And So It Begins

by R. G. Green

  He let his cloak slip from his shoulders as the trader approached, following the motion of Derek’s steps and listening to the soft padding of his feet across the bare floor. He turned away only long enough to drape the sodden cloak over the chair, noting absently how the rain that dripped from the hem formed a tiny puddle near its legs. The beat of his heart was loud in his ears, and every sound, from the patter of the rain to the rustle of his clothes, was harsh and clear in the heavy silence of the room. Derek’s expression was calm as he stepped beside the prince, though the wariness—and worry—in his eyes didn’t fade. The hand he placed at the small of Kherin’s back felt like fire through the damp threads of Kherin’s shirt.

  “Kherin, what’s going on? Is Adrien all right?” His voice was tight, and the tension in his body made his posture stiff, his face a mixture of trepidation and curiosity.

  “Adrien is fine,” Kherin said, meeting Derek’s worried gaze and catching the flicker of reflected light in its depths. “He’s still sleeping, and Willum is alert to the possibility of more seizures. I didn’t wake him when I left.” Kherin was aware of how close Derek stood, and how easy it would be to touch him. But though he had been this close and closer so many times in the past, never once had it been like this. His heart threatened to break his ribs as its pace increased.

  Relief filled Derek’s eyes, though the caution in them remained, and the hand that rested lightly on the prince’s back had begun to move in slow circles, the only sign that Derek was still waiting for the answer to his question. “I’m relieved to hear that Adrien is well, as least as far as can be expected, but, Kherin, why are you here?” he asked again.

  Kherin stared at him without answering, knowing he had reached the moment he had envisioned since he had made his decision to come here. One chance, he reminded himself again. And weighing what he had chosen to do against what he risked, he knew his decision had been the right one.

  With a final breath for courage, he stepped forward, pressing into the solidness of the trader’s body and covering Derek’s mouth with his own.

  Derek’s sound of surprise was nearly lost in the unexpected kiss, and the hands that flew to the prince’s hips sought to both hold the prince and push him back. When Derek managed to break them apart, his eyes were filled with the resignation and regret Kherin had expected—and the beginnings of the desire Kherin had hoped for. Kherin’s hands had gained purchase on the bare skin of Derek’s arms, and it was a hold he wasn’t going to give up unless he was forced to.

  “Kherin….”

  “Don’t say it,” Kherin told him quietly, and with a firmness he was grateful for. “Don’t tell me again why this can’t happen. I’ve heard what you’ve told me, and I know how angry my father will be if he learns of this, but he won’t ban you from the castle and lose his eyes and ears in the kingdom. You know that as well as I do.” They were the words he had practiced, and only the beginning of the argument he would press. “You’ve made yourself a valuable asset, and in doing so gained more freedom in your actions than nearly anyone else in the kingdom. You told me that yourself.”

  The flare he saw in Derek’s eyes was also something Kherin had been expecting, but this time he was prepared for it.

  “And don’t say you’re doing this to protect me,” he went on, cutting off anything Derek would say before it could be voiced, but letting Derek go when the trader stepped back. “I’ve faced my father too many times over things worse than this to be intimidated by the threat,” he went on unflinchingly. “He won’t disown me and create a royal scandal, or he would have done so long before now.”

  “It’s not about you being disowned or losing the freedoms granted you by the royalty of your blood, Kherin,” Derek got in at last, leveling his gaze on Kherin’s but not closing the distance between them. “It’s about angering your father to the point that he will take his anger out on you. Anyone can be pushed too far, and when that happens—”

  “You think I’ll do something stupid, like drowning my anger at the Mouse.” He let out a small sigh when Derek’s raised eyebrow confirmed the statement more clearly than words, but the trader didn’t retreat when Kherin stepped up to him again. “Look, Derek, I know you’re worried about how my father will react, and how I will react when he does, but living my life according to how my father thinks it should be done is not something I’m willing to do. Not when giving in to him will do nothing more important than appease his own sense of morality. You taught me better than that.”

  Never so blatantly, but years of watching Derek act without compromising his own sense of what was right had been effective nonetheless.

  Even if Kherin hadn’t known how effective until now.

  “I know what is likely to happen when I return to Delfore,” he went on, holding Derek’s gaze, “and I won’t pretend I don’t care about that, but I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not.” He paused but didn’t look away. “That way, I’ll at least be able to look at myself in the mirror and know I was honest, with myself and with you.”

  “You sound like a philosopher,” Derek murmured, but Kherin could see his words were being heard, and it was a relief when Derek didn’t pull away as Kherin slid his hands along his arms. Derek lifted his hand to sweep away the strands that had fallen over Kherin’s forehead as he exhaled into the air between them, but Kherin spoke first.

  “Do you still not regret what happened in the way-stop?”

  It was one of the few times he had ever seen Derek surprised, but it was only for an instant, and then a gentleness replaced it in the trader’s eyes as Derek caught the prince’s chin to ensure he didn’t look away.

  “No, my prince. Never that. But Kherin, are you sure….”

  The rest was lost as Kherin leaned in to kiss. Derek’s hesitation at the touch lasted only a moment, and the feeling of his lips softening as they began to answer urged him to deepen it. His fingers had found the twisted braid Derek wore when the trader broke the kiss this time, though Derek moved back slowly, and it was only enough to break the contact.

  “Kherin.” Derek’s breath was warm on the prince’s lips.

  “I know this is right, and so do you,” Kherin told him softly. “Nothing my father can say will change that.” He tugged the braid lightly. “And nothing you can say will make it wrong.”

  “Kherin,” Derek said again, his breath heavy on Kherin’s lips this time. “Are you sure you’re ready to face whatever may happen in Delfore?”

  Kherin pulled away enough to search the trader’s eyes for one brief moment before he withdrew, pulling the braid gently over the trader’s shoulder as he did so. He stepped back, and in a slow and confident move, he reached down to the hem of his shirt and pulled it deliberately over his head, then let it drop to the floor at his feet. When he reached for the trader again, it was to lay one hand gently on the smooth skin of his chest. He caressed one peaked nipple with the flat of his thumb.

  “I’m sure,” he whispered.

  One desperate heartbeat passed, and then it was the moment Kherin had prayed for, the moment the last vestiges of Derek’s restraint crumbled and fell. Derek reached for him and he went, and the welcoming arms that circled around him were the start of the kiss that gained heat quickly as the reservations from only moments before were burned away. The trader smoothed his hands down the line of his back as he pulled him closer, and Kherin’s heart swelled to nearly bursting with the joy of finally being able to answer his need to feel the trader’s touch without any threat of rejection.

  Derek’s hand had found his cheek again when they separated from the kiss at last, though he saw more than gentleness in the trader’s eyes now. Acceptance was there, and a happiness to match his own, both strung through with a hunger that sent the fire racing through Kherin’s blood. He could feel the hardened length of Derek’s cock pressing desperately against his own, and this time he knew Derek wouldn’t pull away. The confidence it added to his touch was clear as he grasped blindly betwee
n them, and the single stroke he gave caressed them both as it drew a low moan from Derek’s throat. Then the sweep of his tongue as he covered Derek’s mouth again brought a sharp thrust of the trader’s hips that drove the breath from his lungs.

  And that’s when Kherin knew he had succeeded at last.

  Kherin broke the kiss enough to look into the trader’s eyes, but he didn’t blink as the capable fingers loosened his breeches and found entrance. Then he gasped and nearly came when Derek’s hand finally closed around him, and he gave himself to the heat of Derek’s mouth as the trader stroked, hard and sure.

  Pulling their hands from the other was unwanted but necessary, though cotton and linen were soon left scattered on the floor, and the moments they spent in each other’s arms with nothing left between them were long and exquisite. Until at last their lips separated and their touches slowly stilled. Then the anxiousness in Kherin’s heart made it beat sharply against his ribs as Derek eased him back, and yet he never looked away from the trader as sure and gentle hands pushed him down to the bed.

  The tremors of anticipation shook through him even before the pillows pressed against his back, and he couldn’t take his eyes from the thick and powerful cock pressed tightly to Derek’s stomach as the trader retrieved a small tin from his pack. Full and beautiful, it was what he had felt in the stormy shadows of the way-stop, what he had only seen a hint of in the bath at the Crossroads, what he had seen in full in bathhouse of the Harper’s Den. Derek was every bit as formidable as those brief hints had promised, and Kherin’s fingers nearly shook as he reached for him. Derek breathed a slow sigh of pleasure as Kherin traced the veined and burning flesh all the way to the leaking tip as he crawled relentlessly between Kherin’s legs.

  Then as he lifted his eyes to meet Derek’s again, the stark realization that this was Derek at last—not someone he didn’t want, and not merely a fantasy of his own making—hit him hard enough to make his heart stutter. A single simmering moment passed as Derek braced his hands on the pillows at his shoulders. Then Derek’s cock brushed against his as he lowered enough to kiss.

  The storm was unleashed. With a sound thick with desperation, Kherin drove the kiss deeper, pushing his hips up from the bed as he pulled Derek down over him. He dug his fingers into the flesh of Derek’s back as the room, the northerners, the kingdom itself vanished under the heat and hunger of this moment. Derek’s shallow breaths swept against his as their kisses became scattered, and his weight grew heavy as he thrust against Kherin. This was what they had experienced in the way-stop, this desperate need for contact, and the friction and heat they found as they answered the hunger of their bodies in the writhing flesh of the other.

  But this wasn’t the way-stop, and it wasn’t the need to stop that tightened Derek’s hands on his hips, or the sound of protests that made it through their panting and grunting breaths as Derek ground their cocks together. And it wasn’t enough to settle for this, when it was so much more that both of them wanted.

  Neither of their mouths or bodies stopped moving as Derek reached for the tin and clicked it open, and the heavy scent of herb-infused salve drifted over them as Derek pulled away at last.

  Kherin was panting as he watched Derek draw the salve out with the tip of a single finger, and the dark, stormy gaze of the trader bore into him as he circled Kherin’s entrance once, then entered him for the first time. Kherin tensed and arched at the careful invasion, and he had to fight to remain still as the skillful fingers stretched and prepared him. He slid his hands down the trader’s arms as a second and then a third finger entered him, and he arched his back again as Derek began to take him slowly, with just the movement of his hand. It was hard to keep his eyes open as he responded to the trader’s careful manipulation, and hard not to leave marks on the trader’s arms as the feel of Derek’s twisting fingers and the rapturous pleasure he saw on the trader’s face nearly made him come without a single touch.

  Then a gasp was torn from him as Derek pulled his fingers away, and the presence of Derek moving over him stole the remaining breath from his lungs a moment before the pressure of his cock against his opening froze his heart. Their eyes met and held for one lingering moment, the hunger between them palpable and nearly tangible, and then Derek pushed inside with one long and powerful stroke.

  Kherin cried out as he surged up, and the sounds were caught in the heat of Derek’s mouth as the trader fell heavily over him. Soft and mobile lips soothed and calmed as Derek forced himself deeper, and Kherin’s nails threatened to raise marks as the pain slid into pleasure with each longer, deeper stroke. Gods, he had wanted this so badly, and now that he had it, he only wanted more. The gasp that burst from his lungs as Derek snapped his hips hard was caught and deliciously echoed against his lips, and he lifted his legs higher as he rocked against him.

  And what began as a short, fast pattern moved quickly into a hard and pounding rhythm.

  Their lips were forced apart as Derek rose to gain more depth, and the pounding of his hips became brutal as he took Kherin with all the ruthlessness of Kherin’s fantasies. Gasps sharpened as they were torn from their lungs, and Kherin’s began to break as he took each brutalizing stroke, his body stretching and arching as Derek found the perfect angle and took him without mercy. This was what he had wanted, what he had dreamed about and fantasized over for years, and he dug his hands into the solid muscle of Derek’s arms as he was swept up in the need to be taken deeper, taken harder.

  The white-hot flare of orgasm exploded through Kherin faster than he would have thought possible, and his fingers turned bruising as his cock erupted in a hot gush of seed, his cries loud and sharp as his length was stroked and scraped where it lay trapped between their heaving stomachs.

  Yet Derek didn’t stop. He grasped the prince’s hips as Kherin twisted and rocked beneath him, and Derek’s labored breathing turned low and feral as his thrusts became ravaging. Both the bed and the prince shuddered beneath him as he drove toward completion, and then a sharp cry was torn from them both as he snapped his hips in a final vicious thrust. Release swept over him as he shot hard and deep while Kherin’s cum still trailed between them.

  Slowing in the aftermath was mutual and nearly in unison, and their breath softened to gasps as their rocking eased and their fingers loosened and gentled. When Derek stilled at last, he looked down at the prince with eyes that were dark and sated, the light of the candle giving his sweat-dampened skin a golden glow. Kherin felt the familiar weariness that came after being so well and thoroughly used, but the contented smile that curved his lips was new, and he swept his hands over the trader’s shoulders before pulling Derek down into a deep and lingering kiss. Derek slipped his fingers into Kherin’s hair as he answered the kiss with a gentleness of his own, and the heat of their bodies mixed as they rested with Derek’s cock still buried and Kherin’s thighs still spread around him.

  The kiss was long and sensual, but the reality of where they went from here was a weight Kherin felt when they finally pulled apart. Neither of them broke the silence as Derek slid slowly and carefully out of him, and a discarded towel and water from the pitcher on the bedside table provided the tools to clean the sweat and cum from them both. Derek handled the task with gentle efficiency as Kherin’s heart renewed its hammering in his chest. He hoped Derek wouldn’t expect him to leave now that he had gotten what he had come here for…

  Although he knew the trader would be right to point out that ensuring Adrien still fared well meant he shouldn’t stay any longer than this. But the fact was that didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay.

  Understanding filled the trader’s eyes as he lay down beside Kherin, though the words the trader said weren’t the ones he had been bracing for.

  “I won’t stop you if you want to return to the hospice”—Derek began threading his fingers through the damp hair at Kherin’s ear—“but I trust the healer to send word if things worsen for Adrien, and it will make little difference if you are there or here
when it happens.” A moment passed as he watched the prince’s eyes. “I’m not going to ask you to leave.”

  “But are you going to ask me to stay?” Kherin asked the question softly, but the words were direct, and the answer became important the moment the question was asked. Gods, he hadn’t been vague about the reason he had come here, and the sex had been everything he had wanted and craved and hoped for—but he suddenly didn’t want it to be about sex. He didn’t want Derek to think it was only about sex, not now, not any longer.

  But Derek’s laugh surprised him, for all that it was given quietly and kindly. “Ah, my prince, you’re far too used to life under the watchful eyes of your servants and king.”

  Kherin searched his eyes to try to understand what the trader meant by those words, and then was surprised again when Derek leaned forward to claim a kiss. The warmth of it eased the tension and uncertainty that had begun to take hold, and though the kiss didn’t last long, he didn’t resist when Derek pulled back. The tattered braid his fingers had found was still in his hand when Derek again met his eyes, and his heart nearly refused to beat as the spark of hope found life at last. The quiet words that came next renewed it to a pounding rhythm against his ribs.

  “I’m asking you to stay.”

  The relief that bloomed must have shown in his face, as gentle laughter accompanied Derek’s words of, “Come here, my prince.” He pulled Kherin close, and Kherin felt the light brush of lips against his forehead as the soothing stroke of Derek’s hands settled him against the trader’s body.

  And the peace that settled over him then was… overwhelming.

  This was what Kherin had never experienced with any of the men who had filled his bed before, the warmth and contentment after the act of sex was over, the ease and comfort of sharing a bed after his lust had been satisfied. He had never even wanted this after sex—until now.