Page 108 of Heart of Winter
“No,” Oliver said again, turning his head to catch Erik’s gaze. They stood so close, faces overlapping; he caught a blurred impression of eyes turned to sapphires in the firelight, and their cheeks brushed together, Erik’s short beard rasping his own smooth jaw. “This is not –I’mnot – this isdefinitely notmy” – he swallowed, throat sticking – “first time.”
“Hm.” Erik bumped their noses together. “That’s almost a pity.” He tugged the last bit of lacing undone with a hooked finger, and then slipped his other hand inside Oliver’s tunic and shirt, large palm pressed over his thudding heart. He angled their faces, lips hovering over lips. “But I’ll be grateful not to frighten you.”
Oliver swayed forward, catching himself against Erik’s broad chest with both hands. “Oh, you could still frighten me, but I’d like it.”
That earned another low chuckle, and then a kiss, languid, thorough, but more insistent than any that had come before.
Oliver slid his hands regretfully down Erik’s stomach, and then reached for the buckle of his own belt; it was very important that he get naked as soon as possible, suddenly.
Erik broke the kiss to whisper, “No, let me do that.” His hands pulled out of Oliver’s clothes, a sudden loss of warm and stirring touch – but then he put them at Oliver’s belt, and had the silver buckle loose in a matter of moments. The thick band of tooled leather made a softthunkas it hit the carpet, and then Erik was bundling Oliver’s tunic and shirt in his hands, and lifting them up and over his head and off.
Gooseflesh prickled across his skin; his nipples drew tight. Oliver resisted the immediate, kneejerk urge to cover himself, because Erik had already seen him, several times now, and he’d looked nothing but hungry and wanting every time.
Like now, as he took a half-step back and let his gaze shift over Oliver’s lean torso, marble pale in the firelight, no doubt.
Erik took a low, audible breath in through his nose; then licked his lips and stepped in close again. He caught Oliver’s chin with one hand, and kissed him, clever tongue pressing right in; his other hand went to Oliver’s waistband, and his flies, working them in a few quick tugs.
“Boots,” he murmured between kisses.
“Shit.” Oliver caught at his waist for balance as he clumsily toed them off.
When his bare feet were braced on the carpet, Erik smoothed the trousers down over his hips, smalls too, and then he stood naked, drawn to the warmth of the large body curved around his, mouth falling open in helpless oversensitivity as hands skated and petted over him – all of him.
Erik stroked his throat, and his shoulders, his chest; played with his nipples, and strummed over his ribs like harp strings. Warm, sword-callused palms swept up and down the dip of his waist, the small of his back. Cupped his ass and squeezed; flirted, faintly, between – and then a hand covered his cock and stayed there, squeezing and stroking until he was filling and hardening within that grasp.
Oliver had given up all pretense of kissing; he’d pressed his forehead to Erik’s throat and breathed in short, cut-off little gasps, thrusting in aborted surges as Erik worked his cock.
“If you come now,” Erik asked, “can you come again later?”
It was an effort to form words. “Yeah – yes. I’m always – good for a few.”
Erik’s thumb smoothed over the head of his cock, and he breathed a laugh. “I don’t doubt it.”
Then, before Oliver could comprehend it, he went down on his knees on the carpet, gripped Oliver’s hips, and took Oliver in his mouth.
Oh gods, there’s akingsucking my cock, he thought, wildly, and then Erik drew off with a long, slow suck, and set to torturing him in the most wonderful way.
It turned out that Erik Frodeson of Aeretoll was a tease – one with a wickedly skilled tongue. He would take Oliver deep, all the way, swallowing around him – and then he would pull back, ghosting lips down his length, sucking at the head with a curved tongue. Each time Oliver thought he might be close, trembling and gasping, Erik would ease back, until he was barely touching him, or, worse, would grip him at the base and hold him off.
Oliver finally got to sink his hands into that mass of glorious hair, though, unsteady fingertips catching on braids, and on beads, the metal cool against his overheated skin. When he gripped it between his fingers, Erik made a low, encouraging sound and took him deep again.
“Gods,” Oliver breathed out. “Fuck, I won’t–”
Erik pulled off, and pressed a string of messy kisses low across his belly, looking up at Oliver through his lashes; his mouth shiny and pink, his pupils blown, his hair tangled around Oliver’s fingers – it was too much.
When he swallowed Oliver down again, he came with a whimper. “Erik.”
Erik gentled him through it with mouth and hands, and, when Oliver flinched away, overstimulated, he cleaned him with a few last passes of his tongue and got to his feet, trailing hands and lips up Oliver’s body as he went, until he could hold his waist and reel him in for a gentle kiss.
Oliver was too weak to return it with any finesse, but tasting himself on the king’s lips sent a fresh wave of crackling aftershocks through him.
“Say that again,” Erik murmured against the corner of his mouth.
“What?”
“My name. When we’re alone like this, I don’t want to be ‘your majesty.’”
The immediate, post-coital sleepiness had hit Oliver like a truck, but he smiled, his chest light and warm, and leaned into the hands petting his waist. “All right, then. You’re very good at sucking cock, Erik. How very un-your majesty of you.”
