Page 21

Erik’s breath rasped audibly through his open mouth as he took Oliver’s chin, firm but careful, in one large, ringed hand. His gaze stayed locked with Oliver’s as, with the other, he picked up the wine cup and took a swallow. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Oliver’s, thumb digging into the soft skin under Oliver’s jaw.

Shock moved through him in a hot flash that left him shuddering. He parted his lips and cupped his tongue as Erik let the wine slide from his own mouth into Oliver’s. It was nearly too much, but Oliver opened his throat and let the skin-warm wine slide down.

Erik breathed sharply out through his nostrils, a huff against Oliver’s cheek: surprise, a sudden spike of arousal. He smoothed his hand down Oliver’s throat, petting over the apple there. Good boy, that touch said, and Oliver shuddered again.

Erik took another sip, and shared it again with Oliver, the warm burst of berries filling the waiting cup of his tongue. When he swallowed, Oliver sucked at Erik’s tongue in turn, and drew a deep, vibrating groan from him.

They worked their way through the rest of the cup that way, until Oliver was even more flushed, head swimming pleasantly and both their lips sticky.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” Oliver murmured, head tipped back as Erik’s said sticky lips trailed down his throat and skimmed along his collarbone. “I’m the only – oh – I’m the only one who actually drank any of that.”

“Mm. Poor you.” Erik set to sucking a dark mark into his skin, and undid his flies with quick, deft movements.

The timbered ceiling overhead swayed, a little, as Erik got his boots and trousers off, and pressed him back flat across the desk with a hand at the center of his chest. Paper crinkled beneath him, ignored amidst the fog of wine and want. He blinked, and refocused, as Erik gathered both his bare legs up and hooked them over one of his broad shoulders. The scent of roses bloomed, and Erik touched him with an oil-slick hand. He teased him a moment, circling, before finally easing in the first digit.

Oliver wanted to touch him, always. Wanted to have Erik’s weight above him, pressing him down into the soft furs of their makeshift bed, and be able to grip his shoulders, and scratch his nails down his ribs. But this way, he got to watch the flex of Erik’s biceps and forearm; got to watch Erik’s face, his pupils blown large, his gaze fixed on the place where his hand worked, and Oliver felt everything, every nerve sparking. He tightened his legs, flexing at the knee, to try and draw him forward with what little leverage he possessed.

“That’s good, sweetheart,” Erik murmured, stretching him on one finger, two, three. “Let me in – there you go – gods, you’re lovely.”

“Erik,” Oliver panted. “Please.”

“I know, I know.” Erik repositioned him, lowering his legs and drawing them around his waist, stepping in closer until the blunt head of his cock pressed at Oliver’s entrance, and then pushed in, inch by inch. Oliver gripped his forearms where they rested on either side of him, digging in hard with his nails at the stretch.

When he was fully-seated, hips flush against the plush give of Oliver’s backside, he leaned low to kiss him again, deep and thorough, his hair falling all around them like a curtain. Erik brushed their noses together. “I love it when you’re sweet,” he rumbled. “When you ask me nicely.”

“And I love it when you move.”

Erik chuckled. “As his lordship commands.”

He braced one hand on the desk, the other on Oliver’s hip, drew back nearly all the way, and then filled him again with a forceful roll of his hips.

Erik fucked him hard and slow, each thrust punctuated by the slap of sweaty skin, grip changing again and again as he drew Oliver down onto his cock, digging bruises on his hips, and ribs, and thighs.

Paper crackled as Oliver tossed his head and tried to clutch at something, anything to brace himself against the bone-rattling force of Erik’s slow-driving tempo, maddeningly steady, unhurried, thorough. “So good,” he breathed between choked-off whines. “So…there, oh, right there. Gods.”

Erik fucked him like that until he sent something – maybe an inkpot? – crashing to the floor, until he was desperate and non-verbal, begging in little pained noises. Then he reached between them and stroked his cock until Oliver spilled all over his own trembling stomach.

Erik pulled him even closer and kept going, fucking him through his oversensitivity, Oliver’s eyes pricked with tears, legs shaking against his hipbones. Until finally, finally, Erik’s pace faltered, and he ground in hard, and came with a shudder and a low, wounded sound like he’d been punched in the stomach, flooding Oliver with heat, deep inside.

Erik pressed his head to Oliver’s heaving sternum and rested there, breath rushing like the working of a bellows; Oliver couldn’t tell if he was shuddering on account of his own shivers.

When he’d softened, Erik withdrew and gathered Oliver up into his arms, unresisting, to carry him to their bed. He wiped him down with a warm, damp cloth, and then situated them both beneath the covers, Oliver bundled into his chest, locked in by strong arms.

Oliver drifted for a bit, half doze and half come-down. His heartrate slowed to the same rhythm of Erik’s beating strong and steady against his cheek. When he finally felt more himself, he roused to Erik finger-combing his now-long hair and murmuring sweet nonsense against the crown of his head.

He broke off when Oliver stirred and slipped an arm around his ribs. “With me again, darling?”

“Mm. Not for lack of trying on your part, though.”

Erik chuckled. He rolled onto his back and dragged Oliver up onto his chest. Oliver settled on his belly, arms folded, chin propped on the back of his hand so he had a view of Erik’s hair streaming across the pillow – and a bit of a view up his nose, but he wasn’t complaining. Erik’s eyes glowed like the blue heart of a steady fire in the candlelight – but it was a natural glow, and nothing like the gleam of Leif’s eyes in the shadows earlier.

Oliver schooled his features, not wanting to spoil the moment with talk of Leif.

But then Erik reached for one of Oliver’s half-undone braids and wound it round his finger, rubbing at the royal beads there with his thumb as a groove slowly pressed itself between his brows.

Oliver reached to smooth it with his thumb, though it didn’t budge. “Good on you for having any thoughts in that head after that. You’ve left me nothing but pudding between the ears.”

A fleeting smile lifted the corners of Erik’s mouth, but faded quickly.