Page 29 of The Elves and the Shoemaker (The GriMM Tales #4)

Twenty-Two

Johan

J

ohan passed Elias his woolly hat before grabbing his own. Despite the blue sky and the sun shining, the temperature had dropped significantly, and the ground had been covered in a glittering frost that morning.

It was a good day for them to try and talk because Johan was feeling more relaxed than he had in weeks, and his words had been coming more freely than they usually did.

He led the way out the front door and took some water skins to fill up while they were by the stream. Elias followed cautiously. Johan could tell he was nervous, and he didn’t enjoy the way Elias had been walking on eggshells around him.

At least ten minutes had passed by the time Elias finally broke the silence. A record if there ever was one.

“I told myself a lie,” he said.

Johan waited for him to go on.

“I told myself I’d kill those men because then they couldn’t hurt other elves, but that wasn’t true.

The reality is that those men were replaced within the day, and I killed them because I was angry.

I killed them because I wanted revenge, and I made sure you couldn’t stop me because if anyone could have, it would have been you. ”

Johan was oddly relieved to discover that Elias had actually taken the time to examine his decisions that night.

“I don’t know if I would have tried to stop you or not.”

Elias nodded in understanding.

“I’m not sure if my words hold much weight to you right now, but for what it is worth.

” Elias gulped loudly before continuing.

“I promise that I will never use magic on you again without your consent, Johan. I cannot pretend to regret the deaths of those men, but I have come to realise that I do regret what I did to you. I understand that I broke your trust, and I really hope you will give me a chance to earn it back.”

With the hand not holding the water skins, Johan reached over and wrapped an arm around Elias’ shoulders, tugging him into his side and squeezing.

Truthfully, Johan had been trying to find a way to make peace with Elias without an apology because he’d been certain that what happened that night was a hill Elias would be prepared to die on.

Johan wasn’t and had never been an angry man. He’d battled every day with his hurt feelings towards Elias, tried to will them to disappear. Tried to force his heart to forgive the little elf, but the wound Elias had created had refused to close.

Johan felt it closing now, though. Felt his anger and hurt begin to fade at the acknowledgement that Elias knew he’d been wrong to make that choice.

“When I woke up and you were gone, I got to you as quickly as I could. And when I saw you crumpled on the street, I… I thought you were dead. You… you aren’t an island. If you’d died that day, we’d have died that day. You don’t get to… to leave us behind.”

Johan had to take his arm back in order to wipe where his eyes were leaking.

They’d just stepped through the tree line and made their way towards the stream where they collected their fresh drinking water from. Elias took a seat on a large mossy rock that lined the bank.

“Sit with me?” Elias asked.

Johan did, although clearly Elias felt they weren’t close enough, because he clambered onto Johan’s lap, clasped their hands together, and pressed his forehead to Johan’s.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

“I know.” Johan gently pushed a few strands of Elias’ hair out of his face and tucked them back into his hat.

“Are we going to be okay?” A single tear ran down Elias’ cheek.

Johan nodded before kissing Elias firmly on the lips. He melted in his arms like butter in the sun, his lips parting for Johan and welcoming him like they always did.

Elias whimpered, and Johan swallowed the sound, kissing him more wildly than he ever had before. Feverish hands tugged at Johan’s shirt, and he helped Elias remove it before ridding Elias of his own clothes.

Johan kissed the breadth of Elias’ chest, licking and sucking on his nipples, which were peaked from the cold air.

“Beautiful,” he whispered into his lover’s skin.

The temperature surrounding them rose slightly, and Johan smiled. This use of magic he could get on board with.

“Can I… I mean, can we? Um… what are we doing?” Elias asked breathlessly, clearly overcome with arousal but aware that his previous advances had been denied.

“Whatever you want, sweetheart. You can have whatever you want.” Johan reached for Elias’ face and pulled his lips to his own to kiss him again.

“Will you… will you take me, Johan? Make love to me?”

“Yes, Elias. Because I do, you know, love you. I love you so much. Even when I can’t find the words, it’s there in my heart.”

Elias released a sob at that, shaking like a leaf in Johan’s arms even as he frantically undid Johan’s breaches to pull his stiffened cock free.

With their lips fused together, Elias stood on his knees before reaching back to guide Johan into his warm heat. He was so tight and wet and perfect that Johan had to scrunch his eyes shut not to lose himself right away.

“Johan?”

“Mmm?”

“I love you, too. My heart is divided in two and neither belongs to me anymore.” Elias gasped as he sank lower. “It is battered and bruised but it’s yours and Rik’s.”

Johan had never experienced such an onslaught of emotion. He was sure it must be bursting from his skin because there was too much of it.

“We’ll take care of it,” Johan promised.

“I know.”

Johan helped guide Elias up and down his length in a slow but perfect rhythm as they made their way back to one another.

With Elias’ magic it was like existing in a warm bubble he never wanted to leave.

Johan’s imagination had conjured up some vivid scenarios of his first time entering another man, but nothing compared to the reality of being welcomed into the tight warmth of someone he loved.

He hoped Henrik wouldn’t feel disappointed that they’d done this without him, but he also knew that the two of them needed this.

Henrik had nothing to do with what had fractured between them, and so they had to repair this between themselves.

Johan had needed space, and Elias had given him that at the expense of himself.

It would take physically reconnecting and intimacy for Elias to feel secure again, and Johan wouldn’t be so cruel as to deny him that, and maybe Johan needed it too. More than he’d realised.

So, he made love to Elias, he poured his heart into every brush of skin against skin, kissed and treasured Elias everywhere his lips could reach, and he lost himself in Elias’ body. In Elias’ love.

The friction of Elias’ grinding up and down his cock was too exquisite, and while Johan wanted the moment to last forever, he knew he could only fight his release for so long.

“You feel too good, too perfect. I won’t last much longer.” He moaned when Elias clenched around him.

Johan feared that he might never want to leave Elias’ body again, and the fact Elias would likely let him stay was intoxicating.

It was a feeling like no other. So exquisite he could taste it on his tongue, felt parts of himself come alive in an explosion of sensation.

He scratched his beard against Elias’ naked chest, reddening the skin and then swirled his tongue around Elias’ budding nipple.

Johan would never get over the way Elias gave himself to his lovers. Gifted them his body and trusted that they’d do everything they could to pleasure him and use him just the way he adored. It was a beautiful thing to witness.

“Let go, kjaere. I want to feel it, want to—” Elias gasped as he sank all the way down. “Need you to fill me. Mark me as yours from the inside.”

Elias leaned back slightly and braced one hand behind him on Johan’s knee, using the other to stroke himself hard and fast, all the while continuing to ride Johan so hard he could hardly form a coherent thought.

It was all too much, too perfect, and too everything, and Johan erupted. He practically shouted Elias’ name as he held him down on his cock, trapping his release inside his lover while his body trembled from what Johan could only describe as a spiritual experience.

Elias followed Johan into bliss almost immediately, cum shooting from the head of his cock all over Johan’s hairy stomach before he collapsed forward, his chest heaving.

“Please. Tell. Me. We’ll be. Doing. A lot more. Of that,” Elias panted.

Johan chuckled a little hysterically and wrapped his arms tightly around Elias’ back.

“Our new house might never get built now,” he replied.

Johan enjoyed the fantasy of a life where the three of them did nothing but make love and take turns filling Elias up with cum.

He wasn’t sure when his imagination had become so filthy, but he was fairly certain it started around the time this particular little elf had burst into his life with his shameless perfect mouth.

Elias’ magic was beginning to wane, and it became much too cold to linger, so they quickly washed up in the stream and filled up their water skins before heading back to the elf who completed them.

“Gods, what is that? Did you see it?” Elias asked as they walked hand in hand.

“Kingfisher, they are quite common by the water.”

“It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen a bird that colour before. It’s like a winter sunset or something. Magical,” Elias said in wonder.

Johan beamed at Elias like the lovesick fool he was. One of the things he adored about Elias was his ability to find simple joys in the world. Elias always paused to smell a nice flower or to admire a tiny ant carrying a big leaf on its back.

“They are a lot like elves. They collect things and give gifts to woo their mate,” Johan explained.

“Gosh, what romantic little birds. Do they mate for life, please tell me they do?”

“Not exactly, but they do often return to their mate for more than one season.”

“Kjaere, if I were a kingfisher, I’d always return to you.” Elias squeezed Johan’s hand.

“What does ‘kjaere’ mean?”

Elias blushed, and Johan had to fight not to kiss the bloom as it spread across his cheeks.

“Um… it means like, darling, or… or beloved.”

Johan brought their joined hands up to his lips and kissed the back of Elias’. “My kjaere, too,” he said.