6. Chapter Six #3
Viau shrugged, drawing Rafi’s attention to his broad shoulders, and then Rafi could only think of how he’d held onto those shoulders while his legs had been around Viau’s waist. He had never had these problems before the onset of his aedis.
Even in his early years of discovering arousal, it had never been this bad.
Viau, unaware of Rafi’s trouble, carried on. “How could you know what I want? You don’t know me. That’s probably why you asked for me.” His smile briefly lost its warmth “So let me ask Rafeli Tizzan a new question that he might actually answer: What does he want?”
“Me?” Rafi felt stupid the moment he spoke. “What do you mean?”
Viau stared at him long enough to have to blink twice to wet his eyes. “Did you want to spar with me just now, or did you feel obligated to for some reason I probably don’t need to hear?”
“I… I didn’t want to.” Rafi’s own statement shocked him and did something to Viau’s face before Viau made evidence of it vanish, whatever it was.
“I did want to,” Rafi added honestly, knowing he sounded like an indecisive child.
“I wasn’t sure I would be any good but I…
I can be better than many others in here.
” A bold thing to say, but also not wrong.
“But I didn’t want to demand your time.” And being near Viau was upsetting to his body, which didn’t seem to know what to do when it had no excuse to touch.
“I’d get more training with you,” he insisted, and wondered at himself.
The last time Viau had seen Rafi, he’d been a soft, whimpering, slick mess and now he was nearly growling.
Viau took another step closer, angling his head down to look at Rafi as if Rafi were small. Rafi was no miné but he wasn’t tiny.
“Perhaps I am not in the mood to teach.” Viau lifted an eyebrow. Rafi wondered what Viau had seen in his expression to offer another challenge, then thought it didn’t matter because Rafi had almost asked for that, hadn’t he? More training with him. More time.
Rafi lunged forward, sword raised, and was distantly aware of his friends exclaiming from the sidelines.
But Viau’s indrawn breath and step back were all Rafi cared about, and how, if Rafi kept pushing, he’d be rolling in the scent of spring grasses and sweat, and he’d be close enough to feel Viau’s aer again, warm and welcoming.
There were possibly more shouts—encouragement in Katoh’s voice, a holler from someone else, but Rafi moved and watched Viau move with him, and he lost, freezing for a moment too long when a blade smacked into his arm, but his sword was still in his hand, so he pushed forward again.
Viau was smiling and then serious, his chest heaving, but he didn’t let Rafi drive him for long before he began to push back.
Rafi nearly got him in the stomach and Viau’s slender escape left him breathless.
They went around a pillar, students darting out of their way.
Rafi got him, finally got him, with a would-be stab wound in the thigh, and Viau stumbled but didn’t fall.
In a real fight, he’d be weakened, possibly bleeding out.
As if he knew that, he got meaner. But that meant Rafi could be mean too.
True swersoldi did not play around in combat, but Rafi felt like laughing.
His aer rose again, displaying itself for Viau if Viau cared to look, and Viau must have known every move Rafi was about to make, but his eyes were bright.
When Guen finally yelled at them—scolding even the hero for reckless behavior—Viau laughed.
Rafi faltered, for the sound or the sight or for the instructor yelling, and Viau pressed forward without hesitation.
In a heartbeat, Rafi had his back to the pillar and no distance to use his sword.
Not that it would have mattered much; with a sharpened blade, Viau would have run him through as he’d stepped in.
Though there would have been time enough for Rafi to draw a knife. With his enemy so close, he should.
He panted through his open mouth instead, hands useless, his heart racing.
Spring flowers filled his lungs when he breathed in.
Viau’s body was against his. He should push away, congratulate Viau, speak, even pretend to stab him.
Anything other than gaze up at him and remember when they had last been this close.
“And then you’d gut me, would you not?” Viau asked in barely more than a breath, so pleased about Rafi’s possible kill-strike that Rafi had to bite his lip to keep in a whimper.
“They mentioned your propensity to use knives,” Viau added, almost smug about it, and reached up to brush a curl from Rafi’s eye as though he wasn’t imagining Rafi’s knife in his stomach.
Rafi had not moved away. Neither had Viau. It wasn’t fair that Rafi was expected to speak. Viau didn’t understand what he was. He couldn’t or he wouldn’t do this. Rafi was enveloped in blossoms and heat.
“We’re supposed to protect.” Rafi tried to catch his breath, only to now taste Viau on his tongue. His aer was a wave pushing against his hold as if his spirt was outstretched and waiting.
Rafi could remember Viau’s weight on him and fought not to tip his head up higher to bring their mouths closer together.
He had never longed for a kiss like this either.
He couldn’t think. Viau was talking of stabbings.
Rafi needed to control himself. “I could take out one assailant that way. Prevent them from hurting anyone in my charge.”
“Practical.” Viau might have approved, but Rafi couldn’t be sure of anything at the moment. “Even if you’re dead.”
“I told you I would lose,” Rafi reminded him, unable to slow his heart. “Even with you holding back.”
They were so close, Rafi could see the startled widening of Viau’s eyes. Then he was hot and preening to have surprised Viau. He shouldn’t be proud of such a thing, but he was, and that probably showed in his spirit too.
Viau put a hand to the pillar by Rafi’s head and leaned in another inch, which did not a thing to cool Rafi.
“You fought better than you seem to think you did,” he whispered over Rafi’s ear.
He must not have felt Rafi shiver. “Your instructors speak well of you. Do they not speak well to you? They should. I’ll bruise, I think.
” The happy rumble from him made Rafi wish to squirm.
“If your sword had been sharp, I would have bled out at your feet. Does that please you? I think it does.”
“Oh.” A useless thing to say. Rafi swallowed, then swallowed again because he could feel Viau’s rumbles even when they quieted to where he couldn’t hear them anymore.
The sign of a satisfied miné should not have made Rafi proud either.
But he had done that, given Viau what he’d wanted.
He bowed his head both for manners and to give him a chance to look away.
“I hope I helped with whatever was… I hope I helped.”
Viau pushed away from the pillar and Rafi’s body. “We could always go again,” he offered after taking a step backward, allowing Rafi to think again though Viau wouldn’t know that. “Even if you were also holding back.”
Rafi couldn’t hide his astonishment. “Me? You’re the one hiding your….”
Viau flicked his wrist, bringing his sword into a lowered-but-ready position. “Yes? There’s something you think I’m hiding? Something you’ve noticed that no one else has?”
Rafi’s entire body flooded with embarrassment, first at his arrogant assumption, and then for the realization that Viau’s silky tone might have been intended to goad him.
“I didn’t assume that no one else had…. Are you provoking me?
” Even Katoh didn’t tease Rafi like that, nipping at him while watching his face with ravenous interest. “So I won’t ask?
Or to get me to spar again?” Viau raised his eyebrows and didn’t answer.
His aer was gone and Rafi couldn’t tell if he continued to rumble, but Rafi was a fool for assuming he had done something special.
Maybe he’d just been better than boredom.
“I shouldn’t press,” Rafi insisted immediately, feeling as he had with a blanket over his head.
“I didn’t mean anything by it.” He looked away so not all of him would be so obvious, only to realize he was still backed against the pillar and posed as though waiting for instruction.
Or Viau’s return.