by Hunter, Kiran; Gregory, Elin; La Roche, Tristram; Hartsock, Dianne; George, Reneé
“Let me do that,” I said, supporting myself on my elbows as I struggled to sit up. He wasn’t having any of it though. His hand worked my cock and all I could do was watch him, his body covered in a sheen of sweat, his muscles tensing and relaxing as he moved, eyes glazed with lust as he watched me gasp and moan until I thought I couldn’t hold back any longer.
He paused…for a moment all I saw were stars and moonlight and all I could hear was our labored breathing echoing around the room. He started again, faster and faster, and all I could feel was his hot fist around my shaft and tension building.
Fuck! I drew a final sharp breath and my hips bucked as wave upon wave of pleasure pulsed through me, the rush so intense I thought it was never going to end. I yelled out, warm cum spurting over my torso.
I barely had time to catch my breath before I felt the woodcutter’s hand slithering up my stomach and across my chest to tweak a nipple. He stood up, and I found the strength to push myself upright, reaching out to grab his cock and take it in my mouth. He groaned as I began to suck him, his fingers in my hair holding my head still as he began to move his hips back and forth, fucking my mouth as my fingers dug into his buttocks. I loved the feel of hard muscles flexing beneath my hands. I savored the taste of him and breathed in his scent, musky and heady. He thrust faster, then stopped… The sound that burst from his lips as he came was like an animal roaring into the night, and I swallowed his cum as it pumped down my throat, my cock already throbbing for attention again. I released the woodcutter, closing my eyes as I licked the trail of his cum from my tingling lips, and floated into ecstasy as I felt his strong hand around me again—
I shivered. Whatever I had been sleeping on was bloody hard and it was freezing cold. I opened my eyes, blinking against the morning sunlight, and looked around at the inside of a stone building, completely bare except for the stone seat on which I lay. I turned my head and through the open doorway I could see wisps of autumn mist floating eerily just above a patio. Damn it. I must have had too much to drink, though not enough to stop my cock from being ready for action. I sat up, realized my disheveled state, and sorted out my clothing. Strange images and sensations flooded my mind, and my erection grew.
Pack it in, I thought as I got up. I must have wandered outside last night and fallen asleep in the broken-down outbuilding. I hurried down the steps and across the lawn toward the main road, hoping Hargrave wasn’t up early enough to see his hung-over employee making a hasty exit. As I reached the gate I felt for my cell phone to call a taxi.
When I pulled the phone out of my pocket, something fell to the floor, and I bent to pick it up. As I turned the small object over and over everything came rushing back—the mirror, the moonlight, the serpents. The smell of damp earth and sex. Once, and never again, old Hargrave had said.
No way! Not for me. I would return. Time and again. Year after year if that’s what it took to find the woodcutter again.
I would never give up.
I smiled and slipped the acorn back into my pocket, then dialed for the taxi.
Set in Stone
Elin Gregory
“Dare you.” Bethan grinned at me through the steam from her coffee mug. “Double dog dare you!"
Here’s the thing. Mountain Rescue teams are all volunteers—farmers, plumbers, ex—army back hoe drivers like me—giving up time willingly because we love the mountains and we want everyone who goes to them to be safe. Sadly, not everyone who does will be. The training is good fun, but the work can be dangerous, and as you rappel down a cliff to find out whether the body you've spotted is still breathing, it's good to know that the other guy, the one holding you on the top rope, has a sense of humor and doesn’t hold a grudge.
There are various ways to find out. I think they call it hazing in the States. It had happened in the army and I’d been expecting it here in Wales, too, but this was a little more serious than being sent to the stores for a “long weight.”
“It'll be cold as a witch’s tit up there.” I nodded toward the hill beyond the window—no need to cave in too easily. “And it looks like rain.”
“Don’t be such a wuss, Joe.” Bethan gestured with her coffee mug. “If you survived Afghanistan you can survive a night in the Beacons. Take your sleeping bag and a bivvy sack. We've all done it, haven't we, boys?”
Bethan's brother interrupted the rumble of agreement. Greg is a big, calm, brown bear of a man—Grizzly Adams dressed by Berghaus—the muscle of the team, and the one I would most like to have permanently on my top rope, if you catch my drift. Right now, he looked worried.
“I wouldn’t spend the night by Maen Madoc at this time of year.” His rich, strongly accented baritone added weight to his words. “Not at the dark of the moon, when the way between the worlds wears thin."
Oh, they have a way with words, do the Welsh. We all paused to savor them, then someone chuckled, and we drowned any further warning in laughter.
“Oh go on, then,” I said. “Though if I’d known spending Halloween with you losers meant having to sleep rough, I’d have worn my thermals.” I put my boots and parka on and grabbed my pack. To my surprise, Greg had geared up too and waited at the door.
"I'll set you on your way," he said, his eyes on his hands as he zipped his jacket. "The path can be hard to find in the dark."
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do, boys," Bethan called as Greg opened the door.
I laughed and made the appropriate gesture by way of farewell.
Outside in the windy dusk, Greg grunted an apology as he set off across the yard. "She doesn't mean anything by it. I mean, you did say you were gay, and…she says that kind of thing to Ellis and George all the time, and they've both been married for twenty years."
"No offence taken," I assured him. "Now—this path?"
My old sergeant would have had no complaints at the pace Greg set across the hillside, but then, he was bred to it. He and Bethan were born just down the valley on the farm the family have worked since sixteen hundred and something. She’s better on the rock than he is, but he can carry his own weight in equipment and there's nobody better at soothing a scared and injured hiker while we wait for the helicopter. He was quiet, though, not wasting breath on conversation. By the light of our flashlights, we jumped a stream, scrambled across a nasty little patch of scree, and skirted a bog to come out on a well-defined track that curved around the shoulder of the hillside.
"Follow it until you come to that clump of rowans." Greg pointed. "Take the left fork and you'll soon be on the top."
"How will I know where to stop?"
"You'll know." Greg's face was shadowed, but I could see tension in the way he held his shoulders. "Look, I'm sorry, but…take care, right? Flash us when you get there, two and two. Here." He pushed two small items into my hand and turned to stride away.
"Goodnight," I called, but the wind whipped away his reply if he made one. He had left me a Mars Bar and a hipflask that had a comforting weight to it. I zipped both into a pocket as I went on my way.
I did know where to stop. The standing stone loomed at the center of a circle of grass atop a shoulder of the hill, a lonely, cold, and Godforsaken place on a moonless night with clouds threatening rain, but in the morning the view would be spectacular. Forty miles, I guessed, envisioning the lay of the land, up into the mountains' heart and along the valleys to the softer lands to the east and south. I aimed my flashlight down into the valley at the dim spot of yellow light marking the windows of the bunkhouse. I flashed it, twice and twice again, to let the team know that I had arrived, and saw an answering flash as someone turned the Land Rover's headlights on and off. I bet myself it was Greg and smiled as I set about making camp.
In ten minutes, I had my bed made and coffee brewing. I added a splash from Greg's hipflask: rum, not the whisky I had expected, and I was set for the night. Clouds raced across a star-strewn, moonless sky while I munched the Mars Bar and counted my blessings. Foremost, bless the army for having provided me
with the right skills to convince the National Park authority that I was just the man they needed to repair paths and dig ditches. I spent all my time in lush green hills where nobody had yet tried to kill me, and I was beginning to make friends. Lack of sex was a trial, but I had known that opportunities might be few when I moved here. Still, the barman in the Boar's Head in Brecon gave me the eye every time I went in. Not really my type, but he'd do in a pinch. That Greg, though…I inhaled the heady scent of the rum. He was my type. Broad and bearded. A little bit stern, or perhaps shy, but big—oh my God—big.
"There's something considerable in those trousers." I said it aloud, enjoying the alliteration, and snickered.
My laugh was loud, shocking in the sudden dead silence. Even the wind had dropped. My heartbeat echoed in my ears as the skin between my shoulder blades crawled. I'd had that feeling before, back where the hills had been arid instead of green. I eased out of my sleeping bag, keeping low, and crawled into a hollow behind the standing stone. I should have known that there would be more to the hazing than simply denying me the comfort of the bunkhouse for the night.
Try to ambush me and you'll deserve all you get, you silly bastards.
There—I heard the scuff of a foot on the turf, a breath. I roared as I hurdled the stone.
I saw him clearly, massive shoulders gleaming in the light of a huge full moon, hair flying as he whirled and the long blade in his hand leapt out toward me. I ducked and hit him in the midriff with my shoulder, grunted as the hilt cracked down into my ribs, swore as we crashed into the standing stone. I snatched at his wrist and twisted. The blade, too long for a knife, too short for a sword, fell to the ground. He had my other wrist now. As we strained against each other, feet hooking and kicking to try to throw the other off balance, my lungs filled with the sharp scent of mingled wood smoke, mutton fat, sweat and blood. But mostly—my breath caught as I breathed it in—he smelled of man. Strong, healthy, and aroused. Distracted, I stumbled as he hooked at my ankle. My back and head slammed into the stone with a startling clash of metal and we stared at each other. Moonlight shone on his pale eyes, the lime spiking his dark hair, the whorl of blue on his cheek under his left eye. The twisted beasts on the finials of the band of gold around his thick neck snarled at me. He laughed.
"Carus." I heard the word he said clearly but understood it as, "Beloved."
I said it back and his long moustaches tickled my cheek as he tilted his head. When our mouths met and I tasted him, it felt like a homecoming. None of this was strange. Not the swirl of tattooing beneath the hair on his chest, not the white scars on his forearms and belly nor the weight on my shoulders that clanked as he unfastened it and lifted it away. He cast the segmented armor aside and I tossed my helmet after it. Then we kissed again. His lips were soft, the thrust of his tongue hot. Long, messy kisses left my mouth feeling bruised and his lips visibly swollen. My hands slid on his damp skin, down a spine ridged with muscle.
"I did not think you would come," he muttered, picking at the brooch on my shoulder.
"I promised. It was hard to get away—that bastard optio—but I promised." His trews were held up by a twist of leather looped through a bronze ring. I wrenched the knot loose and shoved the rough fabric out of the way. His cock rose, long and wet at the tip, from a nest of thick hair. My mouth watered at the sight of it.
"I would have waited." He pushed the straps hanging from my belt aside and ran his hand up my bare thigh. "But I am impatient now."
We kissed again while I undid the belt myself and threw it on top of the armor. I dropped my tunic, slapped his hands away and knelt. He laughed, a joyous bark, as I grabbed the cloth bunched around his thighs and buried my face in the hot curls at the base of his cock. I was late, he had waited; he deserved bliss. The damp head of his cock filled my palm as I licked from the base of it.
"Yes, like so." His hand clenched on my hair. "Civilization is a wondrous thing."
"You taste like a boar in heat," I told him then sucked just below the head, feeling him quiver.
The sound he made was part groan and part growl as he let himself down, first to his knees then to sprawl on his back. One hand held my head in place as he fucked my mouth with an unhurried flexing of his spine. His other hand rubbed down my back and gave my arse a gentle pat. I smiled around my mouthful as his fingers slipped into my arse crack, then he took his hand away and I heard him spit. The fingers returned wet to probe more deeply and he gave a low hum of satisfaction as I shifted to let him reach. One finger circled, teasing, as I sucked his cock. There was no hurry, no worry, just the ease of loving and being loved. More than ready, I moaned as his finger pressed inside.
"Carus," he said again and tugged on my hair. I went with the pull, grunting with pleasure as he guided me to straddle his waist. I kissed my way around the thick twist of metal that encircled his throat, then lifted my head to look at his face. He was smiling, looking lazy and relaxed, but I could see the beat of blood in his throat and feel the heave of his chest. I kissed him—a gentle brush of lips—and nodded.
The thick heat of him entered me slowly. I watched his face through half-closed eyelids, saw his lips part over clenched teeth, realized he was making himself take his time, wait for me, ensure I wasn't hurting. My heart pounded. I wanted to plunge back and down, feel that hot flesh fill me, but I wouldn't ignore his gift—the gift of gentleness. I would wait—a little—not long.
No longer. Gentleness be damned.
He must have seen that in my face and laughed, pulling my head down to kiss even as his hips surged up. I shouted into his mouth, then again, a delighted whoop of triumph as I lifted my knees to settle onto him. His hands on my hips pressed me down.
I relaxed, let my head roll back, brought it forward as he grabbed my cock, thumb smearing over the head. It was uncomfortable for a moment as he jerked when I jolted, but then we caught the rhythm and it was good. It was damn good. It was better than good. It was fucking marvelous there, just the two of us, and the moon and the stone throwing a black shadow across the earth, and in all the wide land around us, not a speck of light and no sound other than the hoot of an owl and the distant bark of a fox. It might have felt lonely, but we were making our own noise by then—breath harsh, the slap of flesh against flesh, his yelp as I pinched his nipple, mine as his hand cracked against my arse. We both laughed and I leaned down to kiss him again. I could feel his smile against my lips as our breathing evened, his hands warm on my back, then he moved, rocking me, slow and steady. No rush, no hurry. We had time, such a rare thing; we had to make the most of it. Soon he would go back to his people and I would go to mine. Neither knew we were lovers; both would condemn us—him for not killing me and taking my head, me for being so dead to decency as to allow myself to be fucked by a barbarian. We had agreed that if we met in battle we would turn aside to find other men to kill—neither of us would refuse to fight. But for now he was just Madoc, my lover, and I was…
Joe.
I raised my head, feeling a chill wind against my flank as light drained from the world.
"What?" He touched my cheek, his voice an urgent whisper. "Dervacus, what did you hear?"
"Nothing—I saw—I thought I saw…"
He kissed me and moonlight bloomed again. Now there was no holding back. Sweat broke on my forehead and dripped from my nose. He licked it from his lips and propped up on one elbow so we could kiss even as I plunged. Soon we were both close, I could see it in his knotted brows and hear it in the bitten off words in his own tongue. His hand on my cock faltered so I pushed it away and did it myself, hard and fast.
"Yruan, karaunos," he gasped, eyes fixed on my cock, then gave a guttural shout and strained his hips up. I shouted, too, but kept moving until he fell back with a groan. His belly hollowed as he sucked in air, then he grinned up at me, grabbing for my cock again. That was enough. I grunted my pleasure and spurted high over his hands, laying glistening trails up his chest. He took his hands away, knowing I didn't like t
o be touched once I'd come, and smiled as he licked his knuckles. The moon lit bright sparks in the wet on his chest, showed the lines of the markings worked into his skin to be as fluid as the caress of water around a river worn stone. It shone on his eyes and his smile.
"I love you." The words came from my heart, spilling from my lips before I could prevent them. "Amo te… Amo te, Carus."
He sat and took my shoulders in his hands. He looked into my eyes for a moment and smiled. "And I you," he said. "And that is a good thing—it makes the risks worthwhile."
We both laughed then kissed again while the stars wheeled overhead.
* * *
I awoke with a crick in my neck and a feeling that I had missed something. I pushed myself up, unfolding the flap of the bivvy bag that had been over my head.
Again I heard a shout, words blurred by the wind, and I peered at the dark figure hurrying toward me.
Greg's face was pale when he got close enough for me to see it. "I haven't slept a wink. Came up as soon as it got light. Then I couldn't find you." He stood over me and gave the bivvy bag a nudge with his foot. "Forgot you'd probably be in camo." He sat on his heels and looked around my campsite, but it seemed to me he was avoiding looking at the stone.
The stone.
It came back to me—what I had seen, done, felt, said—and none of it real. I’d have been feeling it still, that pleasant ache, and I wasn’t, more’s the pity. Instead, there was a small, cold emptiness inside me that had nothing to do with sex, but was due to having mattered, to having someone who mattered to me, someone who I knew would have waited as long as it took, someone for whom I would have moved mountains to be with. I remembered how that felt.
Amo te, Carus.
I wanted it again.
Greg stirred and I realized I had been staring at the stone.