Provoked (15 page)

Mortified, David made to turn away. “This was not a good idea. I should—”

“Wait.”

All evening, it seemed, David had been trying to walk away from Balfour, and all evening, Balfour had been stopping David from leaving. Now he did it again, his hand catching at David’s elbow and gently tugging. David turned slowly back.

Balfour’s gaze was hot and dark, impossible to look away from. “I don’t have to fuck you—but let me see you without your clothes, hmm?” He smiled and reached for the buttons of David’s tailcoat. Embarrassed, David stepped back and raised a hand to rub the back of his neck in an uncomfortable gesture.

Balfour’s lips twisted in what looked like reluctant amusement. “All right. I’ll go first, but you’ll need to help me with this coat. It’s a perfect fit and a bugger to get off, if you’ll excuse the expression.” Without waiting for a reaction, he unfastened the buttons of his own black tailcoat and turned his back on David, opening his arms out as though presenting himself to a valet.

If he wanted to leave, now would be a good time to do so, but David found himself hesitating. The idea of seeing Balfour naked was a powerful lure, one that he was unable to resist.

He stepped forward, sliding his arms over the other man’s shoulders to take hold of the lapels of his coat and slowly draw them back, removing the impossibly elegant garment, inch by careful inch. The warmth of Balfour’s hard body against his chest and under his hands, his scent—an earthy, spicy smell—it all made David feel heady with an excitement that began to overtake his shame and embarrassment.

Balfour turned round and cast the coat aside. “The rest is easier,” he said, lifting his hand to loosen his cravat. And as David stood there, mouth dry and heart pounding, the man stripped his clothes away, his dark, unwavering gaze on David. Waistcoat, cravat and shirt. Breeches, drawers and stockings. Everything, till he was quite naked.

David had wondered what Balfour would look like, under the clothes. If he’d be hairy or smooth. If he’d be as hard and well-honed as David imagined, or if he’d carry a little fat beneath his severely cut clothes.

As Balfour was gradually revealed, David’s heart pounded and his breath came faster. His eyes roamed hungrily over the man’s big, powerful frame and long, lean muscles—there was not a bit of fat on him. He discovered too that Balfour had a light dusting of hair across his chest, and that the trail of hair narrowed as it travelled down his belly before flaring again around his long, thick cock. The man looked like a warrior, powerful and proud. He seemed unembarrassed by his nudity, and no wonder. Being naked didn’t put him at the slightest disadvantage. He still towered over David, still stood before him with the confidence of a general about to command an army. It made David wonder what Balfour would think of David’s body when he saw it. Of his slight, wiry frame.

The pained reticence David felt at the thought of revealing himself was a sharp contrast to how he felt looking at Balfour. He itched with the desire to touch the other man, to explore him and discover the scents and textures of his skin, even as he forced himself to keep his hands by his sides. The thought of asking Balfour if he could touch him… Well, he couldn’t.

“You now,” Balfour said, reaching for him. “Come. I’ll help you.”

No one had undressed David since he was a child. It felt strange to have another’s hands unfastening the buttons of his coat. Strange and exciting.

His coat wasn’t so difficult to remove as Balfour’s, not having been tailored to a skintight fit against his body. It slid easily from his arms and dropped to the floor while Balfour reached for more intimate articles.

Balfour did it all, all the unbuttoning, untying and drawing away of the layers of David’s clothing. David shivered at the hot eagerness in the other man’s eyes and the light, brushing touch of his hands as he slowly worked. The man’s unashamed passion for his task was unsettling, but it heated David too, a strange mingling of lust and shame.

At last, David was as naked as Balfour himself. He stood before Balfour, feeling deeply vulnerable. The only man he’d ever been fully naked in front of before was William, and that had been entirely innocent. Naked swimming in the burn in Midlauder, when they were little more than boys with narrow, hairless chests.

This was very different.

Balfour seemed gratifyingly pleased with what he saw. His eyes moved over David with restless admiration. He lifted a hand and stroked David’s hair. “Such an unusual colour.”

“Red hair isn’t so uncommon,” David murmured.

“It’s not the ordinary sort of red hair. It’s dark, like old copper. Is that why you don’t have freckles? And your skin is like marble.” He curved his palms around the apples of David’s shoulders, pulling him close enough for their bodies to touch, at last. It was such a relief that David couldn’t suppress a soft moan, and Balfour’s eyes glittered, enjoying David’s reaction.

“I could do this standing up, here and now,” he muttered. “But I want to take my time. Come on.”

He took David’s hand in his own, the clasp of his palm against David’s warm and strong, and drew him into the bedchamber, leading him to the bed.

“Lie down,” Balfour said, his voice husky. “On your back.”

Mouth dry with anticipation, heart pounding with mingled excitement and fear, David did as he was bid. The fire that burned in the grate made the room warm enough that David was able to lie naked atop the bedcovers. The caress of the silken fabric against his naked back was a hedonistic pleasure.

“Spread your legs,” Balfour murmured, leaning over David’s body to look into his eyes.

“I can’t,” David whispered, his whole body seizing up, his hands covering his groin automatically.

Balfour smiled slowly. “Yes, you can. Let me make you feel good. Let me suck you.”

And God, but the thought of that sinful mouth swallowing him down was all David needed, apparently, to settle his immediate fears. His hands melted away and his legs shifted apart, and soon Balfour was squirming his way down the bed, settling himself between David’s thighs.

Was he really going to—

Oh Christ!

The sensation of David’s cock being engulfed in Balfour’s mouth, almost to the root, made him shout with pleasure. It wasn’t that it was an entirely new experience, though he’d more often been the giver than the receiver of this particular pleasure, but it was the first time he’d been taken into a man’s mouth with such patient and consummate skill. Balfour didn’t just suck him, he worked David’s shaft with his tongue and lips, grazed it with his teeth—a snagging, wonderful feeling, that—and he touched David’s balls with knowing fingertips, caressing and gently squeezing.

Staring down at Balfour’s dark head as the man pleasured him with such care, David felt the oddest bolt of—what was it? Something powerful. Maybe gratitude, though it was bigger than that. He didn’t dwell on the thought, though; he simply wasn’t able to. The sensations in his cock and balls, the building up of his crisis deep inside him, were far too consuming to permit him to think about anything else.

David had been propped up on his elbows, watching Balfour work, but as the man dipped his head to swallow fully the length of David’s cock, David’s arms gave out, and he collapsed onto his back with a helpless cry of pleasure. He could come right now, but so long as Balfour was willing to keep doing this, it seemed madness to stop him.

It was then he felt Balfour’s fingers graze the crack of his arse. Balfour’s mouth was still doing its work, but his hand had definitely moved lower, and David shifted his hips, half rejecting, half encouraging. Just the lightest of touches this, yet the bolt of forbidden pleasure it gave him was intense.

The touching became firmer, and David made a noise of protest deep in his throat, shifting again. Balfour pulled his mouth off David’s cock in a long, luscious stroke and looked up at David.

“Don’t you like me touching you there?”

“I—I’ve never allowed anyone—” David broke off, mesmerised by Balfour’s playful smile.

“Will you allow me?” Balfour asked softly. “I want to touch you there so very badly. Let me.”

Without waiting for an answer, Balfour moved downwards to trail his swollen lips over David’s balls.

David cried out at this new sensation, then again when Balfour softly sucked David’s sac into his mouth, playing with the delicate contents, using his tongue and lips to tease them.

By now, David was making bargains with himself. So far, and no farther, but he made no protest as Balfour broke past each silent limit until his broad palms were pushing David’s thighs even wider and his hot mouth was pressing against the impossibly tender skin below David’s scrotum and moving down to probe the tight entrance to his body.

At that first touch of tongue on his anus, David’s back arched and his cock bobbed, painting his belly with a dab of fluid. He shouted some profanity, and his hands twisted into the bedcovers. His mind couldn’t grasp it—Balfour’s mouth—
there!
Soft lips and wet tongue moving against his most intimate flesh. The lewdness of that impossible kiss.

Balfour raised his head from his task, revealing a flush of red across his cheekbones and eyes that were glittering wildly. His gaze travelled over David’s exposed body and spread thighs.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, and, as ridiculous as the words were, David’s immediate reaction was to feel moved, though the instant the feeling coalesced into thought, he rejected it. Instead he surrendered himself to the physical sensations that Balfour was igniting in him, ignoring the persistent little voice in his mind that was telling him to stop before this went any further.

Balfour teased David’s hole with his mouth while working his shaft with one big hand, and all David could do was pant and moan as he was thoroughly serviced. He’d never experienced anything like this before. Flat on his back in a comfortable bed, being catered to like an emperor.

Just as he was contemplating allowing his crisis to take him, Balfour reared back, and, with his eyes fixed firmly on David’s face, inserted his index and middle finger into his own mouth, wetting them thoroughly.

“What…?”

“Don’t worry. It’s just my fingers. You’ll like it, I promise.”

And then he was bending down, his mouth engulfing David’s cock once more, his fingers circling maddeningly, exploring the entrance to David’s body.

Oh God, was he going to allow this? It wasn’t buggery, but it would certainly be penetration. Part of another man’s body entering his own. Something he’d decided he’d never allow.

Balfour took the decision out of his hands. He pressed his spit-slick finger firmly against David’s anus, pushing inwards, making David gasp as his body relented, permitting Balfour entrance. His finger was thick and invasive. Entirely wrong and utterly right. Coupled with the hot, wet silk of Balfour’s mouth on his cock, it was the most extraordinary sensation David had felt in all his life.

David felt sure he couldn’t possibly last a moment longer. But there was more to come. Balfour rocked his hand, getting David used to the invasion, then withdrew and pressed in again. More this time—two fingers? He couldn’t be sure, the hot mouth on his cock a constant distraction. Again the rocking hand, and then—
Dear God! What was that?

David yelled out at the flash of unspeakable pleasure. It was no sooner over than it was back again, coinciding with the brush of Balfour’s clever fingers inside him. Again and again Balfour touched him like that, till David was whimpering and pleading incoherently. And then, finally, with one last deep, internal caress, and his hot mouth imprisoning David’s rigid flesh, Balfour brought David to an orgasm like no other he’d ever experienced.

David cried out, bowing his back, his cock pulsing as he emptied his balls into the other man’s mouth. He glanced down, almost coming again when he saw Balfour’s strong throat muscles working as he swallowed David’s spend, the pale gold breadth of his perfect shoulders crowding between David’s spread thighs.

David sagged back against the pillows, feeling utterly boneless; he was unable to do anything but watch as Balfour rose to his knees, bracing one fist on the pillow next to David’s head, and taking himself in hand. His arm moved in a blur as he worked himself, his gaze fixed on David’s face, his mouth set almost in a snarl. Mere moments later, his own climax was shooting out, coating David’s chest and belly with his seed before Balfour collapsed on top of him, panting.

For a minute, they lay there, Balfour’s spend cooling between them, his hot breath in David’s ear.

David didn’t know what to do next. He’d never lain in bed with a man before. Had never been fully naked with anyone like this.

After a bit, Balfour moved away, extricating himself from their tangled limbs and flopping down onto his back beside David. David felt oddly bereft. He stared at the ceiling rose while the reality of what he’d just allowed began to slowly dawn on him. He couldn’t bear to look at Balfour though he felt the man’s gaze on him.

He waited for Balfour to speak, to break the silence with one of his provoking comments, but instead, Balfour sat up and swung his legs off the bed. Standing up, he crossed to the sideboard to pour water from a jug into the ewer. Taking a washcloth, he cleaned his hands and groin. When he was finished, he wet another cloth and brought it to David, handing it to him expressionlessly.

“You’re welcome to stay the night,” Balfour said, donning a dressing gown as David cleaned up. David felt sure the invitation wasn’t genuine. The offer was spoken politely, as though Balfour was offering tea to an uninvited guest. A hollow feeling began to grow in David’s gut.

“Thank you, but it’s time I left.” He sat up, searching the floor for a few moments with his eyes before he realised his clothes were all in the sitting room.
Christ.
Nothing for it but to get up and walk across the room naked.

Steeling himself, he got up and made his way into the sitting room, where he began to pick up his crumpled clothes. Eventually he became aware of Balfour lounging in the doorway between the two rooms, silently watching David dress. A strange tension seemed to vibrate off him.