Duck! (Avian Shifters Book 1) (23 page)

Ori reached out to straighten the items on the tray, then hesitated as what Mr. Hamilton was suggesting sunk in. The aches in Ori’s joints made freezing in position painful, but that wasn’t important. “I could make things the way they used to be, sir? I could serve him?”

Hamilton nodded. “No one can deny you anything, sire. If a swan truly wants to serve, no one has any right to try to stop him.”

Ori nodded very slowly as a plan started to take shape inside his head.

Mr. Hamilton smiled. It wasn’t the same as having his master smile at him, but it gave Ori just a little confidence in the possibility that he was about to make the right decision.

Chapter Twelve

Ori’s hands were shaking.

He stared at his grip on the heavy silver tray, but he couldn’t steady his fingers, no matter how hard he tried. His nerves were as good as they were going to get. Ori took a deep breath and nodded to the servant standing by the door leading into his private dining room.

Ori walked through the door and across to the table, without looking in Raynard’s direction. Setting the tray down, Ori delicately placed a plate of food between the various items of cutlery and glassware that he’d carefully arranged there earlier that day.

Raynard really had answered his… Well, Hamilton had referred to it as a summons. Ori thought of it more as a plea to be allowed to see his master. Either way, Raynard was there. Ori felt Raynard’s gaze travel over him as he silently observed him from the other side of the room.

Ori stared at the plate of food he’d carried in. It was Raynard’s favourite meal. It was cooked perfectly. After yet another long day of battling to set his uncle’s business affairs in order, Raynard had to be hungry, but he made no move to approach the table.

“May I take your coat, sir?” Ori whispered, his voice raw with fear he wasn’t capable of hiding.

Raynard slipped his jacket off his shoulders, but he laid it over the back of the chair closest to him rather than let a swan take it from him.

Ori dropped his empty hand back to his side. The movement sent pain flaring along his shoulders.

“What do you mean to prove with all this?” Raynard asked eventually.

“I’m still capable of serving you, sir.”

Raynard shook his head. He seemed about to turn on his heel and walk out of the room. Desperation gave Ori the courage to speak up again.

“Mr. Hamilton said that I’m allowed to insist that you give me a chance, sir.”

Raynard frowned.

Ori quickly looked down. “Just a chance, sir?” There was no word for it but begging. Duck or swan, he wasn’t too proud to beg if that’s what it took.

Raynard’s hand clenched into a fist at his side, but he said nothing.

“Have you eaten, sir?” Ori tried. Raynard didn’t look like he had eaten in days. He’d lost weight. He didn’t look like he’d slept in days, either.

Raynard took a step toward both Ori and the dining table. “Have you?”

“Sir?”

“Eaten.” Raynard waved a hand toward the table set for one.

Ori shook his head. He wouldn’t have kept it down if he’d tried.

Very slowly, Raynard took his seat. Relief rushed through Ori, making him lightheaded with the simple pleasure of being close to his master and feeling all was right with his world.

Ori’s hand shook as he poured water into Raynard’s glass. It was more luck than judgment that none spilled across the carefully ironed tablecloth.

Ori stepped back. Folding his hands behind him, he settled himself to wait for another order.

His rest position, wearing the clothes his master had given him, the very sight of Raynard mingled with the smell of the food—it all combined to bring the memory of all the meals they’d shared together to the front of Ori’s mind. That formal meal in the dining room before they’d visited the nest. The first meal they’d shared in the kitchen, long before Ori had any idea that his master might one day consider him to be anything other than a simple servant. The take-away they’d shared after his first fall from grace…

“Come here.”

Ori stepped forward. Raynard only had to glance at the floor at his side to have Ori kneeling there. Taking a forkful of food from the plate, Raynard offered it to Ori’s lips, just as he had the last time Ori had thought his master was too angry to share a meal with him.

Ori parted his lips, and let Raynard feed him, quick to relish every hint of dominance his former master was willing to offer him and every bit of submission he was allowed to display. For just a little while, it felt as if nothing had changed.

When the last of the food disappeared from the plate, neither of them moved. The room itself seemed to hold its breath.

“One night.”

Ori blinked up at Raynard as he tried to follow his meaning and failed.

“One night together, to give us some sort of…closure on what happened between us before we knew your true nature.”

One night…

It hadn’t been what Ori had hoped for, but he wasn’t too proud to take whatever he could get from his master and cherish every second of it. If one night was all Raynard wanted to give him… Ori closed his eyes for a moment, pushing away all thought of the days that would come after that night, of all the times when his master wouldn’t be there.

Opening his eyes again, he nodded his acceptance of any concession his master was willing to make.

Raynard stroked his fingers through Ori’s sleek, white hair as he made him look up and hold his gaze.

“You understand that this is about finding a way to move on? It’s not about going back.”

Ori nodded again, if only because he knew that was the only way to get the offered night.

“And after tonight, you’ll stop fighting who you really are. You’ll stop refusing to be properly marked as a swan. You’ll stop refusing to stretch your wings.”

Ori hesitated, wondering if Raynard had stopped to speak to Mr. Hamilton on his way up to his suite.

Raynard made a rough, displeased noise in the back of his throat. “Do you really think I wouldn’t notice your wrist is still bare—or how much pain you’re in?”

Ori took a deep breath and nodded his acceptance of those conditions.

Standing up, Raynard stepped away from the dining table. Ori stayed on his knees, his hands still behind his back, waiting hopefully for an order—any order.

“On your feet.”

Ori rose. He instinctively stepped closer to his master, but he managed to keep his hands behind his back.

Raynard stroked his knuckles down Ori’s cheek, then his throat.

No collar blocked the caress. Ori pushed that fact out of his mind as Raynard slid his hand behind his neck and pulled him forward. Ori parted his lips under the kiss the moment their mouths met.

For just a fraction of a second, Raynard seemed to hesitate, to hold back. The world balanced on a knife edge, and Ori had no idea which way it might fall.

Months seemed to pass, then Raynard tightened his grip on him. He dragged Ori closer, almost pulling him off his feet. Raynard took complete possession of Ori’s mouth. Holding Ori tightly against him, Raynard thrust his tongue past Ori’s lips and devoured him. They tumbled off the knife and straight into perfection.

Ori let out a mewing whimper as he leaned into the kiss and tried to push himself onto his toes to bring their bodies in line. Raynard moved his free hand over Ori’s body, seeming to want to touch every inch of him, to own every bit of him—duck, swan or anything else.

Ori kept his hands behind his back, even when his feet left the floor and Raynard lifted him into his arms.

“Bedroom,” Raynard demanded.

Ori looked over his shoulder, toward the door. Raynard didn’t put him down. Kicking the door open, he carried Ori through the marble entrance hall and into the opulent bedroom at the other end of his suite when Ori nodded toward it.

He slammed the bedroom door shut behind them, strode across the thick pile carpet and tossed Ori onto the bed. Ori sprawled on the mattress. He brought his hands from behind his back to try and brace himself, but they slid uselessly on the satiny blankets.

He was only alone on the bed for a second. Before he had a chance to right himself, Raynard was on the bed with him and covering Ori’s body with his own.

“Naked.”

He didn’t pull away to give Ori room to follow the order. Ori had to scramble around beneath him and wriggle out of his clothes in the tiny space he was granted.

His movements only grew clumsier as Raynard started to run his hands over every newly exposed inch of skin. But that didn’t matter—all that really registered in Ori’s mind was that Raynard wanted to touch him—he wasn’t humouring a swan because of some mistaken idea of rank. Raynard really wanted him. His master wanted his submissive.

Ori whimpered his frustration as he struggled to obey Raynard’s order. It took weeks, but he finally managed to kick away the last of his clothes. Ori immediately reached for his master. And, in that moment, that’s what Raynard was—his master. They both knew it. Even if they could only give in to it for one more night, it was the purest form of truth Ori had ever known.

Raynard was his master; Ori belonged to him as thoroughly as any man ever could.

Ori’s preparations for Raynard’s visit had been optimistic. Lube had been placed conspicuously on the bedside cabinet. Raynard snatched up the tube and smeared his fingers. Ori pulled his knees toward his chest in offering.

Raynard didn’t waste time, and Ori pushed his arse back against Raynard’s fingers from the first, encouraging him to thrust them more deeply, more roughly inside him.

Raynard knew Ori’s body. He worked quickly, giving Ori what he needed, nothing more. He took away his hand and smeared more lube onto his shaft.

There was no time to be wasted. That knowledge was right in the front of Ori’s mind, and he could see it in Raynard’s too. If one night was all they could have, there wasn’t a moment to squander.

Raynard moved to kneel between Ori’s spread legs. As Raynard thrust into him, hard and determined, Ori gasped. All he could see in Raynard’s eyes was dominance and possession.

He thought he’d never see Raynard look at him that way again. Now all he could do was glory in it and burn it into his memory so he’d never forget how it felt. Several years seemed to pass, then Raynard began to pull away from him. Ori clung to Raynard’s shoulders through his shirt, desperate not to have him slip through his fingers again.

Nothing he could do stopped Raynard’s retreat. Then, just as true panic started to swirl inside him, Raynard thrust back into him. Raynard moaned his pleasure as Ori clenched tightly around him.

He didn’t even try to shake Ori’s hands away. He let Ori cling to him, and without Raynard’s disapproval to motivate him, Ori didn’t have enough strength to ease his grip on his own. His fingers bit into Raynard’s muscles, and he gripped him as harshly as Raynard had ever held him.

Being in the same room with Raynard after so long had been more than enough to have Ori hard ever since he walked into the dining room. By the second thrust, Ori was already desperate.

Raynard plunged into him again. The soft mattress cushioned his movements, and Ori squirmed against the suffocating comfort that crept around him as he slid against the expensive sheets.

He closed his eyes, imagining they were back in the cold, little attic room. A hard mattress. Serviceable sheets. The chill breeze sneaking in through the open window. He gasped as Raynard’s hold on him tightened.

Raynard’s mouth covered his in a searing kiss. When Ori failed to instantly part his lips, Raynard nipped at them. His tongue thrust into Ori’s mouth and laid its claim to him.

Ori mewed, scrabbling to control his own body even as he helplessly rocked beneath Raynard and tried to complement the rough rhythm. He tipped back his head and let Raynard take whatever he wanted from him and suddenly it didn’t matter where they were.

Permission. When every other thought in Ori’s head disintegrated, that one remained. He needed permission to come. In the weeks since his master had left him at the nest, he’d obeyed every rule within his grasp to the absolute letter. His hand hadn’t strayed to his cock once.

He wasn’t going to come without permission now.

Raynard’s hold on him changed. He pulled back, breaking the kiss.

“Come!”

More a demand than permission, it raced straight to Ori’s cock. He didn’t know if Raynard had realised he was on the edge, he wasn’t even sure Raynard cared one way or the other. Ori belonged to his master, and he’d come when he was told to.

At Raynard’s command, Ori’s orgasm tore through him, seeming to rip apart his mind as more pleasure than any one man could contain exploded inside him. Raynard thrust into him again, as Ori’s cum spilled against his stomach.

Every inch of his skin sung out with an overload of sensations. As Raynard slammed his cock into him once more, his clothes rasped against Ori’s body, a pure point of reality mixed in with all the cloying softness the elders had tried to wrap him in.

His master hadn’t come.

Even as his own ecstasy rushed through him, the thought jumped up and down inside Ori’s mind, screaming for his attention.

If Raynard intended to let Ori come, he almost always gave him permission to orgasm just as he was about to climax himself. Ori blinked open his eyes and looked up at his master.

He hadn’t come. His master hadn’t come.

Raynard slowly pulled away from Ori. Ori tightened his grip on his master’s shoulders, as he tried to make sense of what was happening and failed. Fear flashed through him. Raynard really had meant it when he said he had no interest in a swan and…