you
privately entertain
yourself someday, my lord."

"Someday," Max agreed. "Right now, I look to you for my pleasure, sir, and I am most impatient." He ran his hands along Kelcey's broad, smooth chest, tracing along faint scars that made far more sense with the truth known. "I hope you were not hurt attending to Kerr."

"Nothing but scratches," Kelcey promised, hands curving around Max's thighs, squeezing them before moving to caress the rest of his body, running along his sides then around to his back. He drew Max down into another hungry kiss as he caressed his spine with one hand, traced the other lower, running along the crack of Max's ass, teasing his hole. Max whimpered when Kelcey pushed inside where he was still stretched and sore from fucking himself earlier in the evening before the party, desperate to release tension and having no better outlet that afforded him privacy. "Where is your lubricant?"

"Drawer," Max replied, whining when Kelcey pressed him into the bedding before crawling to the bedside to find the little jar in the top drawer of his table. He heard Kelcey give a soft hiss, remembered the phallus he'd left there, barely wrapped in cloth so as not to immediately startle any nosy servants. "Are you going to fuck me with it?"

"You do look pretty when you're stuffed full," Kelcey said, "but I have been frustrated for months and certain I would be for the rest of my life. Nothing compares to you, my lord."

Max snorted at that, but spread his legs eagerly as Kelcey returned to him. "You like that I'm easy to coax onto balconies."

Kelcey grinned, slow and searing. "I like that you're easy to bend
over
balconies."

"Do shut up and fuck me, sir," Max replied, cheeks going hot.

"As you command, my prince," Kelcey murmured against his skin, sucking up a lurid mark low on his throat, nibbling at his collarbone before moving further down to drag his tongue across Max's nipples, suck and bite down his torso, lick the wet smears already painting his abdomen.

Max tried to get in some touching of his own, but could not really complain when Kelcey silently ordered him to hold still, pressing his wrists firmly into the bedding. He shifted them only to grip the headboard, happy to put all his attention on watching and feeling everything that Kelcey did to him. If someone shouted the palace was in flames right then, he would not have been able to tear himself away from the sight of that dark head bent over him, the hands that rested heavy on his thighs, spreading them wide so Kelcey could bite sharply at the soft skin of his inner thigh, nuzzle at the crease of thigh and groin before he shifted to suck and lick along the length of Max's achingly hard cock.

"I am not going to last long if you continue that, sir," Max gasped out, even as he jerked his hips the slightest bit to encourage him.

Kelcey drew back just enough to say, "You are the one who enjoyed yourself but hours ago. I have been far too busy hunting down criminals or tangling with spies to have a moment to myself. You may suffer."

Guilt washed over Max, dimming the bright pleasure. "I'm sorry—" The apology was cut off by Kelcey's mouth, thoughts scattering as he was forcefully reminded of how he tasted in Kelcey's mouth, how much he missed the taste of
them.

"I was trying to tease you," Kelcey said, dragging his nose along Max's cheek before slowly returning to what he had been doing before. "Now hold still and surrender to me, my lord."

Max gave a shaky laugh. "I surrendered to you a long time ago, sir."

Kelcey paused, looked up at Max through his lashes. With a soft, rough noise he surged back up and kissed Max hard, deep, left him breathless and faintly dizzy. While Max struggled to remember words and how to use them, Kelcey dipped his head once more and took Max's cock deep into his mouth, sucking hard, tongue working. Max whimpered and writhed, gripped the headboard so tightly it nearly hurt, snarled in frustration when Kelcey pinned his hips down with those huge, hot hands, giving Max no choice but to lay there and take everything, surrender to Kelcey's pace, body coiling, on the edge—

He howled in outrage when Kelcey pulled off, fingers gripping just so to jerk him back from that delicious, desperately sought edge. "You
bastard.
I am going to—" He swore as one slick finger pushed inside him, moved and crooked as though it had every right to be there driving him mad.

Kelcey's mouth was hot against his skin. "You're still so loose and pliant. Did you fuck yourself hard, legs spread wide, arm sore from driving one of your toys into your hole over and over again? Did you scream when you came or did you muffle your sounds in the bedding?"

"I'm not—answering—that—" Max bit out, jerking Kelcey down to eat at his mouth, thrust his tongue to taste every bit of Kelcey's mouth, suck on Kelcey's tongue, nails scraping along the back of Kelcey's neck as three fingers continued to mercilessly tease.

He was sweaty and shaking and desperate by the time Kelcey finally thrust inside him. Hands braced on the bed on either side of Max, Kelcey fucked him as though they had limited time and most if it was gone. Max held fast to the headboard, hips moving in time with Kelcey's thrusts, taking him as deep as he could, stealing wet, sloppy kisses, moaning as he drew close and closer. When his release finally washed over him, he muffled his scream in Kelcey's mouth, his own lips bruised, throbbing. He could not muster the energy to care, wanting never to stop kissing.

Kelcey followed him a few minutes later, holding Max tight as release shuddered through him, panting breaths heavy and hot against Max's overheated skin. Max groaned when Kelcey's cock finally slipped free of his body, but had no protests at all, even sweaty and hot as he was, when Kelcey pulled him up against that fine chest, looped an arm around him, and nuzzled against his hair. Max almost missed it when Kelcey quietly said, "I thought I had lost you."