A King Awakened Read online

  There would always be regal duty, always something to dampen Arend’s heart’s wishes and longings. Always an obligation, tugging Arend away from what he most wanted—who he most needed.

  Today, that “something” was a house party here at Ferndale, the estate of his cousin Samuel, Duke of Mardford. In attendance would be several members of his Lords’ Council—men who might or might not be loyal monarchists.

  He gazed at Julian, realizing how unfair it was that the man had been thrust into a world of social intrigue and royal rebellion. He doubted his concubine had been trained nearly enough to cope with all that surely lay ahead for them. With forced jocularity he said, “Julian, I fear you’ll find introduction to the peerage most dull. All the droning conversations and endless meals and card games. We’ll both be nodding off from vexed boredom before late afternoon, no doubt.” His laugh sounded strained even to his own ears.

  Rather than responding in words, Julian rolled up against him. He gave Arend a hooded, seductive glance, and caressed a palm down Arend’s abdomen—gliding dangerously low. Apparently, Julian believed the right answer to their distress was seduction. It was how he’d been trained, naturally.

  “Julian, we should talk about those lords.” He gulped, reacting as Julian’s roving hands continued exploring his naked flesh.

  Jules caressed Arend’s hip, that bare skin exposed by the downward-drifting counterpane. When the pads of Julian’s fingertips brushed even lower, Arend shivered.

  “Whatever is the matter, my king?”

  I am enflamed with lust and longing; overburdened by the first gasps of falling in love.

  “I am fine. Fine. Right as the bloody rain.” He was angry again, irrationally so, even as he knew that his anger arose from terror.

  “If you are certain.” Julian’s gaze traveled to Arend’s cockstand, bulging beneath the counterpane.

  Arend grabbed a pillow, planting it over his groin defensively. “I was just thinking of the lords,” he snapped. “Those bloody visiting lords, arriving soon.” Liar. Dunderhead. “What a dreary lot.”

  “You don’t seem dreary right now.” Julian eased the pillow off Arend’s lap, exposing the profound tent he’d formed. “You seem ready to claim me, master.”

  Arend seized the pillow from Julian’s grasp, thrusting it protectively over his lap. “Don’t call me master.”

  One golden brow rose. “Ah, we are ending this absurdity so soon?”

  Arend glared at his lover. “Nothing is absurd about my predicament, Julian. It’s real, and the men visiting today are a legitimate threat to my reign.” And to our concubinage.

  “Am I not to play the part of your lover any longer?” Julian reclined beside him, stretching out catlike and long.

  Arend met Julian’s heated gaze. “You must not, over the next days. We both know this.” He rolled closer, wrapping Julian in his arms. “But it doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.”

  Julian’s mouth was suddenly on his, one leg between Arend’s parting thighs—scuffing against his bollocks, rolling the twin sacs until Arend became dizzied by sensation. He cried out, unable to bite back the rising desire that filled him—arching into Julian’s sudden seduction.

  One firm hand seized Arend’s hip, pressing their bodies even closer until forged heat met equally forged heat. Until Arend’s achingly erect cock bumped against Julian’s, his slit dampening.

  “Oh, dear God,” Arend bit out. After only a few touches from Julian, he’d already lost mastery of himself. He’d surely come at any moment, if Jules didn’t ease up. “Please. Oh, dearest God. Please. Please. You must . . . not.” Arend’s loosened tongue might be complaining, but his hips had a completely different notion. They began to roll and plead for all his concubine could provide.

  Julian complied. Swiftly. He slid a hand to the base of Arend’s skull, running fingertips through his thick hair, then tugged tight. Before Arend could breathe, Julian had him upon his back, spreading Arend’s legs about him. He was reaching to the side table, as well—for that stoppered bottle of oils.

  No, not this. No.

  Arend was the only one who would ever do the claiming. “Julian . . . Jules . . .”

  “Yes, what do you want, sire?” The words were hot silk against Arend’s temple, murmured between a showering of kisses as the bed slave worked one hand beneath Arend’s arse. Julian lifted, canting Arend’s hips slightly.

  Not this. Never this. Arend could not, ever, allow himself to be breeched.

  “Julian,” he begged in a voice that sounded unfamiliar to himself. “Jules, the house party. Dear God, the lords. What you’re doing to me. What you’re doing . . . to me.” He was going to come. Beneath his own bed slave, barely tantalized, he was going to spill his seed in hot, desperate spurts. Arend gasped. “I-I’m wholly undone.”

  Julian instantly ceased his seduction; with both hands framed about Arend’s body, he tensed there, staring down victoriously. “You remember one thing as you endure the party,” he admonished with a wicked smile. “That I am far more than satisfactory.”

  Chapter Two

  Arend and Julian decamped to the grand library after breakfast, savoring a few final moments alone before the houseguests’ dreaded arrival. Thus far, neither Sam nor Lucy had descended for the morning. Alistair, too, was absent, but that hardly surprised Arend after the man’s indulgences last night. His foster brother’s penchant for quietly getting foxed most nights was hardly a secret, at least from Arend. Finley was his brother in all the ways that most mattered. Arend’s own sire had taken Fin into the palace as a babe, raising him almost like a son, right beside Arend.

  It pained Arend, the way Fin hit the bottle with such perseverance. He often wondered what the man was seeking to blot from his mind.

  As if reading Arend’s mind, Jules called down. “Where do you suppose Alistair is?”

  “Oh, I imagine he’s indulged the same as Samuel and Lucy,” he answered, sipping his coffee. “By savoring his bed overlong this morning.”

  Although—and he didn’t add this—Sam and Lucy’s bedroom “savoring” surely involved an entirely different motive. Despite Sam’s inclination toward men, he did love Lucy with unfettered intensity.

  That thought snagged Arend’s gaze upward, all the way to the upper library gallery. There, Julian stood, wearing buff britches that clung to his muscular body with an emphasis that could only be deemed . . . sublime. No other word for it. Except perhaps tantalizing. He also wore a bottle-green waistcoat, embroidered dashingly with light purple. The waistcoat was taut along the man’s solid form, downright pleading with Arend to slide fingertips beneath the fabric. Imploring him to further explore the linen shirt beneath.

  You are indeed far more than satisfactory. Arend had the sudden urge to bound up the gallery stairs and bend Jules over the map table. To strip those snug britches down over the man’s hips, divest him of his smallclothes and—

  Julian interrupted his fanciful reverie. “As we have but a few moments,” he called to Arend, “perhaps now you should tell me of the arriving guests.” Julian didn’t look down from the gallery. His expression intent, he was scanning the volumes on the shelves, now and then pulling one out and admiring it before placing it carefully back where it belonged. “Especially of the lords. I’m keen to learn about them.”

  “You do not wish to know about the ladies, as well?” Arend asked, settling his gaze on Julian’s golden hair, pulled neatly back at the man’s nape. Better that than settling his gaze inappropriately lower.

  Julian stood on his booted toes to secure a book from a high shelf. “Either . . . will do.” He grunted, letting out a breath once he had the volume in his hands. “But the peers are the ones making trouble for you, are they not?”

  Arend’s brow furrowed. “Certain ones, yes. And there aren’t any visiting ladies, actually, not far as I’m told. I don’t even know why I posed the question in the first place.”

  Julian thumbed through the book he had just ret
rieved, and his expression became delighted. “Lendriss Codex! Splendid. Alistair is quite the fan of his poetry.” He glanced over the railing at Arend. “But you’d know that, I’m sure.”

  How the devil had Julian learned of Alistair’s fondness for poetry? He had quite a way with men, a power to make them confide secrets and open their hearts. No doubt he would have made a masterful wartime spy.

  When Arend made no reply, Julian grinned down at him, languidly leaning elbows on the balustrade railing. “You’re jealous,” he observed, a glint in his eyes.

  “I am not.” Arend all but snarled the words; yet here he stood under the balcony like some lovesick operatic suitor. He might as well be weaving Julian garlands of posies and serenading him with hopeless ardor.

  “It’s charming how jealous, really,” Jules said, “for a man who purports to find me passably suitable.”

  “I never said . . . I did not tell you that you were passably suitable.” Arend heaved an impatient sigh. “I’m not that bacon-brained.”

  “Hmm,” was all Jules said, leaving his position at the railing.

  Arend wanted to kick his own royal backside. He’d been a dunderhead in the bedchamber this morning, minimizing their relationship the way he had. Perhaps what people said of concubinage was true: Jules was schooling him like the most practiced of husbands.

  “You know the stakes today. This week,” Arend said, aware that he sounded agitated. “You understand what I was about . . . earlier. The reason behind my, urm, behavior.” There, he’d owned his misdeeds. Arend gave himself a satisfied nod.

  “You made everything patently clear. Quite so.” Jules turned back to the shelves, and it was impossible to read his tone or emotions. Arend didn’t like being shuttered, and suddenly had an inkling of how Jules himself must have felt earlier.

  If Arend couldn’t manage a lover any better than this, then perhaps he’d no business as king. He’d been alone for so long, he was utterly out of his depths, especially with a canny, beautiful man like Julian. The entire affair had him thoroughly betwattled.

  Julian strolled the gallery, trailing gloved fingertips across the shelved volumes. “I am in awe of these books, sire. Your cousin has such an eminent collection.” He stared up at the towering shelves with a genuinely awed expression, one that touched Arend’s heart. “Not as fine as your own, of course, but I wasn’t able to spend much time exploring the royal library. I hope I shall yet have the opportunity.”

  “It is my intention,” Arend replied, his voice gentler than he had expected it to be, “for you to explore every bit as much as you wish.”

  Julian pivoted, staring down at him, eyes bright. “Is it, sire?” The words came out breathy-soft, in his true voice.

  “You’ll return with me, Julian, assuredly,” he pronounced, his tone firm and regal. “You must yet explore the royal stables, for one thing. And for another”—Arend transformed his tone into a sensual one—“it can take much time to explore all that the king’s . . . library has to offer.”

  Julian nodded eagerly. “The day of my arrival, I found so many lovely books on history, even fairy tales. I’d welcome the chance to enthrall myself much further.”

  “Enthrall yourself?” Arend’s lips quirked upward, his throat going dry.

  “Lose myself between the sheets . . . of paper. In the books.” Julian’s eyes had darkened with lust, and the color on his cheeks heightened.

  It took so very little to please Julian, a realization that made Arend’s chest tighten. Made him long to indulge his concubine, and to do so with great dedication. How foolish he’d been only an hour earlier, insisting that theirs was but a contractual transaction.

  “Urm, about the guests.” Arend cleared his throat, shifting in his wingback. “Viscount Colchester is coming, along with his brother Lord Vincent Blaine. I’ve never met the viscount, and only encountered Blaine once, at a house party. But he struck me as quite the preener.”

  Jules, having just descended from the gallery, took the other chair. “Some say bed servants are prone to preening,” he said conspiratorially. “Especially those from Temple Sapphor who, so long prized for their beauty, can’t help peacocking a bit. I’ve always tried to temper such tendencies on my part. Unless, of course, you wish to see me peacock?”

  The way Julian’s tongue lingered over the word “cock” did things to Arend. Sinful, dangerous, not-for-libraries types of things.

  “Julian!” Arend darted a wary glance about the room, toward the closed doors. “You’ve no notion who might be about.”

  Julian laughed, and dared stroke Arend’s hand where it had tensed against the armchair. “I was trained”—his voice dropped low—“to be the very definition of discreet. I shan’t carelessly bring you shame or harm, my darling king.”

  Carelessly, no, Arend thought ruefully, but there could be shame and harm all the same, and plenty of it. Yet he ached for Julian’s touch the moment his lover withdrew his hand.

  With that, Julian swiftly removed his hand, much to Arend’s disappointment. “Anyway, about the other. There’s nothing particularly wrong with preening,” Julian said with a subtle fluttering of his velvet lashes.

  And the way “preeeening” sounded in that lush Agadirian accent—especially how Jules drew it out, with his coy expression—turned the word into something else entirely. As if preening were related to sensual congress, something wicked Jules might do whilst in Arend’s bed.

  Arend determined thenceforth to avoid words that tended to conjure Julian’s rolling Agadirian tongue.

  “Sam does vouch for Blaine’s brother, Viscount Colchester. Says he’s a capital sort.”

  “That’s encouraging, at least,” Julian said. “But what does it mean, really?”

  Arend quirked an eyebrow. “That Sam’s likely tumbling the fellow with some regularity.”

  Julian became wide-eyed, clearly wanting to be appalled. “Is your cousin truly such a reprobate? When he’s married to dear Lucy?”

  “He adores Lucy,” Arend confided. “Make no mistake. But they struck an agreement some years ago, once it turned out that Sam wasn’t, urm, inclined exclusively toward females “But he needs heirs, and she loves him dearly. Rather a typical marriage, really.”

  Julian raised an eyebrow, and Arend quickly added, “Typical, that is, among the nobility.”

  “Your cousin is a wicked flirt,” Julian observed, his blond brows puckering together. “I’ll hand you that.”

  “Why exactly,” Arend asked, jaw tightening, “would you so easily hand me that?”

  Julian gave him a sardonic smile. “Arend, honestly. You admitted yourself that he’s a tailcoat chaser—”

  “No, I explained his arrangement with the duchess.” Arend sat taller in his chair, fighting the urge to pull Julian straight upon his lap. To mark him and claim him, before those obnoxious lords made their ill-timed arrival.

  “He’s tupping the viscount, you just said.”

  “Speculated.” Julian lifted another volume and held it aloft, revealing an illustrated cover of three dancing, stylized horses. “Preeners, this lot. Lords’ Council members in disguise?”

  Arend seized the book testily from Julian’s grasp. “Fine. Don’t bother telling me what Samuel said to you—how he flirted with you–last night. It had to have been last night, when I found him talking to you. Don’t tell me anything at all. It’s easy enough to imagine.” Arend huffed, tossing Julian’s book aside. “Sam is incorrigible and awful.”

  “And he was teasing. At the time, he was focused on you and I making amends—after our row last night.”

  Arend set his jaw and stared across the room. After a moment, he murmured, “Still. It’s you. The only you I have in my life at present.”

  The only you I’ll ever want in my life at all. He wished he were brave enough to breathe the damning admission.

  But Jules, as ever, was braver than he: with a wistful smile, his concubine murmured, “Hopefully the only me you shall ever have
, my lord.”

  If only Arend believed he could have Julian, truly have him, for much more than the next few days. He must have been staring in dismay, because Julian reached for his hand and squeezed it. “And you’re the only you I want in my life at all.”

  Arend would have summoned romantic words or reassurances, but just then they heard two sounds at once. Or rather two series of sounds: first Sam and Lucy’s footsteps on the grand staircase, and almost simultaneous to that, the crunch of a carriage on the drive.

  The dreadful moment was upon them: the house party where Arend was to put on the grandest of grand shows.

  He only prayed he could convincingly present Jules as a mere acquaintance, when his heart was shouting another thing entirely.

  Chapter Three

  Julian had always fancied the color red. Red for passion, red for flame, red for desire. And of late, red for House Tollemach. At present, unfortunately, red stood for vexation, as it was the color of his croquet ball, and Lord Vincent Blaine had just knocked the damned thing off the lawn.

  Ever since Lord Vincent had arrived earlier in the morning, the man had been doggedly flirting with him. Jules had hardly encouraged such unwanted attention, not least because of Arend’s high-strung emotional state even before that lordling had arrived.

  Jules grasped the king’s confused emotions, batting Arend about like a fierce wind. The king was quite clearly fighting his growing attachment to Jules, not to mention his confusion over finally indulging his own male lusts. Desires he’d locked away for years, refusing to indulge them even once he’d been widowed from his late queen. And then, yestereve, for the first time in Arend’s life, he’d made love to another man. The king had quite lost his virginity with Julian last night, at the gentle age of one and forty, so he was bound to feel nervy.

  Jules knew all of this, but it hadn’t made Arend’s cool reserve in bed this morning any less painful. He still smarted, his own feelings bruised, trammeled even, because . . . because he was falling in love with his king and master. Even worse, he might well already be in love with Arend: a dangerous proposition for any bed slave under the best of circumstances. One presently made worse by Lord Vincent’s incessant pursuit of Jules.