Indulgence 2: One Glimpse (46 page)

“I love that sound.” John sighed theatrically. “Such a contrast to the others I’m about to draw from you.”

“So vain. How did I fall in love with a man who is so vain?”

The second floor was a honeycomb of three rooms with connecting doors. John took Sam through the first room, where one entered from the staircase, and into the largest. John nearly pulled Sam over when he planted his feet in the doorway.

A large bed with dark green curtains tied back to each post dominated the room. Plush, mismatched carpets in warm hues covered every inch of floor that wasn’t under some piece of furniture or too close to the stone hearth. There was a porcelain washbowl, a wardrobe, thick drapes around the street-facing windows, and a dozen other things they could need or want. Sam had expected the preparation and yet seeing it made his chest tight.

He did all this for me. For us. He loves
us.

It wasn’t until Sam felt John’s warm hands cupping his face that he realized he had lost himself behind clenched eyes, trying to keep the tears back.

“Sam… Don’t cry, love. It makes those eyes of yours ungodly beautiful, and then I don’t know how to act.”

“Stupid.” Sam released a watery laugh as he stepped into John’s arms. Their game of dominance and submission took a pause as John petted Sam’s hair and laid kisses across his temple. His tears dried quickly, as the happy ones always did.

“I sometimes think you’re like a hothouse, my dear,” John sighed. “While the rest of us grow adequate flowers at a usual pace, you bloom hot and fast until the pots are bursting. I love it. I love that you hold so much.”

“I am a mess with it,” Sam objected, laughing again. More tears threatened. Mad, joyous tears that made him want to bury his face in John’s chest and cry his thanks to heaven for bringing them together.

But this was not how he had envisioned their reunion after such a miserably polite month, and he refused to continue his blubbering. His stretched his arms over John’s shoulders and guided him down, claiming his lips in the same challenging kiss he had given him downstairs. John turned away.

“Ah, no.” John clicked his tongue in admonishment, then took hold of Sam’s wrists, bringing them down. “Kissing will wait until I have ever stitch of clothing off you.”

Sam grinned as that delicious shiver infected his body once more. He walked backward, John still holding him in a firm grip as he led Sam to the bed, then pushed him down across the cool, satiny covers.

“Take off your clothes,” John demanded, his chest heaving as a wicked grin spread across his lips. “Not a moment to lose.”

Sam set to the task with the most inelegant abandon. John did the same, laughing as they tossed cravats and struggled with buttons. When John nearly fell over trying to remove his boot, Sam struggled to draw air through his laughter.

“Stop laughing. You can laugh when you’re naked.” John held the bedpost as he peeled the stocking from his leg and tossed it aside, leaving him as bare as Adam and unquestionably more alluring.

Sam stopped, both hands frozen in pushing down his trousers. “I think I’d almost forgotten how perfect you are.”

John tilted his head. “Humility dictates I should contradict you, but I’m not going to.” With that, he grabbed the cuffs of Sam’s trousers and pulled them away, leaving Sam naked and smiling as he fell back against the pillows.

The urge to cover himself, to hide his imperfections, still flashed over him like gooseflesh. Perhaps it always would, but he had hardly a moment to think such thoughts before John crawled across the bed and hovered over him, his eyes like hot gold.

The moment they came together, with John falling into the cradle of Sam’s arms and taking him in a deep kiss, was enough to make Sam whimper. It was too much to describe. The way he became lost when John kissed him just so, falling down into a soft nothing until the world outside went fuzzy; in so many ways it was like being drunk, feeling that subtle drift and fall. So delightful.

Then delight turned to shocked ecstasy as John pinned Sam’s arms over his head and raked his teeth across Sam’s throat.

“Argh!” Sam squirmed, all the better to feel the warm slide of John’s skin and the unyielding grip around his hands.

“I want to hold you down like this and tease you till you’re begging me, but…” John pressed his face against Sam’s neck and laughed, then said in a barely intelligible muffle, “I can’t. I’ll drive myself mad.”

With that, he lifted up and released Sam’s arms so he could clamber across the bed and rifle through the drawer of the nightstand. Sam took a moment to appreciate the unhindered, if slightly absurd, image of John’s bare arse as he leaned over the drawer. He came back with the expected bottle and laid it aside, then knelt between Sam’s legs and slid his hands up the backs of Sam’s thighs, pressing them wider.

John continued to stroke Sam’s thighs slowly, his hands curling around Sam’s knees only to slide back down, where he skirted his fingers around Sam’s hard length. It was not the first time John had feasted on Sam with his gaze, silent and lingering, all the while making Sam’s heart pound like a kettledrum. Sam wanted to hide from that gaze, but a part of him enjoyed the anxiety of the exposure. Because he knew John wasn’t judging him, wasn’t laughing at him. He knew John liked what he saw.

“You said you couldn’t tease me, liar.” Sam made a breathless laugh and rubbed the backs of his heels against John’s hips.

John reached for the bottle of oil. As he pulled back, he slid the cold glass down Sam’s belly. Sam trembled, then nearly leaped out of his skin when John continued the slide down the length of his cock.

“Hold still.” John’s voice was barely a whisper, but so laced with calm authority that Sam froze. Then shivered with delight.

John open the bottle, coated his hands, and sent Sam flying to the edge as he simultaneously stroked Sam’s flesh while pressing a slicked finger over his entrance.

Sam writhed, pushing himself against John’s hand. “I won’t last long if you keep at that.”

“Good. I won’t either.” John released Sam’s cock, flushed purple and dripping, and took himself in hand. It was a sight Sam could gladly die watching. The slow upward stroke, the way John tightened his fingers and twisted each time he pulled his foreskin just over the rim; he had to know how it made Sam’s blood run hot.

“Come here,” Sam pleaded, spreading his legs wider. “Need you.”

Something unintelligible rumbled from John’s throat as he came down to kiss Sam. His mind swam again, but not so deep he didn’t feel the blunt pressure of John’s cock against his entrance, or that delicious stretch as John pushed forward, so dangerously balanced between pleasure and pain.

A small cry escaped Sam as they passed that crucial point of invasion. John hesitated, his shoulders tensing with a concern that Sam already recognized so well. But Sam rolled his hips up, encouraging John and chasing the concern away. He ached to be filled, covered, pressed down. The soft bed beneath him and the hard flesh above was a joy beyond description.

“I’m not going to be gentle, love,” John said against Sam’s throat.

“Don’t want you to.”

John sank into Sam with one deep roll of his hips. A few slow thrusts grew into a hard, deep rhythm. It was not long before John was panting against Sam’s neck and groaning nonsense words in a way Sam adored, but he craved more. He pulled his knees up farther, trying to tilt his hips and find that magical position. John must have felt what Sam was trying to do, for he lifted up suddenly, bracing his hands on either side of Sam’s chest, and drove into him.

“Yes! Oh, God, John.” Sam voice was a mangled mess. That spot, that most perfect pleasurable spot deep inside, was at John’s mercy. John took Sam harder, faster, kneeling farther over him until Sam’s knees almost touched his chest.

“I love you,” John growled. “Every inch of you. You’re mine, Sam.”

“I’m yours.” Sam gasped for air as he tried to hold back the tingling pleasure pooling at the base of his spine. He was so close, but not yet. He wanted to feel John’s pleasure first.

“Don’t wait for me.” John moved his hands to Sam’s chest, bracing himself and pinning Sam. John’s weight bore down on his hands with each thrust, his fingers digging into Sam’s flesh. There was pain, but nothing compared the pleasure of feeling John’s loss of control and seeing his eyes blaze with lust. And each brutal motion struck Sam’s core until he could not bear it any longer.

Sparks crackled in his vision, and then the whole world fell to wonderful, sizzling pieces. He cried out, but Lord help him if he knew what he said. He could only grip John’s taut forearms as his release consumed him. As the last spasms ebbed, he heard John’s strangled gasp and saw his face twist into a silent cry as he too found his moment.

John collapsed over Sam, his face falling into the curve of Sam’s neck. He was almost deafened by the sound of John’s labored breaths against his ear, but he had no objections. He loved this part almost as much as the act itself. He ran his fingers through John’s hair and down his neck, soothing the last tremors away. John’s breathing leveled off, his heart dropping to a steadier beat that Sam could feel through his own chest, until John groggily turned his head and pressed a kiss to Sam’s neck.

“Love you,” John drawled.

“I love you too.” Sam held John tight, even wrapping his legs around his hips for good measure.
He’s mine, all mine. And he loves me.

“Mmm… ’m I squishing you?”

Nothing would make Sam happier than to fall asleep just as they were, but he had learned from previous experience his back and hips would regret it later. He laughed, or tried to when he realized he couldn’t draw a full breath.

“Squishing, yes.”

John rolled over like a carriage wreck being pulled back onto its wheels. Sam chuckled and leaned over him to kiss John’s cheek.

“Stay,” Sam ordered.

“Easily obeyed.”

Sam reluctantly, but necessarily, crawled from the bed and made his way to the washstand. The pitcher was blessedly full, and he returned a moment later with wet cloths. John hissed at the cold touch on his belly, just as Sam happily knew he would.

“Tormentor.”

“Me?” Sam balked, grinning. “I pale in comparison.” He disposed of the cloths in the washbowl, wondering idly what housekeeping arrangements John had made, then returned to the bed and John’s waiting arms. Sam was soon spooned nicely against his lover, his back warmed as John sprinkled lazy kisses over his shoulders. Sleep was ready to take him when the feel of John’s fingers making soothing circles on his chest pulled him back.

“Are you all right?” John whispered, and he pressed his fingers into the flesh as if testing.

Sam was confused for a moment, then remembered. “Of course.”

“I didn’t hurt you?”

Sam laid a hand over John’s and squeezed. “Never. And if you left marks, they are nothing less than I wanted. I’ll always tell you if you’re hurting me.”

The sound of John’s relieved sigh told Sam he had said just the right thing. John snuggled down behind him as raindrops began tapping the window glass.

“It’s getting dark out. I think that rain might make a storm,” Sam mused.

“A storm, huh? We could be stuck here. What a shame.”

“Yes, a terrible shame. We might even be forced to stay through till morning.”

“How wretched. What on earth will we do? Play cards?”

Sam snickered. “Cards, yes, we could. But I don’t have a thin penny on me for bets.”

“Why, me neither. Pockets entirely to let. Suppose we could wager other things.”

“Properties? Horses? I refuse to wager dogs. You can’t have Mutton, and that’s final.”

It was John’s turn to stifle a laugh. “Stuff! What sort of gamester are you? I propose big stakes.”

“Big?”

“Quite big. Surprisingly big, in fact, for someone of lesser height—”

John was unable to finish his ridiculous double entendre through the pillow Sam flattened over his face.

“Lesser height, is it?” Sam could not keep up his false ire as John ducked under another pillow swing and grabbed him around the middle. Unable to twist free, Sam at least managed to pull John down to the side, where he was able to stun him with a deep kiss.

The rain picked up sharply, hitting the windows in sheets, and the house groaned and whistled with the wind. Sam and John looked at each other, faces inches apart as they lay on their sides and smiled. They would not be going anywhere that night.

“Blasted weather,” Sam smirked.

“I absolutely agree. I’ll fetch the cards.”

Loose Id Titles by Lydia Gastrell

The INDULGENCE Series

One Indulgence

One Glimpse

Lydia Gastrell

I live in sunny, sultry Florida where I spend most of my time hiding behind sunscreen lotion and an open laptop. I enjoy traveling and long car rides, though I'm sure I must be the only person on Earth who is happy when a flight is delayed, because it just means I have more time to read.

I began writing fan-fiction when I was a teenager, outraged that my beloved TV characters rarely got the ends I thought they deserved. With great encouragement from readers over the years, I eventually decided to turn my creative juices toward my own unique characters and stories. My love of history, romance, and seemingly hopeless situations has led me to genres I never would have expected and which I have come to love.