20. 20.
20.
A legion of kisses, from delicate to intense, before Finlay turned the mattress into a lake, swaying Folke’s befogged world. Moving somewhere off to his side and leaving him draped over Darach’s thigh. The man still adamantly hard, brushing against the side of his tired mouth. Radiating with heat and need. Yet the fingers petting his hair were tender. The touches to his face, smoothing down his throat and sweat-silkened chest, considerate.
Folke wanted to move, but couldn’t seem to. Involuntary twitches of his body aside. It took Darach guiding him upright. His strength exemplified as he pulled Folke into his lap to face him. Aged wood pressed flat against his knees, the curve of a shell design at the top of the bed frame digging into Folke’s palm as he tried to support himself, just a little. Mostly, he slumped forward, held upright by strong arms and soft lips hungry for his own. Folke’s other arm looped around Darach’s neck while his legs refused to cooperate.
He sat, gracelessly. Darach’s pleasure evident by the way he groaned into Folke’s mouth. Hands moved to gently knead his backside. Parting the cheeks, the head of a stiff member sliding across his slickened, aching hole. Folke moaned, too wrung-out to acknowledge just how whiny he sounded. He didn’t think he could take any more.
“It’s my turn, sweet Folke,” Darach murmured against his lips.
Kissed him again. Tongue languidly stroking over his own even as Folke felt the man’s hand leave his rump. The arm shook, briefly. Paper rustled, and he pulled away to gasp for air as much as needing to know.
“What is that?”
“Something to help ye take all of me,” Darach purred, sending a bolt of anticipation down Folke’s spine.
A sound that would develop into a craving, he suspected. Ignoring the oily hand now working around his back, he leant in again, in need of another taste of cinnamon. Couldn’t stop himself from making yet another noise as Darach’s slippery hands guided his hips up and the tip of a thick erection pressed inward.
Folke sucked in a breath. Bit his lower lip. Trenched his fingernails into skin. Darach mouthed his throat until that too felt raw. None helped distract from the invading thickness.
Even in increments, Folke feared Darach was too much. His fretful croon rolling from within his chest, past his lips. All he mustered to communicate his discomfort.
In the distance, the springs popped again. Another set of hands clasped his rear, eliciting a surprised gasp when they helped spread him wide. Eased that impossible girth further in.
A drove of kisses up his neck. Finlay murmured, “We’ll have you begging for both of us in no time,” into his hair.
Words that had Folke gripping more fiercely at Darach’s shoulders, thoughts turning hysterical with the idea of both men inside him.
Darach groaned, low and throaty. Sinking deeper still and Folke thought he might tear in half. Then he pulled out. Enough for Folke to realise just how full he’d been, reminded of it again when a strong grip pushed him down by the hips. His thighs burned, quivering with the strain of moving back up until he thought Darach might slip free.
Down again.
Building a rhythm. Slow. Taking a little more into himself each time, aided by Finlay’s hands.
Folke keened. Laid his forehead against a wide shoulder and slid his hand under himself, seeking to know how far in Darach was. His breath hitched in shock, catching the slick hilt between fore and middle fingers.
“Taking it so well,” Finlay growled into the back of his neck, arched over him.
His lips pressed to Folke’s nape. For a kiss, at first. Then teeth.
Biting down hard. Another whimper as snarls and hisses played in Folke’s mind. Finlay the wolf, and Darach the serpent.
What did that make him?
Folke clamped his teeth around skin, where neck met shoulder. Didn’t let go even as Darach bristled under him with a pained grunt.
Not prey.
A hand came down on his buttocks, delivering a sharp smack to sting his right cheek. Forcing him to ease his bite. Darach’s leg swept sideways out from under him. His erection slid out and he bucked up, sending Folke flying off, crashing to the bed on his back. He reeled, distantly aware of bare feet dusting across the floor. Couldn’t wonder if he’d made a mistake for long as a fierce grip on his ankles yanked him across the sheets. Pushed his legs to the side. Held him down by the thigh, his body partially twisted.
No warning before Darach entered him again in one vigorous thrust, devouring Folke’s howl with a ravenous kiss.
He didn’t move fast and hard like Finlay. Darach’s lunges were slow and intense and deeper still. His hands pushed Folke’s leg into his stomach, holding him in place. Folke wanted to wind his fingers into something to help ground him, each internal stroke gliding past that devilish spot. Sending shocks through his body, making him twitch and convulse and long to scream.
Instead, his wrists were caught above his head in Finlay’s hold. Finlay, who murmured rousing things like, “You look so fucking good on your back,” while he used his free hand to pinch and flick Folke’s nipples.
And Darach, who kept kissing him even though their spit-slickened mouths couldn’t remain locked, each deliberate thrust knocking them apart. In between he spoke things. Filthy things. Things like, “so tight,” and, “I’ll wet ye with my cock,” and, “Make ye mine.”
Folke hadn’t thought he could possibly get hard again, let alone come. Yet there he was, his hair standing on end. The air electric. Spoken to in such a way it drove him to madness, had him leaking across his own stomach. Brought sparks to fly right where he might grasp them, if only he were allowed.
His strangled, despairing, “Oh, no ,” incited Darach to drive in harder, but never gaining speed. Heavy breaths became laboured grunts. A series of short strokes sparked Folke into clenching and shuddering bodily. Darach groaned, ferally. Buried so deep. Pulsating inside, a fervid sensation swelling. Filling Folke as his own orgasm flung him into delirium.
“Folke.”
His name, sweetly uttered, stirred him to awareness.
Awareness of laying flat on his back, limbs spread. Of two sweltering, sweat-damp bodies on either side of him. Hands stroking up and down his stomach and chest. Lips caressing his cheeks and temple.
Folke moaned, pitifully.
“There ye are.”
“Thought you might’ve died.”
An admixture of a cough and laughter wracked his chest like a bark.
“You’re right,” Folke rasped, wincing at the hoarseness of his voice, “you’re a terrible medic if you can’t tell.”
On his right, Finlay clicked his tongue. “That’s sassy back talk from someone who passed out during sex.”
“I’m concussed.”
“Right.” Sounded like Finlay had forgotten.
Folke’s mouth strained, and Darach’s hand cradled his cheek, nudging his face toward him. A thumb brushing over his lips came to rest by the corner of his mouth.
“Smiling suits ye.” A kiss followed. Ardent, but chaste compared to moments ago.
Folke untangled himself from sheets. Would’ve touched both men, had several realisations not crowded him at once.
He’d been moved.
His head now rested on a pillow.
And he was partially under the sheets rather than atop them, enough to give him some modesty. A laughable concept, now that he’d had two men inside his. . .
His face burned as he discreetly tried to move .
A painful twinge.
Slight trickling that he couldn’t help but flex around.
The distinct scratch of an old towel under him.
Good God.
How long had he been unconscious for?
“Thoroughly deflowered and still he blushes like a virgin.” Finlay faintly snickered.
Folke groaned. “Bastard.”
“Now, Precious.” Amusement clung to Finlay’s rough voice. “Is that any way to talk to your lovers?”
Folke’s breath caught. He lowered his hand over his chest, seeking buttons. He toyed with the faint hairs instead. “So. . .this wasn’t just a singular event?”
“Did you want it to be?” Finlay sounded his usual self, voice coarsened from smoking too much, most likely. Nonchalant. Although Folke thought he detected the faintest hint of vulnerability. Whereas Darach pulled away, as if retreating to protect himself from potential backlash.
Or maybe he was just imagining things. Folke scarcely knew the men, after all.
God. Within a mere three days he’d thrown himself at strangers.
Kind strangers, though.
Who had made him come thrice .
Knuckles rapped against his forehead. “Come out.”
Folke pushed Finlay’s hand away only so that he might grasp it. With his other hand, he reached for Darach, whose fingers closed around his. He held both to his chest, tightly. Emotion swelled below their hands. A great, terrifying surge carrying him along its crest.
Dwell on that and drown.
Folke murmured, “No.”
Need them both now.
For as long as it’d be allowed.
Don’t .
Don’t dwell. Live in the moment.
“Alright then, stay inside your head.” Said teasingly.
Folke suspired and pushed Finlay’s hand away. He kept hold of Darach’s to exemplify what heckling would get him.
Namely nothing.
Finlay snorted, clearly immune to such punishment.
“There’s something I want to ask,” Folke said.
“Anything, sweet Folke,” Darach said. With an intensity suggesting Folke was free to ask even about that .
That which would change his perception of the world forever.
He did not ask about that.
“I noticed. . .” Heat once again rose up his neck to conflagrate his cheeks. Feelings of being kissed and filled and slammed into trapping themselves in his mind, like a desultory phonograph. “Unless I’m mistaken. . . ”
Finlay, undeterred, “You probably are, but go on.”
Folke resisted the need to smack him. Blurted, “You two never touched each other.”
“Ah.” Darach shifted closer. Nuzzled the side of his head. Kissed him. “Ye’re no mistaken.”
Lacking buttons, still, Folke took to toying with Darach’s fingers. “Why not?”
The front door creaked open downstairs. Slammed shut. Folke felt both Darach and Finlay tense, pressed up against him as they were.
“Where are you lot?” Thomas warbled, muffled.
Finlay swore. Whipped out of bed, metal buckles of suspenders tinking and legs ramming into trousers. The bedroom door clicked shut.
“Stop shouting,” Finlay barked.
“Why?” Thomas called from the bottom of the stairs, loudly.
“Shepherd’s not been well. He’s trying to rest.”
“His head?”
“Yes, you dunce. Why are you back so early?” Finlay’s voice moved away, as did Thomas’, now indiscernible.
A kiss brushed his temple, pulling Folke’s attention back to Darach. “To answer yer question, I’m afraid Dunne doesnae care for me much.”
“Nor you for Finlay,” Folke said.
“Buggered ye into a stupor an ye’re still keener than any blade.”
“Darach,” Folke muttered admonishingly. Both for the crudeness and embarrassing truth of it. “Doesn’t that make this difficult for you both?”
The only reason he could tell Darach shrugged was that his arm remained resting across his chest. How often did the man do that, he wondered.
“It’s something I’m willing to put up wi, if it means I can be wi ye. Dunne feels the same.”
A response that purled his brows into a frown. “So you two discussed this beforehand.”
“O’ course.”
“Before even. . .talking to me.”
How to feel about that, exactly?
He wasn’t so sure.
“Does that bother ye?”
“No,” said Folke, too fast. Then, “Maybe. I don’t. . .I don’t know.”
“It came up after ye beat Finlay across the cock in a way he didnae want. I knew he’d seen me kiss ye on the bench and thought he was trying to steal ye out of spite.”
An admittance he gleaned too much from, yet couldn’t comprehend. Folke ceased his relentless fidgeting of Darach’s fingers, easing off the blunted nail he’d been pushing his fingertip into. Tapped it.
Thinking.
Still uncertain how to feel, or even what to think.
“I didnea realise he liked ye, too. We came to an agreement while waiting out yer stubbornness.”
“I didn’t think he liked me at all,” Folke confessed. “I’m still not sure he does.”
Darach chuckled. “He’s a complicated man, but he is loyal, dutiful, and I. . .”
Folke waited for Darach to continue. When he didn’t, “Tell me?”
The man’s chest rose with a deep inhale, held for moments at a time. He settled down with a great outbreath, ghosting turbulently across Folke’s neck.
“I owe him, Folke.”
He opened his mouth to ask, for what?
Then realised both Darach and Finlay had made a compromise where it hadn’t been their place to. Rather than giving him the chance to choose between them, they had presented him with only one option. The option of two .
Or nothing at all.
It seemed cruel. Thoughtless, too.
When the time came for them both to leave, he’d endure double the pain.
Don’t.
Don’t dwell .
He swallowed against the churning dread. “What do you owe him?”
“A chance,” Darach began. Paused. “I told ye I was an angry man. Those scars ye’ve found on him, the ones no’ from the landmine?”
Folke rather liked those scars. “What about them?”
“They’re because of me.”