Strongman

by Denise Rossetti

  Fort’s strong brown throat moved as he swallowed. “Yes,” he said in a slow, ragged whisper, as if the word had been dragged out of him. “But it’s insane. Why you? I’ve never…not with a man.”

  All amusement had fled. Griff jabbed a hard finger into Fort’s chest. “Then work it out, mighty captain. I did. The logic isn’t that difficult.”

  “Stop that.” Fort grabbed his wrist. “What logic?”

  “It’s the same with me. I prefer women, all right? Always have. And you’re such a godsawful, fucking mess, you said it yourself. Too difficult, too complicated. So why can’t I just walk away? Why can’t you?”

  “Griff—”

  Stepping right into Fort’s body, Griff wrenched himself free and dug hard fingers into the big man’s biceps. “I’ll tell you why.” There was enough strength in his shake to make the other man shift his feet. He bit out the words, low and intense. “I fucking love you. Forever, gods help me.” Griff uncramped his fingers, moved away from the heat of the other man’s body. “Got it?”

  Fort choked, but his beautiful eyes went so dark they shone like water on a moonless night. Griff braced himself for the rejection, ready to push past it, force the other man to confront his feelings. But it didn’t come. Instead, Fort said hoarsely, “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m bloody sure! Why would I say it if I wasn’t sure?”

  Fort shook his head and Griff slid a hand up over his shoulder, pressing his hips into Fort’s, rubbing the rigid length of their cocks together. Twister, that was good! He reached up to fit his lips to the other man’s and paused.

  No, not this way.

  Deliberately, he took two paces back, never shifting his gaze from Fort’s. “I won’t seduce you again, not this time.” He backed away ‘til he felt the narrow bed hit him behind the knees. “My life is yours.” His knees went weak suddenly and he sat with a graceless thump, grateful for the support beneath him. “And not just because you saved it. But if you want more, you’re going to have to come over here and take it.” His attempt at a smile went awry. “All by yourself.”

  A flush spread out of the open collar of Fort’s work shirt and raced up over his neck and face, until his olive skin glowed. “You think I don’t know how I feel?” he growled. “I’m not stupid and I dreamed—” He broke off.

  “Go on,” breathed Griff. “What did you dream?” Slowly, he leaned back on his elbows, spread his thighs. Fort’s molten gaze dropped to the bulge of his crotch and his breath hitched. Griff’s cock throbbed in response.

  “Doesn’t matter.” His big fists clenched and he took a step forward. “I want, I want—” Another step.

  “Yes?” murmured Griff, his voice a thread, his cock rearing hard against the fabric of his trews. Absently, he curled his fingers around it.

  “I know I’ve lost my mind, but I don’t fucking care.” Fort ran a hand through his hair. He lifted his gaze, his magnificent eyes blazing, and Griff’s lungs seized up. “I want you. Only you.”

  Without warning, Fort hurled himself at the bed, driving Griff into the mattress. Wood creaked ominously and the bed listed to one side and then subsided to the floor. Griff laughed aloud. He was still laughing when Fort slammed their mouths together, his fingers spearing into the tumbler’s hair to hold him still.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Drown me in your night-dark cloud,

  Drown me, drown me, drown me.

  And I’ll be glad to go,

  Wrapped in your hair, my silky shroud.

  Ah, softly, softly, softly.

  “Lufra’s Cloud”, Song of the Feolin (trad.)

  Lufra, it was beyond good to feel Griff’s hard body straining against his, to feel the softness of his lips, the strength of his jaw. He tasted wild, fierce, male—intoxicating.

  Fort had known the tumbler would return to the Fair. While he’d refused to let himself think about it, every night for the past month he’d hadn’t slept worth shit. And at unpredictable intervals, his guts would cramp up for no reason. Hell, it wasn’t often Fort McLaren didn’t know what to do, had no idea what to expect.

  It had only taken a few days with Griff in the Winged Envoy’s palazzo to push him to desperation point. Watching the tumbler sleep, holding him when he grew restless, it had driven him mad with a jangling confusion of feeling. And by the time Griff had recovered sufficiently to study him with a dark thoughtful gaze, he felt as though his thoughts were tattooed on his forehead. I love you. I’m fucking insane, but I love you. More than I loved Bekah. Harder, deeper. More.

  Never in his life had he felt so exposed. Fuck it, so panicked! Suppose Griff returned to himself and decided Fort had been some aberration in his life? Or a joke? Or a fling? Or—?

  The waiting, the uncertainty, was simply unbearable.

  So when Tril snapped at him, “Look, Fort, for the twentieth time, my professional opinion is that he will not die if you leave,” Fort had made his decision. Before he made a complete fool of himself, he’d taken his chance, seized on the messages Jan wanted him to deliver in Mother’s Hearth, and run.

  But gods, how he’d missed the little shit, missed him with an empty aching weariness that had ground him down, made him savage and short-tempered. When he’d turned to see him grinning at the door, the sloe eyes sparkling with wicked heat— A sort of red haze had descended over his vision and he’d come within a hairsbreadth of picking the tumbler up, shoving him against the wall and devouring him in a couple of huge, hungry bites.

  Lufra, yes!

  He dug his fingers into the waistband of Griff’s trews and yanked. Without missing a beat of the kiss that glued their mouths together, the tumbler raised his hips. Fort’s hand closed hard over his leaping cock and Griff groaned into the big man’s mouth, the words barely intelligible. “Fuck me. Gods, fuck me.”

  Fort wasn’t capable of speech at all, his balls so swollen and hot, he could feel the offering already seething at the broad root of his cock. He wrenched himself away, gasping, and Griff flipped himself over, his taut ass curving up, his legs spread as far as the trews would permit. The dark pucker of his asshole clenched and fluttered with his frantic breaths and he reached beneath him to tug on his erection.

  Cream, he needed some kind of cream. Fort ripped his trews down and his cock sprang forward like a hungry beast. Shit, shit, shit! Where—? He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think at all.

  “Pocket,” panted Griff, fumbling with his trews. “Quick.”

  With a bark of laughter, Fort took the little pot from him. “You knew, didn’t you?” He tossed the lid over his shoulder and dug his fingers into the slippery stuff.

  “Hoped. Aaargh!”

  “Serves you right.” Fort added another finger and twisted. Griff sobbed a curse, his hips rising. “You wanted quick.” He scooped out another generous fingerful and slathered it over his heavy shaft. Then he set his broad head to the small opening and pushed.

  Griff grunted as his flesh parted reluctantly to let Fort in, the incredible heat gloving his glans, the narrow passage squeezing down on him. All the fine hair on Fort’s body stood up and shivers of delight spilled down his spine, a fierce, dark joy blooming behind his breastbone. “That’s the head,” he rumbled. “Ready for the rest?”

  “Fuck, yes!” Griff pushed back, took another inch. “More!”

  Fort flexed his hips and thrust, sinking to the balls in one long glide, the sensation so excruciatingly pleasurable his vision blurred. He dug his fingers into Griff’s hips and leaned into the other man’s back, pushing his shirt out of the way so he could get to the expanse of sleek muscled skin. When he tried pulling back slowly, Griff dropped his head to the pillows, his desperate fingers clawing the sheet. “Hard,” he moaned. “Hard and fast. Before I die.”

  “Fuck yes!” Fort released all control, his hips hammering into Griff’s ass, the tumbler writhing and crying out beneath him. He ran his hands over the other man’s flanks, reaching around to stroke his belly and g
rip his cock. Griff howled and Fort squeezed harder, rammed farther. And then the other man’s shaft was rippling in his palm, his rectal muscles clamping down brutally hard. A mind-searing jolt of pleasure ignited low and hard in Fort’s balls and the seed surged down his length in a long, flooding, ecstatic spasm that robbed him of breath, of sense.

  Griff collapsed beneath him and he rode him down to the pillows in a boneless fog, his face buried in the other man’s hair. “Love you,” Fort whispered, still lost in that blissful floating sensation. “Gods, I—” He pressed his lips together.

  “I heard.” Griff turned his head and smiled brilliantly, revealing his crooked tooth. “I’m the only one who will ever hear.” He reached back to touch his fingertips to Fort’s cheek. “Because you’re mine, the same way I’m yours. Aren’t you?” His eyes gleamed with a gut-wrenching, thrilling possessiveness.

  Speechless, Fort nodded. Then he found his voice, because it needed to be said. “Yes.” He brushed his lips over Griff’s hair, then shifted away, wiping his sticky shaft with a handful of sheet. He sat up, pulled off his boots and trews and threw them on the floor.

  “Shirt.” Griff tugged at the hem, his gaze so frankly admiring, Fort could feel the heat burn in his cheeks.

  He cleared his throat. “You too.”

  Grinning, Griff kicked off his boots. Then he rose, making a production out of shimmying out of the trews, pulling the shirt off over his head.

  “Slut,” said Fort to conceal his sigh of envy and longing. So smooth, so beautiful.

  “For you, sweetie, only for you.” Griff punched him on the shoulder and turned to pour water from the kettle into a bowl.

  When Griff spoke, Fort was so lost in the fluid line of his spine, the flex of his buttocks, that he missed it. “What?” he said stupidly.

  “Cloth?” said Griff patiently, obviously not for the first time.

  Fort pointed. “Cupboard.” It was amazing. That uncomfortable spiky feeling in his gut had disappeared, gone as if it had never been.

  “Lie back.” Hard hands shoved him in the middle of the chest and he stretched out, automatically avoiding the wet spot. Griff chuckled. Then he wiped Fort’s stomach with the warm wet cloth, moving down to his genitals and his thighs.

  Fort lifted his gaze to the little wooden figure of the Goddess in the worship niche. What did She think now She’d had Her way with him? Was She pleased?

  I give you joy, child.

  He ran his hand up Griff’s thigh, enjoying the feel of the long muscle beneath the hair-dusted skin, the latent power of it. The tumbler purred, pushing into his touch. This was his joy, this wondrous, infuriating being of muscle and quicksilver wit and warmth. Fort’s throat closed and he swallowed hard.

  Griff finished cleaning himself up and tossed the cloth aside. Scooping up a shirt from the floor, he laid it over the wet spot and stretched out next to Fort with a contented grunt, his head on his shoulder.

  “Hey!” Fort gripped a fistful of silky golden-brown hair and tugged. “That’s my shirt!”

  Griff winked, unrepentant. “Of course.” He wriggled closer. “Twister, this bed’s small.”

  “Come here.” Fort hauled the other man on top of him, their bodies sealed together from chest to knee, their legs tangling.

  Griff buried his nose in Fort’s neck. “You like this. You did it last time.”

  “Mmm.” Fort skimmed his palms over the strong knobs of Griff’s spine, kneaded a taut buttock.

  Griff nibbled a tingling path down the strong muscle in the side of Fort’s neck. “Never thought of you as the cuddly type.” He slid a hand over the big man’s chest, took a nipple between his fingers and tugged.

  The caress echoed in Fort’s genitals as if a line of fire connected the two points. “Go to hell,” he managed.

  The other man chuckled, low and wicked. “Then I’m taking you with me.”

  Fort’s heartbeat throbbed in the head of his cock, a delightful, nagging ache. He shifted his hips, rubbing his swelling length against Griff’s. The tumbler lifted his head, his dark eyes twinkling with wicked pleasure. Humming under his breath, he licked Fort’s lower lip, teasing and nipping.

  “Griff?”

  “Mmm?”

  “I have to go back to work soon.”

  “So?” The tumbler slithered down and sucked Fort’s nipple into his mouth. He bit, simultaneously taking the other man’s shaft in a strong, confident grip.

  “Lufra!” Fort arched under the lash of the small pain. “Can we— I need—”

  Griff lifted his head. “No rush. They won’t expect to see you again today.” He swapped sides to torture the other nipple. His busy fingers squeezed Fort’s girth, rubbed and caressed. He murmured into his skin. “Gods, you taste good.” Then he added, “Or even tomorrow.”

  Fort’s brain was all muzzy and dazed. He struggled. “Why?”

  The tumbler licked a long trail across Fort’s belly, blew on it. “I saw Leo on the way in.”

  Fort shot upright. “You told him?”

  “Didn’t have to.” Griff kneeled between his thighs, Fort’s cock still held in a businesslike grip. “They know,” he said. “For Twister’s sake, they’d have to be blind as well as stupid!”

  “Shit!” Fort reached down and wrapped his hand around Griff’s. “Stop,” he growled. “I can’t think.” A hot shaming wave flooded over him. Crookedness.

  “No.” Griff’s jaw bunched. He leaned forward, his sloe eyes snapping. “Get it through your thick skull, Fort. They don’t fucking care. No one cares but you.” Abruptly, he released the other man and sat back on his heels. “I will not be your dirty little secret.” His cheeks flushed. “You said you love me. I heard you.”

  Fort shut his eyes and counted five breaths. Lufra, give me strength. He opened them again. “Yes.” Slowly, he reached out and took the tumbler’s face in his hands. “I did. I do. But I told you I was fucked up.”

  Griff snorted. “You’re big enough and mean enough to cope. It’s too late anyhow. They probably knew before you did.”

  Two feathery tails twining together with nonchalant, explicit intimacy. What would Jan do if someone sneered at him and Mirry? Fuck, that was easy. Kill them.

  Fort huffed out a pained laugh. He couldn’t kill everyone. Hell, the whole Fair knew and he hadn’t even been aware of it. There’d been no sniggers, no sidelong looks. He wasn’t a boy any longer, caught in the grip of the Straight Church. Fuck, he knew how to be intimidating, didn’t he? He’d made a career of it. Hiding wasn’t an option, not anymore. Anyway, how much worse could it get? He already knew nothing could be worse than losing Griff. Nothing.

  The tumbler was still speaking. “Did you know Leo shares a wagon with the barman from the grog tent? And it’s not platonic.”

  “Really? Who else?”

  Casually, Fort ran his hands down Griff’s arms to his wrists. Then he tightened his grip, jerking the other man down hard, flat on his back with his arms over his head. Griff stared up at him, his eyes wide, his mouth open.

  “You ruined my bed,” growled Fort, dropping over him with his full weight. Griff grunted with the impact. “And gods, you’re going to pay.”

  Griff’s eyes narrowed and he flexed his arms. “Who’s going to make me?”

  Fort thrust his face into the other man’s. “I am, pretty boy.” A rusty chuckle bubbled out of him. “Lufra, you should see your face.”

  “Fuck it, I am not pretty!” Griff surged up, so strong that Fort had to put real effort into keeping him pinned. “I can take you any day, old man.”

  Fort circled his hips in a leisurely fashion, rubbing his erection against Griff’s. He raised a taunting brow. “You think? Didn’t do too well last time.”

  Griff’s eyes went brilliant with excitement and lust. “Come with me to the practice tent.”

  “Uh-huh.” Fort delivered a long lick across Griff’s chest, flicking a rosy-brown nipple on the way past, relishing the other man’s helpless shudder
s. “Why?”

  “Mats. On the floor.” Griff writhed under his seeking mouth, his hips arching. “All kinds of equipment. Do you know what I’m going to do to you when I win?”

  “Cocky little shit, aren’t you?”

  Griff stretched, flaunting himself in Fort’s grip. “In every possible way.” He lowered his voice to a lazy murmur. “I’m going to do everything you’ve done to me, Fort.”

  Lufra’s tits! All the blood in Fort’s body spilled into his cock, so that it reared like a trained vran and he felt dizzy. Gods, what if he lost? They were so evenly matched, only luck had given him victory last time. Shit, the bastard was as clever as a fellwolf and very nearly as strong. Heat exploded at the base of Fort’s spine, stealing his breath, sizzling into his skull, frying his brain.

  When he came to, he found he had both Griff’s wrists in one hand, the hot bulk of the other man’s cock in a stranglehold in the other fist. He was pumping ruthlessly fast, sliding the satin skin over the rigid core. The tumbler was gasping, his face contorted, sweat pouring off him. His hips hammered up, thrusting into Fort’s grip.

  “Let me—” Griff jerked his wrists. “Please.”

  Something in his tone, perhaps the word itself, wrapped itself around Fort’s heart and squeezed. He opened the fingers holding Griff’s wrists. The moment he was released, Griff reared up, pulling Fort’s head down into a bruising kiss, all thrusting tongue and desperate suction. Strong fingers seized Fort’s cock and stroked, a hard, confident pull that shattered his control, fractured and remade his soul. The offering surged, spraying out of him endlessly. Every time he thought it had finished, the feel of Griff’s shaft spurting in ecstasy in his hand, his throaty whimpers, pushed it higher and higher, until his whole world narrowed to sensation so pure it hurt. Ah gods, an absolute perfection of hurt!