Chapter 45 #2
‘No,’ Meilyr managed. ‘It was… good. Surprisingly good.’ He laughed, breathless.
The symbol of Y Ddraig Goch was still pressed between Osian’s palm and the bare skin beneath Meilyr’s collarbone.
He touched the prince’s cheek. ‘I do not want you to stop. I will tell you if I do, but I do not want to, unless you do.’
Osian settled and kissed his chest again. ‘I… do not want to, either.’
Meilyr touched his braid and gently began to move. ‘Then do not stop. Please.’
Osian shook his head slightly, sounding hungry.
Drunk. ‘Gods, Meilyr…’ He shifted up to kiss his mouth, and the waves of longing took them back to their buttons, to their belts.
It washed them to the fever pitch of it, until Meilyr shoved the clothes from Osian’s shoulders and helped tug them free and away.
The prince spread Meilyr’s tunics open two buttons later, gripping his waist, mouth carving down his torso. Not stopping when they next met cloth.
‘Osian…’ Meilyr’s hands were in his hair, body angled towards his mouth on something more delicious than instinct.
Osian gripped the small of his back, pulling him towards him. He pressed a firm, pointed kiss to the hollow of his exposed hipbone, fluttering almost-ticklish desire everywhere. ‘I need you to tell me if you want me to stop. When you want me to stop. Whenever it is, please—’
‘Gods, Osian,’ Meilyr panted. ‘I want you – I’ve wanted you for so long. If you want me as well, do something about it. Please.’
Osian hesitated. Then he flicked his gaze to Meilyr – gods, that look – and tugged off his breeches.
Time dissolved into the headiness and heat of Osian’s tongue.
His mouth. Into the twining of their fingers, and Meilyr’s steady guiding for Osian to use them.
To use more of them. The prince did not need coaxing, only assurance that it would not hurt too much if they did it right.
That Meilyr wanted it. That he wanted Osian.
Damn him, he did. He succumbed to it the first time in the feeling of Osian’s slicked fingers and his mouth, biting his own hand to cover the sound he made as Osian swallowed him hungrily.
He flopped back on the bed, gasping.
‘Are you all right?’ Osian looked gods damn wrecked. His hair was mussed by Meilyr’s grip, his lips red and raw, eyes aflame.
‘Come here,’ Meilyr exhaled, pulling him close.
The prince clambered up the bed unsteadily. Meilyr kissed him before he could doubt a thing and wrapped his shaky legs around him, feeling how tightly wound he still was. ‘Come here…’
‘Are you all right?’ Osian asked between kissing. ‘If you want to stop—’
‘Not unless you do.’ Meilyr huffed a laugh at the look in his eyes. ‘Then do not stop.’
Osian pressed their foreheads together as Meilyr moved back into the friction. There was a delicious static inside the bliss, a build in the currents at how much Osian still needed.
The prince’s fingers were vices. His hands shook. ‘I do not want to hurt you.’
More static, his voice so close to unravelled.
Meilyr said it against his lips, giddy from existence. ‘What if I tell you I want you anyway? What if I tell you I want more of you? Please?’
Osian jolted with the force it took to hold himself back. ‘Meilyr.’
It was a warning: a hungry, dismayed warning. It had Meilyr ravenous again, how much he wanted Osian to damn his walls. ‘Please,’ he said, and tapped Osian’s bare shoulder three times with his finger.
Understanding crested, and Osian sank into the kiss, damning himself. Meilyr found and traced the small scar beneath the prince’s lowest ribs before tugging his breeches from his hips, and they got rid of them too.
Heat and full contact – bright and dizzying, as sunlight off the sea. Osian strained at the very last fibres of his fetters. Everything was slow, deliberate. Gods, he trembled.
Meilyr kissed him. Kissed his jaw, his throat, his mouth. Pressed his own desire into every touch, so Osian had to know even without the words. Finally, Meilyr guided his hand between them.
As he touched him, Osian froze. Knuckles white, brow tight.
‘Osian,’ Meilyr said. ‘Are you all right? Do you want to stop—’
‘I would rather die.’
Meilyr’s heart thundered, even as he laughed. Noble, dramatic fool. A good, noble, dramatic fool. ‘I would rather you did something else.’
Osian exhaled a strained, airless laugh. His eyes were dazzling. ‘Meilyr…’
Meilyr kissed him softly. Coaxed him – no, assured him.
Assured his hand. Assured his hips – until assurances melted.
Into gripping. Into desire. Into breathless, heady pressure and presence.
Until Meilyr had no choice but to throw his head back to the cushions and grasp at Osian as though their lives depended upon it.
Osian was careful. Careful until Meilyr moaned as everything hit pleasure. Then he came alive, allowed himself to be alive, in a way Meilyr could never have imagined. In a way that held him gasping jagged, clipped breaths of need beneath him.
Osian bit and sucked at his throat as they moved, devastating him with hot, perfect sharpness that pulsed so perfectly with the rest of him.
It was better than Meilyr had ever thought possible.
So good he pushed away from the edge of it, greedily craving the drawing out of this.
This perfect heat. This perfect, obliterating fullness.
‘Meilyr—’
There was no stopping it after that. They tumbled out of it together, clutched in rolling, heady bliss. Bliss that spilled in waves, devastating and thorough.
In the aftermath, Osian buried his face in Meilyr’s neck as Meilyr pulled him into a liquid embrace. They lay together for a long time, catching their breath.
Osian pressed their faces closer, chasing more pleasure through Meilyr’s brilliantly burned-out body. ‘Are you all right?’
He nodded bonelessly. ‘Yes. Gods, yes. Are you… are you all right?’
Osian pressed another kiss to his skin. ‘Yes… yes.’ He sounded ruinously spent, sparking another little thrill of pleased desire.
It came back to them both.
The tide drew in after the great wave. The ache replaced the joy.
Meilyr clung to Osian, unashamedly. His eyes stung.
Osian held him just as keenly, no space between them. As though they could hold back the storm with nothing but closeness. As though together, they might just make it.
Come with me, Meilyr’s heart begged. Come with me.
Osian kissed his temple in answer. I cannot.
They held one another anyway, agony thick, unspoken. No less obliterating.
A single hot tear slipped from Meilyr’s eye, lost into the press of their temples.
Finally, when they could not wait any longer, they began.
They cleaned up as best they could with the basin and cloth, then Osian shrugged on a sleep-robe and helped Meilyr dress. It felt strange to be in plain clothes – still Osian’s dark blue on the outer-tunic, but… not the same. The prince’s hand lingered on the buttons as he touched Meilyr’s neck.
‘I…’ The skin he touched was tender. ‘I may have…’
Meilyr wanted to laugh. To cry. The noise he made was a little of both.
Gods, let the marks never fade.
He leaned up and kissed Osian, because every moment drew them closer to the world beyond. Every moment they were not in contact felt wrong.
Far too soon, Meilyr stood as readied as he could be, in the circle of Osian’s arms, the secret hatch open beside them. They touched one another’s faces, pained.
Meilyr breathed it one final time. ‘Come with me. Please.’
Osian pressed his forehead against his. ‘I cannot risk you – I cannot. Leave Cyngalon, leave Khaim. Leave all this behind.’
‘Osian—’
Osian kissed it from him, disarming him again.
Leaving him felt like the most irrational thing Meilyr could do. He wanted to fall fluid and hungry against him – crash against the rocks of his body, pull him back to the bed. Have the world beyond hang in perpetual stillness, as though the Otherworld itself had wrought it so.
Gods, please, give them another bell. Another moment.
But Celyn waited in the world beyond. Pedr and Deryn and everyone waited. None of them would be safe if Meilyr stayed, and none of them would be safe if Osian came with them.
Meilyr gripped the back of his head, a match to Osian’s hold. ‘Find me.’ It was a command. ‘I do not care how long it takes you. Come and find me.’
‘Meilyr—’
Meilyr kissed him. Kissed him as his heart broke, as his eyes welled and the agony threatened to shatter him on Osian’s shores.
He pulled away before he could not, took the lantern from the floor and turned – because he knew if he did not go now, he would never go at all.
He climbed down the steep, sharp steps into the dark and did not dare look back.