Page 38 of Hansel and Gerhardt
The carcass.
He was up in a second, taking the dead beast with him.
“No!” Gerhardt cried, kicking out against the roots even as his back was pinned to the tree. “No! You will survive this! Take it!”
Hansel shook his head, eyes on the mouth of the monster. “Not without you.”
“Please, Hansel.” Gerhardt’s fingers felt over the bark, scraping on the rough wood of the mandibles. “I need to know you went on. Please.”
“Don’t be so ridiculous.” Hansel lunged forward, huge feet stomping the roots as he ran to Gerhardt. The roots came for him, but he ripped his leg up fast, never allowing them to take hold until he was at Gerhardt’s side.
“I,” he gritted out, taking the carcass in two arms, “wouldnever,” he breathed, wrapping fingers around the ribcage of the corpse, “leave you behind!” he yelled, ripping the body clean in two. One great arm lifted half the animal high and shoved it into the mouth. In one fluid motion, his now-empty hand returned to the corpse and ripped free a rib bone. He stabbed it into the trunk with such force it snapped in two, and he brought the sharp and broken edge down on Gerhardt’s ties.
Gerhardt may have been tethered to a tree, about to be devoured alive, but he wasn’t blind. He had no word for ‘sexy’, but he discovered it in Hansel’s bulging muscles, his flinty-eyed determination, and above all, in his protective fierceness.
He heard the scream of the tree as Hansel slashed him free. He felt the release of the roots as the briefly sated plant dropped his ankles while digesting its bounty. But rather than run, he more melted into the arm Hansel wrapped around him, and swooned his way out of the clearing, dragged and kept safe against that brave chest.
Hansel didn’t stop for a second. Meat in one arm, Gerhardt in the other, he fought on through darkness, their torch long since lost in the battle. On and on until it was Gerhardt that finally took a hand across his waist and pulled him to a stop. “Come, Hansel. Rest a moment.”
“Are you okay?” He halted quickly, and it was a new emotion for Gerhardt to realise Hansel’s only thought was for him.
“I’m fine. I’m…” He felt for Hansel’s hand in the dark. “Hansel, I’m…” How was he to say it?
He chose not to.
He traced his trembling hand up Hansel’s chest, over his wide shoulder, up his great neck, and, standing on tiptoes, Gerhardt planted a kiss on his lips.
The meat hit the ground with a slap, and Hansel’s arms enclosed Gerhardt in a hot and desperate embrace. He lifted Gerhardt clean off the ground, and Gerhardt brought his legs and arms around him, shocked and enamoured by the strength those limbs still held after everything. But Hansel was running on pure love. Grief, for almost losing him, desperation to feel him alive and real in his hands, and disbelief that he’d kissed him—an all-consuming need to kiss him now, to show him he was loved, for how long until it was all taken away, either by death or choice?
Hansel, devouring him, stumbled until Gerhardt’s back met a tree. Leaning him there, he ran his hands up his thighs, squeezing them so deliciously Gerhardt’s dick throbbed in his breeches. Gerhardt ground forward against him, needing the feel of him on his cock. He caught his cheek, breaking the kiss just long enough to whisper, “You’re wonderful. Thank you.”
“Gerhardt…” It was the smallest compliment, but coupled with the physical expression of his ardour, it floored Hansel. “I want to do what we did last night.”
“Now?” Gerhardt’s full dick searched out the relief of Hansel’s abs. “Here?”
Hansel wrapped a hand around Gerhardt’s cock. “You want to.”
“I do.”
He stroked his dick, his tongue grazing over his neck. “Does that feel good?”
Hansel’s dick pressed hard into Gerhardt’s breeches, firm and searching against his ass, and Gerhardt sank his hands in Hansel’s hair, grasping a hold for purchase to shift himself against his cock, losing his reality to Hansel. Beautiful Hansel. Brave Hansel. “It feels too good.”
“I want you to come in my hand again.”
Gerhardt let out a little gasp of approval. “Then, will you—”
“Who goes there?” A man’s voice, deep and unfamiliar, cut the close dark like a knife.
Hansel and Gerhardt froze.
It was human sounding.
A flicker of light in the woods spoke of the person’s too-near proximity.
Gerhardt’s hand found Hansel’s chest, pushing him back. Set on his feet, he hastily retied the string on his breeches, then reached a hand for Hansel’s arm to be sure he was close.
Hansel moved his shoulder against him, and they stood in perfect silence, watching the light. It was too far and too weak to illuminate any clear objects for them.
