by C. S. Pacat
‘You make it sound simple.’
‘It is simple.’
Laurent’s jaw tightened, the shape of his mouth changed. ‘Simpler to play the man than to roll over, I venture.’
‘Then tell me your own pleasure. Do you think I’m just going to flip you over and mount?’
He felt Laurent react to the words, and the realisation opened up inside him, like something tangible transmitted through the air.
He said, ‘Is that what you want?’
The words fell into a stillness between them. Laurent’s breathing was shallow, and his cheeks were flushed as he closed his eyes, as though he wanted to block out the world.
‘I want,’ said Laurent, ‘I want it to be simple.’
‘Turn over,’ said Damen.
The words rose up from within him, a low, soft command, full of surety. Laurent closed his eyes again, as if in decision. Then he acted.
In one smooth, practiced motion, Laurent turned onto his stomach, yielding to Damen’s gaze the clean curve of back and buttocks, the latter canting slightly upwards as his thighs slid apart.
Damen wasn’t prepared for it. To see him present that way, the scintillant unfolding of limbs, it was nothing he’d ever thought Laurent would . . . this was where he wished himself to be, where he hoped—he’d barely let himself hope—they both wished him to be, but the words he’d meant as a prelude had brought them here before he was ready. He felt nervous suddenly, green, as he hadn’t felt since he was thirteen—uncertain of what lay on the other side of this moment, and wanting to be worthy of it.
He drew his hand softly up Laurent’s side, and Laurent’s breathing went uneven. He could feel uneasiness pass over Laurent in waves.
‘You’re so tense. Are you sure you’ve done this before?’
‘Yes,’ said Laurent. The word came out sounding strange.
‘This,’ Damen persisted, placing his hand where it made his meaning explicit.
‘Yes,’ said Laurent.
‘But—wasn’t it—’
‘Will you stop talking about it.’
The words were ground out. Damen was in the process of smoothing his hand up Laurent’s back, gentling his nape, kissing it, his head bent over it. He lifted his head when he heard that. Gently but firmly, he pushed Laurent back over, and looked down at him.
Revealed beneath him, Laurent was flushed and his breathing was shallow, and in his glistering eyes was a desperate irritation that overlay something else. Yet Laurent’s exposed arousal was as hot and hard as it had been in his mouth. For all his bizarre nervy tension, Laurent was indisputably eager, physically. Damen searched his blue eyes.
‘Contrary, aren’t you,’ said Damen softly, thumbing over Laurent’s cheek.
‘Fuck me,’ said Laurent.
‘I want to,’ said Damen. ‘Can you let me?’
He said it quietly, and waited, as Laurent’s eyes closed again, a muscle sliding in his jaw. The idea of being fucked very clearly had Laurent out of his mind, as desire competed with some sort of convoluted mental objection that really needed, Damen thought, to be dispensed with.
‘I am letting you,’ said Laurent, the terse words pushing out. ‘Will you get on with it?’
Laurent’s eyes opened, meeting Damen’s gaze, and this time it was Laurent who waited, heat in his cheeks at the silence that opened up around his words. In Laurent’s eyes, impatience and tension overlay something unexpectedly young and vulnerable. Damen’s heart felt exposed, outside of his chest.
He slid his hand up the length of Laurent’s arm where it lay outflung above his head, and, catching hold of Laurent’s hand, he pushed it down, pressed their palms into one other.
The kiss was slow and deliberate. He could feel the light trembling in Laurent’s body, as Laurent’s mouth opened under his. His own hands felt unsteady. When he drew back it was only far enough to find Laurent’s gaze again, seeking assent. He found it, alongside a new flare of tension. Tension, he understood, was a part of it. Then he felt Laurent press a glass phial into his hand.
Breathing was difficult. He could look nowhere but at Laurent, both of them here with nothing between them, and Laurent, allowing it. A finger slid inside. It was so tight. He moved it back and forward, slowly. He watched Laurent’s face, the slight flush, the fractional changes of his expression, his eyes wide and dark. It was intensely private. Damen’s skin felt too hot, too tight. His ideas of what might happen in bed with Laurent had not moved beyond an aching tenderness, which was only now finding physical expression. The reality of it was different; Laurent was different. Damen had never thought that it could be like this, soft and quiet and acutely personal.
He felt the slide of oil, Laurent’s small, helpless movements, and the impossible sensation of his body beginning to open. He thought Laurent must be able to feel the beating of his heart inside his chest. They were kissing now, slow, intimate kisses, their bodies in full alignment, Laurent’s arms twining around his neck. Damen slid his free arm beneath Laurent, palm travelling over the flexing incurvations of his back. He felt Laurent draw up one of his legs, felt the slide of Laurent’s warm inner thigh, the press of Laurent’s heel into his back.
He thought he could do it like this, coax Laurent with mouth and hands, give him this. Damen felt tight, slick heat with his fingers. It was impossible that he could put his cock there, yet he was unable to stop imagining it. He closed his eyes, felt the place where they were meant to interlock, to fit.
‘I need to be inside you,’ he said, and it came out raw with desire and the effort of restraint.
The tension in Laurent crested, and he felt Laurent push it down as Laurent said, ‘Yes.’
He felt a rush of that sensation that pushed at his chest. He was going to be allowed this. Every connection of skin against skin felt too hotly intimate, yet they were going to draw closer. Laurent was going to let him in. Inside him. That thought came over him anew. Then it was happening, and he couldn’t think of anything but the slow press forward into Laurent’s body.
Laurent cried out and his world became a series of fractured impressions. The head of his cock pushing into oiled heat, and the simultaneous feedback of Laurent, shuddering; the slide of muscle in Laurent’s bicep; his flushed face; the half fall of his yellow hair.
He felt some sense that he needed to hold onto this, to hold it tight and never let it out of his grip.
You’re mine, he wanted to say, and couldn’t. Laurent didn’t belong to him; this was something he could have only once.
His chest hurt. He closed his eyes and forced himself to feel these slow, shallow thrusts, the slow push and drag that was all he could allow himself, his only defence against the instinct that wanted to push inside, deeper than he’d even been, to plant himself inside Laurent’s body and hold onto this forever.
‘Laurent,’ he said, and he was breaking apart.
To get what you want, you have to know exactly how much you are willing to give up.
Never had he wanted something this badly, and held it in his hands knowing that tomorrow it would be gone, traded for the high cliffs of Ios, and the uncertain future across the border, the chance to stand before his brother, to ask him for all the answers that no longer seemed so important. A kingdom, or this.
Deeper, was the overwhelming drive, and he fought it. He fought to hold on, though his body was finding its own rhythm, his arms winding around Laurent’s chest, his lips at his neck, some closed-eyed desire to have him a close as possible.
‘Laurent,’ he said, and he was all the way inside, each thrust driving him closer to an end that ached inside him, and still he wanted to be deeper.
The full weight of his body was on Laurent now, his full length moving inside, and it was wholly sensate: the tangled sound Laurent made, newly, sweetly inarticulate, the flush on his cheeks, the averted twist of his head, si
ght and sound melded with the hot push into Laurent’s body, the pulse of him, the tremor in his own muscles.
He had a sudden splintering image of how it might be, if this was a world where they had time. There would be no urgency and no end point, just a sweet string of days spent together, long, languorous love making where he could spend hours inside.
‘I can’t—I have to—’ he heard himself say, and the words came out in his own language. Distantly he heard Laurent answer him in Veretian, even as he felt Laurent begin to spill, the pulsing jerk of his body, the first wet stripe of it, hot as blood. Laurent came beneath him, and he tried to experience all of it, tried to hold on, but his body was too close to its own release, and he did as he was bid in Laurent’s fractured voice, and emptied himself inside.
CHAPTER 20
Every now and again, Laurent shifted against him without waking.
Damen lay in the warmth beside him and felt the soft golden hair against his neck, the slight weight of Laurent in the places where their bodies touched.
Outside, the shift on the battlements was changing and servants were up, tending fires and stirring pots. Outside, the day was beginning, and all the things related to the day, sentries and hostlers and men rising and arming themselves to fight. He could hear the distant shout of a hail in some courtyard; closer to, the sound of a door slamming.
Just a little longer, he thought, and it might have been a mundane wish to drowse in bed except for the ache in his chest. He felt the passing of time like a growing pressure. He was aware of each moment because it was one fewer that he had left.
Sleeping beside Damen, there was a newly physical aspect revealed in Laurent: the taut waist, the upper body musculature of a swordsman, the exposed angle of his Adam’s apple. Laurent looked like what he was: a young man. When laced into his clothing, Laurent’s dangerous grace lent him an almost androgynous quality. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that it was rare to associate Laurent with a physical body at all: you were always dealing with a mind. Even when fighting in battle, driving his horse to some impossible feat, the body was under the control of the mind.
Damen knew his body now. He knew the surprise that gentle attention could draw from him. He knew his lazy, dangerous assurance, his hesitancies . . . his sweet, tender hesitancies. He knew the way that he made love, a combination of explicit knowledge and almost shy reticences.
Stirring drowsily, Laurent shifted a fraction closer and made a soft, unthinking sound of pleasure that Damen was going to remember for the rest of his life.
And then Laurent was blinking sleepily, and Damen was watching Laurent grow aware of his surroundings and come awake in his arms.
He wasn’t sure how it would be, but when Laurent saw who was beside him, he smiled, the expression a little shy but completely genuine. Damen, who hadn’t been expecting it, felt the single painful beat of his heart. He’d never thought Laurent could look like that at anyone.
‘It’s morning,’ said Laurent. ‘We slept?’
‘We slept,’ said Damen.
They were gazing at one another. He held himself still as Laurent reached out and touched the plane of his chest. Despite the rising sun they were kissing, slow, fantastic kisses, the wonderful drift of hands. Their legs tangled together. He ignored the feeling inside him and closed his eyes.
‘Your inclination appears to be much as it was last night.’
Damen found himself saying, ‘You talk the same in bed,’ and the words came out sounding like he felt: helplessly charmed.
‘Can you think of a better way of putting it?’
‘I want you,’ said Damen.
‘You’ve had me,’ said Laurent. ‘Twice. I can still feel the . . . sensation of it.’
Laurent shifted, just so. Damen buried his face in Laurent’s neck and groaned, and there was laughter too, and something akin to happiness that hurt as it pushed at the inside of his chest.
‘Stop it. You will not be able to walk,’ said Damen.
‘I’d welcome the chance to walk,’ said Laurent. ‘I have to ride a horse.’
‘Is it . . . ? I tried to . . . I wouldn’t—’
‘I like the way it feels,’ said Laurent. ‘I liked the way it felt. You’re a generous, giving lover, and I feel—’ Laurent broke off, and gave a shaky laugh at his own words. ‘I feel like the Vaskian tribe, in the body of one person. I suppose it is often like this?’
‘No,’ said Damen. ‘No, it’s—’ It’s never like this. The idea that Laurent might find this with someone else hurt him.
‘Does that betray my inexperience? You know my reputation. Once every ten years.’
‘I can’t,’ said Damen. ‘I can’t have this for just one night.’
‘One night and one morning,’ said Laurent, and this time it was Damen who found himself pushed down onto the bed.
* * *
He dozed, after, drifting in the early sunlight, and woke to an empty bed.
Shock that he’d let himself fall asleep and anxiety about his deadline pushed him up. Servants were entering the room, throwing open the doors and disturbing the space with impersonal activity: clearing away the spent candles and the empty containers where scented oil had flamed.
He looked instinctively at the position of the sun through the window. It was late morning. He’d dozed for an hour. Longer. There was so little time left.
‘Where’s Laurent?’
An attendant was approaching the bed. ‘You are to be taken from Ravenel and escorted directly to the border.’
‘Escorted?’
‘You will rise and ready yourself. Your collar and cuffs will be removed. You will then leave the fort.’
‘Where’s Laurent?’ he said again.
‘The Prince is occupied with other matters. You are to leave before he returns.’
He felt unsteady. He understood that what he had missed in sleeping was not his deadline but the last moments with Laurent, the last kiss, the final parting. Laurent wasn’t here because he had chosen not to be here. And when he thought about goodbye, it was a welling silence full of all the things he couldn’t say.
He rose, then. Bathed and dressed. They laced him into a jacket, and by then the servants had cleared the room, had gathered, piece by piece, last night’s discarded clothing, the scattered boots, the crumpled shirt, the jacket, a mess of laces; had changed the bed.
* * *
To take off the collar required a blacksmith.
He was a man named Guerin, with dark straight hair that lay flat on his head like a thin cap. He came to Damen in an outbuilding, and it was done without onlookers and without ceremony.
It was a dusty building with a stone bench and a scattering of blacksmith’s tools brought in from the forge. He looked around at the small room and told himself there was nothing lacking. If he’d left in secret as he had planned it would have been done just like this, unobserved, by a blacksmith across the border.
The collar came first, and when Guerin drew it from his neck he felt the collar’s absence like a lightness, his spine unfurling, his shoulders settling.
Like a lie, cracking and dropping from him.
He looked at the gleam of the gold where Guerin placed it, halved, on the workbench. Veretian shackles. In the curve of its metal was every humiliation of his time in this country, every frustration at Veretian confinement, every indignity of an Akielon serving a Veretian master.
Except that it was Kastor who had put the collar on him, and Laurent who was freeing him.
It was made from Akielon gold. It drew him forward and he touched it. It was still warm from the skin of his neck, like it was part of him. He didn’t know why that should unnerve him. His fingers, smoothing along the surface, encountered the notch, the deep furrow where Lord Touars had tried to drive his sword into his neck, and had instead bitten into the ring of gold.
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He pulled himself away and gave up his right wrist to Guerin. The collar with its latch had been a simple matter to a blacksmith, but the cuffs needed to be struck off with a chisel and mallet.
He had come to this fort a slave. He would ride out of it Damianos of Akielos. It was like shedding a skin, discovering what lay beneath. The first cuff sprang apart under Guerin’s rhythmic strikes and he faced his new self. He was not the headstrong prince he had been in Akielos. The man he had been in Akielos would never have served a Veretian master, or fought alongside Veretians for their cause.
He would never have known Laurent for what he was; never have given Laurent his loyalty or held Laurent’s trust for a moment in his hands.
Guerin moved to strike the gold from his left wrist, and he pulled it back.
‘No,’ he heard himself say. ‘Leave that one on.’
Guerin shrugged, turned and with impersonal motions tipped the collar and the cuff segments into a cloth, and wrapped it, before passing it to Damen. Damen took the makeshift bag. The weight was surprising.
Guerin said, ‘The gold’s yours.’
‘A gift?’ he said, as he might have said to Laurent.
‘The Prince doesn’t need it,’ said Guerin.
* * *
His escort arrived.
It was six men, and one of them, already mounted, was Jord, who looked him right in the eye and said, ‘You kept your word.’
His horse was being led forward. Not only a riding horse but a pack horse, a sword, clothing, supplies. Is there something you want? Laurent had asked him once. He wondered what ornate Veretian parting gift might lurk in those packs and knew instinctively that there was none. He had maintained from the beginning that he had wanted only his freedom. And that was exactly what he had been given.
‘I always meant to leave,’ he said.
He swung up into the saddle. His eyes passed around the fort’s large courtyard, from the great gates to the dais with its wide, shallow steps. He remembered their first arrival, the stony reception of Lord Touars, the feeling of standing inside a Veretian fort for the first time. He saw the gatesmen at their post, a soldier going about his duty. He felt Jord draw up beside him.