Objects Of His Obsession (11 page)

More laborer than aristocrat,
until he opened his mouth and spoke.

Evander came yet closer, still
holding his throat. “You will not leave before your time is up,” he demanded
roughly. “Do you understand?”

Benedict, only a few inches
shorter than Evander, stared back into his face, his already firm jaw squared
with the muscle clenched in it. Ignored what he had just said to mutter,
having to know,
“You like the way I say
your name?”

Christ, how did those words
escape him? And yet they had.

And the turquoise eyes glinted.

“I do. And I did, especially
when I was buried bollocks deep in your arse and you were begging me for more.
That – the sound of your voice, you, begging, my name hoarse in your
throat. That – that I truly enjoyed. So no more Casterwell.
Evander
. That was the name you used when
you were begging me, begging me to fuck you harder,
rougher
.”

Sweet Jesus, Benedict thought.
His cock was hard now, just from that driven voice.

“Evander. That was the name you
used when I was sucking you off and you could not manage a word in the English
language. That was the name you used when I drove my tongue inside your
arsehole and you loved every depraved second of it. Or am I wrong?”

Benedict was nearly choking.
And it wasn’t that Evander’s grip had tightened. It was that every low, sexual
word was nearly sending him out of his mind.

“
I have to go
.
Leave
.
We can’t do this,”
he managed.

“No? Why?”

“You were angry with me the
other night. When I left. The … offer, was not repeated yesterday,” Benedict
managed logically, that quiet desperation reaching a screeching pitch. Honey-brown
eyes narrowed on that beautiful, sculpted face. “I thought that…”

“One fuck and we were done?”

Casterwell … Evander, had the
most incredible gift, Benedict thought dazedly, of persuasion, without scarcely
trying. And Christ, he himself was trying, so grimly, to hold onto his
resolutions. His beliefs.

Yet here was the most beautiful
man Benedict had ever seen. Naked and clothed.

That exotic beauty backed by an
aristocratic drawl and a vicious intellect to match that could cut lesser
mortals to shreds, should he choose.

And the most basic, blunt
command of every foul, four-letter word in the English language Benedict had
ever come across in a member of their class. Let alone in one of the gutter. And
he used those words. Often.

It was a wildly arousing combination.

Benedict could feel himself
flushing beneath his tan and damned himself for his vulnerability to that lure.
“Yes,” he forced flatly. “I did think one fuck and we were done. What? It
wasn’t enough for you?”

Turquoise eyes drifted down to
his wide, firm mouth. “You … angered me. I had the distinct impression that I had
been used to test which sex you prefer. I did not like feeling used. I’ve since
realized I was misreading you.” Evander paused, said coolly, “We were both
insane if we’d thought one night would be enough.”

“It will have to be,” Benedict
said, forcing steel into his voice when all he wanted was to yield. For it
wasn’t as if he would just be yielding to Evander. He would be yielding to what
every nerve ending he possessed was telling him. He lifted a hand, his fingers
curling around Evander’s wrist. His skin tanned degrees darker than Evander’s
sleek olive. “
You’re married
. And I
like Juliana, very much. And I don’t know why, unless you are no longer
prepared to perform your marital duties – for your marriage started
conventionally enough, clearly, or you would not have those children you so
love – she would have taken a lover. I told myself the other night that if
she was not faithful herself it meant that what we were doing was not wrong.
But I was lying. That doesn’t make it right.”

Evander had paled. “Juliana and
I – we have reached an understanding. One which I cannot discuss with
you.”

Benedict nodded quickly.
“Because you prefer men. Yes, I can see that would be how it happened. You
needed heirs and she … you two are genuinely fond of one another. Anyone can
see that.”

“Then–”

“I respect her,” Benedict gritted,
curling his fingers tighter about Evander’s wrist, drawing that hand away from
his throat. “And I don’t care if you two have an arrangement or not. I cannot
smile in her face in the daylight and be buggered by her husband by night.”

“
Jesus wept.”
It was a low hiss of sound, Evander running his hands
over his face, for once that cool control snapping, his fingers driving through
his thick hair.

Abruptly, he gave a bark of
laughter, wheeled away from a shocked Benedict, paced over to the window and
then prowled back, grabbed him, and slammed him back against the glass display
case. The glass rattled. The contents shook.

Benedict found that Evander had
wound his fingers in the thick, long hair at his nape and was holding him in
place for the most devastating kiss he had ever received.

It was everything. Pure hunger.
Pure lust. His tongue stroking over the seam of Benedict’s lips and then
slipping through to fuck with his, his mouth devouring him, drawing back just
enough to nip at his lower lip, catch it between his white teeth before he
returned fully to his mouth, sucked on his tongue until Benedict could not even
begin to hold back a half degree.

Instead he gave in fully. Caved
to the strong hand that went down to the muscular, taut cheeks of his arse,
dragging him up hard against the cloth-shielded steel of Evander’s erection.
The two of them so ready, cocks grinding together.

Somehow Benedict wrestled his
lips from Evander’s, only to find Evander tearing at the starched cage of his
collar, his tie. They were loosened enough for him to press a hot, open-mouthed
kiss against the suntanned flesh there, usually hidden.

Benedict shuddered, fists
clenched hard at his sides. He dared not touch the man, even as Evander ground
his cock against his. “Christ, Evander,” he muttered. “I’m not far off– Please.
Please, stop. Please.”

Soft half-laughter against his
skin. “Then stop me. Push me away. I’ll stop.”

Benedict wanted to sob. “You
know damned well that I can’t. Not when you’ve got me to this point.”

“Just push me away, Benedict.
I’ll stop. But to do that, you’d have to touch me first.”

Damn him, he knew him too well.
If he touched Evander, the devastating, endless object of his lust, his
obsession, he would
never stop
. Could
not stop. And his legs refused to move. Take him from the room. He was damned. Benedict
made some raw, animal sound in his throat, head tipping back, eyes rolling
closed.

It was a sound of submission.
Defeat.

And Evander must have known it.
But he said nothing, simply expertly undid the fastenings to Benedict’s
trousers, his knuckles brushing against the bulging length of his erection and
as he did so Benedict moaned.

Loathing himself, he felt his
knuckles ache as he clenched his fists. He wanted to raise his hands, push away
Evander. And yet could not. Because despite everything, this felt so right, so
natural.

So natural that the fingers
Evander had gripped at his nape were loosened, simply laced against his skull.
Evander slipping his mouth up, to Benedict’s earlobe, catching it between his
teeth as Benedict’s cock was enclosed in Evander’s expert grip.

“Hell–” Benedict gasped.

“Tell me to stop,” Evander
rasped.

All that aristocratic ease,
detachment gone. Pure hunger, pure demand.

But pure certainty that Benedict
would not stop him. As he could not.

He was right. Benedict could
not. And loathed himself for that. But his cock was in Evander’s grip, his
long, lean fingers stroking his length. They teased, eased over, under the
incredibly sensitive head and he groaned, feeling the precum dripping copiously
now being used as lubrication to smooth the slow, cruel pump of Evander’s
fingers, Evander pausing to roll his thumb over the head once more. Ease it
over the slit. Press against it.

Benedict jerked against him,
the glass case rattling.

“Look at me,” Evander rasped.

The other man’s face had been
turned away, eyes shut tight, dark lashes crescents against his skin.

“Look at me,” Evander rasped
again.

Christ, in his own way he
sounded as out of control as Benedict felt. That cool, educated voice
roughened. Giving no leeway.

His thumb stroked over the
silken, deeply colored head of Benedict’s cock and a raw groan tore through
Benedict. Somehow, he forced his eyes open and turned to face the other man,
the man holding him so commandingly. Yet not moving. Giving him what he ached
for.

Needed
like oxygen.

Their eyes met, amber-brown
darkened, clashing with the stunning heated turquoise of Evander’s.

“Fuck you, Casterwell,”
Benedict groaned. “Why the fuck are you doing this? You could have anyone.
Pick someone else.”

Evander’s gaze pinned him with
its ferocity. “No.”

“Why not?” Benedict bit out. “
Why not?
To show you can have me,
Casterwell
?”

The fierce glitter in those
eyes deepened. He released Benedict’s prick, lifted his hand to that lush,
carnal mouth. Stroked his tongue over the pad of his thumb, lapped at the
traces of Benedict’s precum there. Held Benedict’s gaze.

“
Evander
,” he slammed back.

Still holding Benedict’s eyes
with his, he ran his tongue over his palm, slicking it well. Tasting, at the
same time, the cock it had been rousing.

“I can’t stop,” he ground out,
all the mask of aristocratic ease, indifference, gone. “Can’t you tell? Yes, I
have my pick of men. London is full of those such as ourselves, Ben. Men who
prefer men. Men who can be discreet. Not whores. Not some sad transaction in a brothel.
But it’s
you
. You with that bloody obsession,
that love of
other
that runs like a
seam of gold through you.
That life
unlike any other
. That wild, endless curiosity. Obsession. Even that
maddening fucking code of honor.
All of
it
. You, Benedict.
You
–”

Benedict was gasping, the
breath so tight in his lungs he was dizzied with it.

Such heat, such intense passion
in every word Evander was flinging at him.

God, he’d been wild the other
night. Commanding. But – but somehow, still controlled.

His words heated, but
ultimately, giving away nothing beyond the fact that he wanted to fuck
Benedict. And fuck him hard.

But this–

Helplessly, he shook his head.
It was all he could do. He couldn’t summon words against what Evander had just
said.

He couldn’t even process it.

At his numb silence something
flared in the intent, beautiful face so close to his.

“
Fuck
,” Evander spat. “Fuck you, Benedict, you priggish shit–”

His mouth came crushing down
over Benedict’s and he could not fight that. Could not hold back his response.
His lips parted for Evander’s tongue and then gasped against his as Evander
began to pump his cock, hard, with that saliva-slicked hand. Helplessly he
thrust into that hard, dominant grip, feeling his bollocks drawing up tighter,
the orgasm he was fighting so hard against – for the minute he came, this
would end – and returned Evander’s kiss with a desperation made rough by
the knowledge of how very wrong this was.

It was against everything he
believed. Everything he’d told himself.

He tore his mouth from Evander’s.
“Christ, I’m–”

“Yes,” Evander said fiercely. “
For me.”

As he said it, Evander pressed
his open mouth against that spot he’d bared earlier, once hidden by Benedict’s
thrust open tie, collar, and sucked hard, a love bite suckled into the smooth
skin as his hand pumped, dragging,
forcing
Benedict over that edge he fought.

Head flung back, clenched fists
banging back against the glass case, Benedict came as he didn’t think he ever
had before, in wrenching jet after jet, emptying his hot seed into and over
Evander’s hand, every muscle in his body torn apart, wrenched into pieces, remade.

Finally, gasping, he fell back
against the case, panting, his head rolling forwards.

His fists, finally, relaxed.
They had been so tensed the fingers, knuckles, ached as he did so. And when he
saw, dimly, Evander retrieve a white linen handkerchief from a pocket, he
scarcely took it in.

When Evander made a cursory
swipe at the seed on his skin, and then lifted his hand to his sensual,
reddened mouth, lips parting, Benedict watched him hazily.

His tongue lapped at the semen
still marking his skin like a cat at cream.

Benedict groaned. “Sweet Jesus,
Evander–”