The chapel was full and as the doors opened, all the zombies, witches, vampires and other monsters, stood and faced us.
Jake took my hand and looked into my eyes. “I know how much you love Halloween, and I know how much I love you.” He dropped down onto one knee. “Logan, will you marry me?”
“We’re your best man and maid of honor,” Reed said, “but you can figure out who’s who.”
I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t believe what Jake had pulled off.
“Is this romantic enough for you?” He pulled out a Barnabas Collins ring, silver, with a big black onyx stone, just like the one he wore in
Dark Shadows
. He slipped it on my right index finger. “It’s not the real one, this is…” Jake pulled out the ring. The perfect, beautiful gold ring I had seen in Ireland with the delicate Celtic design engraved in the band.
“You didn’t.”
Jake simply nodded.
I looked at the altar, and our pastor stood up there waiting. This was all real.
So I did all I could do. I kissed him and said, “Yes,” before I walked down the aisle with the last romantic lover.
INK STAINED
Krista Merle
T
he words aren’t cooperating. Three days of effort and a blank page is lying in front of me, mocking me with its crisp, unbroken whiteness.
Never has starting a novel been so difficult. I pick up the top sheet from a small stack of papers lying next to me and read the few lines I’ve managed to pull out of my brain. Trite and melodramatic. I crumple up the paper, useless anyway, and stare at the ornate, carved bookshelf across the room. A tidy row of books with their leather covers and engraved front plates that all flowed effortlessly from my creative soul take up nearly an entire shelf.
This won’t be the next one.
I want to throw a fit. In my younger days, I would have. The top of the desk would have been cleared off with a violent shove, the ink pot thrown across the room to shatter against the far wall leaving a spray of black like a bloodstain, and each of these ridiculous, infantile pages would have gone into the fire.
How my staff had hated me then.
And they were right to. I wish I could attribute my personal growth to age and maturity, but I can’t. I wish I could say I’ve mellowed and realized that being rational is morally higher. But I can’t. I’m a better man now than I was a year ago because of one person. A man who, despite being in my employ, has never once backed down from me or submitted to my demands.
Except when he’s bent over my desk.
I groan at just the thought and my cock twitches. I wonder if he’s in the manor somewhere. He should be, since I didn’t send him on any errands this morning. I stand up, though a little awkwardly until I can rearrange the fall of my trousers.
Without even a cursory knock, the brass handle turns and the heavy oak door to my study opens, which can mean only one person. The man I was on my way to find.
“Oh good, you’re not working,” David, my majordomo, says as he walks in, his eyes riveted to the leather-bound appointment book that is never farther than arm’s reach away.
“I was. It’s not going as smoothly as I might have wished,” I say, my eyes taking in every lean, wiry inch of him. His light hair is smoothed back and tucked behind his ears, and he’s dressed in the same thing he wears every day, even though I never assigned him a uniform: black jacket and breeches with a soft white shirt and a simply knotted cravat. As he walks I can see leather patches on the insides of his knees, which makes me smile since I’d wager my fortune he’s never been astride a horse. Tall black boots, polished so highly that they reflect the flickering light coming from the fireplace, encase his calves to just below his knee.
He makes a sympathetic noise and turns a page in his book. He still hasn’t met my eyes, let alone nodded or, heaven forbid, bowed. He’s lucky I don’t stand on ceremony.
“God’s sake, man, what is in that book that could possibly be so interesting?”
Finally, his eyes lift. Bright blue and deceptively innocent. I widen my stance, my shaft swelling already.
“I was just reviewing the market schedule for the tenant farmers and I’m concerned—”
Laughter from outside the door cuts him off and we turn to look. I lift an eyebrow at David and he sighs.
“The rest of the staff had a bit of a celebration at tea this afternoon,” he says.
“Was there a reason for this celebration? Which, from the sounds of things, involved more than one bottle of my imported French wine? Men died bringing that across the channel, you know.”
The corners of David’s mouth curl up in a loose smile. He didn’t look at all ashamed. “Perhaps just a few bottles. I joined your household a year ago. Apparently that’s all the excuse they need to drink in the afternoon.”
I laugh, feeling instantly more relaxed. Bugger the novel. This is far more important. “I suppose it has been a year already. I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t thought of it.” Which isn’t the entire truth; I was very aware of how long he had been with me.
A year ago he’d presented himself at my front door and all but demanded a job. I’d been amused and, to be honest, a little taken aback. But more than anything I was intrigued. He’d proven himself smart and well-spoken but in the same way a pair of new boots shines—bright and clear, but without that broken-in patina. He’d been newly polished. I’d immediately wanted to scuff him up a bit.
In my mind, our real anniversary isn’t for another three weeks.
He shrugs. “I hadn’t thought of it either until I went down to the kitchen to talk to Cook about the next week’s menu.”
I walk around my desk and lean back against it, crossing my ankles. David’s eyes sweep me, much like I’d admired him earlier, and his gaze catches at my crotch. I know he can see the strain on the fabric. I nod to the chair in front of me and David swiftly moves to it and sits down. He leans down and tucks the leather journal under the chair and, when he looks back up at me, his eyes are dark and intense.
“Seems like a milestone worth celebrating,” I say.
David’s reply is more of a hum than a word. It brings a swift shiver across my body. I know he hadn’t come to my office for this reason, and that he could be so easily distracted, so easily seduced, does exciting and illicit things to me. He makes me feel strong and wanted. I may be a member of the peerage, but I never feel more powerful than when David lusts for me.
His hand lifts, his fingers reaching toward me but, after a year, I know him. I know he loves the game. So while I could simply open my trousers, pull out my cock and be buried in the warm wetness of his mouth, instead I step away. Just out of his reach.
I lower my chin and give him a chiding look. His full, bowed lips turn down and his eyes narrow. With a chuckle, I cross the room to the door. There is no danger of someone interrupting, the staff knows better, but I love the sound of the lock sliding into place. A dull thud that echoes through the room so pleasingly. It feels like I’m keeping him here, regardless of the fact that he wouldn’t leave voluntarily. The sound signals a decision made, an action taken.
“John,” he says from behind me in that voice he uses only when we’re alone. So few people in this world use my given name. I love the way it sounds from him.
I wait, still facing the door.
I listen as his soft, padded footsteps bring him closer until I imagine I can feel the heat of his body against my back. His hands flutter against my sides and my eyes close.
“John,” he says again, becoming more confident and sliding his hands up my back and to my shoulders. I’m taller, his head coming just to my collarbone, and he has to reach.
I turn in his arms and pull him against me, my cock pressed into his flat, strong stomach and his, just as hard, jutting into my hip. I groan and take his mouth in a hard, demanding kiss. My tongue presses between his lips and opens him so that I can sweep in, claiming my right to be there. His tongue is hot and rough as it tangles with mine. Our mouths press together, our breath mingling, as I walk him backward until his thighs bump into the carved edge of my desk. The desk rocks and the wax jack I’d used to seal a letter earlier falls out of its stand and rolls onto the floor.
I groan, suck his lower lip into my mouth and pull, scraping my teeth along the tender flesh. He shudders against me and his hands reach for the buttons of my trousers but I bat them away. I want him naked first.
Pulling my mouth from his, I take a second to drink in his lust-drunk expression. His eyes are hooded, his color high and his lips swollen from my kiss. He’s perfect.
Without breaking our stare, I work the knot of his cravat free, one long, slow loop at a time. When it hangs loose, I pull one end so it slides from under the stiffened peaks of his shirt, revealing a slim triangle of skin that I can’t keep myself from tasting. He tastes like he always does: clean skin, the tang of salt and a hint of the sandalwood soap I’d gotten him. An impulsive gift the first time when I’d seen it at the local market but I’d diligently kept him stocked with it since. Partly because I like the way it makes him smell but mostly because he likes it so much.
He stands still while I take my time undressing him, through the slow unbuttoning of his jacket and as I untie the laces of his shirt, though his hands keep curling into fists.
I brush the backs of my fingers across the front of his breeches, letting my fingertips hang on the knot in the drawstring, and David’s breath catches in his throat. His eyes close and his teeth sink into his lower lip. I want so badly to kiss him but resist, dropping to one knee instead.
His eyes flash open and he looks at me, wide and surprised. I’ve only been in this position a handful of times before. It’s not that I don’t love his cock in my mouth, because I do, but I usually suck him from above. After making him beg for it. I feel a little unsure, but his eyes warm and his hand reaches out to brush my hair and I know the impulse was right.
Foregoing finesse and the slow seduction, I push his hips so he’s leaning back against my desk and pull off his boots. My heart pounding, I unknot the tie of his breeches and run my palm along the outline of his thick shaft. The soft fabric is tailored close to his legs and I have to peel it down but, soon, he is finally, thankfully, naked.
I sigh and lean forward to kiss his hips where the bone juts against his skin. He shudders and holds on to my shoulders, his fingers digging in. He’s wrinkling my jacket and I know I’ll catch hell for it from my valet but I love it anyway.
“Please,” he says, a soft, whispered plea.
Gripping his hips, I take his cock into my mouth and suck. Pulling back, I let him pop out of my mouth and admire the way the head reddens, then I suck him back in. I swallow him deeply, letting him hit the back of my throat every time I lean in. The round, smooth head glides across my tongue and his musky scent fills my head.
David’s fingers tunnel into my hair and he moans loudly as I work his cock. With one hand I reach between his legs and heft the weight of his stones. He groans and his hips shoot forward. When I feel him start to jump on my tongue and his balls tighten, I release him and stand up. I’m not ready for him to come yet.
Without a wasted movement, I unbutton my trousers and free my aching cock. A drop of wetness glistens at the tip and I watch David’s eyes lock on to it. But that will have to wait. I need to be inside him.
“Turn around and bend over,” I tell him and he complies immediately.
He pushes his ass up, two generous handfuls of hard muscle, and his feet are parted so I can see his heavy sac between his legs. I reach down and stroke my length.
I stretch over him, reach into the top drawer of my desk and pull out a little glass vial. It used to be an inkwell but when David came to work for me, I replaced the ink with olive oil from the kitchen. At first it was because he had me hard near constantly and I was bringing myself off every time he left the room. Then, one fateful day, I walked into my office and he was sitting in my warm brown leather chair, his jacket unbuttoned and his breeches pushed down around his thighs. His hand was wrapped around his cock and, as I watched, he stroked himself hard and fast, eliciting a throaty groan. I’d been frozen, lust overriding my every higher function. So lost in the moment, he didn’t realize I was in the room until I was standing over him, falling on him like a hawk on a field mouse. After that, I started keeping this little vial around for times like these.
I pull out the stopper and tip it over him. A small stream of thick, dark yellow oil spills between his cheeks and makes his skin glisten. I catch some in my hand and smooth it over the length of my cock.
I step between his legs and slide my shaft between his cheeks, the oil warming between our skin.
“Yes, please, John,” David says.
“Please what?”
He groans and buries his face in the crook of his elbow so his next words are muffled. “Please fuck me. Please give me your cock.”
I throw my head back and swear. I needed that.
The head of my cock finds the puckered ring of his ass and I push. Harder. Until David gasps and pushes backward, impaling himself on me.
We both moan and I take a second to savor the feel of him, hot and so tight. Then I work my hips back and forth until I’m fully buried in him. Taking a firm hold on his sides, I rock back and forth, setting a fast pace. David vibrates every time I run against the bundle of nerves deep inside of him, like he’s being rhythmically shocked.
Sweat pops on my brow and I fuck him harder, my eyes close and my breath comes fast, my world centered where we are joined.
“I’m going to come, John.” David’s voice is tight and desperate.
“No. Not yet.” I stop moving, keeping myself seated deep within him until we both come down enough for me to pull out. “Turn over. I want you to watch.”
David scrambles onto his back, his ass nearly hanging off my desk. Paperweights and pen nibs clatter to the floor and I chuckle. Here I thought I’d improved from my impulsive, younger days. The inkwell I’d been writing with had overturned at some point and David’s arm is stained black from his elbow, along his forearm, all the way to his fingertips. I dip a finger into the pool on the desk and draw a line down David’s chest, ending just above his shallow bellybutton.