( continues...) And this was nonsense, in a way, for he had been a soldier and he had shared living quarters with large groups of men. There had been no room for secrets or privacy. “Not when there’s light,” he amended. “Not before other people.” As well chastise a dog for licking its balls, he thought with sudden hopelessness. But FitzChivalry Farseer was not a dog, and in time he would know it.
The boy was still hard, and Burrich could smell his arousal very clearly in the quiet hut. Could feel it pressing against him. They sat very still. Burrich knew that he was much too close, and he was certainly going to move in a moment. Fitz’s gaze was locked upon his own, and Burrich couldn’t help following the path of Fitz’s pink tongue as it darted out to wet his lips. He felt the boy begin to squirm under him, and there was an instant when he thought that this was going to be another tussle for mastery, an attempt to win freedom. But it wasn’t. He gasped, his shock unfeigned as Fitz began to rub urgently, hopefully against him, and then in one appalled movement he had released the trapped wrists, cuffed the boy again and flung himself away as if burnt.
“You don’t do that,” he shouted again, although whether he was speaking to the boy or to himself he was not sure.
Burrich emptied a bottle of blackberry brandy that night, and his dreams were full of the Fitz’s father. In the dreams, Chivalry’s face was scarred, and Burrich knew it was his fault.
* * *
The second time it happened, the lad was on the very cusp of coming when Burrich unlocked the door and stepped into the hut. Slitted eyes met his, glassy with lust, pupils dilated so wantonly wide that each iris was reduced to a fragile ribbon of colour bound around the darkness. His father’s face, battered and bruised but beautiful despite it all. Burrich felt the force of it like a kick from a plough horse. His treacherous eyes darted at once to the jutting flesh that Fitz had freed from his breeches, and which Fitz was handling with an almost brutal efficiency. For a moment he could not breathe.
“Stop that.” His voice was like a lash, breaking the urgent rhythm of the lad’s hand for a moment. The boy who had once been FitzChivalry Farseer snarled at him and resumed his task. “You are NOT a beast,” Burrich insisted, as if the words might make it so. He was dry mouthed as he crossed the room to wrench Fitz’s hand away. He felt the lad’s gaze sliding shamelessly over him as Fitz quickened his rhythm to a frantic pitch. Burrich’s hand closed on his wrist just a hair’s breadth too late, and the sudden splatter of wet heat against his skin shocked him into stillness.
They stared at one another, Fitz’s breath warm against Burrich’s face and the stink of sex in the air. He should, Burrich knew distantly, cuff the lad. Hard. He needed to learn that this was not done, was not acceptable behaviour for a Farseer, even a bastard Farseer. He needed to learn how to be human again. Instead he released his grip on Fitz’s wrist very carefully, and pulled himself away from the boy. The back of his hand brushed fleetingly against the boy’s wet and wilting flesh, and the accidental contact sent a jolt through both of them.
“Oh, Fitz,” he rasped, the name torn from him. It was almost a plea, although to whom and for what he was not sure. Burrich backed away, stumbling all the way to the door. Fitz watched him lazily through slitted eyes and gave a vast and guileless yawn. He rolled over, doglike, as Burrich closed the door behind him and leaned back against it, staring blindly out into the dusk. He was, he realised, shaking like an old man with the palsy. Or like a bride on her wedding night.
He was also achingly hard.
This could not go on.
* * *