Chapter Four
A warm fire crackled close to Pip’s head, and he woke with a start. He rolled back as his eyes focused. A fire burned in a carefully dug pit in the center of the room. Hearthstones surrounded it. Pip lay on what appeared to be a bed, much larger than any back home. A framework of wood, the center piled high with soft fur pelts, the bed dominated the room. Next to him, a dozing wolf-dog lifted its head lazily, looked at him with amber eyes, then dropped its head back onto the furs. A second lay curled at the end of the bed and didn’t wake when Pip stirred.
What the hell was going on?
The animal at Pip’s side rolled over, exposing his belly and pressing up against him. Pip decided they must be dogs, and exceptionally well-trained ones at that, as he recalled their behavior when they’d found him bound to a tree. He ran his hands through the animal’s coarse, thick fur. Its tongue lolled from the side of his mouth, and it panted happily as Pip scratched his stomach.
Wherever this place was, it wasn’t home. Nothing like.
A pelt hung over the entrance to the room in place of a door, and the walls were a rustic makeshift combination of exposed logs and a type of plaster. The room contained very little furniture, apart from the bed. A rickety shelf held some used copper cookware and a few ancient-looking dishes. It was as if this were a temporary camp with no evidence of commodities, no overhead lighting, no electricity, no… no nothing.
Despite how very strange and basic it appeared, it felt warm and cozy, with a homey familiar scent about it.
Pip settled back onto the bed and nestled against the wolf-like dog, finding strange comfort in being so close to such a strong animal.
“Where did the rest of you go?” Pip asked as he stroked its belly. “There were so many of you before.”
“They came with me.” The voice from the doorway made Pip’s heart skip a beat.
He lifted his head. The man who rescued him came through the doorway carrying a bag over his shoulder, his antlers gone and skin free of anything that resembled bark. Free of anything at all, actually.
He stood near the fire pit completely naked.
The rest of the dogs trailed in after him; some of them climbed into bed with Pip, others settled across the room, creating a comfortable-looking pile of warm animal fur. The temperature in the room rose by many degrees, quickly. It must’ve surely been from the warmth of all those bodies.
Not only was the man naked, but gorgeous, too. Pip pulled one of the fur pelts over his lap, hoping to conceal his reaction to the man’s presence.
“I. Um. I…” Pip glanced down, not allowing his gaze to fixate on the stranger’s flaccid cock. Had the man been naked back in the woods? He racked his memory, trying to remember, but he’d been so overcome by fear and then bizarre nostalgia, the details were hazy.
“You are awake.” If the man hadn’t been nude before, he paid no mind to it now, as if it were perfectly natural. He strode across the room and lowered himself into the furs on the other side of the wolf. He curled one of his hands beneath Pip’s chin, and he lifted Pip’s head until they were eye to eye.
“Yeah,” Pip mumbled, too distracted by the man’s eyes—and things—to string together anything more complex than a simple affirmation. The green, mossy color of the man’s irises reminded Pip of the color encircling his one heterochromatic eye. “I am.”
Getting hot and flustered, Pip knew he had to be blushing from head to foot. He was gay, and a virgin, and in the company of an attractive naked man. The only man he’d ever kissed. Pip’s pulse raced, and he thought his heartbeat might be audible to all.
Of course, he blushed.
He felt nervous too. He didn’t know this stranger's intentions.
He may have just survived a near-death ordeal and had no idea where he was right then, and yet…for some unexplainable reason, he felt safe.
“Are you well?”
“I am.” Pip wasn’t so sure, but he stuck with the short answer.
Being somewhere he didn’t know, in a makeshift bed with a naked stranger, surrounded by wolves, didn't generally equate with well being. There were about a million things that could go wrong at the drop of a pin, but he stayed optimistic. It still qualified as a vast improvement on his situation before being surrounded by the wolf-dogs. And so far, nothing had gone wrong.
“Where am I?”
“Home.”
The simple statement tugged at the thread bound around Pip’s chest. It sounded entirely reasonable. Impulsively, he scooted forward to close some of the distance between himself and the man. The dog lying between them huffed and stretched, then backed out from where it lay and curled up instead with the wolf at the end of the bed.
“I meant more… more of ‘Where is this?’” A little too aware of himself, Pip slid a hand closer to the man’s bare thigh. He never imagined himself so daring that he’d actually initiate intimate contact with this man. And yet, it was difficult not to.
The delicate curve of the man’s lips and the affectionate glint in his eyes as he looked at him made Pip feel more than wanted—he felt treasured. It was the strangest thing. “This place? Where are we?”
“Elsewhere,” the man replied simply.
Well, he didn’t seem to be a conversationalist. If he wasn’t here to talk, what did he want from Pip?
Despite his better judgment, and all the common sense alarm bells at the very back of his mind, Pip hoped for something he knew was wrong. If the stranger attempted to take advantage of Pip in his vulnerable situation, Pip knew he would consent. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself.
“How do I get home from here?” Pip asked.
The man moved his hand from beneath Pip's chin to cup his cheek, and Pip nuzzled into it before he could stop himself. Even the slightest touches sent sparks racing across his skin and stirred his arousal in troubling ways.
“I, um, I appreciate you went out of your way to rescue me, but I need to go home before my family gets worried.” Pip managed to speak without betraying what he really wanted: the inexplicable way he craved this stranger's touch.
“It is dark. You will not find your way.” His speech was slow and deliberate, each word measured and considered, and delivered in a deep, delicious voice. The man caressed Pip’s cheek, then took his hand away to set the bag down on the bed and open it. There were several things inside, the most obvious being a bottle of wine, its long dark neck poking out from the opened top. “Come. Dine with me.”
Pip looked at the wine, then up at the man. He bit the inside of his cheek, doing his best to drag himself out of the fantasy world building up around him and back into reality. As a gay eighteen-year-old virgin alone in the woods with a mature naked man he didn’t know, but to whom he felt wildly attracted, it was probably a very bad idea to drink wine.
“I don’t drink. I’m too young.” The space between them was charged, air too thick, like their little microcosm of reality existed in a place set apart from the rest and had grown heavy with their immediate chemistry.
“Water, then?” The man set the bottle aside, and Pip followed his hand with his eyes. Every little thing the man did drew him in. “Name it, and it will be yours.” It felt as if the man wasn't only offering an alcohol-free beverage.
Pip bit down on his lip and moved his hand closer, wanting to touch the stranger’s thigh, but knowing it was an incredibly bad idea. He barely knew the man. An intimate gesture like that would be inappropriate. He badly wanted to, though, and didn’t know how long he could resist.
“Water is fine.” Pip's voice hoarse. Everything was happening so quickly. “I… If you just want to take me home, that’s fine, too.”
“I will not have you travel by night,” the man declared decisively. “For now, you will stay. In the morning, when the way is clear, you may do as you wish.”
In any other situation, Pip’s stranger danger meter would’ve been registering off the charts, but the gentle way the man spoke and the candid affection he displayed for Pip put any worries to rest before they formed. The force in his soul that had promised greater things had stilled, satisfied like never before.
Pip was safe, he just knew it.
“If you will not drink with me, will you eat?” From the bag he produced a loaf of artisan bread, carefully wrapped in a paper bag; a small dark glass bottle—Pip couldn’t guess what it contained; a block of cheese; and some ripe red tomatoes, not wrapped, but still on the vine.
At the combination of food and bed and nudity and wolves, Pip snorted back a laugh.
The man frowned. “Is it not to your liking?”
“No. No, um, that’s not it. It’s just… I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like you.” He said the words before he could think them through, and as soon as they reached his ears, they troubled him. What did he mean? He had no idea what this man should seem like. “I, er, that was weird, sorry. I think I meant to say this place is so makeshift, yet you appear so noble, and then to bring out a brick of cheese, and this…” He waved his hands in the direction of the bag and its items while searching for the right phrase. He didn’t want to seem ungrateful. “This food…”
The stranger didn’t seem upset. He smiled, green eyes alive with a joy Pip couldn’t place.
“It just struck me as funny,” Pip concluded awkwardly. “That’s all. Thank you for your hospitality. What’s your name?”
“It does not matter.” The man stood, holding a fur and draping it across his shoulder. “I will go and fetch you some water. Stay. Eat. All I want to know is that your stomach is full and you are safe, warm, and well.”
“Thank you.” Pip let his gaze trail across the man’s body as he stood. His shoulders were broad and strong, leading to muscular arms lean of fat and rife with power. His pectorals were defined, as were the abs that rippled over his stomach. A trail of dark hair led from the man’s navel downward, and Pip couldn't resist stealing a momentary glance at his cock before reminding himself it was bad manners to look.
Pip averted his eyes, but not before noticing that, while not erect, it appeared fuller and more alive than when the man first made his entrance.
“Are the, um, the dogs going to be a problem?”
“Them?” The man gestured at the animals curled up, asleep, at the end of the bed. “Never.”
The man came to a stop in the doorway, one hand posed on the frame. The pelt draped over him masked his front and left the tight muscles of his back and ass in plain view. He looked over his shoulder at Pip, expression so gentle and caring that Pip’s soul urged him to invite the man back into bed, if only so they could be close again.
“So comes a time that we should part,” he said.
“Fear not, I shall be in your heart,” Pip replied reflexively. He slapped a hand over his mouth, startled, not knowing what he’d just said or why. The words had slipped out of him without his permission, and he had no clue what to make of them. It came out as instinctive, the natural response to the comment, and one Pip had heard many times before.
The man’s eyes sparkled, and he smiled. If he found the comment strange, it didn’t show. He passed through the doorway and into the night, leaving Pip alone.