TEN

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The journey to Wafret was not easy. Not that I had a great deal of experience with journeys of any kind, but even if my pack felt easier to bear and my feet complained less as the days went by, there was still a great deal of tension.

When we were out on the open moors and there was no hope of passing unseen, we started travelling by day. The soldiers drilled at gunnery, sometimes combining this with hunting for our food, sometimes in more dedicated practise. At first I was kept busy handling ammunition; but when we passed an Army post, Elizabeth used her rank to requisition some additional supplies. She pressed knife, pistol, and rifle upon me, and instructed me to learn to be useful.

That stung, but her cutting remarks when gunnery didn’t come easily were more of a burden, if only for being more numerous. Still, I tried; I doubted I would ever match the skill of trained soldiers, and I scared off far more hares than I brought down, but I tried.

Training was made no easier by how often I found my eyes and thoughts straying toward my companions. Nor was it only me; the other men were losing focus as well, and on one occasion I caught sight of Jacob out downwind from the camp, fist pumping along his bare manhood, teeth clenched to keep quiet, squeezing out a quick moment of pleasure in a bid to get his thoughts under control.

The notion of joining him was a tempting one indeed. But I settled for a similarly private moment, crouching among the heather and spattering it with white, before returning to my duties.

It didn’t greatly help; the urges were only briefly muted, soon returning in force. One of the women was on heat – which, I didn’t know, save that I’d made quite sure it wasn’t Rebecca – and not taking care of it.

At first I thought the heightened degree of acid in Elizabeth’s tone was due to the fraying discipline, but then I chanced to overhear her asking Travis for some moments of his company.

I thought for a moment that that would finally settle matters, but to my immediate surprise, he crossed his arms and spoke a very flat “No.” When she sputtered a barely-coherent query as to why and seized his cloak, he quite deliberately pulled her hands off of him, saying, “You’ve been entirely horrible to one of our travelling companions, demanding more of him than of any five-year man. You’re certainly not acting as anybody I wish to chance having a child with, ma’am,” his dry tone turned the honorific into something just this side of an insult, “so for the time being, I’m afraid I must decline your request.”

“But… but this is slowing us all down,” she protested.

The marksman sighed, looking out over the rolling hills. “With respect, ma’am,” and despite his earlier remarks, he did sound genuinely respectful, “I believe you’ve erred in your treatment of the man. He’s not a soldier, and you’re expecting him to be one, while resisting our other civilian companion’s every effort to be of use. We can’t afford the risk of anyone getting with child on the road, and you’ve so thoroughly alienated the one man here who wouldn’t come with that risk, I’d not be surprised if he refuses to have anything to do with you.” He took a step back, settling his cloak. “I, on the other hand, have no qualms about seeing if he favours me better. Perhaps he and I can relieve our tension with each other over the next few days.”

For a moment Elizabeth simply stared at him; then, grumbling under her breath, she took her rifle into her hands and stalked off into the heather.

Travis turned toward the campfire, and blinked to find me tending the pot. “How… how much of that did you hear?” he enquired, ears tilting back.

“All of it, I’m sorry to say,” I admitted with a sigh, giving the pot a few stirs before adding, “I thought I’d been becoming less of a burden.”

“If you’ve been burdensome, it’s because we’ve expected too much of you,” he replied, sitting beside me. One of his arms slid around my shoulders; unexpected – for all his friendly disposition, he’d never made a bid for contact before – and seemingly unconscious, but welcome; I let myself lean into his embrace.

“It’s just so silly,” he sighed over my ears. “You’ve a form any woman could desire and any man might envy, you’ve been nothing but eager to help, you’ve not complained when by the heavens you should, and she bears this… this petty grudge against you for I don’t know what.”

“I wish I knew, myself,” I said, reaching over to rub behind his ears, to nudge them forward and upright. “Then I might put it to rights.”

“No,” he insisted, “it isn’t your failing to mend. Far from it. She is being foolish, and for sake of her rank we’ve ignored it too long by far. You are…” His roving fingers drifted over the front of my breeches, curling in against my manhood, and the last of his words emerged in a sibilant hiss: “Nothing short of exquisite.”

Some part of me knew I ought to tend the pot. But it would be so easy to give him my attention for a few minutes, to let him coax my swelling flesh into the open and do with it as he wished. I couldn’t quite keep a soft groan from slipping free of my throat as I pressed up into his touch, though I did try to keep the ladle stirring.

Until it was lifted from my hand.

“Get yourselves somewhere more comfortable, you two,” Helen said with a light laugh. “I’ll tend to this.”

I felt a sudden twinge of guilt. “It was put in my care,” I said, though I couldn’t make myself say it above a mumble.

“Go on, go on.” She nudged my side with her elbow as she sat by the fire. “It’s not as though I don’t know what troubles you both. If you want to repay the favour,” she flashed me a glittering smile, “I imagine I’ll need one within a week. Now off with you, get control of yourselves.”

With a chuckle tinged with nervousness, Travis forced his hand away from my breeches, tugging my arm instead. “The woman’s right, Edmond. I don’t imagine either of us will get any work done unless we… tend to things. Though if you’d rather do so on your own…”

I looked over at him, seeing the wistfulness in his eyes before he tried to school it away, to cover it with casual playfulness. “No, no,” I assured him, touching my fingers to my lips, then to his. “Your company would be quite welcome.”

He drew me into the tent he and Jacob shared, and the moment the flap was let down, all the waiting was done. There was an urgency in his hands, in his quickening breaths, that was an utter delight to witness, answered in full measure by my own rising need.

It was a strange experience, honestly. Not in any sort of negative manner, no – but my need had been spurred on by a woman, and I’d had enough of them in the past few years to build up a few habits. Too, the only other person I’d met with such lush white fur was, of course, a woman; my reactions were somewhat dissonant. My roving hand didn’t find the soft swell of a feminine breast as it slid over his chest, though he leaned into my touch with equal relish; the moan that slid over my ears was too low in pitch to mistake for a woman’s, higher over my ears than any woman’s had gone, but just as needy. He wasn’t just a masculine version of Rebecca, and in more rational moments it’d feel daft to even think I’d ever expected him to be – but he certainly had passion to match.

His mouth worked against mine as the last of our clothing was tossed aside, his hands roaming about my back and shoulders. It was up to me to ease him onto his back, following atop him, never breaking that hungry kiss. He gasped against my muzzle when I brought my manhood against his, trembling beneath me as my fingers slid along his rigid flesh.

Now that we’d been together a time and the very influence that had put us in this state had departed, I found the scent of him intoxicating in its own right. I drew my muzzle away from his with one last lick over his lips, turning around atop him to bring my nose closer to the source of that enticing scent. He let me act as I wished, his hands tentative in their touch upon me, especially as one wrapped about my own rigid flesh.

“I’ve not been with a man in nearly ten years,” he murmured against my thigh, and chuckled. “I’d forgotten how fine it could be.”

In reply, I simply let my tongue give him finer things to think about. I traced the rim of his glans, and he tensed under me, swallowing a hoarse moan; drew it my tongue upwards, collecting the bead of moisture that was starting to pool there; then I stopped resisting entirely, and drew his hot manhood into my mouth.

He wasn’t nearly so confident in his own motions, but the strokes and kisses and light licks he lavished upon my own member where quite exciting in themselves. So too was the rising urgency in his moans, the knowledge of the pleasure I was bringing him, of how swiftly he was responding to my touch.

Perhaps my memory was simply flawed by the intervening years, or perhaps the seething need in both of us truly played a role. Whatever the case, when his manhood jerked against my tongue, it felt as though a torrent of hot, rich seed was pouring from it, jet after fierce jet. He clutched tightly to me, his moans and whimpers stifled by that portion of my flesh that he held in his mouth, his attentions otherwise stilled for the moment as he gave his release to me entirely, one swallow after another of his warm essence flowing down my throat.

When he did recover enough of himself to start lapping at the crown of my manhood, I certainly wasn’t in any state to hold back from repaying his generosity in kind.

At length, my pleasure receded. I lifted myself from him, but I lacked the concentration to even turn around; I simply let myself fall onto the bedroll beside him, panting, with my head against his hip. Somewhat farther along in his recovery, he gave a gentle stroke along my thigh.

“That was very fine indeed,” he sighed. “I rather wish I’d had the nerve to ask for your company before we were forced to it.” He picked himself up, twisting around to lay properly beside me, curling an arm around my shoulders and nuzzling at my ears. “You feel nice.”

“So do you,” I sighed, wiggling in a bit closer against him, burying my nose for a moment in thick white fur. “You don’t need to feel shy about asking for more, hm? You’re quite a beauty, you know, as well as wonderful company.”

He laughed, bringing his free hand up to ruffle between my ears. “Come, now. You spend your days surrounded by comely folk.”

“And you would rank very highly indeed among them,” I insisted. “If there’s some law or regulation that keeps soldiers from being attractive, I’m not aware of it.”

He simply laughed, holding me close for a few moments.

Movement outside of the tent caught my attention, and I thought to ask, “What might you have done if Jacob had come in here?”

“Asked if he wished to join in, most likely,” Travis responded with an impish grin. “I’ve not felt so strong a need since I was a boy. I’ve been a breath away from claiming a piece of him for a night as it is.”

For a moment I entertained the notion of having the two men on either side of me. Standing together, perhaps, feeling each other, while I tasted both of them in turn… there were worse thoughts.

But I pushed the image aside with no more than a brief shiver. “Pleasant a notion as that might be, we should at least make an effort to focus.”

“You’re correct there,” he admitted, letting go of me and reaching over for the nearest abandoned article of clothing, which happened to be my shirt. “Besides, it smells as though the stew is ready, or close to it.”

I took a breath, and managed to pick out the aroma of cooked hare past the scent of my recent lover. “So it does,” I sighed. “And if I didn’t quite manage to finish preparing it, the least I can do is appreciate it properly.”

“Spoken truly and well,” Travis laughed.

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