From where Frodo was standing, the situation looked extremely promising. Sam, on the other hand, didn't seem to agree, even though his other hand had somehow wound up in a place that--in theory--strongly indicated otherwise. Sam didn't seem all that interested in theory, either.

"They'll hear," he insisted in a harsh whisper, running his fingers in a maddening line up Frodo's inner thigh.

"I know," Frodo sighed ruefully, shuddering at the touch. "I'm truly sorry that they've overstayed their welcome."

Sam accepted Frodo's apologetic kiss with a low, longing murmur. "I know, me dear," he gasped, catching Frodo's head before it fell back again as he ran his hand over the front of Frodo's breeches and up beneath his untucked shirt. They kissed again, harder this time, and Frodo decided that things were feeling even better. Sam pressed his mouth to Frodo's ear and said, "I don't think I can wait, but I ain't keen on gettin' a look from Mr. Merry in the morning. Lady knows he thinks I'm already more to you than I ought to be."

"It's no concern of Merry's what you are to me or aren't," Frodo said, pressing into the strong warmth of Sam's palm against his stomach. "Besides, there are any number of observations that I might make regarding Pippin that would quiet him more quickly than your raspberry trifle." He licked his lips and kissed Sam's earlobe. "It was an excellent trifle. Better than usual, might I add," Frodo said, grasping the fastenings of Sam's braces. "It's a shame there's none left."

"Take it up with Mr. Pippin," Sam groaned, his words stifled against Frodo's neck. "Frodo-love, the kitchen ain't no place for--"

"You seemed to think it was last Sunday," Frodo reminded him, sliding both hands up Sam's back.

Sam whimpered in protest. "No one was here."

"My cousins are asleep."

"Your cousins sleep light."

"Pippin doesn't."

"Meanin' Mr. Merry does."

Frodo sighed and let his head fall back against the paneling, frustrated but mostly bewitched by the lamp's flickering play across Sam's features, catching mossy green and gold in his eyes. "Yes, Sam. Merry's a light sleeper. We already established that, but we've also established that I am perfectly capable of blackmailing him."

Sam clucked his tongue softly, nibbling at Frodo's collarbone. "That's not kind, Mr. Frodo."

Sam's coy tone disengaged Frodo's taut spine with a shiver. "No, it's not, but you mean a great deal to me, and I'm not about to let Merry's stuffy notions..." Sam caught Frodo firmly as he sagged beneath Sam's careful ministrations of teeth and tongue.

"Just a great deal, sir?" Sam suckled the hollow of Frodo's throat. Hard.

"Of course not!" Frodo croaked, winding his arms about Sam's neck in a strangling hold.

Sam shifted his grip on Frodo's hips and murmured approvingly. "Would you mind rephrasin' it? It's a bit vague, just like that poem you was translatin' earlier. No offense meant, of course. I'd just like it clearer, if you take my meaning."

"I didn't--didn't think so," Frodo stammered, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. "And I take it." He reached down and unclipped Sam's braces, which he had failed to do previously.

Sam looked up for a moment, regarding Frodo thoughtfully despite his severely flushed cheeks. "I'd like it very much," he said slowly, leaning in for what Frodo was certain would be one of those kisses that left him incapable of basic thought, "if you'd explain it to me." Frodo moaned into the inevitable descent of Sam's mouth; he couldn't shape a concept, much less speak.

"I--thought you wanted--quiet!"

Sam ran his tongue along Frodo's lower lip and grasped his thighs, hitching him up tight against the wall. "I thought you didn't."

Frodo recognized a challenge when he heard one. "Only because I couldn't wait another minute," he breathed in Sam's ear, "for you to get your hands down my trousers, thank you very much. If you haven't noticed, your toes were quite a tease--all through dinner!" Frodo arched away from the wall, pushing up against Sam to prove it.

Sam drew in his breath and hissed softly, "I'll have you know, these hands--" Sam squeezed Frodo's bottom "--would have been down your trousers if them cousins of yours hadn't been accross the table watchin' us like nobody's business!"

Frodo laughed and tangled one hand in Sam's curls, holding on tight with the other. "Then why don't you stop wasting time, now that no one's watching?"

"Because I've half a mind to drag you down the hall," Sam said, trailing his breath from Frodo's mouth to his cheek and kissing the spot lightly, "lay you out on that overstuffed bed of yours, and see if my toes haven't just cooked up somethin' better'n that trifle."

Frodo blinked the white-hot haze out of his eyes and swallowed. "I wouldn't mind if you did."

"Good," Sam murmured, lowering Frodo gently, only to find that his legs weren't much use. Frodo was grateful that it warranted an arm firm about his waist and many murmured promises that saw him successfully back the smial's winding halls until he could collapse on the bed.

Sam crawled onto the mattress, looming over Frodo on all fours. He smiled up at Sam, winding his fingers into the pillowcase on either side of his head. "We're much farther from the guest rooms now, you know."

"Aye," Sam replied, bending to nuzzle at Frodo's temple, "that's why I ain't keen on the kitchen, never mind how fine you taste on the table."

"We're not in the kitchen anymore," Frodo prompted helpfully, squirming against the coverlet.

"Good thing, too," Sam agreed, catching hold of Frodo's collar, working the top buttons loose. "I don't reckon they'd appreciate your carryin' on as much as I do."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Frodo murmured, tugging Sam's shirt out the front of his breeches, attacking his buttons from the opposite end.

Sam chuckled and stopped halfway down Frodo's chest, slipping his hand inside Frodo's shirt in order to circle one dark, stiffening nipple with the pad of his thumb. "Then it seems I've got to remind you what you sound like when I touch you," he said with mock discouragement, skating his hand across to Frodo's other nipple, "right there--"

"Sam!--"

"Mm. I don't know about you," Sam whispered, sliding one hand over Frodo's mouth and rubbing his nipple a bit more fervently with the other, "but that jogs my memory more'n enough."

Frodo breathed damply against Sam's fingers, feeling deliciously contrary. "Not mine," he mumbled.

Sam pulled both hands away and stared down at Frodo, fisting one in the pillow and one in Frodo's curls. "In which case, I'm doin' a sorry job of it," Sam sighed, sitting back on his heels.

Frodo narrowed his eyes. "Of what?" He yanked on the front of Sam's shirt, which now hung loose, exposing Sam's warm, tantalizing flesh.

Sam stretched out over Frodo without warning, latching his teeth gently at the curve of Frodo's neck. "Of seducin' you into my mouth, of course."

Frodo shuddered blissfully, sliding his arms low and tight about Sam's waist. "Would getting on with it be too much to ask? Your trifle's getting cold."

"Can't have that," Sam agreed with a heavy sigh. "I suppose that means I'd best be gettin' into your trousers now."

"What's stopping you?" Frodo laughed, thrusting up against Sam's slack weight.

Sam responded with an absolutely ridiculous grin and thrust back. "How am I supposed to move, Frodo-love, when you're so comfortable?"

"Never said I was," Frodo said indignantly.

"Mm, I did."

"It's not the same thing," Frodo protested, worming his fingers from Sam's belly down to his waistband, hooking them underneath. "Nai meruvalye, meleth."

"Oh, 'please' yourself," Sam chided fondly, guiding Frodo's hands away and placing them still at his sides. "If I hear one more word, you just might have to."

Frodo was about to open his mouth, never mind what Sam had just said, but Sam's hands stroked up his thighs and kneaded generously before settling on his trouser buttons. Frodo bit his lip and swallowed another unbidden string of elvish. Soon, he told himself. Very soon...

"What was all that about gettin' cold?" Sam asked suspiciously, pulling Frodo's trousers down by the cuffs. Frodo shifted and pushed them down from the waist, eager to be of assistance. He closed his eyes, breathing in deeply with the tense, coiling pleasure that gathered beneath Sam's touch. He would have his chance at Sam very soon indeed, and he didn't mind it in the least. "A lie if I ever saw one," Sam murmured, tracing Frodo's length with sure, gentle fingertips. The touch burned sweetly, and Frodo whimpered. Sam's look softened from one of teasing to one of fierce tenderness.

"Aye, I've put you through enough," Sam murmured, and kissed Frodo deeply before trailing his mouth in a rapid succession of feathery endearements down to Frodo's navel. He bit his lip harder with each one, struggling not to cry out--meleth, Frodo-love; ah, you're the sweetest--, me dear--! Frodo panted desperately now, struggling against a broken cry. He forced himself to mentally translate each word, but it was no use; it slipped free in fragmented gasps of ai, Sam-melindo, meruval--yenai--! Sam caught his hands and grasped them tightly, planting a patient kiss against his arousal.

"What's that?" Sam whispered, and Frodo gave up all pretense of stifling a yell when the warmth of Sam's mouth enveloped him without even waiting for an an answer. He couldn't distinguish what language he now pleaded in, at any rate, and Sam swallowed him soundlessly, purposefully, as if nothing mattered half so much as devouring this relentless ache into wetness and silence and ai into bliss...! Then there was familiar darkness, his heartbeat all through him and rainbow-washed pulsing against his eyelids, and Sam's hands holding him steady even after he lay faint with trembling and sweat. Frodo prised his hands from the damp folds of the coverlet and sought Sam's blindly, but anyway Sam found his first.

Frodo found his tongue thoroughly uncooperative, but he used it agaist his better judgment. "You should have asked...well, no, that wouldn't...it doesn't..." He gave up on words, squeezing Sam's hands with a laugh. "I'll answer it anyway: wonderful, that's what."

"You'd do better to stick with elvish," Sam observed in a husky tone, and that warranted opening his eyes to see Sam hovering above him as before, flushed with that same wanting and more.

"I believe I would," Frodo murmured, distracted. He reached for Sam's trousers, which were by now badly distended. He fumbled them open, fingers still clumsy, but Sam didn't mind it any more than he minded not understanding every word that Frodo murmured in his ear. He managed to roll Sam to one side, but it wasn't so difficult--Sam was as pliant under his hands as Frodo had been under Sam's own, and dispensing with Sam's trousers was done in a similar fashion, and none too soon.

"Frodo, me dear--ah, hurry," Sam breathed, pulling Frodo down tight against himself, kissing him desperately.

Frodo straddled him willingly, bearing down firmly with his hips. He pressed his lips to Sam's and whispered, "What do you want?"

"Want?" Sam groaned, half laughing. "If I can't think fast I'll have to settle for--Frodo--"

Frodo suckled Sam's earlobe till his breath burst out on a shattered cry, and he murmured, "I'll use my hands, if you don't mind. I've been aching to touch you since breakfast." That didn't require elvish at all, and besides, Sam had probably had his fill of it.

And even if Sam had, Frodo scattered breathy fragments of it through his hair, against his cheeks and neck and chest until the heat grasped in his tiring but relentless hands melted and shuddered into cries of pleasure beneath him. Frodo quieted Sam with the offering of his mouth, unhurried and soothing. What words could not reach was here, and here alone, simply stated.

I love you.