Chapter Nineteen
Ios guided them from the room, all warmth and tail touches, though he never strayed anywhere beyond Kit’s tail, and the reaction of passing kits to his presence—recognition and hooked tails on sight, delighted expressions when Kit happened to glance at them—spoke of fond familiarity.
Their looks were akin to star-struck admiration.
And this in response to a man who had burned down a shipment of food?
Despite the way he’d been brought here, it was clear Kit’s presence was wanted. And Nick thought, with sharp relief, his previous crimes were understood to have been coerced by Desre and forgiven.
What Nick didn’t quite know was his own standing. Was he free? Could he simply leave? His back wasn’t in great condition for travelling, but if needed, he’d grit his teeth and make do.
They went to a room one storey up, where warm dark wood replaced cold flagstone.
A gleaming bronze bath was the main event of the room, trays of lotions and soaps set up around it alongside a partition holding a robe and two cream towels.
The openness of the room left Nick feeling disconcerted.
He was used to the ship. Cramped quarters, low ceilings.
Steam rose from the tub; the water was crystal clear, an irresistible temptation that made Nick aware of the grime stuck to him. How long had it been since he’d washed himself with more than a basin and cloths?
“Shall I assist you?” Ios asked.
Kit’s tail whipped out; Ios leapt away, dodging in time to avoid the smack.
“I was just offering.” Ios settled on the opposite side of the bath, a shield.
“Your room is connected through there.” Ios indicated a door beyond the tub. “I’ll prepare salves and fresh clothes. Everyone is eager to see you again…and the Lua is to be poured tonight. The children would be delighted if you were there to taste the fruits of their labour.”
Kit nodded. “I will attend.”
Ios left. Nick ventured forward but veered away from the bathtub, grabbing a washcloth and basin from the supply shelf. He moved stiffly as he stripped himself down and began wiping away the grime from his body.
“Do you want to go first?” Nick asked. Naked, he kept his back to Kit.
His face heated, though he reminded himself that Kit had already seen him mostly naked.
Had asked, horrified, about his piercings.
Kit didn’t answer. Nick looked over his shoulder, catching Kit as his eyes snapped away from his buttocks.
Nick kept his grin to himself, though a hint of amusement crept into his voice. “You can go first.”
“It is for you. They will bring fresh water for me after.” Kit found the wall on his right very fascinating.
Nick stepped carefully into the tub. “And do they boil bathtubs of fresh water for everyone they kidnap?” It was gloriously hot. He sighed with quiet delight as he sank into it.
“No.” Kit hesitated, considering how to answer.
“But they do for the general’s nephew?” Nick guessed. Kit had said his parents were dead, but there was a clear familial relation. And clear special treatment.
“Yes.”
“And their prisoners.”
Kit’s tail lashed. He lost interest in the wall, eyes sliding to Nick.
“You were Desre’s prisoner,” Kit denied in a soft voice.
“And now?”
Kit didn’t answer immediately. He looked towards the door at his back, the other leading to the bedroom. “May I assist you?” he asked.
Nick nodded.
Kit knelt next to the tub. He stared at his leather gloves in charged silence before sliding them from his hands and setting them aside.
He then tugged loose the lacing of his shirt and folded up the long, thin sleeves.
Inch by inch he revealed thin wrists, naturally bronzed skin.
It had to be genetic, since Kit never let the sun touch his bare skin.
“Please do not reach for my hands,” Kit requested in a slightly strained voice, before taking a round yellow sponge and pouring a fragrant soap onto it.
“I have harmed the rebels’ mission in the past. I walk freely, but I am under guard and will remain that way. ”
“I was Desre’s prisoner. Valor is opposing her. Therefore, I’ll be sent on my way with a map and enough supplies to get me back to Vi’s estate?”
“That is very unlikely.”
“Why? Based on that conversation in the room, they weren’t even meant to take me.”
Kit ran the sponge up the length of Nick’s arm, lathering soap into his wet skin.
He moved carefully, washing Nick with a level of focus that indicated he had set himself a great task that required care.
He was very pointedly not looking beneath the water at Nick’s pierced cock, but the agitated sweeps of his tail left Nick suspecting it was on his mind.
“He will want to use you in some way,” Kit said. “Most likely he will contact Vi and broker a deal for your safe return.”
“What will he want in return?” Would Vi, whom Nick had only met for a short five minutes, be willing to pay up for him? He trusted that his family would step in to make sure he got home safe.
“Food.”
Kit rolled his sleeves up another roll and reached into the water to glide the sponge over Nick’s legs. He followed the curve of his calf muscle, massaged his ankles and carefully pushed the sponge between each toe.
“The reason I was taken, it has to do with the food shortage? You need a witch to…grow food? Get rid of a curse?” Nick circled the mark on his inner forearm that they had been looking at. “You need whatever this symbol does.”
Kit halted. “I cannot talk about it.”
“She isn’t here.”
“I cannot.”
Nick considered the stiffness in Kit’s face, the edge in his voice. “Alright,” Nick said. “I won’t ask.”
Tensely, Kit continued speaking. “There is a blessing in Aridia from an old god.” Kit shifted onto his other leg. “My people have grown strong and healthy because of it. Our council, Desre among them…”
Kit’s expression flattened; the question linked to Desre, and that was far from an easy topic for him to engage with. If the journey here had taught Nick anything, it was that his life back home had been blessed.
He thought he’d learned to appreciate that not everyone had a good family like he did when he saw the way Connor’s parents treated him.
But to see someone like Kit, someone strong and gentle, brought to his knees by abuse was horrifying in a way that crawled under Nick’s skin and made him physically ill.
“Kit.” Nick drew his attention outward. Kit had stopped moving, his thoughts a thousand miles from here and, from the paleness of his skin, nowhere good. Kit’s blue eyes shifted to him. “Remember what I told you about the piercings?”
Kit’s tail twitched. Nick saw the effort it took on Kit’s part not to look down.
His fingers tightened on the sponge in his grip, suds rising in the water.
“You told me they do not hurt. You got them one at a time, except for the ladder, which you did all in the same day. They must be cleaned thoroughly.” A muscle in Kit’s jaw flexed.
His eyes swept across Nick’s face. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and Kit’s tail curved up the edge of the bath until the tufts were brushing against Nick’s shoulder.
Nick studied him, making sure there was nothing hesitant or unhappy here, making sure this would be a curious, wanted diversion.
“Are you good at cleaning?”
Kit’s chin jutted down so quickly that Nick’s lips quirked up into a smile.
“And I already know you can be gentle.”
Kit’s expression shifted.
“Will you clean them for me, please?”
Kit’s breaths were audible and shallow. “You trust me to?”
“You won’t hurt me.”
His eyes cut to Nick’s back.
“That,” Nick said pointedly, “wasn’t you.”
Nick wanted to place his hand over Kit’s.
He wanted to squeeze gently, show that it was okay, he was forgiven, through touch.
But that would have been the worst thing in the world Nick could do to Kit, who had trusted him enough to remove his gloves in front of him.
Who had rolled up his sleeves and had asked Nick not to touch.
Nick had figured out by now that touch had to come on Kit’s initiative; he needed to be the one in control of it.
“If you don’t want to, I can do it,” Nick added lightly, though that Kit wanted to do it was very plain in his heated gaze. Kit shuffled closer to Nick, and he ran the sponge up his shin, tickled his knee, slid down his thigh. His knuckles grazed Nick’s cock, and heat prickled up his spine.
Kit’s gaze bored into Nick’s, his jaw tight, his nostrils flaring.
His lids fluttered and slid halfway down as he touched Nick’s length.
The sponge pressed into the space behind his sack, nestled in so that Kit’s palm pressed apart his balls, and Nick’s length lay against his wrist. The pressure moved the piercings, sending bursts of warmth licking through Nick’s thighs.
Kit’s entire body leaned in. His musk mingled with the steam from the tub, filling Nick’s head with heady delight.
His forehead pressed against Nick’s. Kit was careful.
It was almost painful how delicate he was, how much care he took not to snag the rings in the sponge before he set it aside.
It was his bare hand that slid up Nick’s shaft, and Kit groaned as the barbells grated against his fingers.
“I imagine that your partners get considerable delight?” Kit asked, breathless. Nick’s eyes were shut as he focused entirely on Kit’s hand, the feel of those lean fingers sliding across his length over and over. “What does it feel like to have these inside?”
“I’ve never been fucked by someone with piercings. I couldn’t tell you.”
“But those you have been with?”
Nick was far too hard to be thinking of anything but Kit’s fingers, which were growing more brave than delicate. He cast his mind back anyway. “I’ve never asked. The first time I had sex after getting the Jacob’s ladder done, I checked in to make sure he was okay the whole time.”
Kit’s tail slapped against the tub, sloshing the water.
His irritated growl tickled Nick’s lips, and his hand lost the last of its fearful delicacy; Kit began jacking Nick off in quick, purposeful pumps.
Nick’s hands itched to sink into Kit’s hair; his mouth tingled to cover Kit’s.
To stop himself from grabbing, Nick gripped his own thighs, fingers digging in.
“Who was it?” Kit demanded.
“Finley. I met him at a club, and we went back to his.” Nick moaned. “Kit.”
Kit was going too fast. It had been so long. It was going to be over far, far too soon. Nick’s fingernails dug into his skin, trying to hold it all back, but there was a build-up in his core, and he was already on the cusp. Kit’s hand wasn’t stopping.
“Finley enjoyed the piercings inside of him?”
“He seemed to.”
Kit’s growl was rumbling from deep in his chest.
“And –”
“I’m going to come,” Nick warned, breathless. “Stop if you don’t want that.”
“And did you enjoy how it felt too?” Kit continued as if Nick hadn’t spoken. He kept pumping, focusing on Nick’s head, tight heat that made him feel like he was fucking Kit’s hand.
Nick was already at the precipice, and Kit’s tail brushing against his arm sent him hurtling over the edge.
His orgasm racked through him with a force that bowed him forward, crumpled his awareness beyond Kit’s moving hand and left him gasping as he struggled to catch his breath.
Nick’s forehead pressed against his knee as he came down.
Kit backed off his touch at the first twitch of sensitivity from Nick, but he didn’t back away from him beyond that. Rather, he advanced, nuzzling Nick’s down-turned head.
“Did you enjoy how it felt too?” Kit repeated, while Nick’s mind was somewhere in the sky, outside his own body on a trip to the strange stars above.
“I enjoyed how that felt.”
“Finley,” Kit corrected. “Did you enjoy fucking Finley?”
“I met up with him a few times, so yeah, I did. But I wasn’t interested in a relationship, and he was, so I stopped seeing him.” As Nick spoke, awareness began to return to his body. He drew in a deep breath and straightened, though it felt like a momentous effort.
When he turned towards Kit, he saw his furiously lashing tail. His scowl. Nick blinked. “This was before I even met you.”
“I know.” Kit still seemed supremely bothered.
Nick studied his face, looking for any hint that the agitation was related to what they had just done. Nick had invited him. He’d read Kit’s cues as best he could to be sure that he was happy to engage and play along, and Nick didn’t think that he’d misread Kit at any point.
“What we just did felt better,” Nick said. It wasn’t a lie. The aftermath of Kit’s touch was still shivering through him, and unlike his past encounters where a climax was quickly followed by an urge to withdraw, Nick was content to remain in Kit’s company.
Kit’s tail stopped its angry sweeps. He stared brazenly into Nick’s eyes, his cheeks flushed as he slid his tongue over his plump lips. “Really?”
“Yes.”