AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He pushed off the glass and pivoted in front of Bennet.
Bennet jolted and his body thrummed. Trembling breaths filled the space between them. Darcy stared at him, brow pinched, Adam’s apple jutting.
Hesitantly, Darcy shifted. Three inches apart, two.
Bennet slowly looped his wrists around Darcy’s sun-warmed neck and Darcy folded against him with a sigh, foreheads resting together, noses pressing side by side. A curl tickled against Bennet’s brow, his lashes combing it when he blinked.
Brown eyes tentatively met his. Bennet’s answering smile felt wobbly—question and invitation.
Turning his head, Darcy touched his lips to the sensitive crease on the inner side of Bennet’s elbow, and Bennet tightened his hold, shifting, their arousals touching—
A heavier breath skated a path up his bicep to his armpit, and Bennet shivered, a tiny gasp slipping from him.
Darcy tensed at the sound. Two beats passed. He met Bennet’s eye, and grazed his lips deliberately at the soft junction. Hot, moist words crisscrossed over his skin, paving a labyrinth of goosebumps. “I want to kiss you.”
“I want to kiss you back.”
Darcy ghosted the pads of his thumbs over flaking rainbow paint and Bennet bathed in the tenderness filling Darcy’s eyes.
His thumb drifted to his temple, skimmed over his ear.
The touch reverberated on his cheeks, his tingling elbows, the sweaty backs of his knees, the shells of his ears, his hardening cock, the base of his thumping chest. He slid a hand across Darcy’s nape into the base of his curls and absorbed Darcy’s responding quiver.
The seconds stretched like teasing fingers, dragging down his sides and up his inner thighs to the edges of his damp cotton briefs. Their bodies shifted subtly.
Bennet bit his lip.
Breath hitched over the bow of his mouth, and Bennet’s chest bloomed with butterflies. A wild, nervous grin escaped him.
“Beautiful,” Darcy uttered a split second before their lips met.
The kiss lingered, pulled at all his nerves. His stomach fizzed. He was light and tingly everywhere. Teetering on a precipice.
Darcy pulled back and Bennet cupped his flushed cheeks, waiting. Waiting for any sign of regret, a furtive dart of his gaze to the people still moving in their peripheral vision.
Nothing.
Nothing but Darcy, glancing at his lips as if he wanted to do it again.
Bennet’s pulse pounded with pride. He felt it everywhere, from his scalp to the throbbing at his crotch to the press of his heels against the ground.
Bennet pulled Darcy close, reveling in the warm, solid weight leaking through the scant material he wore.
Darcy’s hand shifted, cupping Bennet’s head, supporting it as he angled him up. Adoration competed with lust as he soaked Bennet in.
Bennet shivered. It seemed like a thousand years since they’d come apart in each other’s arms, and he hadn’t forgotten how perfectly Darcy slotted against him. He craved it again.
Bennet slid his tongue over the seam of Darcy’s mouth. The responding groan tasted like honey.
Fingers tightened around his waist as their tongues slid together, tangled and danced. Their teeth nicked, and their laughter turned into more kisses.
“Bennet.”
The huskiness of his name from those raw, red lips . . . Bennet shivered in the tight embrace of Darcy’s arms.
He pulled back slightly, their chests bumping as they caught their breath, and read desire and a deep happiness in Darcy’s eyes.
“Perhaps . . .” Darcy swallowed. “Can I take you home?”
“My place is empty.”
“My place has a more comfortable bed.”
“Your place has half of Port Ratapu in it. Everyone will know we’re together.”
Darcy brushed his lips under Bennet’s ear. “I know.”
In a dark, sleeping house, Bennet led Darcy through the steps of their next dance.
Tangled in each other’s arms, their slickened bodies twisted and knotted in Egyptian cotton sheets. Ragged breaths curled against Bennet’s ear.
Darcy breached him. They gasped, fingers tightening.
Whispers feathered his nose, brow, neck.
Bennet’s voice broke on please.
Darcy moved.
Their eyes met and nerve endings shattered.
Gravity dove through him, like jumping off a bridge. Like falling, falling, falling.
Epilogue
It is a truth, intimately acknowledged, that a man in love must tease his lover.
And, well. Bennet did like teasing Darcy a tiny, little bit.
He bounced his ass in the firm leather saddle as Doll trotted beneath him, throwing Darcy a provocative look.
Darcy laughed, keeping pace. At the top of their hill, they halted and Darcy sat perfectly on Volcano, seated comfortably, back straight as he admired the view of Bennet a half-horse length away from him.
The amusement—and desire—in those dark eyes made Bennet’s—
Brilliant.
Darcy’s lips twitched like he knew exactly the predicament Bennet had worked himself up into.
Bennet laughed, and received an amused head shake.
They moved toward the dawn-glistening river, and on the last stretch of the paddock, Bennet eyed Darcy challengingly and set off.
Hooves pounded as they rode.
Darcy caught up. “To the riverbank?”
“Like always.”
Except this time wasn’t like always. This was the last time they’d do this together while Bennet still lived in Cubworthy.
