Chapter Twenty-Three #5
“Fa’harath,” Kiaro sighed, breath caressing against Ethyr’s neck and sending more tingles over his scalp, over the whole surface of his skin, and he shook against the pliant anchor of Kiaro’s body molded to his.
He’d heard that word before. But where? His mind was too consumed with the solidity of Kiaro.
Ethyr buried his hand in the ethereal locks of black hair. “Keep going,” he murmured, and Kiaro slid incrementally deeper, as breathless as Ethyr as he embedded into him.
Ethyr whimpered, already delirious with pleasure, clenching around the stiff heat inside him.
“Va—” Kiaro gasped, and his body shuddered against Ethyr’s, driving him in even deeper and eliciting a quiet moan from them both.
Ethyr hugged his arms tighter around his neck and Kiaro curved himself to meet all of Ethyr’s body with his own, one hand against his lower back, the other burrowing into his curls, grazing against his scalp.
“To be together, like this,” he whispered, as though answering a question Ethyr did not ask.
They stayed, Ethyr grasping his shoulders, Kiaro combing soothing strokes through his hair, fit together like pieces made for one another, until, finally, Kiaro lifted his hips.
He withdrew, Ethyr’s muscles trying and failing to hold on to him, and sank back in with indulgent pleasure, both of them moaning in unison.
Kiaro’s vibrated against Ethyr’s throat, soft and muffled.
Ethyr buried his face into Kiaro’s shoulder, using the leverage of his arms around them to ride into Kiaro’s next thrust. They rose and fell together in steady rhythm, the slowness of it doing nothing to quell the burning heat burying deeper and deeper into Ethyr’s hips.
It was exactly what he wanted, to be engulfed by Kiaro’s body as he engulfed Kiaro.
Every stroke together melted Kiaro into him, and every slide back out opened room for Ethyr to be forged anew around their joined pleasure.
Kiaro was pulling at his knee. He unclenched his thighs from where they were hugging Kiaro’s hips and let him fold the leg up between their torsos, never pausing in movement.
Knee wedged upward, body slanted into a new direction, the new sensations of Kiaro inside him were bursting, rocking a mewling cry from him with every push.
The god continued his slow rhythm, moving his mouth to the leg now in his range, kissing the inside of Ethyr’s thigh with a tender passion that matched his movements.
It was like he knew every secret of Ethyr’s body, even the ones Ethyr himself didn’t know.
Every spot to touch, every boundary to push, every angle to take advantage of.
Every thrust plunged delicious heat deeper into Ethyr until it filled him completely, not just his ass but his stomach, his heart, his lungs, his blood.
He was only pleasure, and Kiaro’s pleasure, and the universe made up solely of their bodies together.
He was undone, undone, undone.
He did not realize they had overflowed together—he did not realize he had released at all—until he was blinking away stars that settled into his body, into his muscles, into his bones.
Kiaro lowered him back down to the mattress, staying pressed to him.
Ethyr didn’t give him much choice, still clasped onto him and refusing to let go.
Kiaro peppered kisses onto his neck, up his jawline, along the side of his face to reach his temple, where he kissed away the thin sheen of sweat that had accumulated.
His hand brushed tenderly through Ethyr’s hair as he gazed down at him and Ethyr gazed back up, thinking, for a moment, that he saw stars in Kiaro’s eyes too.
“Will you stay?” Ethyr whispered. Kiaro went still, hand stopped, eyes locked on his as though Ethyr had torn him open and spilled out all his secrets. Which was strange, when it felt like that was what Kiaro had done to him. “What is it?”
Kiaro closed his eyes and lowered his face to Ethyr’s shoulder. “I will stay,” he said, voice catching on the words as though he had to force them out.
Ethyr slowly released the god’s shoulders. When he only sank to his side and didn’t disappear, Ethyr unwrapped himself from Kiaro and instead snuggled closer. As though on instinct, Kiaro laid an arm over him and pulled him in.
“Are you tired?” he asked softly.
“Mmh,” Ethyr confirmed, not opening his eyes. His whole body felt weighed down in the most satisfying way. He didn’t know that he’d ever been as comfortable and safe as he was in that moment. Kiaro had resumed passing his fingers delicately through his curls, like he was worshipping each one.
“Kiaro?” he murmured.
“Yes?”
“What does ‘fa’harath’ mean?”
The gods’ gentle stroking stopped. After a long, tense moment, it resumed, but there was an unmistakable shaking to his fingers as they grazed over his scalp. “It means, ‘my shelter,’” Kiaro whispered. “It is… an ancient term of affection.”
Ethyr hummed, smiling. “I like it.”
He could feel the tension in Kiaro’s body against his, but he didn’t want to bring it up only for the god to inevitably put his walls back up and push Ethyr away.
The thought of separating from him in that moment was impossible to comprehend.
So Ethyr pressed closer and wrapped a comforting arm around his back, or as comforting as one could be to a god.
“You’ll be here when I wake up, right?” he asked sleepily.
“Of course,” Kiaro whispered, barely a breath. With that reassurance, Ethyr closed his eyes and let sleep overcome him.
His first sense on waking was the absence of an arm over him. He turned to the space behind him. It was empty, the blanket laid carefully back like no one had been there at all. He sat up, looking around the room.
“Kiaro?” He called it with the tired sort of confidence of one who knew there’d be an answer. But there was no answer. Ethyr's heart sank under its own weight. “Kyarin?” he tried again, with stupid, naive hope. He was met with silence.
Once again, he’d taken the god of deception at his word. He could only blame himself for being fooled. It didn’t assuage the aching, desolate emptiness that carved out his center.