Chapter Seventeen #2
“Better see what he wants if you still want a PA in working order after the election.”
Max sighed. He didn’t move, his eyes dropping to Cyrus’s mouth as though he was going to kiss him again, audience be damned.
Then he let go and readjusted his towel, turning to face Balthazar with an expression warring between annoyance and concern and landing somewhere around impatient.
Cyrus leaned back against the worktop to watch, jerking his head at the sprites.
They retreated to the creeping buttercup outside and watched Balthazar with suspicion.
“Well?” Max asked.
Balthazar’s eyes had flickered to Cyrus, but when they landed back on Max a peculiar expression crossed his face, desperate
and resigned all at once.
Whatever he was thinking, he didn’t voice it. The look disappeared as quickly as it came as Balthazar took a steadying breath.
“I was just going to . . . check what time we’re setting off tomorrow. And make sure you’re ready.”
“Noon. Like we agreed yesterday,” said Max slowly, as though he was wondering if Balthazar had hit his head on the way here.
“And I’m spending today getting ready. Are you sure there was nothing else you wanted to—”
“I’m sure,” interrupted Balthazar. He took a step back, though he didn’t turn away. His eyes flickered to Cyrus again. “Is
he coming to Durov?”
“No,” said Max.
“He can answer for himself,” Cyrus grumbled.
“Nothing to gain by it.” Max ran a hand through damp hair, making it stick up at the back. “Either the nemesis scheme worked
and I’ve won, or it didn’t.” His gaze landed on the discarded letter and a smile brightened his tone. “Judging by the canvassing
report, it’s worked wonders.”
“Aw,” said Cyrus. “And there I was thinking you didn’t want me there because it’s too dangerous. All the scary, scary champs.”
He was angling for Max to turn his attention back to him, but instead it was Balthazar who looked directly at him and gave
a shrug.
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d let that stop you,” he said blandly.
Cyrus frowned. Max matched him, opening his mouth to respond.
“Anyway, I’ll be going,” said Balthazar, before he could. He glanced at Max, pointedly avoiding the towel and the bare stomach
muscles and the strong chest. More fool him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
With that, he turned and hurried away, flapping a hand at one of the sprites as it rose with a whir of wings to follow him.
“He’s weird,” Cyrus announced in the silence.
“He’s stressed,” Max muttered. “I think he spread himself too thin with the election campaign.”
“He’ll get over it when you win.”
Max exhaled. “Yeah. Hopefully.” He finally looked away from the space Balthazar had just vacated, casting a glance down at
his towel. “Much as I’d love to pick up where we left off, I should make sure I’m ready for tomorrow.”
Stupid Balthazar and his stupid bad timing. “I can be patient,” Cyrus lied.
But perhaps he could. He wandered down to Ranragh and indulged in a spot of light wrongdoing to fill his time; nothing too serious, just letting the horses loose from the paddock and stealing a crate of freshly caught fish from several stacked by the harbour so that he could fling them at passersby.
It took his mind off the election, especially when he managed to ruin a heartfelt confession of love in a tavern doorway by catching one of the men square in the face with a herring.
When he returned to his lair, sneaking past the sprites now napping in their tree hollows, Max was sitting quietly at the
table, poring over the canvassing report. Cyrus left him to it, venturing out to the garden to harvest some tomatoes from
the vegetable patch.
By the time he’d finished, Max was still hunched over the report, although evening was drawing in and he’d soon be squinting
by candlelight. Cyrus sighed, and turned to the kitchen for the time being. Whilst Max and Balthazar had worked on his speech
the evening before last, Cyrus had occupied himself experimenting with wild strawberry tartlets. There was still some pastry
left.
An hour later, with flamelight chasing crooked shapes along the walls of his lair, he placed a slice of tomato tart and a
side salad in front of Max and yanked the letter away.
“Eat,” he said. “And stop looking at that. You can’t change anything now. You said it was good earlier.”
Max blinked down at the plate. Pesto oozed from beneath the halved cherry tomatoes arranged in red and orange stripes and
scattered casually with basil, as though Cyrus hadn’t deliberated carefully over where each leaf should sit. “I know, I know.
It’s just . . . hard. Letting go.”
Cyrus could understand that. But he wanted the election to stop hogging Max’s attention.
If all went well and Max secured his seat in Heliarth, he’d be waylaid in Durov for at least a week whilst the paperwork was sorted.
They would have Max for that time. Whilst he was here, Cyrus wanted him to be present. “Eat,” he repeated.
Max did, the first forkful perfunctory but the second swallowed with pleasure. He turned his fork sideways to cut into crisp
golden pastry. “You’re a good cook.”
“I know,” said Cyrus. He was also hungry; a hard day’s wrongdoing took it out of a person. His own plate was already nearly
empty.
“You’re a really good cook.”
Halfway through a mouthful of lettuce, Cyrus eyed him suspiciously. “Are you trying to flatter me? What do you want?”
“Just being nice.” Max speared a fallen tomato. “Not something you’d understand, of course.”
“Never,” Cyrus agreed.
Popping the tomato into his mouth, Max added, “Though when you think about it . . . I’m sitting here, eating the food you
so kindly prepared for me. Who else gets such an honour? It’s not even poisoned.”
“That you know of.”
Max smiled at him. “As if you would.”
Cyrus heaved a sigh. “Yeah. I don’t know how I fell so low.”
The smile grew. Cyrus’s gaze lingered on the dimple. Funny, he hadn’t noticed when he began to look at it so fondly.
Although the dimple was almost entirely obscured today. “You need a trim,” he noted.
“I was going to do it before bed. Thought I might shave it off, actually.”
There it was: the ideal opportunity to distract him from the election and all it entailed. Cyrus stood up to take their bowls
away. “I’ll do it.”
Max raised an eyebrow. To his credit, he didn’t look alarmed, only surprised. “You will?”
Cyrus nodded decisively. “Give me an hour, I want a bath. But get ready.” He smirked, gratified to see Max’s attention well
and truly caught. “I’ll give you your closest shave yet.”
Later, Cyrus found himself straddling Max’s lap, shaving soap in one hand and a gleaming blade in the other. He concentrated
carefully as he scraped the blade along delicate skin, pausing to rinse it off in a bucket of water. The soap smelled faintly
of wood ash, a complement to Max’s usual scent, and their own soft breathing was the only sound in his lair.
When Max’s beard was gone, Cyrus traced a finger over his smooth jawline. “Who’d have thought you’d one day trust me with
this?” he murmured, ghosting the blade over Max’s throat. “I have a rep, you know.”
Max swallowed. Cyrus watched the movement, fascinated. “Oh, I know.”
He recognised that voice, the tension in it. Cyrus leaned in to press a kiss to Max’s bared neck. The blade stayed still,
digging in ever so slightly. Max’s pulse picked up under the touch of his lips.
“I could do anything to you,” Cyrus whispered, breathless. “You’d let me.”
Max’s heart thrummed out his agreement. Cyrus glanced up, checking his reaction, and found the champion’s eyes fixed on him with a familiar heat.
There it was. The perfect distraction.
Cyrus dropped the blade into the bucket. The soap landed somewhere on the floor. Neither noticed, too consumed by the hungry
kiss Max lunged forward to claim.
Cyrus was dimly aware of strong hands wrapping around his waist and then Max was standing, bringing Cyrus with him, backing
through the veil that led to his bedroom. Before Cyrus had time to react, he was on his back on the bed, Max crawling on top
of him. Their hands fumbled mutually for buttons and ties, casting clothing aside. Max grabbed his wrists and pulled them
above his head, still kissing him, barely pausing for breath.
There was heat low down in Cyrus’s belly, lower still. It wasn’t only Max’s closeness, his touch. It was the weight of him
pressing Cyrus to the bed, the fingers gripping his wrists and keeping him where Max wanted him.
Max had dipped his head to mouth at the juncture where his neck met his shoulder. His teeth scraped delicate skin. Then his
knee was between Cyrus’s thighs, solid and unmistakable. There was something demanding in it, a possessive edge. Cyrus released
a shaky breath.
Max drew back. He reached for the bedside table, riffling through the drawer. His hand came back with a little bottle of oil,
glinting in the dim light.
“Will you let me do anything?” he asked, his voice low and intense.
Cyrus’s heart was beating so quickly it felt like it might try to climb out of his mouth.
They had spent so many nights together; they had touched almost every part of each other.
Almost. Max was as bold and confident in bed as he was in every other area of his life.
Cyrus knew what it felt like to lie back with Max above him, broad hands planted on his chest, his body sweat-slicked and tight as he rode Cyrus to gasping climax.
He was glorious, majestic in his beauty. There was no hesitation in him.
When it came to that—when it came to letting Max inside him rather than the other way round—Cyrus had hesitated. It felt like the final vulnerability he had to cling on to.
The question was there, in Max’s eyes.
His hands, his touch. His knee right between Cyrus’s legs, pressing—
Cyrus swallowed. Nerves swirled, trying to gain a foothold, but desire swamped them, hot and heavy. He nodded, a quick little
thing.