Page 26 of By Marsh and By Moor
Jed laughed, another surge of joy bubbling up in him.“You’ll hear no argument from me.”
Stopping often to kiss, they stumbled back down from the hilltop and into the pithead building where, earlier, they had built a fire in the hearth and laid out their blankets for sleeping.
Jed leaned against the doorpost, waiting impatiently while Solomon crouched to light the fire.Tinder sparked, and soon the dry leaves and twigs were blazing up.
Solomon sat back on his haunches, hands on his thighs, looking up at Jed with firelight in his eyes.“How do you want me?”
“God, every way.What do you like?”
“I’ve generally found my tastes to be quite broad.”
Jed let out a strangled laugh.“Thanks to London, the School of Vice?”
“That’s right.”Solomon’s eyes glinted with amusement.His mouth was level with Jed’s straining prick.He came forward onto his knees, nuzzling at Jed through the cloth of his breeches, rubbing his cheek against Jed’s stand.
Jed bit his lip.His head had been emptied of blood, and his knees didn’t seem to want to hold him up.He put out one hand to steady himself against the wall.
Solomon looked up at him, no wry twist to his face for once.His lips were slack, eyes dark with desire.
Jed wanted those lips on his again.He sank to his knees, and they were kissing again, less frantic now, deeper, slower.Jed’s heart soared.The life that had been beaten out of him over many years came flooding back; spreading, needle sharp, along his spine, throughout his body.
With clumsy hands he fumbled at Solomon’s breeches, wanting skin on skin.Solomon put a hand to Jed’s neckcloth, but instead of tugging it open, he traced one finger up the line of Jed’s throat, tipping Jed’s chin up so their eyes met.
“You are a wonder, Jedediah Trevithick.I knew you would be.”
Jed grunted, turning gruff.“Get this shirt off, why don’t you?”
They hurried each other out of their clothes, shivering in the cold air, moving to kneel closer to the fire.But it was worth braving the cold to lay eyes on Solomon’s lithe, sinewy body, tall and thin and hard-packed.His skin was red and gold in the firelight, prick standing proud, eager for Jed.
Jed knelt, motionless, feeling almost lost for a moment.He wasn’t used to having the luxury of time to stop and look, and he wasn’t used to being on display like this.He knew he was no oil painting, but he thought he must look good enough, all hard muscle from years in the rigging.Solomon’s appreciative gaze certainly seemed to agree.
Jed laid a hand flat on Solomon’s chest, so that he could feel Solomon’s heartbeat under his fingertips.He had noticed earlier how readily Solomon went limp beneath him.Experimentally, he gave a gentle push, and Solomon sank back onto the blankets they’d laid out earlier.
“Just you stay there,” Jed said.“I reckon I’m calling the tune.”
He raised an eyebrow, wanting to be sure Solomon was on board.
A flicker of surprise crossed Solomon’s face, soon to be replaced by a pleased look, and he nodded mutely.The trust in his expression gave Jed a strange, tight feeling in his chest.
Jed crawled over him, shivering at the first touch of Solomon’s skin, the first brush of Solomon’s prick against his.He pressed kisses everywhere: shoulder, tendon, jaw, relishing the feel of the long, lean body quivering with impatience under his own.
He’d been waiting for this forever, and he wanted to take his time.The oddness of the thought struck him, and he let out a huff of laughter.At Solomon’s interrogatory noise, Jed lifted his head to explain.“Just thinking—if we were in some back alley, we’d already be buttoning up and slipping away by now.”
“Mmm.Glad we en’t.”
Solomon licked his lips in a seemingly unconscious manner, his eyes on Jed’s prick.But Jed ignored that inviting mouth and moved down, pressing kisses to the lean stomach, then paused, hands gripping Solomon’s hips, and looked up to meet Solomon’s gaze.
“This all right?”
Again that flicker of surprise.But Solomon nodded.“Reckon so.You needn’t ask twice.”
Jed bent his head and swallowed down Solomon’s prick, full and heavy in his mouth until he groaned with it.He’d always loved this, and doing it to Solomon— It surpassed every daydream.Soon he was sucking him and teasing his hole in a rhythm that had Solomon whimpering, hands scrabbling for purchase in the blankets.
It was a rush of blood to the head, the intoxicating feeling of being at the helm, of making Solomon’s lithe body arch against him.Of finally breaking through that cool reserve.
Jed was painfully hard now, balls aching in a delicious anticipation.He didn’t lay a hand on himself, letting the pleasure-pain build.Instead, he pulled back for a moment, just to get a good look at Solomon: head thrown back, eyes closed, lower lip caught between his teeth.
Solomon groaned.“Jed.Christ.You can’t stop now.”
