by Lee Brazil
"If my laird gives his blessing, then I canna hold back my own." Uncertainty still laced Johnnie's voice, but there was no condemnation in his hearty shoulder clasp. "What now?"
"Now, we wait for this stubborn bairn to be born, and my love to get his arse out here."
"I'll get to meet him, then?"
"I'd planned to knock ye senseless and leave the burned plaids at the bothy, set it afire for ye to find, but if ye can pretend ta be suitably grieved over my demise, I'll introduce ye and ye can walk on to the bothy with us before I strike ye."
He stifled his laugh at Johnnie's wince. "Do ye hae to strike me? Canna I just make an untimely call of nature?"
He Could Admit That
"Are ye so sure then that yer man will take kindly to being abducted?"
Ian grunted. The damned noises in this eerie place would surely cover any sound they made. "'Tisn't abduction if he comes willingly."
"Will he?" It seemed almost as though Johnnie wanted to assault Brodick.
Casting a doubtful glance at his younger brother, Ian nodded. "Aye. He's prepared. When the bairn has arrived, he'll come out that door, mount up and head for the path. Did ye think we could overtake a man on horseback without his consent?"
"I thought ye had a plan."
"This is it."
The dim light increased fractionally as the door of the homestead swung open. A slight figure stepped out into the farmyard. It was just a shadow, no features could be distinguished, but Ian knew by the sudden singing of his blood and rapid patter of his heart that the man leaving the farm was Brodick. "Soon…" he whispered, rubbing his palm over the thin scar on his chest again.
"Ian!" Johnnie whispered urgently. "He's goin' the other way!"
Of course he would. His clansmen would expect him to return to the village where he had a small cottage and tended the clan's ills when he wasn't in Aberdeen. "He'll ride out of sight and circle around ta meet us." He will, he promised his rapidly tripping heart. A cold sweat broke out on his brow. A lingering doubt about their plan sent a chill down his spine. He stiffened his back and pressed his lips tight together. Brodick would be at the bothy when they arrived. "Let's go."
"Go? If all we were going to do is sit here in the cold and entertain the spirits, why did we not just await the man at the bothy?"
Because I wanted to be close to him…because I still canna believe that it's finally going to be real? "So I could knock ye on yer head and leave ye in the woods where the MacFarlands wouldna find ye," he snarled. "An' I still might!"
Pulling the plaid closer about himself, he pushed upright and turned his back on the farm, heading back to the bothy where Brodick would come.
***
Johnnie muttered under his breath the whole way back, about the cold, about the plan, about the weird noises, and about the strange otherworldly aura of the MacFarland farm. Ian stalked steadily forward, his heart beating more solidly, less panicked with each step closer to the bothy. Brodick would be there. No way had the man changed his mind in the months since they'd last met in Aberdeen. Not after he'd proven himself a solid and faithful lover over the years.
The quiet familiar nicker of horses reached his ears before the bothy appeared in the darkness. His skin prickled in familiar arousal. He stopped walking, eyes searching the darkness. Brodick was near, he could feel it. His mouth stretched in a grin so huge he thought his lip would split. Johnnie crashed into his back. "God's blood, Johnnie! Are ye this observant on the battlefield?" Ian staggered forward as a man appeared from the darkness and caught him as he stumbled.
"I've got ye." His lover's voice was a sweet husky whisper in the sudden stillness.
Warmth spread in a weakening wave, and tension left his body. "Aye, Brodick, that ye do."
"Who's this, then?" Brodick ducked his head toward Johnnie, who had finally fallen into blessed silence.
"'Tis my brother Johnnie. He wanted to meet ye before we left." Ian glanced back over his shoulder to see that Johnnie had fallen back a few steps and was studying Brodick with intensity.
"Ye were supposed to knock him out."
"I'd rather ye didna." Johnnie found his voice again. "So ye are the MacFarland who's bewitched my brother?"
Brodick's low chuckle started a fire in Ian's belly, stirring lust and emotion alike. "Tend the horses, Johnnie. I’m still considering the benefits ta knocking ye out."
Johnnie grunted, but he obeyed, and Ian was alone with his lover again. At last. "I started a fire inside."
Ian didn't answer, just nudged Brodick in the direction of the tiny hut. Brodick stepped backward, as sure footed in the dark as any cat, or demon, or even old Clootie himself.
In seconds they were inside the rough shelter, and Ian had Brodick exactly where he wanted him, in his arms and pressed tight to his body. Thank God the man had set aside the English trouser he wore in Aberdeen and wore his family plaid with the linen shirt. "Ye are a bonny lad, Brodick," he muttered against damp lips as he loosened the wool garment with a flick of his wrist. The plaid fell in a puddle of greens and blues and reds to the ground, but Brodick grasped his wrist, stilling him as he reached for the fine cock that he'd dreamed of.
"Yer brother?"
Ian shook his head. "Johnnie will sleep under stars. Like many of my kinsmen, he prefers it." He captured Brodick's mouth in a deep kiss, coaxing Brodick's tongue to duel with his as he lifted the man up to grind their cocks together again.
Brodick pulled away, spread the tartan on the ground. "Then come to me, my love. Let's say farewell to our old lives in the place where our new lives began." He stretched out on the fabric, raised his knees, and planted his feet firmly on the ground, giving Ian a view of gleaming flesh flickering in the firelight. Brodick's long thin cock lay against his belly. He stroked it slowly, spreading the glistening droplets from tip to base and back.
Ian groaned, dropping to his knees, and pushed his own garments aside. His cock was thick and veiny, not nearly as pretty a thing as Brodick's. "Aye…Brodick, let me inside." He stared intently at the fine, still smooth hand that worked over Brodick's prick with sureness.
Brodick waved a hand toward the entrance to the hovel where a satchel lay near the earthen wall. "In my bag, there's a bottle of oil. It's for injuries of the skin, but it will do, if ye donna mind the smell."
Ian scrambled across the expanse on his knees, lurching the final distance. He found a bottle, amongst the vials and packets, and returned to his lover. Fumbling with the thing, he eventually managed to smooth some along his length with shaking hands. "Ye have bespelled me, haven't ye?" he murmured. His flesh burned where their bodies touched, his heart raced, ached with need.
Carefully, he pressed his tip to the tiny opening, groaning in relief as it stretched smoothly around him. "Aye…‘tis good." Slowly, watching his lover's eyes for any hint of pain, he slid home, sighing with pleasure as he was at last fully seated. "Ye feel so hot and tight around me, take me so easily." He grunted, shivering with the intensity of feeling as Brodick's passage rippled and clenched around him, massaging his organ.
"Ye stretch me beautifully, Ian. Please…" Brodick traced the scar on Ian's chest with a shaking finger, lips parted in moist demand. Ian obliged him, kissing him over and over as he thrust slowly at first, with more certainty and power as he recognized that his lover wasn't being hurt by his urgency.
They rocked and shifted together, Brodick's prick trapped between the press of their abdomens, rubbing against Ian's furred belly, leaving hot wet kisses of its own on his skin. Higher and higher, hotter and hotter, grew his lust until Ian pulled his mouth from Brodick's to choke out a plea of his own. "Now, Brodick. Come fer me now. I canna hold it back longer."
It seemed his voice was all that Brodick needed to complete his pleasure, for a warm gush of seed spewed between them as Brodick's figure tensed in orgasm, shuddering. Brodick stifled a cry by biting into Ian's shoulder, jerking against him as his clenching passage pulled Ian's orgasm from his as well.<
br />
They lay, breathing harshly in the aftermath, huddled closely together. "Are ye sure, Ian, that this is what ye want?"
Brodick's husky words were barely audible over the thunder of Ian's heart, but he understood them. "Aye. A new life, together."
"What if there isn't a place in the colonies where people like us are welcome, either?"
Protective instincts as old as time surged to the fore. Ian clasped Brodick's hand and drew it to his heart, to the scar that marked the advent of Brodick into his life. "Then we'll make one. New York isn't the whole of the colonies…I hear there's miles and miles of unclaimed land beyond a great river. If New York or Philadelphia isn't for us, we'll keep going until we find or make a place that is."
"We won't ever be able to come home. Ye know that?"
Ian rolled Brodick into his side and held him close. "Whenever I am with ye, I am home. Now sleep, we've a long journey to start on the morrow."
Other Books by Lee Brazil
Available as ebooks from Breathless Press:
Holidays With Jacob
The Accident
Willow
Saint's Curse
It's Simple, Simon
Loving Eden
The Librarian
Loving Jacob
Mark’s Opening Gambit
Trapping Drake
The Man Trap
Truth Deeper Than Logic
"The Park At Sunrise" in Word Play: Story Orgy, Vol 1
TRUTH OR DARE
Keeping House
Telling the Truth
Giving Up
Taking the Dare
Risking it All
Donovan's Deal
Available as e-books with Story Orgy
"The Old Soda Shop" in And The Prompt Is… Volume One
"The Interview" in And The Prompt Is… Holiday Edition
Available as an e-book from Silver Publishing
Less Than All
Available in Paperback
Encounter
A Beautiful Silence
Loving Jacob
Available as Free Stories
Because You're You
"Be A Bad Boy" in Don't Read in the Closet: Volume One
Nothing to Forgive
Coming Soon
A Gentleman Never Does
Setting the Trap