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  Lately he’d discovered he had no patience for what was expected of him.

  Scowling, he gazed down the hill toward the sprawling stone manor house. It was dark of the moon, and he had to strain to see the lights in the many windows. The kitchen window had been dark for some time, but there were several on the second floor that continued to shine. Brock wondered what he was doing, his Will. Oh, he knew he was mad to allow himself to even think about the man in that way. But hadn’t he seen the desire in handsome Will O’Sullivan’s eyes? Oh sure he had. He’d felt it too, hard against his thigh.

  Something deep down inside told him the pull and tug between them was more than just the animalistic urge of sex. He’d looked into those stormy green eyes and known the man, seen through to the man’s very soul. Seen the loneliness there, the dark stain of bitterness and loss. He’d seen something else there, too—his own true self, written on the man’s heart.

  With his next breath, Brock snorted in derision. He was a right bugger and knew it well. Will was a veteran of the Great War that had just barely ended and the son of landed gentry, the heir to the estate to boot. He himself was nothing more than a Gypsy boy whose mother read hands like some folk read books. He was an uncouth Traveller chal who didn’t even know how to read. What made him think such a man as William O’Sullivan could ever want him?

  Brock shook his head back and forth, his curls tapping his cheeks. He’d traveled down this worn mind-path all day and gotten no answer. It was time to stop thinking and find a willing colleen to dance with him under the night sky. Yet he didn’t stir from his dark corner. Instead, he stayed in the shadows and brooded a while longer. It was very late by the time he decided to give up the nonsense and join in the céilí. But as he got up from his corner, he bashed right into someone coming his way.

  A hand on his elbow steadied him when he would have fallen. He could smell male sweat, clean, yet musky, and it caused a stirring deep in his groin. A sympathetic shudder ran down the spine of the person holding on to him, and suddenly, though he could barely make out the silhouette of the man standing before him, Brock knew who it was. The military-cropped sandy hair and that striking green gaze might be hidden from him on this moonless night, but he knew who stood before him as surely as he knew his own name.

  William.

  Without a word, he took the tall man by the hand and led him toward his waggon, pulled him up the steep steps, one, two, three. Once inside, he pushed Will down onto the bed. Then, for a moment, Brock stilled and tilted his head, listening to the noise outside the waggon. All was well, for as long as the drum beat and the music played, they were not likely to be disturbed.

  Though it was inky black in the waggon, he did not stop to light a candle. Peering through the darkness, Brock caught the glint of moisture in the eyes of the man pinned beneath him. He thought it curious that Will did not speak, but neither did he have any urge to break the quiet between them.

  Strong hands caught in his hair, pulling him close, and Brock let his own hands wander down to the man’s waistline. Pulling shirttail from pants, he pushed up the crisp cotton, then pressed his lips against succulent skin and bone.

  He sucked at flat nipples, first one and next the other, until they were peaked and wet. Soon enough, he was rewarded by Will’s soft, sweet sound of need. Big hands roamed up under his shirt, warm fingers splayed wide against his back. Brock groaned when the hands were withdrawn but then sucked in his breath when he felt them between their two bodies. As Will began to work at the buttons of his own shirt and pants, Brock sat up, shucking off his own garments as quickly as possible. He threw his clothing to the floor and then slid forward again, pressing his lips against the bigger man’s collar bone. He kissed and suckled there, as Will writhed under him.

  Brock slid his mouth back down to the taut nipples, wetting and blowing on each one in turn. He nipped and licked his way along a glorious expanse of nearly hairless chest, tongued Will’s belly button deeply. It was only then that he reached for the man’s throbbing sex, taking it gently into his mouth.

  Will arched up violently, and his fingers dug deep into Brock’s biceps. A few moments later, Will gave a guttural gasp, and Brock opened his throat to receive the hot seed. He swallowed quickly, milking the organ greedily.

  “Oh. Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Will murmured in a ragged tone of voice.

  “No, nay, a leannán,” Brock crooned, “that’s not it. That’s not what I wish to hear from ye.”

  But Will didn’t stop his litany. “Ach, I’m so sorry,” he repeated in a broken whisper. “I wanted…. I didn’t mean to….”

  “Shhhhh, hush now, we have plenty of time for more,” Brock said. Content to be in the dark before, now he ached to see the face of the man beneath him. He wondered if Will would bolt if he lit a candle. There was nothing for it but to do so. Sitting astraddle Will’s long, sleek body, Brock reached to the shelf at the head of the bed. He made quick work to light the candle that rested there, then looked into the face of the man sprawled beneath him. The green eyes were full of panic.

  “No, nay,” Brock said quickly. “Don’t worry yer head, man.”

  But Will pushed at him, shoving Brock away abruptly. As their bodies rubbed together, Brock felt his own cock leap against Will’s lean, hard thighs. He looked up into startled eyes and saw his lover had felt it too—and Will’s body had also responded.

  The man groaned, making a sound that could have come from the hero Cú Chulainn himself, a groaning cry, full of fury and passion. Without a word, Brock leaned down and took Will’s rapidly hardening organ into his mouth once more. His quick, avid sucking wrung another cry from the large man beneath him.

  “Wait, please wait,” Will gasped out, his hands coming down to Brock’s shoulders.

  Brock stopped, reluctantly lifting his mouth off the hot cock.

  Distressed that he had taken things where William hadn’t wished to go, he started to roll off the bunk, but Will caught his arms, guiding him up on the narrow bed.

  “No, no, don’t go, just give me a bit to breathe,” Will husked.

  With a sigh of relief, Brock allowed himself to be tugged into place beside Will. Content to be cradled against the man’s bigger body, he smiled.

  “Why are you smiling?” Will’s tone was gruff.

  Brock let his smile broaden. “Do I need a reason to smile beyond what we just shared?” he asked, looking up at William’s sharp-planed face.

  “And just what was that?” Will grumbled, and Brock detected a hint of blush on the tanned cheeks. “You gave. I took. I’d not call that sharing.”

  “Dinnae worry,” Brock soothed. “Next time it will be better. It’s been long since you last took a lover, aye?”

  “I tried. I tried, but I couldn’t…. I wasn’t….” Will blushed deeply, and Brock reached up, caressing one high cheekbone with a finger.

  “All that is done now and far behind ye. It will not bother you again, a ghrá,” he soothed.

  Will’s body jerked against him. “Why do you keep calling me that? How can I be your love? We only met yesterday.”

  “Is that what you think, man? Is it really? Because I have known you for all my life, though I first laid eyes on you on the uplands yesterday.” Without waiting for a response, Brock leaned over and kissed Will’s parted lips gently. Pushing his tongue into the moist cavern of Will’s mouth, he explored his teeth and tongue. Eventually Will began to kiss him back. Hesitantly at first, and then with increasing urgency, he probed deep into Brock’s mouth until they were both gasping for air.

  They broke apart, and Brock saw on William’s face an expression that was both lost and hungry. Will shifted on top of him, and Brock gasped loudly when the man ducked down and tongued his collar bone, then trailed down his chest, lingering only momentarily at the hollow of his sternum. Hands grasped his buttocks and began to knead and stroke. Soon Will’s tongue was there, too, engaging in a delicate dance like nothing Brock had ever experienc
ed.

  Finally, when he could bear it no longer, he reached up and grabbed a jar of sweet oil from off the small shelf. With shaking hands, he coated the hard, hot column of flesh that jutted toward him. Watching him, Will tilted his head and gave a soft smile. “You’re certain?”

  Wordlessly, Brock curled down, lifted his legs, and offered himself. Slowly, steadily, the bigger man entered him, wringing a gasp from Brock’s lips. He whimpered from the pleasing pain of it, and Will stilled. But Brock only smiled fiercely and canted his hips even more. Pleasure rippled through him as Will pushed even deeper.

  Soon they were moving together like giants in the old tales, dancing before the fire. That fire ignited within him, and Brock cried out as he spurted his seed against Will’s sweat slick body. Will held him tightly in hands big as any Irish hero’s and came along with him, shuddering and shaking in silence.

  WILL left the waggon just as the first fingerlings of dawn brushed the horizon, a smile on his face soft as the mist that hung in the air. Dew collected on the toes of his brown leather boots as he walked, but nothing could dampen his mood. Upon reaching the top of the rise where the manor house stood, he looked back to see the circle of waggons sprawled below. The scent of the oil they had used clung to his clothes, sweet oil and sweat, and sex, and a smell that was simply Brock. Will was smiling still as he entered the house and made his way stealthily to his room. There he flung himself on his bed, and, falling asleep instantly, he had only peaceful dreams.

  He awoke to sunlight streaming in through the window shutters and his father’s bellow in the yard below.

  “They’re wasters, ye know, both of them!” The senior O’Sullivan’s words came as a roar, and Will sat up with a jerk.

  Good Christ, his father knew! Someone had seen. Someone had told.

  “Complete savages, they are. Both Michael Collins and that American-born whelp, de Valera!” O’Sullivan blustered on.

  “Ach no, Mister O’Sullivan, I think not,” Padraig cut in. “The Republicans might have stolen the vote back in December, but the Constabulary will not let them win the war.”

  Will flopped back on the bed in relief. That again. Would it never end, this running debate between the Nationalists and the Republicans? Now that the Republicans were coming more and more in line with the Sinn Fein and the Sinn Fein was becoming more powerful, it was doubtful the Royal Irish Constabulary efforts would do anything more than muddy the political waters of Ireland.

  Just as long as they didn’t bloody the waters. Oh, but they already had, Will acknowledged to himself, and they would again. Aye, he’d come home from fighting in the army of the English to find Ireland torn by internal war. It mattered not whether it was the blood of innocents spilled on foreign lands or on his own Mother Country by feuding countrymen, it was still war—and he’d had his fill of it.

  “William! Timothy!”

  Will shoved his head beneath a pillow, knowing it would not block out his father’s voice but wishing for a moment’s more peace.

  Peace was a blue-eyed boy on a hillside.

  The thought startled him.

  Ach, he was insane, he was.

  His father bellowed his name again, and Will reluctantly dragged himself up. He shucked his soiled clothes and washed up, then donned clean garments and headed downstairs.

  Timothy was nowhere about, and so it fell to Will to do his father’s bidding, which was to pick up a newly purchased racehorse from a neighbor over east in County Kildare. But it had been a while since he had ridden horseback. Even though Will was enjoying the ride, he knew that, on the morrow, he would pay for it with sore leg muscles and equally sore buttocks. Following the road, he kept an eye out for the occasional lorry or motor car that might spook the gelding, but he caught sight of nary a one.

  As he turned round a hairpin curve, he glimpsed a lone horseman riding a pony through the tall grass of an adjacent meadow. The rider’s long curls floated out behind him, loose shirt and baggy trousers fluttered in the wind. Will could not keep the daft grin off his face as he guided his mount into the field to meet the lad.

  “Going to Curragh to bring home the new racehorse for yer da?” Brock said by way of greeting.

  Off his horse and over to the pony in a heartbeat, Will reached up and hauled Brock from the pony’s broad back. Pulling the slender but strong body of the smaller man close, Will searched out full, moist lips for a kiss that left them both breathless.

  “You missed me,” Brock chortled when Will released him, then he reached up and pulled Will’s face down for another kiss. He slid his tongue into Will’s mouth and explored its depths, flicking over gums and counting teeth until Will pulled free with a laugh. “Don’t laugh. If you are a-going horse-trading, you’ll need me, Gorgio.”

  “Gorgio?”

  “You might be the landowner’s heir, a chroí, but to us Travellers yer nothing but a lowly Gorgio,” Brock explained.

  “Ah, how could I have forgotten,” Will said with a laugh. The term was used by Gypsies for those not of their ilk.

  “Have you forgotten how to ride a horse as well, chal?” Brock asked with a gleam in his eye. “I can see how yer wincing even as ye stand here, and you can’t have been on horseback long.”

  Will shrugged. “I haven’t forgotten. I’ve just gotten out of the habit. I had no need to while I rode in lorries and tanks.” He grimaced at the memory. “And the mules that hauled the artillery hated to be ridden. Brock, what’s this word, chal?”

  Brock’s mobile mouth half smirked at Will. “Aha, so you know a chroí but not chal?”

  “If I’m not mistaken, they are two different languages.”

  Brock only shrugged his shoulders and grinned. His long-fingered hands sought the buttons of Will’s shirt, but Will reached down to bat them away.

  “No, no. Not now. I have to be at Antrim’s stable in just a bit. I can’t go there looking like I’ve had a roll in the hay, now can I?” Will shook his head even as his body urged him otherwise.

  Brock stepped away from him, and for a moment Will feared the Traveller lad would mount his pony and be away on the wind. Instead, a throaty chuckle came from Brock as his hands went to the string that tied his baggy pants. Slowly, he shed his trousers and then his shirt. Carefully folding them, he bent to stack them neatly on a tussock. He stepped closer, reaching for Will’s buttons once again. Then he paused, waiting.

  Will could barely breathe as he took in the sight of Brock standing in the nip before him. Christ, he was so beautiful. Though slender of build, his shoulders were broad and his chest held a fine sprinkle of hair that left no doubt that he was a man and not a boy. It was thickest around his small, brown nipples and ran down his belly in a thin line to the thatch at his groin.

  At a loss for words, Will barely managed to nod his assent. Soon his clothes were in a neat stack alongside Brock’s. Will leaned forward to kiss him and was surprised to see Brock staring up at him, his blue eyes filled with trepidation. This was the first sign of reticence Will had seen in the brash young man, and he wondered at it.

  To his dismay, Brock sagged to his knees in front of him.

  “No, no,” Will said softly and knelt before him. He reached out and touched Brock’s cheek. “Do not look at me that way, a chroí.”

  Brock’s big eyes widened at Will’s use of the endearment. His mouth gaped open, but no words came out.

  Will pulled him into the circle of his arms. “I admit it. You are that. In one day and night, you are mo ghrá-sa.”

  “My own love,” Brock whispered the translation. He leaned against Will, and together they tumbled down onto the grass.

  They flattened wide patches of meadow grass as they romped and rolled, biting and sucking and, finally, coming together in glorious abandon. Afterward, Brock sprawled bonelessly on top of Will. And though William could feel a thistle sticking into his back, he did not move. Here was peace and contentment. Here was everything he’d ever wanted. Yet, even in this blissful stat
e of being, darkness crept into his mind. There was no way that this would go on past the Traveller’s leave-taking in a week or two. So Will remained very, very still, enduring thistles sticking into his back, holding Brock close, breathing in his scent. Collecting for future reference the cadence of his beating heart.

  THE racetrack at Curragh was quiet, and it took Will and Brock very little time to wind their way back to Andrew Antrim’s training stables.

  “Me oh my, if it isn’t William O’Sullivan in the flesh,” Antrim said as he put out a meaty paw and pumped Will’s hand cordially. “I heard you were back. And who do ye have with you? A new stable boy?”

  “Sure.” Will nodded, though behind him he heard a stifled exclamation from Brock. “Show me this new horse my father has purchased, Mr. Antrim,” he said, at the same time managing a wink at Brock.

  “He’s a beaut, boyo. A fine thing, this colt. I tried to get your father to let me keep him here so as I could train him myself, but he would not hear of it. Maybe you can change his mind, Will. Padraig is a fine stockman, mind you, but he’s not a racehorse trainer.”

  “My father has it in his head to train the colt himself,” Will explained, watching Brock begin to examine the horse, raising each hoof so as to get a look at the condition of the animal’s feet.

  “Oh aye, I imagine so,” Antrim said with a sigh. “He’s trained a steeplechase winner or two in his day, I must admit. Not lately though….” A commotion broke out across the stable yard, causing the man to turn away. “Aw feck, I needs see to that,” he told Will. “I’ll be right back, boy. There’s a saddle over there if you care to ride the wee beastie.”

  “Thank you, I might do just that,” Will returned. As soon as the stable owner was out of earshot, he raised an eyebrow at Brock. “So what do you think, stable lad?”

  Brock grinned at him, and Will sucked in his breath at his body’s quick response. As no one was about, he reached over and stroked Brock’s cheek. The younger man turned his head and nuzzled his full lips against Will’s palm. Will trembled in response to the exquisite caress.