The Ruse
The Ruse
An Ennis/Jack A/U A/U rated NC17
I wrote this some time back just for fun, to blow out the cobwebs, clear the decks, wipe the slate, and otherwise rest my brain in between writing chapters of IBSY. I’ve shared it privately with a few friends, and I’ve decided why not share it with all my friends? This little excuse for smex is pretty far from the mountain, but I hope you’ll recognize the two main characters under their costumes.
My deepest thanks to Jean.
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“Conte Del Mar?” the soft-voiced servant addressed his master. The valet did not much care for their new residence in this damp and dreary land, but he served the last scion of the Italian dynasty that owned this substantial piece of soggy Irish real estate. When the last holder of the deed expired, the land passed to Ennis Del Mar, and the young nobleman had taken it into his head to have a look at his new possession. As a bondservant, Giuseppe had little choice but to follow his master into the fogs and bogs.
“You must call me Count now that we are in Angleterre,” Ennis said without inflection. “And I shall call you… Joe.”
“Yes, my lord,” Giuseppe Aguirre said. The recently elevated Count del Mar was a man of few words and remarkably steady for one who had not seen twenty summers. Though Ennis could be curt, and did not suffer fools, Giuseppe found the new count easier to work for than his late sire, or elder sibling. Twas a pity that Ennis’s drunken blowhard of a father had taken the Countess Del Mar with him to the grave when he insisted on driving his own coach, but the old count’s passing was unlamented by any. Ennis’s brother, Kenneth, had inherited the title, only to pass it on two weeks later when a cuckolded husband ran him through with a handy sword. The Del Mar servants did not mourn him either.
In the valet’s opinion, the young Count was a true aristocrat, unlike the other members of his family. Ennis Del Mar had the natural haughtiness of his breeding and station, but he never took more than his due. The Count did not coddle his servants, but neither did he punish them for naught. He treated them with the care due livestock on which he depended for his living. Just as it should be, in Giuseppe’s opinion.
“Have you brought my bed-warmer?” the Count asked.
Giuseppe kept his expression carefully impassive. “Yes, my lord,” he said, not mentioning, of course, the extra trouble he’d been put to because the priggish English staff pretended to be unable to understand what he wanted of them. Giuseppe repaid them by performing a pantomime that left no doubt as to what service his lordship required, causing several of the female servants to blush and giggle. Giuseppe did not approve personally of his lord’s taste in paramours, but he was not the sort to fail in his duty, however repugnant it might be. “I cannot vouch for the quality, my lord,” Giuseppe said. “But give me a day or so and I will procure something suitable from the city.”
The Count raised his eyebrows slightly in a subtle signal.
“Enough of my excuses,” Giuseppe said quickly. He reached behind him and pulled a young man into the bedchamber. “Please his lordship and you will go home with silver in your pockets, boy. Misbehave and you will feel my fist, understand?”
The peasant lad nodded meekly. The foreigner had been saying much the same thing as they’d walked through the halls of the castle. It was quite clear to the boy what his choices were. He could accept the advances of this nobleman and sleep in a fine bed with a full belly tonight, or he could refuse and be thrown from the gates with kicks and curses to sleep out of doors with the grumbling of his stomach for company.
“He is called Jack, my lord,” Giuseppe said.
"You may speak freely, boy," Ennis invited.
"My lord, I know not how to address you."
"My lord will do, or Count del Mar, but I would rather you called me Ennis for the night."
"I could not!” Earnest blue eyes opened wide in shock at such disrespect.
"But I insist," Ennis said, drawing him into the room by the hand. "Come, sit with me and give me the pleasure of your company."
"Why?" the peasant asked.
"Have you never seen your image in the water, or a piece of polished metal?"
Jack ducked his head. "I am not worthy of your regard, lord."
"I say what is worthy and what is not in my domain. Do you dispute my right to do so?"
"No, my lord," Jack gasped, kneeling at the man's feet, looking up in appeal. "Forgive me."
"How can I resist those eyes?" Ennis cupped the young man's chin on his palm. "Or those lips. How I long to see you naked on your knees. Come; there is a bath prepared for you."
Jack went docilely where the nobleman pointed, doffed his rags and climbed into the large wooden tub. He sat in the hot water, meekly passive as the count tended to him. Ennis plied soap and cloth over every inch of grimy skin, taking his time, and doing a thorough job that left the young man pink and aroused. When Ennis signaled for Jack to stand, the peasant was reluctant. Impatiently, the count took the boy’s hand and hauled him from the water, an appreciative look softening his features when he saw Jack's state of excitement.
"No need for embarrassment; you've a handsome set of tackle," Ennis said.
Jack let his eyelids drift down, mortified by his indiscretion.
"Do not fear, boy," Ennis said. "Your arousal is a compliment to me. I would very much like to touch you again. While it is true that I could command you to my bed, I am not the sort that takes pleasure in force; I prefer that it be by your choice."
Shyly, the young peasant took the foreign noble's hand and guided it to his hip. Ennis's large hand slid over smooth, wet skin, reveling in the texture as he moved to stand behind Jack. Jack shivered as long fingers spread across his lower belly, the tips just grazing the top of his pubic pelt.
"My lord, you make me feel so… strange," Jack murmured.
"Have you not been with a man before?"
Jack heard the infinitesimal, telltale quiver in the count's voice. This was del Mar’s pleasure it seemed: the initiation of a virgin. "I have never been with a man," he said. "I have taken certain pleasures with other boys and maidens, but I have not..."
"You have not given yourself? Do not fear; I have said I will not force you."
"How can I deny you anything, my lord?"
Ennis stripped off his tunic and the white shirt underneath to reveal a powerful chest with patches of reddish brown hair and pink nipples that made Jack's mouth water. Reminding himself not to act too eager, he fixed his gaze on Ennis's hands, as the nobleman opened his trousers. Ennis stepped closer, lifting a wing of Jack's glossy hair on his palm. "You may touch me," he said. "As you would if you wished to pleasure yourself."
Jack nodded, wrapping his fist around Ennis's cock. With a glance upward for permission, he began to stroke the hard suede-skinned rod of flesh, hesitantly at first, but faster and with a firmer grip as Ennis began to breathe heavily. "May I kiss it?" he asked.
"That would please me greatly." Ennis sighed as the boy's perfect lips touched the tip of his shaft; the moment charged with erotic energy that shot from Ennis's cock to every nerve ending. The peasant continued tentatively, drawing out each caress as if it were the first time he'd ever had his mouth on a cock, and was finding out just how good it tasted. Jack felt the waves of bliss radiating from the count, growing stronger by the moment. Ennis gazed dreamily into the doe eyes turned up to him and smiled. "You have a talent for love play, boy," he said.
"Thank you, my lord."
"I find I am not ready to spill my seed. Get on the bed and let me show you how a man lays with another man."
Jack climbed onto the big bed and relaxed against the massed pillows. "Show me, my lord."
Ennis sat on the side of the mattress, running his hands up the long legs until he reached the place where they joined. Jack's lips parted on a soft sigh as the man ran a forefinger down the underside of his stiff flesh. The light touch trailed down over his sack to his opening and back to the head of his arousal.
"That feels very good, my lord," Jack said breathlessly.
"It will feel even better very soon," Ennis said. "I am going to oil my fingers and put them inside you. Have you done this before?"
"Nay, my lord," Jack said. "Will it not hurt?"
"Not for long. Can you be brave for a few moments? If so, you will be rewarded with great pleasure; my word on it."
"I will try, lord."
"Good lad," Ennis said, taking up a bottle of sweet oil from the table. The man poured some of the amber liquid over his fingers and shifted position so that he was leaning on one elbow. "Put your right foot on my shoulder," he said, pushing Jack's left knee to the linen. "I'll swear any oath you like that you are the most beautiful sight I've ever seen and that I will use you gently," he said, gazing the length of the boy's inviting form. "Try not to flinch, or tighten your muscles, and it will be easier for you."
Ennis nudged Jack's hole and Jack made a small sound as the tip of the digit eased into him. "Shhh, caro mio,” the count soothed. “It is just the end of my finger. Take a moment and get used to the feel of it inside you." Ennis moved his finger gently, describing lazy circles on the walls of the resilient channel. Jack fidgeted, moving restlessly against the sheets as the count probed deeper. Ennis leaned his cheek against Jack's inner thigh and kissed the smooth skin. "Shhh, I have found it… just here."
"My lord!" Jack exclaimed, clutching fistfuls of the sheet. "What are you doing to me? I have never felt anything like this."
Ennis smiled, and leaned forward to lick a wet stripe up the boy's taut arousal. Jack cried out in pleasure and surprise as his back arched off the mattress. The count bent his neck to take the head of the peasant's cock in his mouth as he prepared him. Jack moaned and gasped for breath at the sensation of suction on his shaft while the finger moved in and out of him. Ennis delved deeper on each pass and when the entire length of his finger sank into the tight channel, he added another. Jack whimpered as he was stretched, instinctively trying to move away from the discomfort, but it was brief and he was soon panting with the intensity of the pleasure he was feeling.
"Ah, my lord, that is so sweet. You must have witchcraft in your hands."
"It is not black magic," Ennis said. "I will show you how to do it yourself, but not just now. Now I must be inside you or burst."
"Your manhood is much larger than two fingers," Jack said.
"It will be a bit uncomfortable for a moment, but I have prepared you well. Indeed, you may find that you are able to achieve release as I take my pleasure."
Jack took a deep breath. "You have spoken the truth to me thus far. I will trust you again."
Ennis leaned in, bending Jack double, and claimed a kiss from the sweet lips as rubbed the tip of his cock against the boy’s glistening opening. The nobleman flexed his buttocks and the head of his rod pushed into velvety heat. Jack cried out, and tensed, his knuckles as white as the linen. Ennis soothed the young man, fondling Jack’s wilting arousal, but did not halt his progress until half his length was sheathed.
"I have... changed my mind," Jack said in a strained voice. "Take it out, please."
"Indeed I shall,” Ennis said as he began to withdraw.
Jack groaned and then gasped as the blunt head of the thick cock dragged across the slight swell in the front wall of his passage.
Ennis rocked forward again, rubbing against that tantalizing spot, and immediately pulled back out to the threshold, pausing at the brink. Jack squirmed, tilting his pelvis in a blind attempt to take in more of the hard rod and feel that bolt of dulcet lightning again. The nobleman obliged the peasant lad, pulsing his hips in the shallowest of strokes, prodding persistently at the young man's trigger point.
"Do you still wish me to take it out?" Ennis asked.
"Nay, please do not stop, my lord. I find that it is not so bad after all."
"What a fine and comely lad you are," Ennis said, pumping the young man's length to new hardness. “And how apt to this game. Perhaps I will take you into my service for more than one night.”
“This is a most pleasant duty,” Jack replied, forgetting Ennis’s title in his daze of bliss.
“Naught else would be required of you.”
“Then you have my fealty, and much else besides. Take what you will of me.”
“You stir me to my core, boy,” Ennis breathed as he increased the speed of his thrusts.
Ennis shuttled his hand rapidly up and down Jack's arousal, running his thumb up the thick vein on the underside. Jack threw back his head and yelped in oblivious fulfillment as his balls tightened and he spurted powerfully. Ennis lengthened his stroke, pushing deeper into Jack as the quaking channel contracted around his plunging shaft. Jack bucked and writhed against the costly fabric of the coverlet as the nobleman drove into him in single-minded pursuit of climax. Each thrust extended the orgasm that reverberated through Jack’s lower half, making him giddy with pleasure. Jack's obvious delight sent the Ennis over the edge. Never had he felt such a sense of completion, such profound satisfaction that he needed for nothing else as long as it lasted. Reluctantly withdrawing from the snug and swampy port, he wrapped his arms around Jack and rolled so that the boy was topmost.
"That was a foretaste of Paradise," the count said softly. "Will you stay with me? You would want for nothing."
“You have taken my virginity,” Jack said, looking down into the other man’s sated gaze. “Under Irish law, I am entitled to seek recompense of you.”
“Entitled? Recompense?” Ennis stirred from his post-coital daze. “Those are odd words to come from the mouth of a peasant lad.”
“I am not base-born, but the true heir to this house,” Jack said. “If not for your ancestor’s treachery, I would be sleeping in this bed every night.”
“Fascinating,” the count said. “Do go on.”
“Well… now that you’ve disgraced me, you have to provide for me.”
“Gladly. I have already offered the same. What else?”
“I want my title.”
“I will see what I can arrange. Surely it will not be a difficult matter to have your patents of nobility reinstated if proven to be authentic.”
Jack frowned. “Revenge might be a little sweeter if you put up a bit of a fight.”
“No, no. Your ruse was masterful. I surrender utterly to your greater wit, and your uncontested charms.”
“I see,” Jack said slowly. “I suppose there’s no need to have you tossed out if you recognize my rights as lord of this manor.”
“I sincerely hope not. I am beginning to like Ireland very much.”
“No hard feelings then?”
Ennis looked down at his crotch. “Perhaps some.”
Jack gazed on the count’s renewed arousal. “Perhaps we should make sure that I am no longer a virgin so the courts can have no doubt.”
“It would be my pleasure to defile you again.”
“You were really quite sweet.”
“Sorry to disappoint you. Would you like me to oppress you a little more this time?”
“If it would not be any trouble.”
“Not at all.” Ennis grasped Jack’s wrist and yanked him down onto his back. “Now, saucy boy, I shall teach you to respect your betters.”
Jack smiled as the count commenced a thorough ravishing. His clever scheme hadn’t gone quite as he’d planned, but all was well as ended better, and there were more important things in life than real estate.
The End