3. A Warm Season #2
Aria looked up from where he’d folded at the hips, concerned.
His stomach turned again. He really should retire for the night.
The stress would do his spellwork no good.
Did Ellor mean to harass him too? “I’m afraid I’m tapped out for the night.
” He stood straight again and took a step back—only to hit the wall, yet again.
Ellor reached out, unbothered by Aria’s building panic, and wiped a thumb across his chin.
He pulled away immediately after, showing Aria the black smudge he’d cleaned from him.
“My apologies. I didn’t mean to scare you again.
Timin must’ve had ash from his pipe in his hand.
He left it on you.” Aria reached up to wipe his face, cheeks growing warm. “Worry not. I got it all.”
“Then I thank you again.”
Ellor said, “If you’re truly grateful, then—” Aria swallowed. “Allow me to buy you a drink.”
“That’s quite fine. I’m not supposed to drink while working. Against bar rules.”
“You said you’re ending your night, no? Pack up your lute and join me.
I promise, I will do you no harm. I think you deserve the peace.
And some liquor.” I will do you no harm, said Ellor, and Aria couldn’t shake the feeling he had before: that Ellor was like a hero from old.
His heart beat a little more quickly within his chest. But as the silence stretched, Ellor tilted his head and blinked dark brown eyes in concern. “No?”
Aria said, “Alright. Fine, yes. I’ll join you at the bar, then.”
The drinks led to a food stall on the street, which led to a walk through the park towards Aria’s cramped home, which led to Ellor kissing him inside said studio apartment, which led Aria to this moment: gasping for air against Ellor’s mouth as Ellor slid a thigh between his legs and against his hardening cock.
He said, “Wait. No. I won’t have sex on the first date. ”
“Is this a date?”
Aria’s mind swam. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
Ellor leaned in to kiss him again. Aria released a muffled sound of protest. At that, Ellor stepped away. The sudden loss of his warmth had Aria breathing heavily. He looked at Ellor, confused, and received a simple smile in reply.
“What?” asked Aria.
“Before the night’s done, you’re going to ask for it, and nicely,” said Ellor. “And I’m going to say no, just as you have.”
Now it was Aria’s turn—finally—to laugh. He straightened his robe, “Not likely, My Lord.”
Ellor’s eyes dropped from Aria’s eyes to his mouth. “I like when you call me that.”
Aria didn’t say they all do, and certainly didn’t think of Lord Noble Yves St. Clair—the only noble Aria had ever met that refused the title. Aria cleared the fog from his mind with a gentle huff and said, “You were coming up for tea. Remember?”
“Yes. Of course. Please, if you don’t mind. I take sugar with mine.”
Aria gestured for Ellor to sit at his small bistro set—wrought iron and hand-painted with little flowers on the legs. He’d found it on the street and done it up himself, and it was probably the nicest piece he owned. If it cost as much as it weighed, he had used treasure in his hands.
Ellor sat with his ankles crossed while Aria brewed the tea.
Ellor took in the place—the wood-paneled ceiling, the sloping floors with many colorful rugs that were used to cover cracks and stains, and the large arched window that looked out onto the avenue six floors below. “This place is adorable.”
“My thanks,” said Aria.
“You live here alone?”
“Of course. There’s hardly room for a roommate.”
“Or a boyfriend, I suppose,” said Ellor. “Or a patron.”
Aria felt the color rise to his face yet again. “You could just ask if I’m attached.”
“Are you?”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t have…” He glanced from his collection of teacups—mix-matched, like everything else—to Ellor. “You know. If I had promised myself to someone else.”
Ellor smiled again. “I’m unattached as well.”
Aria tried not to blush any harder than he already was. “That’s surprising.”
“Why?”
The vision of Ellor as a dashing hero, standing on a precipice, wind flowing through his golden-red hair, accosted Aria yet again. “You seem nice.”
Ellor’s smile turned to a grin. “I am nice.”
Aria smiled back as he poured them each a cup. “Why are you unwed, then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I was waiting for something.” Aria fetched a few cubes of sugar—glad he had any, because he often went without—and approached the bistro table.
“Something?” Aria tilted his head as he placed the teacup before Ellor. “A matchmaker?”
“I suppose I was. Never suspected Timin would be that sort, though.”
It took Aria a moment, as he sipped from his cup, to understand Ellor’s meaning. He blinked a few times and said, “You’re flirting with me.”
Ellor ignored his tea, leaning over the table. “No. I’m propositioning you.”
Aria’s face fell. He placed his tea upon the saucer. “You seek an adame for your court, then.”
“I’m not here to buy you,” said Ellor, tone smooth, eyes arresting. Aria couldn’t look away as he said, “I’m here to sell myself. I’ve got money, certainly, but I also have a heart, and I’d like to offer it to you.”
Aria’s flush came back with a vengeance. “What do you mean by—"
“There’s a gala at the week’s end. Will you join me?”
Aria’s fingers danced on the edge of the table, nervous. “I work most days.”
“I care not what day I see you, then. I just would like to see you.”
Aria looked down at his fingers, at his perfectly filed nails, shiny in the dim light of his one single gas lantern that hung above them. Finally, eventually, he nodded yes.
He heard Ellor get up, and felt him kneel at Aria’s side. “I’d like to offer you a kiss, too.”
Aria looked down at where Ellor sat upon his floor. A lord—a duke, in fact—at his feet. “You needn’t do that,” he whispered.
“Do what?”
“My floors—surely they’re not good for the finer fabrics you wear—"
Ellor’s hand cupped Aria’s face, and forced him to look back into Ellor’s wolfish brown stare. “Kiss me.”
Aria did.
Not much later that night, the steam was gone from their teacups, Aria and Ellor lounged upon one of Aria’s many rugs, and Aria had been stripped to nothing but his tight black underclothes. His chest rose and fell, winded from how deeply Ellor kissed him again and again.
Ellor ran a hand down Aria’s neck, to his smooth, pale chest, and when he leaned in this time, it wasn’t to kiss Aria again. He instead licked a hot, wet stripe along the edge of his ear.
Aria whined as the feeling shot straight through him. Improper. Elven ears were sacred. Respected as a sign of their history and abilities with magic and—
Aria turned his head, offering Ellor greater reach to lick him again. This time, he bit. Hard.
The stinging sensation amplified everything, and he thrust himself up, against Ellor’s hard, exposed abs, unable to stop. He made some kind of sound he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard before as Ellor clamped down against his earlobe, and then sucked.
Aria said, “Ellor—I’m—” We shouldn’t, he didn’t say. Please stop, he didn’t say. I’m afraid that I can’t trust you, he didn’t say. Instead, he said, “Touch me. Please?”
He got a laugh, a kiss, and a quiet reply, “Told you.”
Aria blinked through blurry eyes at Ellor’s grinning face. “What?”
Ellor kissed him again—a simple peck on the lips—and said, “I’m going home, my darling.”
And then he stood up. Aria gasped in shock, pushing himself to his elbows. “Wait—wait.”
“I told you. You were going to beg for it, and I was going to say no.”
Aria’s heart thundered, making it hard for him to think. “You’re serious.”
Ellor redressed himself, smiling all the while. “Oh yes.”
“How dare you—” Aria started, standing. White-hot anger grew with every heartbeat.
Ellor stepped close. “Oh, you must forgive me. I meant what I said. I want to see you again.”
“Wh—"
He pecked Aria’s half-agape mouth, and took off towards the door. “We’ll go to bed next time.”
Ellor was halfway down the stairs outside before Aria’s mind returned. He placed a hand over his mouth, where Ellor kissed him.
Memory was a funny thing, because he wondered if Ellor was the prince Aria had always sought, and the answer came to him in the voice of Noble Yves St. Clair. There are no princes in New Hieroph. There are, at best, rakish men that will ask you for far more than a dance.
His soul, the thing that spoke to him his whole life, remained quiet.
NOBLE
Noble arrived at the platform, checked his watch, and smirked.
“I’ll be late, you said. I’m always late, you said.
Well, Morgan—take a look.” He presented the back of his wrist, his golden watch face sparkling in the mid-morning sun that filtered in through the green conservatory-style glass roof above them.
The small hand on his watch had not quite reached ten yet. “I’m early. Like I said I would be.”
“Oh, Noble, my naive young ward,” said Morgan.
He was broad, visibly muscular even in an understated black cutaway coat, with gray skin and dark gray ram horns that stretched from his forehead and wrapped around his small round ear.
His tail swished back and forth, betraying his pleasure at Noble's supposed failure.
“You’re a year older than I am,” Noble pointed out, not for the first time.
Morgan wrapped an arm around Noble’s shoulders and said, “Your watch is inaccurate. I’ve set it behind for months now.”
“What? No. I would have noticed.” Noble narrowed his eyes and glared into Morgan’s solidly gray stare, at the slightly darker gray pupils flashing like a cat's. “You’re just joking with me.”
Morgan gave his shoulders a squeeze and then backed away. “I’m not. Sorry, Noble.” He gestured, with an unnecessary flourish, to the ceiling-mounted clock above the tracks. Five past ten. “I win.”
Noble was late. Fortunately, the train was as well. He huffed. “I still don’t believe you. This is far too elaborate a prank for you to pull.”