Chapter 21
CIARAN
Rowan glares at me. His chest rises and falls too fast, a lock of golden hair slipping into his eyes as his pulse hammers against my palm. “You’re insane.”
“I know. You like it.” I drag him back into me hard enough to steal the smirk right off his face. “Now, where were we?”
Not going to lie, my head’s filled with all kinds of thoughts now.
Such as Zoryan, a word I vaguely recognize from the old dialects spoken out near Düren. I remember seeing it once in archived Reach forums after Rowan first arrived at Caervast. Never thought I’d hear it breathed against my mouth like that.
My dick definitely likes the sound of it, because it’s jerking happily, leaking all over the inside of my sweatpants.
“We were having breakfast,” Rowan mutters.
“Oh, yes. We were.”
I press him forward until our foreheads meet, once again taken aback by how good he smells.
Fuck me. The second I inhale him again, that same sweet, dangerous scent wraps around my senses, calming something restless inside me. My eyes slip shut just to breathe him in properly.
This can’t possibly be a normal level of obsession.
“And then you started interrogating me like some kind of obsessed detective.”
“Maybe because I’m curious. And always in for trouble.” I tighten my grip, enjoying the way his breath catches. He wants it. “Besides, if you’re searching for something on Sero, it’s probably useful to have someone beside you who people don’t say no to.”
Rowan’s eyes narrow. “And why exactly do you care?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I like innocent boys who try to hide things on my planet.
” I brush my mouth softly against his. “I mean, you disappear into restricted parts of the academy, nearly crack your skull open, and call me whenever things go bad.” My thumb drags slowly across his throat. “Feels pretty personal to me.”
“This isn’t Düren,” Rowan snaps. “People are allowed to ask questions here.”
“Questions about what? About something someone tried to erase?”
Rowan swallows but doesn’t answer, his lips parting like he’s trying to come up with an excuse. “You’re unbelievable.”
I lift my hands in mock innocence. “What? I’m just trying to help, little mouse.”
“No, you’re not. You’re somehow trying to make this worse.” He shoves against my chest, actually managing to force me back half an inch before I catch both his wrists and pin them above his head.
Fuck, I could happily live in this position.
Rowan glares up at me, breathing hard, hair a golden mess across his forehead while his pulse jumps wildly beneath my hand.
“You know what your problem is?” I murmur.
“Enlighten me.” He scowls, then adds, “You really know how to ruin a rescue mission.”
“But somehow it always ends the same way. The chamber. The city. My room.” I lean closer until our mouths nearly brush. “Because every single time, you end up right back under me. Still want to pretend this is accidental?”
“Accidental.” Rowan scoffs. “Maybe because you keep dragging me there, asshole.”
“That’s right. And you know what I think, little mouse? That you like ending up here. Like this, in my bed, wrapped around my thighs. Admit it. Admit you want me.”
Rowan stares up at me, chest heaving, that stubborn set to his jaw wavering beneath my hand. He looks away, then turns back. Bites his lip, then gives me a shaky nod.
Oh, fuck. Fuck me.
Him actually admitting he wants to be here is so intoxicating I almost laugh from the rush of it.
“So here’s what’s going to happen.” I trace a finger through his golden hair. “I will hurt you if you stop coming to me when you’re in trouble. But as a show of goodwill, I will help you find whatever someone tried so hard to erase.”
“I don’t—” he starts, but I shut him up by pressing my thigh harder into his.
“And then you don’t need to come to me anymore because you’re in trouble.” I grab his nape, bringing him close. “But you’ll come because you’ve stopped pretending you don’t already belong with me.”
Rowan’s breath catches. “That doesn’t mean I belong to anyone. But you keep coming back too, Zoryan.”
My lips part, something sharp and almost dizzying hitting me straight in the chest. Fuck me, I didn’t imagine it. Rowan really called me that.
A rough, strangled sound tears out of him before he crashes his mouth into mine, dragging his tongue against my teeth, his hand fisting my hair.
A metallic taste explodes in my mouth, and I’m not sure whether it’s his blood or mine.
I don’t care either, because Rowan just called me something that feels far too intimate to survive.
Zoryan.
My Prince.
The kiss is chaos, all sharp breaths and tangled limbs. It’s a fight, a collision, and a hunger that consumes us both.
I can’t let go, and neither can he. His hand stays locked around my shoulder while the other moves through my hair, down my chest, across my waist.
I reach between us and push down his sweatpants, making us both groan when our hard dicks rub against each other through our boxer briefs. My hand fumbles a little as I shove mine lower, and just like that, I’m embarrassingly leaking all over myself.
Fuck. I want him that much.
Looking at Rowan like this fills me with a kind of awe I genuinely don’t know what to do with.
“You’re killing me here, little mouse,” I breathe against his lips, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it aside.
“You make it difficult not to get nervous.” His whisper shakes as he tears mine off next.
“Mm.”
That’s all I’ve got, because now his chest is bare below me and my brain has completely short-circuited.
I’ve touched Rowan before. I’ve felt him come apart beneath my hands in the pool and in the dark, breathless and shaking against me, but this is different. This isn’t stolen. This is Rowan letting me look.
Golden morning light spills across his bare chest, catching on the faint scar near his heart and the pale marks sleep left behind. For once, all the sharp edges of him look softer.
His gaze locks on me, brow furrowing deeper with every second, no doubt because of what he sees inked across my skin.
Then his hands slide over me, tracing every tattoo and line with slow, relentless touches.
He’s not tentative anymore, but there’s still something searching in the way he explores me, like he’s memorizing me piece by piece.
He plays with these hands the way other people breathe.
I've watched him do it across a hall for months.
Having them on me now feels like a category error, something built for one purpose being used for another and liking it.
“You have so many tattoos.”
“Hmm, I do.” I lift myself onto my elbows and lick his pectoral muscle, my tongue swiping over his light-brown nipple before I bite down hard.
He grunts, both hands gripping my waist. “L-light.”
“That feel good, baby?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me try the other nipple. Can’t have it feeling left out.” I swipe my tongue, rubbing it all over his hard nipple, then bite, sucking on it.
He shudders beneath me, a husky moan escaping him that goes straight through my chest. But there’s hesitation underneath the bravado now, a flicker of uncertainty that absolutely wrecks me.
I grab hold of our cocks and start stroking them, using the precum that glistens on our slits to lube our shafts, and the maddening friction shoots straight to my head.
I rise enough to strip our briefs, kicking them aside, and I smile when his hand joins mine.
“Can I try?”
I remove my hand without a word and shiver at the blinding friction his hand brings from jerking us both. My mouth never leaves him. I keep sucking, biting, dragging my teeth over his perfect nipples, relishing his little sounds of pleasure.
Fuck. I’m starting to understand why leaving him alone feels impossible.
He moves just enough to kick off the rest of his clothes before settling back beneath me again, his legs opening around my hips more slowly this time, like he still can’t believe any of this is actually happening.
I mouth across his chest, listening to every uneven breath I draw from him, and I swear I could live here forever.
Rowan stares down between us, lips parting. “There’s so much precum,” he murmurs, his voice low and rough with fascination. “I didn’t realize...”
“Because you were in the water the first time I made you cum?” I grin against his throat, then roll against him, and his breath punches out of him. “You do that to me.”
“Slow down a little,” he breathes.
“Can’t.” I do it again, rubbing my aching cock against his.
Precum smears between us, slicking our shafts while his gathers in shining beads at the tip.
His cock twitches against mine every few seconds, veins standing out beneath pale skin.
My thumb finds the honey-colored mark high on his inner thigh.
He doesn't know it's there. Nobody has ever been close enough to tell him, and I decide, with a viciousness that surprises me, that nobody else ever will be.
Before I can study it, Rowan strokes us harder, using the slick mess between us to glide his hand faster.
“Fuck, baby. You’re getting so hard,” I moan, wrapping my hand over his and urging the rhythm quicker.
“I... I didn’t think it could feel like this,” he says, the words hushed and heavy with a wonder that undoes me. “The first time—you…I—”
Rowan is so consumed with the want of me that he can’t even keep his eyes open.
He’s looking at me like I’m the answer.
The first time. This time.
Me.
Every fucking time, it’s me.
I lift his hand to my mouth and wet his palm, watching his face the whole time.
He goes still. Then, without looking away, he does the same to his other hand and brings both back down between us, and the sound he makes when they close around both our dicks tells me he's stopped being embarrassed about wanting this.
And yeah, all my blood rushes to my groin. “Fuck. Your hand feels so good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. So does your cock. It’s throbbing so much.”
“Can’t... help it.”
“And when I’m buried deep inside you, mouse, I’ll let you cum. On my cock, where you belong.”