Gawain held his ground and his breath alike.
Jack halted before him—near enough to feel the heat of his breath arising, near enough to count the freckles on his splendidlips, near enough to stare down into those dark eyes gazing up at him with ravenous wonder—and bent his head for a kiss.
While Jack loved a fellow who knew what he wanted and how to go about it, there was something to be said for those just beginning to realise their own desires. The tentative touches turning to insatiable hunger, as Gawain showed him now, proved a powerful aphrodisiac. When Jack broke off for breath, Gawain followed him for a moment before he drew back. His dark eyes opened with a sigh which sounded equal parts mournful and satisfied. His bashful gaze met Jack’s.
Then he caught sight of something over Jack’s shoulder.
Jack turned to find another gentleman emerging from the trees. Despite the abundant undergrowth, he’d approached in total silence. Even now, watching him stride to meet them, Jack hardly heard his boot-heels on the forest floor. And what boots they were—tall black leather, like a highwayman, with the tops folded down over the knees. They well matched the rest of him clad in a black tunic, hose, and long cloak billowing behind him. Another fellow might feel taken aback at the approach of so striking a figure. For Jack, however, something of familiarity hung about the gentleman. He looked precisely as Jack remembered, which was comfort of a sort.
“Butcher,” said Gawain. “You remember our friend Jack.”
A sly and handsome smile crept up one side of the tall fellow’s face as he replied, in a deep and rumbling burr, “I do.”
“Jack,” Gawain continued, “this is my associate, Butcher.”
Butcher proffered his hand. Jack clasped and shook it heartily. The fellow had a strong grasp which Jack well appreciated.
“Jack has just reminded me,” Gawain went on, “that we rather owe him a debt.”
The sly smile grew into a grin. “We do, indeed.” And, turning to Jack, Butcher added, “May I?”
Jack didn’t oft encounter gentlemen as tall as himself—outside of his fellow guards, at least. For Butcher, he had to tip his face skyward rather than bending down to meet his kiss. His lips felt warm as summer sunshine on Jack’s own, and the kiss burned hotter as it deepened, his mouth opening beneath Butcher’s to welcome him and Butcher obliging with a languid embrace. This, then, was the one who knew what he wanted and how to go about it.
All told, Jack thought as they parted, he could see what Gawain liked in the man.
Jack glanced between the handsome pair. “Bit nippy, don’t you think?”
Gawain, to Jack’s delighted surprise, took the hint at once. “We might know somewhere warmer.”
He shot an enquiring look at Butcher as he spoke. Butcher gave him a nod.
“Lead on,” said Jack.
And so, with another searching glance at Butcher, Gawain took the lead, going back up into the forest the way Butcher had come.
The path narrowed and the woods thickened as they went. Soon the branches grew together overhead tight enough to block moon and starlight both. Jack caught the barest glimpses of thorned vines knitting the tree-trunks together on either side. He could hardly see his own hand in front of his face, much less perceive anything in the deep shadows ahead of Gawain. Now and again, he thought he saw a flicker of movement ahead, as though the vines slithered away from the path. More likely last night’s gin had come back to haunt him.
Then, all of a sudden, the path ahead yawned wide and revealed a meadow amidst the thorns. Silvery moonlight illuminated a waterfall through the trees that fed a stream cutting the meadow in twain. In the centre of the meadow stooda round stone cottage with a thatched roof. A game-keeper or grounds-keeper’s cottage, Jack supposed, which might explain Butcher’s profession if not his garb.
The cottage within proved somewhat more of an oddity. Upon crossing the threshold, behind Gawain and ahead of Butcher, Jack found it lit by moonlight streaming in through porthole windows and the faint glow of embers in the hearth. This appeared ordinary enough to Jack.
But when Butcher stoked the embers to light a pair of beeswax candles, he illuminated what in shadow Jack had taken for a rough-hewn wooden table in the centre of the round cottage but turned out instead to be an enormous tree-stump hollowed out and fitted up with copper taps. He’d never entered a game-keeper’s cottage before, but he felt fairly certain such things weren’t standard issue. Still, while it might be odd, it was hardly concerning.
The bed tucked in by the hearth likewise didn’t resemble any bed Jack had beheld before. Frankly, with its round withy-woven frame and piles of quilts and furs, it seemed rather more like a nest. Still, it looked cosy enough for Jack’s intended purpose.
“Make yourself at home,” said Gawain, so softly Jack almost didn’t hear him.
Jack took him at his word and joined Butcher in hanging up his outermost layers at a series of hooks hammered into the wall between the bed and a workbench. As good as Butcher looked in his striking cloak and boots, he looked still better out of them. Jack had an eagerness to get his hands on those broad shoulders or inside the woollen hose to feel the supple thighs beneath.
Gawain likewise hung up his coat, scarf, and hat, and tucked his ankle-boots against the wall. Then he looked between Jack and Butcher, evidently at a loss for what might come next. Jack looked to Butcher as well with an eyebrow cocked in invitation.Butcher met Jack’s gaze with a sly smile before turning it on Gawain.
“What shall we do with him?” Butcher asked.
Gawain appeared at a total loss for words.
Jack had seen this sort of arrangement before. Soft-spoken Gawain had the money, while rough Butcher had seduced him and now led him down the path of fleshly delights, with Jack along for the ride.
“I’m game for anything,” Jack said with a ready smile. “So long as you’ve got something to ease the way.”
