Part Two #4
“Tired?” he probed gently. “You didn’t have to travel hard to find me.
You know I’d never ask that of you.” Sun reached up, found Westin’s hand, and dragged it down to his head.
Westin nodded in understanding of what Sun apparently didn’t want to say.
“You needed this?” He clucked his tongue when Sun tensed and began to gently scratch Sun’s scalp to make that tension go away.
“I’m sorry.” He scratched and soothed and petted while their heartbeats slowed and their breathing grew even.
“You’re too nice.” Sun was very quiet. “Always resolving the problems of others. What about you?”
Westin paused, then lightly stroked down the back of Sun’s neck to one faintly freckled shoulder. “I didn’t say what I said to appease you. I said it because it’s what I wanted. I’m perhaps as soft as you think I am, but even I wouldn’t swear myself to someone simply to be nice.”
Sun rolled over to stare at Westin for several tense moments. “Swear yourself?” he asked at last, even quieter than before. The rain was just audible.
Westin pulled his hand away and was only mildly comforted when Sun reached for it to make Westin put it back.
“Forgive me.” Discomfort had Westin glancing away, to the curtain that held back the rest of the world. “I’ve never asked before—never even considered asking before. I got ahead of myself, didn’t I? I keep trying to tell you what a fool I am...”
“Shut up,” Sun interrupted. He placed Westin’s hand over his ribs. “Keep going.”
Westin gestured apologetically with his free hand.
“I had a regular lover and didn’t realize.
A lover who offered to stay with me. Who has chased me down more than once, from the sound of it.
Who initiated everything between us, every time.
I have much to make up for if you give me a chance.
And I cannot even offer jewelry. Well, I suppose I could, although it wouldn’t be gold.
Perhaps someday, but certainly not now. You’re not only interested in that, but you should have it if you want it.
You’re worthy of it. And if some other beat-of-four can offer you that, then… ”
“What in the name of the fae are you talking about, West?” Sun frowned up at him.
The snap returned some of Westin’s sense. He hadn’t babbled like that around a lover since he’d been younger than Sun. He inhaled and let the scent of their fucking mingled with cress spice and orange and rosemary be his focus and not the fears and desires and need filling his chest.
He exhaled.
“If you wanted, if not today then someday, I would marry you, Sun.”
Sheltered from the candles and the hint of light from the common room by the bench and Westin’s body, Sun’s face was in shadow, his eyes wide and near black again. His lips were pressed tight together and no words escaped them.
Westin nodded because he needed to do something and he couldn’t yet get up and walk away.
“I want you to have a place you can call home if you don’t like the barracks, and to know you can count on me to be there for you.
And though I didn’t admit this to myself until tonight, when I’m traveling and alone, I look for you and am disappointed when you aren’t there.
Of course, you’re also welcome to visit me or stay with me even if you don’t imagine our hands tied together.
But you should know it’s a future that’s available to you.
I’m… I’m available to you, lark, whenever you need.
” He cleared his throat. “But I know you will be on the road a great deal, and I wouldn’t expect you to think only of me.
” Most marriages, when they occurred, did not demand that, but Westin wanted to be clear.
“I know you’re fond of me but I won’t have you burdened by what I’ve realized is in my heart. ”
“In your heart?” Sun echoed faintly, then scrambled to sit up. He looked around the booth and Westin had the wild thought that Sun was hoping Hely would appear. “In your heart?” he charged again, rounding back on Westin. “Available?” His eyes were huge. “Marry?”
“It’s an option,” Westin explained, almost reasonably. Sun wouldn’t be fooled but a stranger might have been.
“An option?” Sun’s voice went a little higher.
“You can say no,” Westin continued while that put-off and tamped-down stirring in his chest began to grow and deepen.
“No?” Sun didn’t howl it, but the murmurs from the common room paused as though the sound had carried. “West, you…. West.” He quieted with his hands at his cheeks and his gaze on Westin. “Are you drunk?” he asked again, very low.
“No, lark.” Westin reached for him and got a lapful of warm, naked Sun, who pressed his face to Westin’s shoulder and kept it there.
Westin settled and steadied him, his arms around Sun’s back.
“I’m retiring, and I treasure you so much that I want you to know the truth before I go.
Which Hely helped me realize—don’t growl. ”
“And the truth is that you are ‘available to me?’” Sun didn’t raise his head but the growl remained in his voice.
“Am I not available to you? So obviously that everyone in the guard knows it and your handsome friend too? I rode here for you. In a storm.” That was added with a hint of a pout and Westin nuzzled Sun’s hair without thought.
“You did,” he agreed.
“In a storm, West,” Sun said again, more than a hint of a pout about him now. He angled his head so he could look up at Westin. “I was wet and cold.” He shivered to demonstrate. “And you asked why I was here.”
“You drank that tea for me.” Westin was warmed by the memory. “You tolerate my fears so well, Sun.”
Sun blinked. “Tolerate? Oh yes. Because you are a burden to me. And I am to find others on the road while I’m away from you, my proposed husband.” He smiled with teeth and turned his head again, letting the cuffs find the light. “When I find all these others, should I try for gold?”
Words stuck in Westin’s throat. The stirring in his chest returned. He closed his eyes. “You deserve gold.”
“Hmm.” Sun was very pleased about something. He wriggled in Westin’s arms, settling firmly into Westin’s lap before humming again. Westin opened his eyes. Sun’s gaze was intent on him. “Too generous,” he purred. “You need someone to be selfish for you.”
Westin thought he was doing quite well with Sun’s not-quite rejection but some hurt made his voice tart. “Oh, do I?”
“Yes.” Sun was confident, his head tipped up, his lips curved.
“Your Hely thinks so too.” He turned again, letting his jewelry glint inches from Westin’s face.
His voice was silky and vicious. “If you don’t like these cuffs, you should say so.
That’s what you’d tell me to do. Use your words.
” He added that in a mocking tone, all the while watching Westin with dark, dark eyes.
“I am not territorial,” Westin insisted, the lie making his voice rough. “Someone should give you nice things and care about you.” He meant that even with his heart pounding and his palms itching. “But….” He barely stopped himself in time.
Sun reached for one of Westin’s hands and pulled it to his neck, just below his ear, before letting go. “But? This is a space for the truth, West. You said so.”
“They’re gorgeous on you,” Westin admitted hoarsely. “But I don’t like seeing them.” He stopped again, mouth open in horror. “I won’t tell you to take them off.”
“Just take them off, then,” Sun suggested before Westin could go on. He inched his chin up even higher, then turned away, his eyes briefly closed, his breathing unsteady. He wet his lips. “If you dislike seeing them so much, tear them off me.”
“But they matter to you.” Westin forced himself to say it.
Sun only shrugged, which might or might not have been a lie.
“Someone who likes me offered to buy them for me, and I thought that I could have them, and perhaps sell them later if I ever needed money. And I look good in them, don’t I?
And then I also thought, maybe if I wear gifts from someone else, Wes will notice.
” Westin would swear his heart stuttered but it might have been the slight hitch in Sun’s breathing.
“And you did notice. And you don’t like them.
” Oh, he was pleased with himself now, all the while gazing at Westin with a challenge in his expression.
“Will you tell me to take them off? Or will you simply do it yourself?”
He shivered at the first glancing touch against the shell of his ear but otherwise kept still when Westin slid the lowest cuff free.
The brat wanted him to and Westin wanted it more than he could ever say.
Maybe that was why Sun wanted it, although Westin didn’t think so, not when Sun tipped his head to prompt Westin to take the next one as well.
Westin was gentle. He would never tear them off, but Sun had known that when he’d said it.
Maybe it was that one of the candles was failing, leaving them in worse light, but Sun’s eyes were endless again. Hungry, as if Westin taking care with the cuffs was better than him ripping them away and now Sun was going to demand even more from him.
“Oh,” Westin said aloud, giving Sun every treat he could think of.
“I don’t like seeing them on you,” he told Sun again to make Sun flush prettily.
“Especially when you weren’t wearing a scarf from me.
” Many would have been surprised to hear Westin handing out challenges almost as Sun did while slowly stripping some other man’s gifts from Sun’s body.
“Despite the rain,” he added. “And the cold.”
Sun’s laugh was startled. He glanced up with more hunger. “Your last one blew off over a bridge a while back, on the windiest day I’ve ever seen. I was hoping for a replacement before this winter….” He trailed off, leading and impertinent. “Is that one meant for me?”