AN:/ spicy chapter ahead. You have been warned.
Music recommendation for this chapter: Second Minute Hour by Jordy.
The unmistakable sounds of heavy breathing and light moans emanated from the closed doors of Gerffron's chamber's attached bath. His chamber being at the farthest corner of this mansion finally proved out to be useful. Gerffron was grateful the staffs and the rain is helping to shameful sounds that are coming out from the two grown men in the bathtub.
Still he covered his mouth from the back of his mouth to muffle the embarrassing sounds that were coming out of his mouth, the sounds he barely recognized as his own, and wondered 'how did we come from simply taking a bath to this?'
Few minutes earlier, both of them sat in the bathtub awkwardly. Gerffron's back at Styrmir's chest. It was extremely awkward and weird for Gerffron to share a bathtub or less than taking a bath with someone. In his previous life, as Deepak, he never got the chance to live properly in the first place much less dating other men. He was the closeted gay man of his family. Thanks to his cousin's inhuman bullying, he had never even dared to think about it even.
Gerffron's mind had probably wandered way too far off that when Styrmir had wrapped his arms around him, caging him. He realized it when he felt the heat radiating off the other man's body.
"Wh-what are you doing?"
"You were shivering. So I'm warming you up. I heard that rubbing each other can can create warmth."
"O-oh I see."
Awkward silence again.
Only the sounds of breathing and distant sound of annoying rain could be heard.
Then Gerffron heard a click sound, he became alert only to see Styrmir had picked up a bottle that was kept nearby and was pouring liquid soap in his hands. He started to massage Gerffron's head claiming that the latter has mud in his hair. Gerffron felt relaxed at the head massage.
Truly, thick fingered people really know the magic.
Perhaps Gerffron became too relaxed for he did not realize that when Styrmir's hands have slid down from his hair to his neck and then to his body. He was startled when felt something twirling, groping around his chest.
"Styrmir, what are you doing?" Gerffron giggled, feeling ticklish. "I don't have breasts, I am not a woman."
"Doesn't matter...a man can feel it from their chest as well."
"No way. They do?" He turned around to look at Styrmir's eyes.
"Yeah. Want me to show you?"
"Wha-ah~" Gerffron immediately clasped his hands on his mouth, surprised at the sound that came out from his mouth. He felt the other man smirking and murmuring; "So, you still feel it when you are sober."
Before Gerffron could ask what it meant, Styrmir's thick fingers indeed did their magic that made the former panting and asking for more. Styrmir's fingers twirled around the brownish pink bud of Gerffron's chest pulling, squeezing, twisting in a pleasurable way that made Gerffron's clasped lips part as sounds of moan emanated from his mouth. He gripped the edges of the tub so hard that his knuckles started to turn white. Meanwhile, Styrmir's mouth too remained busy by sucking on the already red earlobe of the brownish blonde man.
Styrmir used one of his hands to turn Gerffron's head toward him and kissed him hard. They bit each lip like starved animals and their tongues battled against each other, fighting for dominance, eventually Styrmir won as he teased the belly button of Gerffron making his toes curl. As they broke away from the kiss, gasping for air and a thin string of saliva connecting them, they again captured each other's lips.
The different heat from Styrmir's extremely aroused, hard length pressed against Gerffron was felt by the latter for a quite a time. Gerffron decided to change his position. He straddled Styrmir and rubbed both their lengths under the water, making the delegate groan and suck on his throat.
"Sty-ah! Please no marks..nngh!"
In response, Styrmir grasped Gerffron's hips and increased the pace of rubbing by slamming his hips upwards. Water splashed all around the bathroom as both continued their ministrations until both of their body became stiff as they came down from high, each groaning each other's name.
The rain had been thorough.
It had rained through the night with the complete, committed quality of a summer storm that had been building for weeks in the accumulated heat and had found, in the small hours of this particular night, the full release of everything it had been holding.
The capital city looked, in the morning, like a city that had been cleaned.
The stone was dark with it — the specific, deep colour of wet stone that was different from dry stone the way certain things were different, not worse or better, only genuinely another thing. The rose beds had the specific, weighted quality of garden things that had received more water than they usually received and were processing it with the calm, deliberate attention of living things.
The petals of the rose that had been almost-open were fully open.
The garden had the specific, washed-clean quality of an early morning after rain — the smell of it, which was the smell of earth that had been reached by water, of stone that had been cooled, of the air above the garden carrying the specific, fresh quality of a night that had been productive.
The house had the quality of a house that had been listening to rain all night and was now in the specific, slightly altered state of a building that had absorbed something and was in the morning of the absorbing.
The corridors were quiet.
The kitchen had the preliminary sounds of the morning preparation beginning — the first fire, the kettle, the specific, domestic rhythm of a household restarting.
The east wing had the quality of its usual morning.
— — —
Wren arrived at the main building's first floor at the sixth bell.
She arrived in the specific, alert quality of a woman who had been up since the fifth bell with Oswin's morning requirements and who was now moving through the household's morning routine with the focused, familiar efficiency of years of practice.
She had the morning tray.
She went to Gerffron's room.
She knocked.
No response.
This was not unusual — he slept deeply on the nights when he slept well, and the morning after rain was frequently one of those nights, and she had developed the habit of knocking twice and then pausing and then entering quietly if there was still no response.
She knocked a second time.
She waited.
She opened the door quietly.
She looked at the room.
She set the tray down on the floor very gently.
She closed the door.
She stood in the corridor for a moment.
She thought: oh. good.
She picked up the tray.
She was turning to go back to the kitchen when Sera appeared from the corridor's other end with the expression of someone who has a task and is executing it.
"I'll take that," Sera said, reaching for the tray. "I was going to—"
"He's still sleeping," Wren said.
"It's the sixth bell—"
"Still sleeping," Wren said.
Sera looked at her.
She looked at the closed door.
She looked at Wren.
"I can knock—" she started.
"Sera," Wren said.
"Yes?"
"He is sleeping. He will come to breakfast when he is ready. We are not waking him."
Sera looked at the door.
She said: "He needs to eat—"
"He'll eat when he comes down."
"But if we don't wake him he'll miss—"
"Sera," Wren said, and her voice had the specific quality it had when she was delivering a piece of information that she considered complete and final. "If you go to that door and knock on it right now, you will miss something considerably more important than breakfast. And you will also — if you have any of the sense I have been crediting you with — understand why you should not knock on it."
Sera looked at the door.
She looked at Wren.
She said: "Is there someone—"
Wren gave her a look.
Sera's eyes went wide.
She looked at the door again.
She looked at Wren again.
"If you are expecting," Wren said, picking up the tray and beginning to move down the corridor, "to find yourself a husband from among the delegation — which I know you are, don't argue, you are — I would suggest that the methodology you just attempted to apply at that door is not the methodology that will produce the outcome you are looking for."
"That is a completely different—" Sera started.
"Is it?"
"I was going to wake him up for breakfast. That is a normal household function. That is—"
"Sera."
"Yes?"
"Come and help me with the morning rounds."
"But what does that have to do with—"
"Come and help me," Wren said again.
Sera ran after her.
"What did you mean about the husband thing? What does that have to do with me knowing not to knock? Wren. Wren, what — Wren, why are you walking fast? Wren. What did you mean?! Wren!"
Wren did not turn around.
She walked with the specific, settled quality of someone who has done what needed doing and is moving on to the next thing.
She thought it again.
She thought: good, finally.
A game should be played by both, why should it be only the man who'd be cuckolded?
Behind her, the corridor was quiet.
The door to Gerffron's room was closed.
The morning continued.
The rose outside was open.