“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Theo said, resting his big hand on the side of Giles’s face.
He leaned down and planted a tender kiss on Giles’s smiling mouth. That kiss quickly turned heated, and Theo circled one arm around Giles so that he could pull him possessively close. It felt so good to be claimed and sheltered that way that Giles relaxed and let Theo have whatever he wanted from him.
He was mildly disappointed when Theo let him go.
“Now,” his bear said, “let’s see to these wounds of yours.”
The underlying fury in Theo’s voice had Giles shivering with arousal in spite of his nagging pain. Theo took the wet cloth from him, backed Giles up until he was seated on the side of the bed, then dabbed the rag over Giles’s wounded head.
“Truly, it isn’t as bad as it could be,” Giles said, smiling with affection at the way Theo cared for him, despite the sting of his wound, and of the way it was inflicted. “I dodged in time to avoid the worst of it.”
“This is bad enough,” Theo said with a scowl. “May the man who did this and too many other things to you not only rot in prison, but rot in hell as well.”
Giles remained silent, letting Theo take care of him. Theo did more than just tend to the wound on Giles’s head. Once that was as clean as it could be without a bath, he stripped Giles of his clothes. That had begun as a means of removing Giles’s ripped shirt so that he could ascertain the extent of the damage to his arm—which was merely bruised and not broken, just as Giles had suspected—but once Theo started undressing him, he didn’t stop. He peeled away all of Giles’s shabby clothes, then proceeded to use a washcloth from the table near the bed to wash away whatever traces of his father’s house still remained on him.
Of course, Theo had to remove his own clothing as well in the course of his tender care. And once he was satisfied that he had done all he could with the washcloth, he switched to using kisses and caresses with his tongue.
“If this is the reward I am given for doing good,” Giles hummed, eyes closed and head tilted back to give Theo full access to his neck, “then I shall endeavor to become the most devoted of do-gooders.”
Theo laughed deep in his throat, the rumble sending shivers through Giles. “If this is my prize for encouraging you, I shall have to join you in that endeavor,” he said.
Giles laughed airily and stretched against the way Theo lavished his body with kisses. He was already thoroughly exhausted, which made every kiss and caress to his chest and stomach feel like he was being bathed in decadence. It was a different sort of arousal to what he was used to. Instead of being possessed with a frantic, flirtatious energy, his whole body warmed and thrummed with desire.
The affection Theo lavished on him as he made his way down Giles’s stomach to his hip was so sweet that Giles started to float into a state somewhere between sleep and arousal. It felt like riding the waves of a tranquil sea, at peace and content with the ways of the world.
He was jolted out of that blissful state both by Theo caressing his balls, then holding his cock up so that he could close his mouth around the tip, and by an ingenious thought.
“Oh!” Giles gasped and flexed his hips as Theo raked his tongue over the moisture already leaking from Giles’s tip, then drawing Giles deeper into his mouth. He let out a longer, “Ohh!” and smiled with several kinds of excitement.
“Do you like that?” Theo asked, taking a breath, then bearing down on Giles again.
“So very much,” Giles said on a loud exhale. “But I’ve just had an idea.”
Theo bobbed and sucked a few more times before propping himself above Giles so that he could stare down at him, one eyebrow raised. “I am attempting to make love to you, and you’ve had an idea?” he said with mock irritation.
Giles laughed and reached for Theo’s face, prompting Theo to surge over him so that his large body covered and dwarfed Giles’s. He kissed Theo long and lingeringly, then said, “I’ve just had the very best of all ideas.”
“Is it for me to flip you over and bury my cock in that sweet arse of yours until you come screaming my name?” Theo asked.
Giles laughed even louder. “No, but I am excessively fond of that idea as well.”
He kissed Theo again, then checked the table beside the bed to make certain the convenient jar was within arm’s reach.
Then he said, “How do you feel about the sea?”
Theo balanced higher above him and blinked. “I know nothing about the sea.”
Giles’s smile grew. “It just occurred to me that if the crown does not confiscate theWhirlwind, I might like to go along on its next voyage to the Orient.” Just speaking the words aloud filled Giles with the excitement of adventure. “And it further occurred to me that rules at sea are considerably more relaxed than they are on land when it comes to relations between men.”
“Not in the Royal Navy they aren’t,” Theo said with a frown.
“But on a privately owned merchant vessel? Where no one would dare complain about the owner of said vessel, a man responsible for employing and paying them?” He answered his implied question with a grin.
Theo grinned right along with him, then lowered himself to kiss Giles with powerful passion.
When, at last, he allowed Giles to breathe, he shifted back and unceremoniously flipped Giles to his stomach, just as he’d said he wanted to.
“What would become of your sisters in our absence?” he asked in a casual tone that contradicted the way he reached for the jar on the bedside table.