Chapter Six
Castien
All I could think of after I returned to my cabin was that kiss by the river.
Oleander’s lips against mine had ignited something within me that barely ever struck a spark.
How was I to help him find a spouse? How was I to keep up my part of the bargain when I knew the way his lips felt against mine and the way his tongue tasted?
I knew how his slim waist felt under my hand and the little gasp he made when we pulled apart.
Even under the cover of darkness, I could see the blush to his cheeks and ears. I wanted to see it by daylight.
I wanted to know what other gasps and sounds he made.
I so rarely wanted this. Acantha teased me about being like my machines or perhaps of just liking my machines more than I liked other people.
The latter had always been true. It was rare that I found anyone that I wished to spend an extended amount of time with.
Even my own family grew irritating and loud after a few hours in their company.
My closest friends were elves in Gearwick that I saw maybe once a month, when they dragged me from my home and insisted I join them at a pub or the library.
I liked my solitude, but I found myself craving Oleander’s company.
Maybe it was the fact that he was content to sit in silence. He never became overwhelming.
I thought of him all night. I was grateful that I did not share a cabin with my sibling, because Acantha would have taken one look at me and known that something had changed.
They also would have mocked the care in which I put into choosing my outfit the following morning.
I only owned simple garments, nothing like the brightly colored ones Oleander preferred.
They would have mocked the scented oils I put on my pressure points, oils Acantha had purchased for me for various Naming Days and holidays.
They claimed I smelled too much like a forge, and no one would ever want to bed me if I kept on like that.
Until that kiss with Oleander, I did not care.
Acantha gave me a look as we walked to market, but for once, they said nothing. But I could feel their eyes on me as Oleander and I slipped away from the stall and into the crowd.
“Where today?” Oleander questioned. The exuberance of our first outing was gone. He sounded as if the question was little more than an obligation.
I thought for a moment. We had visited the Pavilion, and I did not want to watch people realize how beautiful he was again.
I did not want to risk someone seeing him and deciding that they wished to get to know him.
It was a dangerous thought, and I knew that it was a sign.
It was a sign that I should tell him that he had this, let him wander away on his own.
He had gained confidence over the past few days, and if he had to find a spouse, I had full faith that he could do it on his own.
The idea turned my stomach, formed into a knot that threatened to displace that morning’s porridge.
“Lover’s Lane,” I suggested. It was one area in the market we’d not yet ventured, and from my understanding, it was mostly couples that ventured there. It was unlikely that anyone would approach him and attempt a proposal.
His face flushed, but he nodded. We started toward the direction.
Once we got there, I knew I’d made the right suggestion.
There were couples walking the path, hand in hand.
There were other couples sitting at tables or on benches, talking with their heads together, planning the future they hoped to share.
Other couples emerged from a copse of trees looking ruffled with kiss-swollen lips.
My mind flashed to the wet sheen of Oleander’s lips after we’d kissed.
If we’d kissed longer, would they have swelled the same way?
Would his skin redden from the scratch of my stubble?
I wanted to pull him beyond the tree line and discover it.
I had always been a scholar, and there was nothing I wanted to learn more than the way his body reacted to mine.
“Are you okay?” Oleander’s voice broke through the lust filled haze in my brain.
I swallowed. Had I looked distant? “I’m—I’m fine,” I croaked out. He raised a pale eyebrow at me, and I sighed. “I was thinking about our kiss last night.”
“It is all I have been able to think about,” he admitted, his words rushed and slurred together.
That beautiful color flooded his face again.
There was something about the pink on his creamy skin that made his violet eyes more vibrant, made him more handsome.
My hands balled into fists at my side to keep from reaching out and pulling him in for another kiss.
“Should I bow out of helping you to find a spouse?”
“No.” His answer was as immediate as the one I’d given yesterday when he’d asked if I wanted him to leave.
There had been no hesitation. Hope grew in place of that uncomfortable knot that had taken up residence in my stomach.
He reached out, taking my hand in his. “I do not think I’ll find a spouse at the market.
There is no one that has captured my attention. ”
No one.
The knot started to form again.
“No one but you.”
I pulled him closer to me and stood on the tips of my toes to capture his lips.
His lips moved against mine from first contact.
Our fingers laced together, and my other hand wrapped around his waist, dragging him closer to me.
Every part of my body that he touched came alive.
It was like the sparks of energy I’d studied in my youth.
I’d learned to capture them then, use them to power my inventions.
I wanted to study this electricity just as thoroughly. I wanted to learn what ignited it, how to replicate it. Every touch was another data point. I did not know that knees were conductors, but they were.
He was the first to pull away. His face was bright red, and the smile on his lips seemed brighter than the sun in the sky.
I wanted to kiss that smile, discover if it could grow brighter, but Oleander stepped back.
He touched his lips with his fingertips.
He looked toward the copse of trees and back toward me, a question in his eyes.
There was no other answer to give him. I led him into the trees.
The deeper we ventured, the more we encountered people who had sneaked away with the same intention we had.
It felt entirely too public. I wanted to kiss him uninterrupted.
I wanted to explore his body, find what it was that set him aflame.
I did not want to do that in the company of others.
“I have a better idea,” I managed after we stumbled upon two young girls passionately kissing in the shadow of a large tree.
There was nothing but trust in Oleander’s eyes as he allowed me to lead him out of Lover’s Lane and across the Glaesflod Bridge on the other side.
“I’ve heard there are vendors here as well,” he commented as we crossed.
“Though I’ve heard that some of them sell things that would not be accepted at Everend. ”
“It’s true,” I confirmed for him. “There are also vendors who could not get into the market. I began there.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.” I paused. “Would you like me to show you where they set up?”
I hoped he’d say no, and I was pleased when he did. If there was time later, I would take him and show him everything. I believed a few vendors I’d known in the midsummers I’d spent over the bridge were still setting up there. If there was time, I’d introduce them, but I was in no rush.
I led him away from the path after we crossed the bridge.
These woods were more private than the small grove of trees in the market.
Rumor said that assassins and bandits roamed the woods.
Rumors also said that there were derelict cabins deeper within.
There was no need to determine the truth of either of those rumors.
I had nothing that a bandit would want, and an inventor and merchant from Gearwick was unlikely to be atop any assassin’s list. If I wanted to find a cabin, I had a perfectly good one in the village to the north.
Besides, that would waste precious time, and we only had until midday before Acantha expected us back at my stall.
I led him only far enough into the woods that we were out of sight from the pathway, until we could not hear or see anything other than bugs and birdsong.
Once I knew our privacy was guaranteed, I pushed him back against a thick tree and kissed him hard on the mouth.
His lips opened to me immediately, his tongue slipping into my mouth.
It was nothing like the quiet kiss we’d shared the night before.
Even the electricity from the kiss on Lover’s Lane had changed.
If that kiss crackled, this kiss scorched. It reminded me of standing too close to the forge, except I had no fear of being burned by the flames between us. I wanted to stoke the flames, see how brightly this fire could burn.
My hands moved from their rest on his hips around to the swell of his buttocks. The buttery soft leather of his trousers felt good under the palm of my hands. I wondered if his skin would feel just as soft. I dragged him closer to me. He was already hard from simply kissing.
The flames had been stoked.
When my lips tingled from how long we kissed, I pulled away.
He chased after me, his lips finding the tip of my ear, trailing down the shell of it to my neck.
My pulse quickened, and I angled my head to give him better access.
His talented tongue traced patterns on my skin, patterns I wished to commit to my notebook and to my memory.
Except my eyes drifted shut, and all I could focus on was him.
He overloaded all my senses, emptying my mind and replacing it with sensation.
His smell, musk and oils and herbs I couldn’t name.
His touch, fingers tracing down my torso and slipping under my tunic.
The press of his cock against my hip and the way he rolled his hips as if he were seeking something only I could give him.
His leg pushing between mine, separating them, and putting pressure where I needed it most.
My body reacted on instinct, and I ground against his leg, mirroring his hips. The sensation was nearly overwhelming, and a moan fell from my lips. I only hoped we were far enough into the woods that no one heard it, but even that trepidation didn’t stop me from losing myself in him.
My hands began to explore beyond his round ass.
I wanted to touch him. I wanted to feel the warmth of his skin, so I let a hand move up his tunic.
I wanted to hear his noises, so my other hand moved to the front of his trousers.
I covered his bulge with my hand. His member was long and slender, and I could easily imagine the way it would feel without the leather.
I needed the answer.
My fingers moved to the laces of his trousers, and I slipped them free from their stays. “Is this—” I breathed.
“Please.”
My hand slipped beneath his trousers and wrapped around his hot length.
He let out a sound that traveled straight to my balls.
I could not get good movement beneath his tight pants, but he did not seem to mind.
As I moved my hand to the tip of his cock, I felt the sticky bead of liquid at the tip.
His body shuddered against mine as my thumb brushed over it. “Do you like that?” I asked softly.
He nodded. “More.”
More?
I pulled my hands away from him and shoved down his trousers. He took advantage of the pause in our action to free me as well. His eyes traveled down to my dick, and he licked those delectable lips of his. “Beautiful,” he muttered before he wrapped his slender fingers around my girth.
We worked each other over with our hands as our lips met again, first kissing and then dissolving into panted breaths.
My strokes felt clumsy, but his—oh, his hands were that of a magician.
He knew how to stroke me, when to add twists, and when to squeeze me right at the base to keep me from tumbling over the cliffside into orgasmic bliss.
His face glistened with sweat, and I tasted the salt of it on his top lip.
The sounds of his pleasure heightened mine. It was invigorating, knowing that I was the cause of each of those sounds.
Our hips moved together, and I felt the head of his cock brush against mine. Jolts of pleasure raced down my spine. If I was making him feel half of what he was making me feel, then it was a job well done.
I wondered if maybe I wasn’t when he batted my hand away from him. His hand fell away from me long enough for him to spit in the palm of his hand. I watched, mesmerized, and then—pleasure.
His wet hand wrapped around us both as he took control of our pleasure.
The slide of his cock, lubricated with spit and precum, was like little I’d felt before.
My hips moved, fucking into his hand. I stopped thinking.
My hands moved of their own accord. One wrapped around the hand he had wrapped around us, doing nothing more than applying pressure.
I was desperate to be touching him, desperate to finally crest the mountain he kept bringing me close to the peak of, desperate for anything.
My other hand wrapped around him, feeling the warm skin of his ass. I felt the way his hips moved like my own.
“C-close,” I panted out as he twisted his wrist again. “Oleander, so close.” Words tumbled from my lips as my balls drew up, incoherent and muttering and desperate, desperate, desperate.
“I want to feel it.” I could feel his lips form the words against mine, hot breath combining with the sensations of his hand and his cock and it was so much.
I cried out as I exploded over his fist and his dick.
His hips and hand kept moving, a punishing pace that made me wonder how he would feel inside me.
Until then, I’d only wondered what his heat would feel like wrapped around me, but the way his hips moved in that moment?
My cock twitched, as if it were trying to climax again despite being spent.
And then he went.
His seed spilled out over my dick, and his face was radiant.
His head fell back, and strands of his white blond hair stuck to his face.
His eyes drifted closed, and his swollen lips parted as he called out my name.
His hand fell away, and I grabbed his wrist, pulling it to my mouth.
I licked our shared release from his fingers, savoring the salty taste as he moaned at the pleasure it brought him.
When he was clean, I dropped my head to his chest. His arms wrapped around me, and he just held me until our hearts stopped racing.