Chapter 2
II
He was forty-four years old, and he was afraid.
Truth had been activated around them; another reassurance of safety for Hawk and March both.
Hawk stood in the corner of the cozy green and gold wallpapered bedroom—sex room—while March turned down the bed, depositing frilly pillows into baskets on the floor, and folded the sheets over themselves.
“You needn’t worry about the details; any form of completion is fine.
You may simply masturbate while I watch, or I’d be pleased to assist. And you may choose how to bring me off in turn.
Your hand is fine.” Hawk would have considered March’s ongoing explanation nervous, except—
The graceful, unbothered way he moved, and the gentle tone of his voice gave him an air of confidence that Hawk could never admit he was envious of.
“No need to overthink it. It’s simply a formality; a confirmation of your rudimentary ability.
We’ll teach you everything you need to know for longer-term work.
And again—you needn’t do any of this, if you’d like to work in blood alone.
” March placed a pristine white candle upon a brass flower-shaped candlestick, on the dresser.
“The only requirement, should we move forward, is that you complete this task before the candle goes out. We’ve roughly one hour. ”
Hawk remained rooted. His focus upon the candle slowed his anxiety. The task was simple. But— “How much do I pay you?” Perhaps this was the scam. The bag of coin weighing down Hawk’s pocket could disappear, just like that, into Sutaire’s coffers.
“Nothing, of course. It’s part of the intake.
You’ll be the one paid after this is done—another Purple.
” Twenty more gold, presented in a purple pouch.
March stood straight, satisfied with his arrangement of items on one side of the bed.
Then March snapped his fingers, and a small dancing flame appeared above his hand.
He lit the candle before sauntering over to Hawk, and he was sauntering.
Hawk couldn’t help how his eyes dropped to the shape of March’s hips that shifted, barely visible through the thin texture of his black robe.
March stopped a few bare inches from Hawk and said, “Do you have any other questions?”
Hawk couldn’t look at March as he asked, “Do you remember what I said before?” He had to put it out there—he’d no choice soon. There was no hiding it. No hiding himself. “I don’t know if I can do this with my body like it is, March.”
March’s warm, soft fingers found Hawk’s chin, and tilted his head up, so that he had to peer into March’s face despite himself. “Which part?”
“I’m not hairless,” Hawk said, speaking just above a whisper.
“My body isn’t like other elves. And if it’s not—” Good enough.
“It may prevent me from the apprenticeship you recommended. I don’t know that adame can look the way I do.
” He was starved; skinny. He already knew, from the shape of March within his clothes, that he’d a healthy shape. Muscles. No visible bones.
“Hm,” said March. He shifted his head just so, looking deeply into Hawk’s eyes. “You’ve had sex before; you said as much under Truth.”
“Yes…?”
“Did your lover leave you feeling as if your body was displeasing to the eye?”
Yes, of course he did. His husband—
Ex-husband.
“He didn’t like the way I looked,” Hawk said, words strangled, vision blurring. “We were married for twenty-two years. We had sex twice.”
Hawk prepared for March to gasp in surprise.
He prepared for the question: only twice?
He prepared the explanation: that their marriage, like many elven marriages, had been arranged.
And the first time they had sex, neither enjoyed it, and when they tried again weeks later, Hawk was asked to lay face-down so his husband wouldn’t have to look at him, and it hadn’t been enough.
But March instead asked, “Were you not attracted to your spouse?”
Hawk ripped his stare from the warm, worn floor, from the unraveling corner of the red area rug, and when his mind went to supply the memory of his ex-husband, his vision was filled instead with March’s pensive face.
“Please don’t make yourself do anything you would not like to do. You needn’t touch me. You needn’t do any of this,” said March.
Hawk’s hands felt magnetic again, pulled to March’s body, and he gripped the front of March’s silky black robe. “Even if I want this,” he said, “What if no one wants me? I’m afraid you’ll see me and change your mind.”
A silence lingered for a moment. “We may dim the lights in here.” March said, “But I can see in the dark.” Luname, right. One of their unique gifts: there was no darkness so true that they could be blinded by it. “Would you like to do this with your clothes on?”
Hawk was struck silent by that. And then he said, “Don’t you need to see me?”
March’s eyes softened into a smile. “I said already. We need only confirm that you’re capable of spending seed.
And that you’re able to pull me off in turn.
” He glanced down at Hawk’s lips—very briefly, but Hawk caught the look nonetheless.
“However you would like to do so. You don’t need to undress. ”
“But you…” Hawk trailed off, his mind losing its place in the conversation as he returned March’s glance.
At his mouth. His lips were sharp—two points beneath the cupid’s bow that accentuated the narrow tip of his long nose.
Dark gray—bluish in color, this close—and smiling around a set of straight white teeth.
Hawk couldn’t remember if he’d ever been attracted to his ex-husband, but he knew with every fiber of his being that he was attracted to March. March saved his racing mind with a laugh; a flash of his pink tongue. “I’m happy to follow your instruction. What would you like?”
Hawk said with a dawning realization, “I really get to come to bed with you?” His hands released March’s robe, fingers aching from how intensely Hawk had held his grasp.
“Well. The bed’s over there.”
“Can I suck you? Fuck you?”
“Of course,” said March, as if he replied to an inquiry about the weather.
“If I asked you to, would you fuck me?” Hawk gazed into March’s shining white eyes, knowing March would have to answer true.
“Yes, Hawk,” said March, and his hand swept some of Hawk’s hair from his face.
“But do you want to?”
March’s fingers trailed down Hawk’s face, from his cheekbone to his jaw to his mouth, which March pressed his thumb against, gently, with the slightest pressure. “Yes.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
Hawk swallowed down his fears and asked, “May I kiss you?”
And March didn’t answer, at first. They were suspended in silence while March’s face remained as stone—hiding any clue of his inner thoughts from Hawk. Finally, he asked, whispering, “You want to kiss me?”
Hawk couldn’t even find it within himself to speak. He nodded, perhaps more earnestly than he should have, fingers wringing together.
“I would like you to,” March replied, then.
Hawk pushed up on his toes and kissed him—a bare brush of their lips, then more deeply, like he needed to confirm that March was really there, and that he wasn’t going to recoil, or run from him.
March didn’t run. He didn’t move any, at first, until Hawk wound his arms around his shoulders, and pulled them together, flush.
March slid his hands from Hawk’s face and into his hair, gliding through the short strands.
Hawk tilted his head to lick against the seam of March’s mouth—which he opened, easily, and Hawk wasted no time to chase his tongue with his own.
March released a quiet exhale but it may as well have been an audience of fans cheering him on for the way Hawk’s heart swelled.
He pushed forward, guiding March back. Toward the bed.
They kissed and licked and sighed against one another until March hit the edge of the mattress. He sat and gazed up at Hawk with a swollen mouth and blissful grin. “How’d you want to go about it, then?”
Hawk didn’t really know. He busied himself by tucking a long dark strand of March’s hair behind his ear, and then stroking his ear with a finger. March’s ears were taller—longer—than Hawk’s. Longer than most elves. That was a moon elf thing, too.
March said, “If you ask me, I’ll help.”
Hawk nodded once, face flushing.
March took the confirmation and undressed himself, shrugging out of the robe to reveal his shining, smooth abs, and the sharp masculine shape of his hipbones.
And he pushed the robe and pants he had beneath off his legs, allowing them to pool on the floor at his and Hawk’s feet.
His legs were long and smooth and his cock—
Hawk looked away, biting his lip, embarrassed he’d looked. Which, in turn, made him cringe. He was about to have sex with this man. He was an idiot, and making things worse, and—
March lifted one of Hawk’s hands and gently kissed his palm.
It was so subtle a touch, and so unexpected, that it ripped Hawk from his thoughts, and back to March seated below.
March kissed his wrist, then up his clothed arm, and pulled him forward to kiss the V where Hawk’s beige linen shirt met his chest. March didn’t make any move to pull off any of Hawk’s clothing.
Instead, he guided Hawk forward, onto his lap, seated with knees on either side of March.
When they were face to face again, March kissed him like before.
But not like before, because his hands wandered down Hawk’s back, to his ass—a gentle squeeze—before sliding along the outside of his thighs.
Simply touching him through his clothes while their tongues slid together, hot and wet.
Hawk began to breathe heavily beneath the kissing and touching. March whispered, against his lips, “Touch yourself for me.”