“What?” I asked, confused.
He winked and dipped his head, sucking my cock into his mouth. My fingers tightened, my hips bucked despite my attempt at control and Robin chuckled around my manhood, swirling his tongue. I whimpered, trying to relax my need to fuck like a rabid bunny.
I felt the cold air hit the hot, wet head and realised I’d closed my eyes. When they focused again, Robin, nestled between my raised knees, studied me. “You alright?” he asked.
I nodded.
“You won’t last long, Will and that’s alright. I want to taste you, all of you. I want to swallow it all.” He tilted to one side and I saw him gripping his cock, stroking himself. “I can give myself pleasure and you, just enjoy, one day we’ll do it the other way around if you wish.”
“I wish,” I said.
His eyes narrowed for a moment and his hand stilled. I watched a tear track down his scarred cheek and I felt confused and a little lost in the intensity of his gaze. I stroked his head, rather than gripping it and he closed his eyes for a moment, freeing me but rubbing his bearded cheek against my thigh. He rolled back onto his belly and took my cock in his mouth with ruthlessness.
The heat, the damp pressure, the suck and noise, it felt so good, too good. My heart raced, my body grew tight and I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to claw at Robin, claw at my own skin. I needed to release, I had to ease the pressure building and I watched Robin’s tangle of hair bob up and down my straining shaft. He pressed his tongue into the slit of my cock, he swirled it around the head, he sucked and moaned when I lost control of my hips and pushed into his mouth, watching my body disappearing into his.
I began to whimper in desperation.
He stopped playing with his cock and reached up to grab my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Relax, Will, you won’t hurt me. You won’t hurt yourself. Relax, sweet boy and I’ll make it feel wonderful.”
“I’m scared,” I blurted out.
That was enough. Robin surged upwards, wrapped his arms around my body, now trembling and buried his face into my neck, breathing hard.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I clung to his back, on the edge of tears from shame, fear and confusion. “No it’s me, I’m broken.”
Robin drew back enough to look into my face. “No, they tried to break you, Will, but they couldn’t. They won’t. Find pleasure in your own way, use me to bring your release. I pushed too far, you need the control for now.” He kissed me with sensitivity but I needed more so I rolled him onto his back and turned it into a burning assault on his mouth. When I moved to his neck I heard a whispered, “Yes, Will, yes, take it all.”
I nipped at him, sucked at him, licked and kissed. I dug my fingers into his flanks and nuzzled into the dark hairs over his chest, the fevered race down his torso, over his hard belly had me facing the dark red of his large cockhead in moments. A thick bead of juice quivered on its crown and I licked it. Robin whimpered. I closed my eyes, wanting to memorise the taste, the earthy salt was everything I craved.
Robin stroked my dark head and watched me with concern. I smiled at him and he nodded before relaxing to my attentions. I opened my mouth and took him into my body, he filled the damp cavern of my mouth, stretching my lips, making my tongue feel too large. I groaned and Robin jerked.
“Steady, Will, it’s not going to take much to push me over the edge,” he whispered. I could hear the strain of control in his voice. It made me brave being able to reduce this magnificent man to a quivering wreck.
I moved my tongue and sucked hard. Robin cursed. I began to play and reached for my aching, swollen and desperate cock in return. Instinct drove me now and I knew we were nearing the edge. I had a choice and as Robin shouted a warning I strained against the fingers trying to drag me off his cock. He exploded into my mouth, flooding me, deep and hot. It tipped me over the edge, the intense earthy flavour, and I came at last.
Robin didn’t pause for a moment, and instead he reached for my shoulders and dragged me off his cock even as I was trying to finish what still leaked from his body. He kissed me deep, drawing the flavour out of my mouth and into his before rolling me onto my back once again and dragging the blanket over us.
When he released me so we could breathe he smiled. “You’re so perfect. And so fucking brave.”
“Not so brave,” I whispered.
He cradled my face in his hand. “Yes, Will, brave.”
15
WE LAY WRAPPED TOGETHER, my head on Robin’s chest as I played with the hair heedless of the cold morning because Robin seemed to generate his own heat. I knew such peace in his arms, I also knew I could never have enough of him and that morning’s fun was just the tip of a mountain.
“We should return and face Tuck’s wrath,” Robin murmured.
“I know, I just want to enjoy our peace while I can.” I rolled off his chest and sat up, gazing into the woodlands surrounding us. Now I wasn’t focused on Robin and our lust I could smell the heavy loam we’d disturbed and the sound of the river overwhelmed the few birds. “I have the list of tax collections Marion gave me, it’s going to be a busy few days.”
Silence behind me. I rose off his chest and glanced at my lover. His arms were tucked behind his head, and lifting his head off the blanket he studied me again.
I broke the silence. “You don’t think it’s a good idea do you?”
His left eyebrow rose, the right, trapped by scar tissue, didn’t move unless he frowned. “I just think it might be a good idea to think about this plan and how you, Marion and Tuck do this. It places you all in so much danger. I’ve no wish to see you hang, Will.”
I shrugged. “Too late for that, Robin. They catch me, they’ll hang me and worse. I know that.”
“They don’t know it’s you and few would believe it if you told them. A monk and minstrel don’t rob people.”
“Tax collectors, bullies, and murderers,” I qualified.
“Walking away must be an option,” he said.
I shook my head.
A large, rough hand rubbed my back. “Then we need to make it safer because I’ll not lose you now I’ve found you.”
The emotion in his voice surprised me. I sat but Robin pulled me back to his chest. “This is where you are safest and I want you here forever,” he rumbled.
Unfortunately, we didn’t remain in our sanctuary for long as I could hear Tuck calling us to breakfast, so we dressed in the few garments we’d worn before escaping the cave and judgement and returned to our camp. Tuck watched me dress but declined to comment about my activities, the scowl enough to ensure a lecture would be forthcoming at some point.
“Where’s the paper with the details of the collections, Will?” Robin asked, licking his fingers clean of the honeycomb he’d sucked. Watching him suck and chew the damned stuff had been an exercise in self-control for me and another memory to store away for the future.
“I… Um…” Robin chuckled as I tried to think about something other than his tongue wrapped around my cock.
“Paper, Will,” he repeated with deliberate care.
I grunted and went in search. When I returned to his side I handed it over and he read the neat script. “Marion wrote this?” he asked.
“No, Alan. He gave it to Marion, she’s too troubled to remember everything fast enough,” I said.
Robin grunted, unimpressed with our system. “I need to meet this Alan and arrange a safer method of communication. I have no wish to endanger Marion.”
“She’ll love you for that,” I muttered.
Robin pinned me with his hard blue eyes. “She’ll learn to live with it. It’s my duty to protect her wherever it’s possible.”
I sighed. “You can’t have it both ways, Robin and she won’t let it be both ways. You either announce your presence as her brother and rightful heir to Huntingdon or you let her live her life her way, which means doing this with her consent. Marion won’t allow you to control her. She has a hard enou
gh time with Bastard Husband, she’ll not put up with it from you as well.”
Robin muttered something I couldn’t hear but didn’t argue. “Is this list always right?” he asked.
“Most of the time, though we cannot hit every target. We try to pick the ones we know we have a chance of stopping without running into trouble.”
“Like the trouble you hit when I found you?” he asked.
I drew in a sharp breath, ready to defend the work I did with Tuck, but Robin held his hand up in peace and went back to studying the paper.
“Tuck?” he called.
“What?” came my brother’s surly reply.
“Fancy being bait for the men collecting the Church’s tithes?” he asked.
Tuck almost tripped in his robes in his eagerness to reach us. “Yes,” he said. “Where and what?”
Robin grinned, the scar on his face shifting alarmingly. “Right then, we’ll hit the Church and the State at the same time. Tuck, you’re in the road, a pilgrim on the way to Nottingham, slow them down by saying something suitable – I’m confident you have a sermon you prefer – Will can come in from the front and I’ll bring up the rear. With the bow I’ll be most use at a distance. We’ll hit them at a spot farthest from the villages of Blidworth Bottoms and Newstead Abbey. It’ll take them a long time before they can rouse the soldiers in Nottingham, by which time we’ll be long gone.”
“Are we doing what he says now?” Tuck asked me.
I shrugged. “He has more experience than we do.”
“Not at this he doesn’t. He’s a knight and not a very good one if he was imprisoned.” Tuck crossed his arms over his chest.
“That’s not what you said when you convinced him to stay with us,” I snapped.
“We all make mistakes.”
“That’s the first time you’ve ever admitted to being wrong and the only time you haven’t been,” I growled at him.
“Settle down, Will. He has a point. You’ve both worked hard and I should bow to your experience in these woodlands.”
“Fine, then we’ll go with your plan because it’ll work and you know what you’re doing,” I said to Tuck.
My frustration with him was enough to make him back down. We were going to be having quite a lot of these conversations if we weren’t careful over the coming weeks, providing Robin stayed, which of course was not guaranteed.
WE LEFT THE CAVE and rode towards Blidworth Bottoms, a small village that I knew didn’t have the money to pay the Church and the local taxes Philip Marc insisted everyone provide. The abbeys in Sherwood were just as bad as the lords, wanting their tithes regardless of the consequences to the families at the bottom of the pile. I thought about this as it was preferable to thinking about Tuck and Robin but nothing held back my swirling thoughts for long.
Tuck was never going to understand my preferences and it had become clear to me that nothing would make me leave Robin alone if he chose to remain with me. I had to find a way to make certain Robin and I had private space, but I didn’t want to stay in the cave system. The farther back you went into the system, the darker and wetter it became, it’s why we lived in the front cave, so I had to design and build something new. I began to think about the best way to prepare a new home before winter really set in, it would be a complicated build because I’d need to keep close to Tuck, even if we weren’t living together and there wasn’t a huge amount of room on the plateau outside the cave’s entrance.
The plotting and planning for my new home took me away from the ride and the strained quiet of my companions.
“I think this is a good place for an ambush,” Robin’s voice broke through my musing.
I focused on my surroundings. We were on a rise in the path, high enough to make riding up it hard work for horses coming out of the village. We could see a long way down the path but there was little cover for an ambush.
“More trees would be good,” I said, as if expecting them to appear, fully formed, from somewhere.
Robin frowned. “You’re not concentrating.”
“Sorry, thinking about building us a new home,” I said.
“Oh, right, well it’s probably time to think about our brush with the tax collectors.” His voice sounded tight and his gaze a little hunted. I doubted it had anything to with facing down the guards who would be protecting the tax collectors and more to do with me building a ‘home’ for us. I tried not to let that thought hurt me.
Tuck dismounted and stretched, straightening his robes. I dismounted and took his horse. “If we take the beasts down to the gully,” I pointed at the deep dip just off the road, “we’ll have them close for the escape.”
Robin gave me a brief nod. “I’ll wait farther back, nearer to the village, and ride after them so I can gauge which of them have training in arms.” He took off without another word.
I turned back to Tuck. “Guess it’s just you and me here then.”
Tuck’s jaw bounced with tension. “Will –”
I held up a hand. “Don’t, Tuck.”
“Can you love him and not act on it?”
I snorted. “Yeah, that’s going to happen.”
“I’m going to lose you aren’t I?” he said. I heard his grief and loneliness at the thought.
I took both his hands in mine. “No, Tuck. You won’t lose me, unless you push me away. Just accept it. We are lovers. As long as Robin stays we will be lovers.”
Tuck sighed but squeezed my hands in silence. We took the horses to the gully, tied them up and returned to the road to wait. The day’s wind and rain made it a soggy wait but the weather hadn’t yet turned cruel. I watched the wind steal the last of the leaves off a lonesome hawthorn tree near the road as Tuck took the last of the berries. The last few days, since Robin’s dramatic appearance in our lives had been full of contradictions and confusion, while also being passionate. Robin needed to move past his dead love, I needed to move past my fear, and Tuck needed to move past his judgement. I wondered if it would happen, it was a lot of moving. The past kept tugging us back to where it felt safe, hoarded and controlling, the future looked bright and full of temptation and hope, but its ethereal quality meant none of us knew if we could trust it.
I needed to take charge of my fear, that was the only thing I could govern. Controlling fear only ever fed the monster because control came from fear, but if I gave myself the gift of confidence, of trusting myself to take charge, then perhaps the others would follow the example. Maybe I could be a beacon and lead those I loved into a better life, one in which we could all be happy and at peace.
“Will, they’re coming,” Tuck said, nudging me hard.
“What?” I’d forgotten we were here to steal from the lord’s men. “Right, yes.” I rubbed cold hands on my thighs, trying to bring them to life so I could hold my sword.
Tuck rose and stood in the centre of the road. I could see the mud being flicked up by the horses as they cantered towards us, and I snuck into the thick heather, trying to ignore the prickles stabbing at me.
“Halt there,” Tuck called out, his arms spread wide. “Halt or would you run down a man of God?”
They stopped, they always stopped.
“Get out of the road, you damned fool,” said the man in the front of the pack of six soldiers and one cleric. They were heavily armoured and on fine horses. They were part of Marc’s castle guard, not just riffraff from the town’s watch.
“You speak the common tongue,” Tuck said. “You must be a true man of England. Why are you robbing the villages to leave them starving as winter comes? These are your countrymen. Please, listen to my words. God’s children suffer, you are men of that same God, why do you leave them to suffer?”
The guards began to laugh and I heard the cleric say something but I couldn’t catch the words. “Move, monk or we will run you down.”
“I am a friar, I am no monk. I wander these roads hoping to teach temperance, God’s love, and about the sins of greed and avarice,” Tuck said.
He kept up the rhetoric while I rose from the bushes, and Robin was also now in sight behind the pack of soldiers. In one movement I rushed at the horses, startling them at the back and causing one man to lose his seat. He hit the ground hard and his simple conical helmet rolled off his head. I landed a kick at his skull and he lay still. The horse bolted, causing more confusion.
Robin’s mighty longbow flexed and arrows came fast, taking out two more men before they realised the attack came from behind. It looked like he drew the string back with no discernible effort and the damned yew bow made mine look like a child’s toy.
The man arguing with Tuck tried to ride him down, but Tuck grabbed the horse’s reins, blending with the speed and turning the beast’s head whose back end whipped around, making the downward strike of the soldier miss my brother.
“Halt or you will die,” came Robin’s voice. He rode with his knees only, his longbow drawn and arrow nocked. His huge shoulders were relaxed but full of power. Lust flared hot and bright. I held my sword to the cleric’s neck and glared at him. The fat man whimpered and trembled on his palfrey, which had opted to remain still, watching me with a patient eye.
“Money, now,” I said, holding out my left hand.
“You will swing for this,” he said.
“And you will die right here in the road if you don’t hand over the chest you’re carrying in those big old saddlebags,” I said.
Robin rode to my back and I glanced up. He kept his firm gaze on the leader of the pack, the bow taut enough to take the guard out if he so much as blinked in the wrong way. The cleric looked at the leader, the man’s eyes were focused on Robin, who had his hood low over his eyes. I also had my hood up and a scarf over my face. Tuck’s was bare which always worried me but what could I do? He wouldn’t cover it even when he wasn’t preaching.
“Give it to them. We’ll do no good dying in the road and not being able to report to the sheriff,” the gruff voice said.
Men of Sherwood (A Rogue's Tale Book 1) Page 12
