Chapter 11 #4
‘After I escaped … Ash, I was desperate. I did anything that could get me coin in my purse and food in my belly. Including banditry.’ Olly watched him, almost daring Ash to chastise him.
But he didn’t. He looked pained.
‘God, Olly—’ He sat up properly, pulling Olly into a crushing embrace. ‘I am so sorry.’
Olly blinked at the sudden assault of emotions. His eyes prickled. ‘It is quite all right.’
‘It is not all right. You should never have been forced to do that.’
‘But I was.’ Olly sighed. ‘I cannot change that.’ Ash leaned back a little, staring at him. ‘The scar was from an accident. A robbery gone wrong. I was too cocky. I paid for it, dearly.’
Ash examined the mark closer. ‘This looks as if it turned.’
‘As I said,’ Olly remarked. ‘I paid dearly.’
‘What—’
‘Ash. Please.’
He didn’t want to be forced to talk about that now. About the stupid decision he’d made, the wound he’d been gifted through that stupidity, about the rot that set in soon after. The friends – the people who he had thought were his friends – who he had lost.
Ash’s gaze slid from the wound to his eyes. At last, the expression softened. Olly kissed him, silencing any further questions. Ash let out a soft sigh, letting him. His hands drifted back down Olly’s sides to his hips, playing in the fabric of Olly’s breeches.
‘This is unfair …’ he mumbled against Olly’s lips with a grin.
Olly found himself inclined to agree. He set himself to removing the rest of his clothes, and at last, they were both naked on the bed.
With a little shuffling, Olly manoeuvred them beneath one of the wool blankets, cocooned in the warmth with their naked limbs tangled together and their lips brushing.
God above, he had missed this so much. He had lain with people since he and Ash were parted, and he had found pleasure in them, but this …
this was like returning home, like returning to a place he had never thought he would see again.
It was all so easy and familiar, none of the fumbling uncertainty that came with bedding a new lover.
Ash’s hand drifting down his chest and playing in the tangle of hair that trailed from his navel to his cock felt exactly as it had done all those years ago.
He wanted all of him. He wanted to draw this out and take his time. He wanted Ash now, hot and quick and panting. He wanted it all.
For the first time in too many years, part of him wondered if he could have it.
He stamped that thought down – too bright, too eager, too hopeful – and instead brought his focus back to the curves of Ash’s chest, the tangle of his hair, the shimmering wetness of his kiss-bruised lips.
There was too much else at play, no matter what Ash said, to ensure any kind of future.
But this was all his. Ash was all his, at least for these few hours.
He reached between them, trailing his hand down Ash’s chest and teasing his fingertips above his prick. Ash hissed through his teeth.
Olly was struck with a sudden thought. ‘Do you have oil?’
Ash hesitated. ‘Shit. I am not sure …’
Olly let him go as he slid from the bed and headed to the chest beside it. Olly was enjoying the view of Ash’s bare arse too much to be too disappointed by the loss of his touch as he watched him look around the room.
Before France, and after they had settled into the routine of it, Olly had always made sure there was something on hand for moments like these.
The result of so many years together in near-undisturbed privacy had allowed them space for experimentation, finding something that worked best and ensuring they always had some oil or tallow hidden away somewhere in Olly’s chambers or in one of their packs while on the road.
Ash made his way towards a box in the corner of the room, digging through it, his searching peppered with the occasional curse. Even becoming an earl hadn’t encouraged him to be any more organised, it seemed, as he dug through his things haphazardly. He swore again, then rose, chest flushed.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I—’
‘No matter.’ Olly reached for him. Ash obeyed immediately, taking his hand and letting Olly pull him back onto the bed.
‘I will find something suitable when I am next able to,’ Ash assured him. ‘It was … linseed oil, wasn’t it? And lavender?’
‘No, the lavender gave you a headache.’ Olly laughed, kissing his neck. ‘It was the chamomile and linseed that you preferred.’
‘Of course. But—’
‘Ashel.’
‘Yes?’
‘Hush.’
Ash fell silent, allowing himself to be kissed.
Olly guided him down onto his back, nestled amongst the blankets.
He sucked Ash’s bottom lip into his mouth, tugging but not biting – not yet.
Olly’s skin was aflame, his heart thudding, his cock so sensitive and hard that it felt like even a single stroke of Ash’s fingers would send him over the edge.
He trailed his hands down Ash’s chest, across his thighs, tracing the neat line where leg met torso teasingly.
Ash writhed beneath him. Finally, giving in to what he and Ash craved, Olly reached for Ash’s prick, palming it in a strong grip and swiping his thumb across the head, pressing, squeezing.
The moan that came from Ash’s mouth sounded as if it had been ripped from him, pulled from his lungs by the roots.
Olly reached up and placed two fingers against the soft pillow of Ash’s bottom lip. A low noise rumbled from the back of Ash’s throat.
‘Open.’
Ash whined, parting his lips as Olly slid his fingers inside his mouth.
He sucked at them, his tongue sliding over them until they were slick.
Olly’s cock strained between his legs, heart racing, as Ash tongued languidly at his digits, moaning around them.
At last Olly pulled them out, making sure to catch the tips against Ash’s lip again, before reaching down between them.
Ash lifted himself up a little to grant Olly access. Olly slid his spit-slicked fingers into the cleft of his arse, pressing against him. Ash pushed down against him with a needy noise that went straight to Olly’s cock.
Olly wanted to tease him and draw it out, but he wanted this more.
Forgoing the urge, he pushed a finger inside, then another – drinking in Ash’s gasps and shudders as he breached him.
He was hot and tight around Olly’s fingers, like a vice.
Placing his other hand on Ash’s leg to steady him, Olly worked him open, enjoying watching him writhe beneath his touches.
When Ash was panting, his cock already beading with eager moisture, Olly leaned forwards so their chests were flush, finally removing his fingers. He kissed him, and Ash kissed him back like a drowning man taking in air.
‘How do you want it?’ Olly grinned, sliding his palm over the soft skin of Ash’s inner thigh.
Ash looked as if he were about to perish. ‘However,’ he said. ‘Any way. All ways. Olly, please.’
The swelling muscle in Olly’s chest battled valiantly against his prick.
He had gotten Ash on his knees like this so many times, open for him, eager and ready.
But he needed to see, now. He needed to see Ash’s face and feel his heart beat in his chest. He wanted to watch Ash’s face as he fell apart, just to remind himself that this was all real – that it wasn’t just another broken dream.
That Ash still loved him, impossibly, after all this time.
He kissed him again, then trailed his lips down Ash’s chest, nibbling at the tender skin around his navel. He pressed a long, languorous kiss to the head of Ash’s cock, making him jerk his hips, before settling back upon his heels.
He made sure Ash was watching as he lazily spat into his hand then began to work at himself.
He was already desperately hard, and even the gentle touch of his own palm threatened to force him over the edge.
He wished he had something more than spit.
Next time, he thought to himself, next time.
No doubt he could have scrounged something from Ash’s things – a forgotten bottle of sword oil, medicinal salve – but the thought of extracting himself from Ash’s grip felt like dying.
They would make do, as they had done before, as they had done so many times.
‘Ash?’
‘Please—’
He could barely refuse. He would never refuse. Olly gripped his hips, lifting him off the blankets, nudging at his entrance. Ash made another gasping hiss, another murmured demand. Olly positioned himself, took a breath, then pushed himself inside.
Ash was hot and tight, his whole body tensing as Olly entered him.
Olly held himself there, his hands clinging to Ash’s legs, fingers digging into his soft thighs.
Ash let out a long, deep sigh – a breath that seemed to loosen his whole body.
Only when Olly was sure Ash was ready did he pull back, then thrust again and again, feeling Ash clench around him, watching him arch on the bed, flinging one arm up to cover his eyes.
‘No—’ Olly leaned over him, pushing his arm aside and cupping his jaw, ‘No, Ashel, I want to see you.’
Ash’s mouth hung open in a wordless, desperate gasp. Olly leaned even closer, as close as he could, before reaching between their bodies. He caught Ash’s prick in his hand, drawing him out, guiding him in the way he knew Ash liked best. Ash stuttered out an oath.
Olly jerked Ash’s cock with unthinking haste, lost to the feeling of it. In but a moment, Ash was releasing in hot, shuddering bursts across his own stomach and Olly’s hand.
Olly’s thundered to his own release shortly after. He clung on to Ash’s hips in desperation, all semblance of rhythm or posturing gone, only pleasure, only Ash.
He eased out slowly, then – in a movement like a tree being felled – he collapsed onto the bed beside Ash, breathing heavily. He felt racked with it, with the rush and release, with being back at Ash’s side. He nudged closer, and Ash wrapped an arm around him with a sleepy sigh.