by Tricia Owens
"Do you think it could be that way between us again?" Hadrian asked shyly.
Caledon blinked at the unexpected question. A slow grin curved his lips. "Yes, Hadrian, I think it could. But to be sure, we should try again as soon as possible. Now might be wisest."
Hadrian's startled moan was caught by Caledon's lips. "Now?"
"Now, love."
~~~~~
Caledon waited in the shadow of the stable doors as Hadrian pulled his cloak about him.
"I'll see you tomorrow, won't I?" Hadrian asked, a touch of worry shading his voice.
He had small bits of straw sticking out of his hair and his tunic was rumpled and bunched about the waist, but Caledon didn't point any of that out. Hadrian looked freshly tumbled and Caledon wanted all of Rhiad to see and wonder who was responsible for it.
"Of course. Don't think I'll let you get away from me that easily, love. There's much more I need to teach you."
Hadrian blushed. "Surely there can't be much―"
"There is," Caledon told him with a smirk. "Trust me." His fingers graced a high cheekbone. "I intend to give you a very thorough education, love."
Hadrian smiled at him, catching the mercenary's hand. "I like it when you call me that."
Caledon squeezed, before pulling his hand back regretfully. "Go now. You need your rest. I'll see you on the morrow."
Hadrian hesitated before darting forward and placing a quick, soft kiss against Caledon’s lips. He laughed quietly at Caledon's expression before slipping away onto the street. Caledon stared after him, fighting the urge to follow to be sure no one harassed him. When Hadrian rounded the corner and disappeared from sight, Caledon raised a hand to touch his lips.
"Who was that pretty piece of flesh?" asked a mocking voice from the street.
Caledon dropped his hand, instinctively reaching for a weapon. He relaxed when he saw the two skinny young men watching him with matching grins on their faces.
"Gam. Lio," he greeted the one-eyed thieves. He looked at them with suspicion. "What brings you two around the stables?"
The scarred thief with the hazel eye shrugged innocently. "Oh, nothing much," Gam said. "Lio and I heard noises up in the loft and thought we'd investigate." His lips quivered with a grin that didn't quite fully form. "Sounded alarmingly intense, it did. We were afraid someone was being attacked."
"Guess we were right," his green-eyed companion added dryly. Lio’s gaze flicked down the path that Hadrian had taken. "Who was that?"
Caledon grinned, allowing a certain degree of smugness to seep into his smile. "He's my latest obsession and one no one will have the chance to experience him besides me."
Gam and Lio exchanged looks. "Sounds serious," Gam remarked.
Caledon suppressed a sigh, his good mood fading. "Unfortunately, it can't be. He's leaving in a few days."
He shrugged, making light of his disappointment for his friends' sake. Inside though, the reminder that Hadrian would soon be gone was a pain he hadn't anticipated.
He would have to accept the job that Hadrian’s father offered. It would be a way to remain close to Hadrian outside of Rhiad. It would also be an opportunity to learn if maybe, just maybe, Caledon ni Agthon stood a chance of having more.
Chapter Four
Time, unfortunately, passed quickly in this town that Hadrian had begun to think of as the most beautiful in the world.
He had spoken with as many mercenaries as he could in Rhiad. It had taken some effort to meet them all. But he had done it. He'd accomplished the task set down by his father despite Caledon's constant, distracting presence in the shadows. Not that Hadrian was of a mind to protest. Whenever he felt a strong hand closing around his arm to drag him backward into the concealment of an alley, whenever he turned a corner to find himself face to face with the handsome blond, it was to receive a quick, passionate kiss or a discreet caress that left him burning. He was as close to rapture as he ever expected to be. He didn't want to return to Shard's Point, ever.
The sunlight left him blinking as he exited the latest inn. Immediately a hand took hold of his elbow from behind.
"Keep walking, love."
Hadrian suppressed a smile as realized he was being led back to Caledon's inn. "So soon? That interview was only a few minutes."
"I'm quick to recover. One of my many talents."
Hadrian ducked his head, looking around from beneath his lashes to be sure no one guessed their intentions. "It's so soon..."
Caledon turned him around. The mercenary's blue eyes were narrowed. "Did I hurt you the last time? Are you sore? I hadn't meant to be so rough―"
The other man's obvious concern filled Hadrian with a yearning he didn't know how to explain. He reached up and caressed a tanned cheek. "No, you didn't hurt me at all. I was only teasing you." He reddened. "I enjoyed that last time. You were very...determined."
No longer worried, Caledon now looked smug. "You were rather loud that time. I was amazed no one knocked on the door to see what was the matter." He laughed when Hadrian's color deepened. "Will you let me steal you away for a few minutes? I've missed you."
Hadrian looked up from beneath his lashes. "It had better be more than a few minutes," he murmured.
Caledon smirked. His fingers were rough but gentle where they cupped Hadrian’s chin. "Be careful what you wish for, love."
If you only knew, Hadrian thought, looking up at the taller man wistfully. He had never expected lust to feel this way, as though he would die if he didn't see Caledon and yet be nearly sick with anticipation when they were together. Every breath he took was a measurement of time: the stolen moments spent with Caledon that were too painfully short―or the agonizing moments when they were apart and every second lasted a lifetime.
Hadrian was familiar with addiction; he'd been exposed to it during his encounters with his father's worshippers, the Dimorada. This thing he felt for Caledon made him think of those drug-addled men and women who would give anything for another taste of their drug. Caledon was his drug. The mercenary left him high and flying. When they were apart his absence left Hadrian pacing the borders of desperation.
To his surprise, Caledon steered him past the inn and led Hadrian away from the town's center.
"I want to take you beneath the sun," the mercenary murmured, a hint of shyness on his normally bold face. Emotion seized Hadrian's heart at the glimpse of vulnerability in the strong man. He wanted to wrap his arms around Caledon and embrace him so tightly that they became one entity. He settled with squeezing the other man’s hand. Caledon smiled down at him as though he understood.
At the outskirts of town, Caledon guided him to a copse of trees. Hadrian spied an occasional wooden toy discarded within the grass and the ragged ends of a rope hanging from a tree. This seemed to be a place that children made much use of. But thankfully, no younglings were about at this hour.
Caledon drew him down beneath the shade of a gnarled oak tree and there began to tenderly make love to him. Hadrian clutched at the grass and sighed. He dug his heels into the soil and arched beneath the other man's gentle caresses. He ran his hands over every inch of Caledon that he could reach and smiled with joy when he heard him groan. If this is lust, he thought, delirious, then what must love be like? He didn't think there could be much of a difference. Not when Caledon looked down at him with shining blue eyes and Hadrian imagined he could see the other man's heart there.
Love and lust. To Hadrian they had become one and the same. Even if someone later proved him wrong, for this time, it was all he needed.
~~~~
Hadrian gasped as Caledon stood up strong in the stirrups, took aim, and chucked both daggers at the tree as his horse galloped past it.
“You did it!” Hadrian shouted. He ran up to the tree and marveled at the blades jutting from the circle that Caledon had earlier carved into the bark. The circle was the mere size of his head, yet Caledon had thrown his daggers into its exact center.
He spun excitedly as Cal
edon rode up and dismounted with youthful athleticism. The mercenary’s cheeks were flushed, his blue eyes aglow. The sun loved him, and Hadrian empathized.
“You’re a master!” Hadrian exclaimed as Caledon came up to the tree to inspect his aim.
“Not bad,” Caledon agreed. He tugged the blades free, spun them on his palms to Hadrian’s delight, before sliding the weapons into their sheaths on his inner forearms. With a smirk, he slung an arm around Hadrian’s waist and hauled him in tight. “What’s my reward for being so skilled?”
“Anything you wish,” Hadrian replied without hesitation. He spread his hands over Caledon’s broad chest and tilted his face up. “You deserve anything and everything.”
Caledon laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I suspect you’re rather impressed by me.”
“If only you knew how much.”
Caledon’s gaze softened. He cupped Hadrian’s chin and stroked his chin with his thumb. “I think I know, and I’m damn lucky.”
Hadrian felt himself blushing, but he refused to look away from the fondness in Caledon’s eyes. “You can do anything, can’t you?” he asked, completely serious. “Nothing could hold you back.”
Caledon smirked. “Likely not.”
“You wouldn’t need to be a mercenary…”
He worried Caledon would take offense, but the man nodded, still caressing Hadrian’s face. “It’s simply what I’ve done, love. I’m good at it and work is easy to come by.”
“But if you could do something else?” Hadrian prompted gently. He wasn’t pushing, but he was curious. Caledon was not only extremely skilled, he was sharp and clever. A man like him had to have possessed other aspirations at some point in his life. Hadrian wanted to know what that man’s dreams were.
“Do you want to hear that I’d be a farmer?” Caledon’s grin turned boyish as he wrapped both arms around Hadrian and lifted him off his feet to swing him around. He laughed at Hadrian’s gasp. “I would be the very best farmer, I think.” He set Hadrian upon his feet again, this time with his back to the tree that Caledon had targeted earlier. Leaning down to Hadrian, he murmured, “I’d get my hands dirty every day, squeezing and stroking the fruit to ensure that they’re at their ripest before I…plucked them…”
Hadrian groaned against Caledon’s mouth. He curled his fingers into soft blond hair and held on as their tongues lapped and played together.
“Just as you have done with me?” he whispered.
“I may have plucked you, love, but you’re still blooming for me.”
Hadrian smiled at the answer. He cupped Caledon’s face between his hands. “I’ve never grown a plant, much less a crop. But I would gladly help you with anything.”
“Raise my chickens and goats?” Caledon asked with an arched brow.
“I’d even milk your cows.”
Caledon crushed him against the tree. “Mmm, you know how to tempt me, don’t you?”
Though he was as aroused as Caledon and wanted nothing more than to surrender to the mercenary’s attentions, Hadrian kept his hands flat on the other man’s strong chest, resisting the urge to pull his tunic up and bare golden skin.
“I wish you would consider it,” he said, offering up a hopeful smile. “Whether or not I’m there, I think you would fare better and be happier doing something else.”
Caledon sighed and gazed beyond Hadrian’s shoulder at the fields and forest. “As I said, you are a temptation. You tempt me with thoughts I’d abandoned long ago.”
“I don’t mean to make you unhappy…”
“You make me anything but.” Caledon watched his finger trace the line of Hadrian’s collarbone. “Have you friends back home?” He glanced up briefly. “Who waits for you, Hadrian?”
No one does. I’m not certain I would be missed. But Caledon wasn’t asking about his father.
“I like my peace,” he replied instead, evading Caledon’s question and the truth that it desired. “But since coming to Rhiad, I’ve begun to see things differently.” He curled his fingers atop Caledon’s chest. “Someone has shown me the appeal of a kind companionship.”
“I am very kind,” Caledon said softly, his eyes darkening with desire.
Hadrian tipped his head back to the tree as lips found the arch of his throat. “Indeed. You treat me with a great deal of consideration.”
“I’m considering filling you up right now,” Caledon growled in a low voice.
Hadrian shuddered before greedily yanking at Caledon’s clothes. “It might be easier if this is gone.”
Caledon groaned. “Tear it off me, love, and I’ll give you what you need.”
~~~~~
Caledon was disappointed with himself. He'd managed to break only one leg of the bed he and Hadrian lay sprawled upon. He would have to work on his technique.
Hadrian was a drowsy warmth along his side. Caledon tightened his arm around pale shoulders and drew the younger man tighter against him. Hadrian murmured in his sleep, his head pillowed on Caledon's shoulder, one leg draped across the mercenary's thighs. Caledon looked down at him as his free hand took a leisurely sweep down the pale back.
He would miss this. He would miss Hadrian. Caledon had yet to meet a more compatible lover and that was a considerable feat. Hadrian accepted Caledon's advances without protest. Truly, he received Caledon with a hunger that served to fire him to new heights. The more Caledon wanted, the more Hadrian gave until they seemed on the verge of combusting from the sheer fury of their lovemaking.
A satisfied smile curved his lips. Yes, he had given Hadrian a very thorough education, but there remained much to explore with him. Hadrian was a banked fire that needed someone to ignite him. Caledon was more than willing to be that source of fuel.
He turned his head on the pillow and looked out the window of his room upstairs in the Bell and Buckle. The sky was brightening from the pink light of dawn. This was the day he dreaded, the day Hadrian would leave for home. True, it would only be a fortnight before Hadrian returned with his father, but Caledon could already tell that the weeks in between would be torture for him.
"Why do you look so sad?"
Caledon smiled and tilted his gaze down. Hadrian's gray eyes, blinking up at him, were sleepy and soft. It was one of the mercenary's favorite sights. "You're leaving me today."
"Only for a short while."
"Even a day will be too long."
A weighted pause followed his response. Caledon, rarely nervous, felt his palms begin to sweat.
Hadrian rested his chin on Caledon's chest. Much appeared to be on his mind. "Do you―do you really mean that? Have you enjoyed being with me as much as I've loved being with you?"
The hint of color that touched Hadrian's cheek was a cherished sight. Rarely did the women or men Caledon sleep with blush. Innocence had left them too long ago for that.
"I mean it, love. I've grown accustomed to your pretty face and to your pretty body and to those pretty sounds you make whenever I lick you down between―"
"Stop that!" Hadrian blurted, red-faced and flustered. He laughed. "You're terrible."
Caledon bent his head and kissed the tip of his nose. "And you're adorable when you're embarrassed." He tilted Hadrian's chin up. "Now kiss me. It's the surest way to shut me up."
He marveled, as always, at the softness that met his lips, the submissive yield of Hadrian's mouth beneath his own. It had been a long time since Caledon had been trusted with anything this valuable so completely. It made him slide his arms around Hadrian's back and roll them so Hadrian lay atop him.
Caledon was seized with an urge to say something, to speak words he had never spoken to another lover, man or woman. He bit his tongue to stop himself. He stroked the sides of Hadrian's face, smiling at the contented expression he wore.
"Open your eyes, love."
Hadrian lifted his lashes. The black discs of his pupils consumed most of his silver irises. It was the look of desire, of lust. Maybe, of more.
"Keep look
ing at me," Caledon whispered.
He slid his hands over dips and valleys he had mapped with lips and tongue, over landscape he knew had been previously uncharted by anyone. All mine now, Caledon thought, watching Hadrian's lips part when Caledon skimmed over the plump curve of his buttocks.
Emotion darkened Hadrian's eyes to pewter. "What do you mean?" he asked.
Caledon's heart stuttered. Had he said the words aloud? He hoped he hadn't...And yet, perversely, a part of him hoped that he had, and that Hadrian had understood.
"Just keep looking at me," Caledon replied, lifting his head to taste briefly of the lips he couldn't resist. "Let me see you."
He coaxed Hadrian to open his legs, guiding them fall to either side of Caledon. He slid a warm palm up the back of a shapely thigh and he let his other hand slip between their abdomens.
"Sit up, love."
The rigid column of Hadrian’s cock rose up between them and Caledon gently folded his fingers around it. Hadrian sighed, his eyes closing as Caledon slowly stroked him. With his hand on a rounded buttock, he encouraged Hadrian to rock his hips. After a moment, Hadrian no longer needed the guidance as his hands fell to Caledon's chest and his body rolled in rhythm into the mercenary's hand.
Caledon just watched him. He memorized the way arousal stained Hadrian's cheeks before the flush spread down his neck to the top of his chest. He studied the way his pert, pink nipples hardened into rosy stones when Caledon ran a thumb across them and how Hadrian bit his lip when Caledon squeezed the tiny buds. His ears gathered up the sound of Hadrian's soft, panting breaths, and the occasional moan he released when Caledon rubbed his palm over the head of his cock. Caledon was constructing memories. It saddened him to do it, but he knew he had to.
He gathered the copious liquid that now leaked from the head of Hadrian's length and slicked his fingers with it before delving between the other man’s spread buttocks. Hadrian's eyes flew open when the first finger caressed his opening. Then his lashes fell to half-mast as Caledon circled and teased the puckered flesh, rubbing promisingly across it but never breaching it.
