Chapter 23 #3
His voice is strained. Every word is an effort, forced through the fever and the desire and the fruit's relentless demand, and the clarity of them is a testament to something, willpower, stubbornness, the iron core of a man who has never been controlled by anything in his life and is not about to start now.
Indrie stares.
"Are you listening?"
Indrie nods. He can feel his own heartbeat in the fingers Eskil has on his jaw.
"You do not have to do this," Eskil tells him, voice clear despite the fruit's effects, each word placed with the same deliberate care he used when he told Indrie he was free. "You do not belong to me. The fruit doesn't change that."
Indrie's heart sinks.
The words echo. You do not belong to me.
He's heard them before. On the deck. Twice now, spoken with increasing firmness, and each repetition drives the blade a little deeper.
This isn't a vow. This isn't a promise. This isn't a man claiming his partner the way the Cara fruit intends.
This is a king, even now, even burning alive, making it clear that what is about to happen is not what Indrie's culture says it is.
That sharing the fruit means nothing. That Indrie is here to perform a function, healer, savior, body, and when the function is complete, the arrangement ends.
This is just a use for you no one has found before.
He nods sharply. The motion is jerky, mechanical, and he can feel his eyes burning.
The tears are there, behind the surface, pressing against the backs of his eyes with the insistence of something that will not be denied much longer.
He's told himself for nearly three weeks that this man is no different from Armond, that kings take what they need and discard the rest, and maybe he hadn't believed it.
Maybe some part of him had fallen for the king without his permission, fallen for the stars and the drawing and the strong, gentle hands, and he hadn't realized how far until this moment, when Eskil laid it out in plain language that Indrie means nothing to him.
Eskil touches his face. So gentle. So careful. The hand on his jaw softens into something closer to a caress, Eskil's thumb tracing his cheekbone, and Indrie's chest aches with a pain that for once is not physical.
"You don't understand," Eskil says. The frustration in his voice is thick and desperate, not anger but agony, the sound of seeing the chasm between what he's saying and what Indrie is hearing and being unable to bridge it. "Indrie."
But Indrie nods. "I understand," he says, and his voice cracks. A single fracture, thin as a hairline, splitting the composure he's been maintaining through force of will, and he can feel the first few tears roll down his cheeks.
Eskil's face changes when he sees them. His eyes widen, his expression cracks. And Indrie tries to look away, but Eskil won't let him go. He slides his hand around to the back of Indrie's neck. The grip is warm, firm, his fingers threading into the hair at Indrie's nape, and Indrie braces himself.
He doesn't know what he's bracing for. He doesn't know what comes next. He has no experience, no map, no guide, and the man before him is burning with a fever that could kill him and looking at Indrie with something words have failed to convey.
And then Eskil leans forward and kisses him.
And, oh.
Oh.
His lips are warm. Soft. Perfect. The contact is gentle, careful, full of intention, every fraction of pressure placed with precision despite the fever burning through his blood and the urgency screaming through his nerves, handling something he's decided to treat with extraordinary care.
Indrie's hands find Eskil's shoulders of their own accord.
His palms land on bare skin that is scorching, slicked with sweat, the muscles beneath rigid with restraint, and the feeling of Eskil's body under his hands, the heat, the breadth, the barely contained power, makes Indrie's entire system go bright.
Every nerve ending lights up simultaneously.
The flush that was confined to his face spreads downward, across his chest, down his stomach, and lower, and he makes a sound against Eskil's mouth that he will be embarrassed about later but cannot control now.
Eskil moans against his lips and the sound goes through Indrie with force, travelling from his mouth to his toes, and Indrie flushes down to his bones.
The king is huge compared to him, muscular and broad and strong, his body a weapon that Indrie has watched cut through storms and oceans, but his hand on Indrie's neck holds him with an impossible gentleness.
With a deliberateness that says I know what I could do and I am choosing not to, even while the world burns down around them.
Indrie leans into him. Leans into the kiss with everything he has, everything he is, because if this is the only time, if this is the one night he gets to have this man's mouth on his and this man's hands on his body, then he is going to be here for it.
Fully. Completely. He is going to kiss Eskil back with the whole of his heart and he is going to feel everything there is to feel and he is going to carry it with him for the rest of his life.
He kisses him back, and Eskil's hand curls around his hip and pulls him into his lap, and Indrie goes willingly.