Part Four

Word count: Approx. 2,400
Notes/Warnings: Non-graphic sex scene.

IV

“The stars are so beautiful.”

It slipped out on a soft, sighing voice, and quite without my meaning it to. Ap Nuada, still holding my hand, squeezed it and pointed up almost directly above us. “See that one there, and the ones gathered around it?” I nodded. “That’s The Hunter . . . and there! That large cluster, there, is The Lovers. And closer to the horizon, is The Bear. . . .”

I followed his finger as he pointed out individual stars and whole constellations, till I happened to look over at my companion and that scalding want rolled through me, again, this time like a wave, rather than a lion’s roar. It ebbed and flowed with every beat of my anticipatory heart.

And I must have been staring for a while—I’d lost the thread of the astronomy lesson quite thoroughly—for ap Nuada looked over at me and smiled.

“The stars are not the only thing that is beautiful on this night,” he said, and I flushed and laughed.

“You’ve already paid for me, Mr. ap Nuada. You don’t have to turn my head with flattery.”

“It’s not flattery if it’s true,” he replied softly. “And please, call me Gwynn.”

“Gwynn,” I said tentatively, as if tasting the word, and he shivered, grinning.

“Long it has been since someone called me by my given name. To hear it said so sweetly is a gift I will keep close,” he whispered leaning slowly closer, till his eyes were nothing but a dark sparkle, and I could smell whiskey and smoke in dizzying profusion.

Then my eyes were closing as his lips pressed the corner of my mouth, chastely, gently. I made a soft, desperate sound, high in my throat, and Gwynn chuckled, turning his head just so that our lips met full-on. When his parted, his tongue lapping delicately at my own lips as if entreating entrance, I moaned again and bid him enter.

We kissed—him patiently teaching me what he liked and letting me emulate him until I felt confident enough to improvise—and laughed between kisses, until a howl went up from the Wilderness, somewhere distant, but still too close for my liking. Shuddering, I broke the kiss, my face gone up in flames.

Gwynn put two fingers under my chin and tilted my face up till I was looking him in the eye once more. His own eyes were dancing and possessive. “Perhaps we should continue in the room your Madam Maeve has so kindly provided for us?”

And suddenly the howling of whatever beastie was out haunting the tangle of forest that represented the nearest arm of the Wilderness was the least worrisome thing about the night.

“I—” I began and Gwynn smiled.

“I am aware that you’ve never lain with a man, or indeed anyone. I can see the innocence in your aura, and all but smell it on you, Edric.” Gwynn’s gaze gentled, became almost tender in spite of his customary amusement and this new possessiveness. “I cannot promise that I won’t hurt you, but I can promise to make it good for you in spite of the initial pain. To treat the taking of your innocence with the gravity and care that it deserves.”

I looked down again, at the wooden buttons of Gwynn’s faded shirt. “Madam Maeve told me what to do—how to go about preparing myself and how to make it g-good for you.” I took a deep breath and met his eyes again. “I’ll do my best.”

Gwynn’s smile was warm and promising, and shinning from his dark face, his eyes were brighter than any stars that’d ever graced the heavens. He stood up, once more pulling me with him, this time into his arms and for another kiss that teased and tickled as his hands, large and hot, roamed under my borrowed jacket to rest at the small of my back and the curve of my behind. His body was hard against my own—harder, in some places, than others—and as hot as his hands.

We gazed into each other’s eyes for long minutes until the first drops from the sky surprised us into looking up. Thunderclouds, seemingly out of nowhere, had veiled the stars. Gwynn and I looked at each other, him shrugging, me shaking my head. Then Gwynn was sweeping me up in his arms and carrying me inside as if I weighed nothing—and just ahead of the deluge.

I clutched at him for dear life, afraid of being dropped, and stared back over his shoulder at the suddenly sheeting rain.

“How did you know—?” I began, meaning the sudden storm. Usually, around here, heavy storms like that take at least a couple hours to really get going, unlike further south in the Borderlands, where there are tornados and hurricanes. As it was, this immediate intensity was a bit frightening . . . and yet, thanks to Gwynn, we’d both only suffered the wetness of a few drops of it.

Gwynn carried me through the commons, past the ladies—Miss Millie included—who stared after us, and their gentlemen, who were instead staring out at the storm.

“It’s not hard to sense when a storm is coming—especially one so violent and . . . unusual,” Gwynn said, and I retrieved my attention from Miss Millie, who was staring at me as if stricken, equal parts rage and anguish written on her pretty, painted face. Gwynn’s face was thoughtful, his eyes focused on the way ahead. “If we had the time, I could teach you.”

As he started us up the stairs, I stared into his eyes and smiled a little.

“There are other things you’ll be teaching me, tonight. Things I’ve been wanting to learn far more than I want to learn storm-sensing,” I said tentatively, and Gwynn grinned, both boyish and dancing.

At the top of the stairs, I directed Gwynn right, and to the bedroom that would be ours for the night, and he immediately took us there, his arms showing no signs of strain or shakiness.

When we reached the correct door, I indicated he should stop, and he did, kissing me lightly and leaning against the door. One of the arms holding me up let go briefly to turn the knob—I quickly grabbed on for dear life, once more—then Gwynn was carrying me over the threshold and into the room, kicking the door shut behind us.

When he let me out of the kiss, I panted for a few moments before looking around us at the opulent surroundings—the velvet drapes, the king-sized canopy bed, the carefully and evenly stained, matched wooden furniture, the Eastern-style rugs.

In the small, quaint breakfast nook sat another bottle of Madam Maeve’s finest whiskey, as well as assorted nibbles—fresh fruit, crackers, cheeses, biscuits, and the like—and place settings for two.

“This is the best room in the house,” I told Gwynn and he smiled wistfully, almost like Madam Maeve had.

“It is indeed a richly appointed suite. And yet, it is nothing as compared to the suite of rooms I would gift you, were you to come be a guest in my home.” Gwynn walked us to the bed and placed me gently down into its softness. That lion’s roar-desire was back with a vengeance, though it was leavened with nerves and fear.

“And wh-where exactly is your home?”

Gwynn’s smile turns absent. “I told you: my home is in the Wilderness. It has been for longer than you’ve been alive by many years.”

“But you don’t look that old,” I said, squinting up at him. He appeared to be in his thirties—or a very well-kept forty. But certainly no older than that. “And no one lives in the Wildnerness but wights and boggarts and beasties. People only go there seeking their fortunes, not to make a home. And more don’t come back than do. Why, the Wilderness is death or insanity to people who stay there for too long, and you’re not insane or dead.”

Gwynn laughed, a merry sound, but grim, too. “Truly? Am I not?”

I shuddered. “Well. You don’t seem to be either. Not that I’ve ever met anyone who was dead. But I’ve seen the raving men and women who come back from the Wilderness—faerie-touched, or so it’s said—jibbering about the things they’ve seen and spoken to. Telling stories of the Sluagh and the Sidhe, and the Wild Hunt. . . .”

Going stiff, Gwynn’s smile faded slowly. “What do you know of the Wild Hunt, Edric ap Forester?” he asked quietly, his voice low and ponderous.

“Well,” I began hesitantly, digging up the few coherent bits I remember the ragged, madmen and madwomen I’d witnessed shouting in the streets before the sheriff took them away. “They ride down out of the sky and collect the souls of the dying, and press them into service as riders in their ghostly caravan. And on the eve of wars and battles, they can be seen riding across the sky, toward the site of the conflict. And it is said that the warriors who look up on the eve of battle and see them will, the next evening, be riding with the Wild Hunt as it flies off to herald new wars and new battles.”

“Do they say so?” Gwynn murmured, looking off toward the window. Outside, the rain came down as if it’d never rained before, buckets and buckets of it. Yet there was no thunder and no lightning. But Gwynn stared and stared out into the dim, wet night broodingly, and for long minutes. Finally, I spoke.

“Have I said something wrong? Have I upset you?”

He was slow to turn away from the window, but turn away, he did, and bend a small smile my way. “Quite the opposite, Edric. You please me immensely,” he said quite warmly, leaning down to kiss me. I’d quite gotten the hang of kissing and being kissed, at that point, and gave as good as I got, even though on the inside I was as trembling and nervous as an orphaned fawn.

Gwynn eventually broke the kiss with several small, sweet kisses that left me moaning and following him in the hopes of more. But he sat on the bed and put restraining hands on my shoulders. His eyes were solemn.

“Are you certain this is what you wish, lad?” he asked me. Then he went on off my surely blank look. “I paid for your companionship, it’s true, but we don’t have to lie together. We don’t have to do anything you don’t wish to do. There are many kinds of companionship, and I value all of them equally.”

I flushed, looking away and licking my lips. They tasted of whiskey and bittersweet smoke. “I . . . I am nervous about l-laying with you, Gwynn . . . but if it’s something you want, then I would like to. I—I would like my first time to be with you.”

Executing a courtly half-bow from his seated position, Gwynn said: “I am honored, then.”

And then he kissed me again, his gentle hands carefully removing my nice, but uncomfortable outfit piece by piece. When I was completely bared to him, shivering despite the warmth of the room, he smiled.

“You are lovely,” he whispered, and if I had cause to doubt his sincerity, that doubt was put to rest when he unbuckled his gun belts and I noticed again that he was visibly hard. I ached to touch him and have him touch me, and placed my hand squarely on the distended front of his jeans. I could feel the heat of him through the material and something within me . . . that lion’s roar, sounded again, heating my blood and making it all but impossible to think clearly. To think beyond my desire for him.

Gwynn hissed as I cupped and stroked him, his gun belts dropping to the floor with a heavy, laden thunk. I smiled in the face of his arousal, stroking and squeezing, and whispered: “Lay with me.”

He reached out and caressed my face so, so softly. I leaned into his touch and undid his fly, snaking my hand into his jeans. He was hard, huge, and damp in my hand and I felt that nervous flutter in the pit of my stomach.

“I will make this good for you, Edric. This I swear on my life,” Gwynn said gravely, and I nodded, lying back in the fluffed pillows. Moments later, it seemed, he was naked—but for a necklace of some silvery metal that gleamed mellowly in the lamplight, and from which hung a pendant shaped like a tripartite leaf—all shining midnight skin and rippling muscle. He climbed into bed with me, gathering me into his arms for another kiss that overwhelmed me . . . till it felt as if I was drowning. And happily.

Wherever our skins touched seemed to hum and burn pleasantly, intensely, and when Gwynn’s hand slid up my thigh to take me in hand, I moaned again, long and loud.

No one had ever touched me that way before, and I didn’t care, in that moment, if anyone else ever would, for nothing, surely nothing could be better than Gwynn ap Nuada’s hand on me.

Madam Maeve was right, I thought as Gwynn rolled us over, so that he was on top of me, still kissing me, and pushing his hardness against my own. I wrapped my arms around his neck and one leg around his thighs, and bucked up against him, until we fell into a rhythm of thrusts and grunts, hisses and groans. My body does know what to do . . . and so does his.

Then, swept up in the hum and burn, the heat and the intensity, I wasn’t thinking much of anything anymore, nor for many hours, thereafter.