Chapter 46 #2
The desert lay silent, the twin moons low over the horizon, their pale crescents thinning into shadows.
Jassyn brushed his thumb across Lykor’s knuckles. “We don’t have to go back tonight. The king took what he wanted. He isn’t coming to finish us off yet.”
It was the safest they’d been in weeks, because Galaeryn had decided their deaths weren’t worth the effort.
Lykor’s brow furrowed. “Then you should rest.” He pulled away, already turning toward the door. “I’ll be outside if you need—”
“Lykor.”
Jassyn caught his forearm.
“I’m not asking you to stand guard.” His fingers slid down to Lykor’s wrist. “When was the last time you slept?”
Lykor’s gaze snagged on the bed and jerked away. “I’ll rest when—”
“Stay.”
Lykor’s pulse kicked hard under Jassyn’s fingers.
“The bed is large enough.” Jassyn kept his voice steady. “We’ve slept side by side before. Snow domes. Cavern floors.”
Lykor went wraith-still.
Jassyn’s fingers curved around his arm. “This is no different.”
It was entirely different. The tension locked through Lykor’s arm made a poor case for the lie.
Jassyn drew Lykor in from the balcony with little more than the weight of his hand at Lykor’s wrist. Lykor followed, shoulders set for a blow, every tendon pulled taut.
At the edge of the bed, Jassyn stopped.
“And you’re not sleeping in armor tonight.”
He unclipped the clasp at Lykor’s throat. Lykor swallowed as the leather loosened under Jassyn’s fingers, his mouth parting before closing again.
Jassyn freed the buckles one by one. He eased the leather from Lykor’s shoulders, and Lykor exhaled as its weight lifted.
Jassyn reached for the hem of his tunic.
Then stopped, the fabric barely gathered between his fingers. He let the pause rest where Lykor could answer it with a step back.
Lykor stayed where he was, eyes flaring in the dark.
Jassyn drew the fabric upward, his knuckles grazing Lykor’s ribs. Lykor lifted his arms to help. Apparently, his mouth had stopped working somewhere before the first buckle.
The tunic cleared his head, and Jassyn let it fall to the floor.
Starlight spilled over Lykor’s skin, tracing scars Jassyn knew and others he didn’t, remnants of Galaeryn’s cruelty and all that had failed to kill him.
In the rainforest, he’d kissed Lykor with bark against his spine and a patrol ten paces away, terror tangled with the need to make one choice before someone else made it for him. Here, wraith guarded the hall outside the door, and the desert lay quiet beyond the balcony.
Desire unfurled through Jassyn without the rainforest’s frantic edge.
He lowered himself to the woven rugs because he wanted to be there, kneeling before the male who endured pain without flinching yet expected care to cost.
Above him, Lykor’s breath caught.
“Jassyn.”
His name broke in Lykor’s mouth, warning already roughening toward plea.
From Jassyn’s knees, Lykor was all sharp planes and shadow, his eyes burning with the same intensity they’d held when he offered to vanish from the world. His hands hung at his sides, fingers curled hard into his palms.
His jaw tightened. “You need to rest. You can barely—”
The sentence died when Jassyn settled his hands at Lykor’s hips and pressed his mouth to a scar crossing one of them.
Lykor’s fingers slid into Jassyn’s curls, trembling against his scalp. “You shouldn’t.”
Jassyn recognized the reflex. Lykor had spent too much of his life cutting desire away before anyone could make him pay for having it.
Jassyn raised his face. “I want you.”
Lykor studied him with the same ruthless attention he gave a threat. Jassyn held still while Lykor searched for any trace of reluctance.
“Tell me to stop,” Jassyn said, “and I will.”
Lykor’s fingers tightened in his hair, drawing him closer by a fraction.
Jassyn worked the laces of his trousers loose. The leather parted under his fingers, and Lykor’s abdomen tightened when Jassyn pressed his mouth to the hard curve of his hip.
A growl broke above him, low and bitten short.
Jassyn followed the scar to where it gave way to warm skin. He eased the trousers lower, leather dragging over Lykor’s hips until his length slipped free, already half-hard. Jassyn worked the armor down the rest of his legs.
Lykor stood rigid above him, every line of his body drawn taut. Jassyn anchored one hand at his hip and closed the other around him.
Lykor lurched forward, a breath punching from his lungs as he thickened in Jassyn’s grip.
Heat rushed low in Jassyn, his own arousal straining against the linen as he lowered his mouth. He dragged his tongue along the sensitive underside of the swollen crown before drawing Lykor in.
A groan tore from Lykor before he severed it, teeth snapping together. His claw seized Jassyn’s shoulder hard enough to bruise, then loosened almost immediately.
Jassyn let his fist follow each slow draw of his lips. Lykor’s body betrayed more than his face did. His stomach tightened when Jassyn took him deeper, hips chasing when Jassyn withdrew. A press of tongue beneath the crown pulled a broken sound from his throat.
Jassyn returned there.
Again.
Lykor swayed before his knees locked, frost whitening each breath above him.
Keeping the pace slow, Jassyn learned the sharp catches of breath that came when he changed the pressure, the sounds Lykor swallowed a fraction too late, the slight pitch of his hips before he forced them motionless again.
He eased back only far enough to draw a breath, his lips parted around the crown, jaw aching from how much of Lykor he’d taken. He pressed his tongue upward until Lykor’s hips gave another involuntary twitch.
Then Jassyn took him deeper.
A curse tore from Lykor as he bucked forward, guttural and stripped of words. The thrust died almost before it began. Lykor went still above him, his talons flexing against Jassyn’s shoulder without breaking skin.
That restraint nearly undid Jassyn more than the rest.
He lifted his gaze.
Lykor froze beneath it, crimson eyes bright and unfocused. The uncertainty on his face finally made sense. He genuinely had no idea Jassyn wanted him to keep moving into his mouth.
Jassyn hummed around him and hauled Lykor forward, urging him to finish the movement he’d stopped twice before.
Lykor’s fingers knotted in Jassyn’s curls, his gasps turning rough and broken as his hips finally moved. The first thrust came hard. The next faltered halfway through.
Jassyn locked his hands behind Lykor’s thighs and drew him forward, taking the motion into his mouth. Muscles bunched against his palms with every drive of Lykor’s hips. He pulled back when he needed air, then closed the distance again whenever Lykor tried to retreat.
He opened his throat and took more of him. Lykor’s hips stuttered against his hands. Another fractured sound escaped above him.
Then Lykor shoved at his shoulder.
“Wait.” His voice broke around the word, rough enough that Jassyn barely caught it. “I’m going to—”
Jassyn stilled as the unfinished warning hung naked between them, Lykor’s gaze fixed on his.
Without looking away, Jassyn drew him deeper until the crown pressed into the back of his throat. Then he swallowed around him.
Whatever remained of Lykor’s control vanished. He snarled as his hips drove forward, then bucked again as release pulsed hot across Jassyn’s tongue. His body locked, all that practiced endurance useless against pleasure.
Jassyn held him through every helpless thrust, every tremor through his thighs, until the grip in his hair loosened.
Only then did Jassyn pull away. Lykor’s legs buckled, and Jassyn rose in time to catch him. He slipped an arm around Lykor’s waist and guided him until the mattress struck the backs of his knees. Lykor dropped heavily onto the bed.
Jassyn stayed between his legs, his own body still aching, Lykor’s taste lingering on his tongue. He spread a palm over Lykor’s chest, the frantic beat of his heart striking into Jassyn’s hand.
Lykor reached for him, pulling him closer. “Let me—”
“No.” Jassyn caught his wrist and shoved his hand to the mattress, covering it with his own. He leaned down until their faces were level. “You don’t have to give me anything. Rest for once.”
Lykor’s mouth parted, but no answer came, and Jassyn let the silence linger long enough to enjoy the improbable fact that he finally found the limit of Lykor’s arguments.
He pushed him back against the bed, and Lykor went boneless across the sheets, all that lethal strength gone slack.
Jassyn reached for his Well, scraping at dregs. Essence kindled along his fingertips and pooled, waiting.
“Say the word,” Jassyn said, “and I’ll mend you.”
“Save your strength.” Lykor bristled, propping himself up on his elbows. “I don’t need healing.”
Jassyn’s mouth twitched. Lykor clearly hadn’t followed the implication, and Jassyn let himself enjoy being one step ahead of him for once. “I know.”
He leaned closer, crimson light suspended between them, its heat brushing Lykor’s skin without sinking in.
“I meant we don’t have to stop.”