Page 11 of Apple Boy

“Ma makes wonderful soap. This one’s Apple Blossom and Lavender,” he said, offering the block for me to sniff. It smelled sweet and floral.

Adam rubbed the block of soap over my shoulders and back, and then began scrubbing with the washcloth. My body was in serious need of care and tenderness. Adam gave it to me. I watched his face keenly as he ran his hands over my skin. He studied me and seemed to enjoy the shape of my body. His hands were firm as he washed and massaged my torso and limbs.

“So lovely…” He said dreamily, and I wondered if he was talking to himself or me. I looked up and saw he was blushing. His lips were pink and full from our earlier kisses, and I longed to taste him again.

“As are you,” I replied candidly. The shared intimacy of our words twisted me inside out.

“Turn around,” Adam directed, so I slipped from where I sat, turned, and knelt in the bath. The scent of the floral soap soon replaced the grime of Mallowick town. Adam washed me from head to toe, his eyes sparkling with curiosity as his fingers glided over my milky pale skin. He explored me as if I were a treasure that he painstakingly excavated from the earth. I marveled at how good it felt to be intimate with another man once again. I had not taken a lover in all three-months of traveling, so each coquettish little glance he sent me, or sigh he made while exploring my flesh made my balls pulse and prick remain rock hard—just like his own, pressed to my thigh.

When he’d washed everywhere apart from my prick, plums, and rear, he sat back against the side of the tub and bit his lip as if he was unsure what else he was permitted to do. His nervous hesitation and shyness enflamed me. I would wash him now and maybe see what else happened!

I removed the washcloth and soap from his hands. He laughed as I splashed and slid to straddle his firm thighs. Adam’s eyes grew as wide as saucers, wanting and wary, but he did not stop me from settling my weight on him, his hardness bobbing beside mine in the fragrant murky bathwater. I grinned triumphantly and watched his mouth twitch and his lips part as I ran first my fingers, and then the rough soapy washcloth over his sculpted, hard chest, lingering on his dark budding nipples. He gasped out a moan as I pinched a hardening bud and rolled it between my thumb and forefinger. I placed my mouth atop Adam’s to claim the wanton, needy sound he made for myself. When I pulled back his lips followed, seeking mine. I wanted him so badly; it felt like serpents warred in my belly. I leaned in for another kiss.

All that prevented us from doing more was the cock—not mine or Adam’s, but the damnable rooster in the farmyard that crowed noisily to welcome the sunrise at the most inopportune moment.

On hearing the crowing of the bird, Adam pulled back in shock, and we stared at one another as if dragged mercilessly from a wonderful fairytale dream. My prick and balls throbbed, but the sudden terror on Adam’s face at hearing the cock crow set my empty belly to churning for all the wrong reasons. Farmer Sewell would rise now, as would his bastard sidekick, Nico Barat, and they would both expect everyone to be up and ready for work.

“Take me with you,” Adam begged with sudden urgency.

I stared at him, uncomprehending. “What?”

“When you leave for Serein, let me come with you.” I was stunned by his outburst.

“I need to get away from here—from him. I need to find out if Evan’s okay. I want to travel to Serein but the roads ain’t safe. I can’t do it alone but if we’re together—“

The reality of what was happening suddenly dawned on me. Did Adam even fancy me at all? Had he just tried to win my favor so he could tag along on the journey to Serein? I wished now that I had not told him I was an aristocrat. Something gossamer thin and fragile inside me cracked and desiccated into shards. I would have gladly let him travel with me. I’d learned that indeed the roads were not safe. I missed Jossuah so very much, and traveling with a companion was always more preferable than going alone. But I was hurt by the perceived manipulation; I scowled and pushed away from him, the now cooling water splashing up the sides of the bathtub. I felt like such a fool. I’d thought Adam liked me for me, and not for my station. I didn’t know Adam Sewell at all and being lonesome and in need of a friend I’d allowed him closer than was safe for either of us. It dawned on me that if Farmer Sewell found us like this, wet, naked and entwined in his bathtub, he would string me up from an apple tree—by my balls!

I stood abruptly, the water splashing over the lip of the tub once more. Not answering Adam’s question, and unable to hide the hurt I keenly felt I flatly said: “We’d better get dressed.” I turned and stepped out of the tub, reaching for a drying cloth and rubbing it rapidly over my body so I could don the hand-me-downs before a chill set in.

Adam sat silently in the bathtub looking distinctly forlorn, his wet dark curls plastered to his brow. As fury bubbled under my skin, he watched me drag on the clean small clothes he’d brought me—to discover they were too big. It was evident then that Evan Sewell was of a stockier build than me, but no matter, there was no alternative than to wear what Adam had kindly provided. I stepped into clean brown britches and pulled a billowing lavender scented blue homespun shirt over my head. It looked more like a dress. I retrieved the leather belt and my two prized coppers from my stinky silk britches, put the coins in my pocket, and used the belt to secure all the oversized clothing. Luckily, the boots were a good fit.

“I have the coin,” Adam insisted desperately. “I’ve been saving since Evan left so I could go be with him. But he never came back to get me—not a word in a year. I gotta get away Win, I’m twenty-five summers and Pa’s promised me to Aileen Barker over in Totsham Downs. There is no way I can lay with a woman, let alone marry one. Please, don’t leave me here, I beg you.”

I paused and pinched my lips at hearing Adam’s plea for help. I was behaving like a beastly Lordling, but I could not take him with me when I journeyed to Serein. I would not have him mixed up in the bad business I had to deal with when I arrived there. I was so deeply attracted to Adam, and I understood my desires all too well. I sensed I would not be able to keep my hands off him, and I would not taint him with the foulness I’d have to deal with in the city.

I turned and regretfully met his gaze. It was a mistake, for when my eyes met his pleading stare my heart ached with such wretched longing, imploring me to say “Yes, Adam, what a wonderful idea, please come with me.” He would surely make an excellent traveling companion, and maybe, in another life, my bedfellow. But I stood straight and schooled my features.

“I have business to attend to in the city. It will be dangerous. When I go, I must go alone.” I said with uncharacteristic sternness in my tone, and my heart broke as his face took on an expression of deep disappointment. I felt like such a bastard. The damnable cock crowed again, breaking the intensity that we shared. I wanted to wring that bird’s scrawny neck! I winced with regret and then made for the door.

CHAPTER Nine

INHERITANCE

The sunrise was a glorious wash of amber, pink and lavender brushed in a watery swathe across the sky. I marveled at the new day. Strolling back toward the farm and taking in the crisp morning air, I noted the spring in my step as I walked in my new-old boots. It was remarkably good to have clean clothes and shod feet once more, and I immediately felt awash with guilt that Adam had been so kind to me, and in return received a rejection. The intimacy we shared made my blood burn through my veins, giving me the kind of vigor and lust for life I had not experienced in some time. I was determined I would take on this day with both hands.

The steward, Nico Barat stepped out of his cottage and stood puffing on a clay pipe eyeing me most uncomfortably as I made my way along the track. His gaze stole the wind from me. He made me feel… sullied. I nodded as I passed him but felt too afraid of the man even to look him in the eye.

When I reached the courtyard, the chickens were running loose. Billowing smoke rose from the chimney of the farmhouse. The door was wide open, and I could hear Col Sewell bellowing at Rosalie and his daughters to “Hurry up with that porridge. The sooner they’s eat, the sooner they gets to work.”

As I passed the door I could see inside to the large open plan ground floor where Adam’s harried mother sweated as she stirred a giant pot over the hearth, and twin fourteen-year-old girls wearing anxious expressions decanted cider from a barrel into jugs. Sewell sat at a large kitchen table a carving knife in his hand that he used to slice a wedge of yesterday’s bread.

I scurried back to the barn to find the doors open and my fellow harvesters awake, sitting bleary-eyed, waiting for their porridge like obedient dogs. I nodded a greeting to the men who did not appear even to notice my existence, and I returned to the placed I’d slept. I spotted Aryn huddled in a corner, his blanket wrapped tightly around him. He appeared to be sleeping. I sat back in my nest of hay and allowed myself to think of what had just happened between Adam and me—of how the water made his skin glisten like the finest honey-colored silk, and how his tea-stained hair formed into tight curls, how his delicious thick prick bobbed so invitingly in the water beside mine.

“Looks like some’dy got a visit from the clothes fairy last night!” A mirthful voice said.

Pulled from my salacious thoughts, I looked up at Aryn and saw his shoulders heave up and down as he laughed.

“Well, um, you could say that,” I grinned and felt heat burn my cheeks.