‘What’s this?’ Pleased.
Laurent, moving: ‘How am I?’
‘Wrestling is like chess,’ said Damen. Laurent moved, he countered. Laurent moved, he countered. Beneath him, he felt Laurent try out all the variations that he knew, a beginner’s set, but well executed. The part of Damen’s mind that liked wrestling above all sports took note, appreciatively, of Laurent’s form. But he was a novice: Damen countered him again easily, wise enough to keep his own hold strong and ready, even when he had Laurent fully pinned.
And then he thought about it. ‘Who’s teaching you?’
‘Nikandros,’ said Laurent.
‘Nikandros,’ said Damen.
‘We use a Veretian variation. I don’t take my clothes off.’
Then you’ll never learn effectively. Instead, he found himself frowning, saying, ‘I’m better than Nikandros.’
He wasn’t sure why that returned him Laurent’s laughter, but it did, soft and breathless, saying, ‘I know. You have vanquished me. Let me up.’
Damen stood, held out his hand and hoisted. Laurent snagged up one of the soft towels and draped Damen’s head in it. Engulfed, Damen let his hair be rubbed about, then let Laurent dry the rest of him, the softness of the towel against his skin as unexpectedly tender as any touch Laurent had offered him. It wasn’t sensual, it was coddling, comforting, and so unlooked for that it made him feel strange, lucky, part of the summer scents, the sunlight and wonder of this place.
‘The truth is you’re very sweet, aren’t you,’ said Damen, taking Laurent’s fingers in a tangle of towel. He dumped a towel over Laurent’s head before he could answer, and enjoyed watching Laurent emerge from it with his hair mussed.
Laurent stepped back. To dry himself, he used the same unconcerned motions with which he’d washed himself: he swiped the towel over his torso, under his arms, between his legs. Before he did any of this, he unhooked the flower from his hair and bent to unwind his sandals. Leave them on, Damen wanted to say. He liked the piquant way they drew attention to Laurent’s nudity.
Laurent began to look around for a wrap to wear, but Damen took his hand instead. ‘We don’t need one. Come on.’
‘But what about—’
‘This is Akielos. We don’t need them. Come with me.’
Walking naked along the outside paths was as transgressive to Laurent as it had been for Damen to contemplate intimacy in the gardens. They stepped into open sunlight and Laurent let out a breathless laugh, as if he couldn’t believe what he was doing.
Damen tugged him towards the eastern entrance, hands linked. In a charming quirk of Veretian modesty, Laurent seemed to find it even more shocking to walk naked inside the palace than outside, hesitating on the threshold, then following Damen into the halls in amazement.
Here they weren’t alone: the servants who had absented themselves from the baths were waiting for any sign they were needed, guards stood on ceremonial duty, and the skeleton household who had opened up the palace for their arrival were all at their stations.
Damen would have walked through without noticing them, but he could feel Laurent’s over-awareness of each person they passed. And truthfully, Damen was too aware of Laurent’s nakedness, all that skin that was not usually on display, still slightly pinked from the steam.
Entering the royal chambers, the view was of gauzy white, and of marble and sky, the wide, graceful interior opening out onto a balcony. Laurent walked right out onto it, leaning his naked body against the marble balustrade and closing his eyes with the sun full on his face. He let out a breath that was part laughter at what he had done, part disbelief.
Damen came out and fitted himself lazily alongside Laurent, enjoying the sunlight too, and the air from the sea, that winked in an expanse of blue. Laurent’s eyes opened.
Laurent said, ‘I like it here. I like it here so much.’
Damen felt breathless, as he trailed a touch down Laurent’s arm. Laurent turned in towards the touch and they kissed just as he’d imagined, Laurent’s arm hooked around his neck. The simple intimacy from the baths changed to something else, at the feel of Laurent naked against him, skin to skin.
The kiss deepened, Laurent’s hand in Damen’s damp hair. Half hard since the baths, it didn’t take long to rouse fully, but what made the blood beat against the inside of his skin was feeling Laurent rousing against him in turn, as his hands slid slowly over Laurent’s body.
His own cock, hard and heavy, was rubbing deliciously between them and the feel of it was as good as the feel of the sunlight on his skin. He wanted to keep going, his body thrusting slowly to please himself, and to please Laurent, who liked it slow and lazy like this.
A push, a few deliberate steps, and they were back in the shade. He felt the brush of gauze hangings, the cool stone of the wall at his back. His hands slid down past the small of Laurent’s back, palming the curves there. The features of the room became a series of stations on the way to their destination, the journey neither urgent nor hurried. A period of separation when Laurent poured a cup of water and drank from it, Damen watching with his shoulders against the opposite wall. A long interval where Damen braced a palm against stone and kissed Laurent’s sensitive neck. Then he turned Laurent so that he was belly to the wall, and kissed his neck again, from behind.
Intentionally, he did not drive towards a conclusion, but simply let himself explore, the softest kisses to Laurent’s neck, sliding his palms over Laurent’s chest, slowly over the nipples, which were sensitive and which, later, he would take into his mouth. He liked the feel of Laurent’s back against his torso, the dip of Laurent’s head. Laurent leaned into the gentlest touch as though starved. He stroked along Laurent’s flank, slow, slower. Again.
‘Damen, I—’
‘Really?’ said Damen, rather pleased.
Caught up in the way that Laurent’s skin responded to him, he had missed the quickening pulse, the subtle signs of a body’s approach to its brink. With another lover, it was the moment to speed up in order to reach their peak. Damen slowed further.
Laurent made a soft sound, and Damen slid his hand up the inside of Laurent’s thigh, stopping right at the juncture, thumbing the join between thigh and torso as he kissed Laurent’s neck again, slowly. Laurent groaned, his forehead touched the stone.
His desire to explore Laurent and to enjoy this pleasure was transforming into a desire to mount, to be inside him, and to fuck him this way, slow, their breaths flickering into one another’s mouths as they kissed. Laurent was pushing back against him rhythmically now. Damen’s cock was sliding continually over the place where he wanted it.
Damen turned Laurent and kissed him, Laurent’s back against the wall, the kiss like consummation, hard and deep. Laurent made that slight sound again, right into Damen’s mouth.
When they broke apart again it was to look at each other with uneven breaths, and it already felt like he was inside.
‘I want you,’ said Damen.
He watched the flush rise up over Laurent’s skin.
‘So, on the balcony, but not in the gardens,’ said Laurent.
He was leaned against the wall. Damen had taken a step back. ‘We’re not quite on the balcony.’
‘I can’t keep track. You had us walk here naked.’
‘This is Akielos. We can do things your way in Vere.’ He thought about it. ‘It’s cold there.’
‘And in our new palace,’ said Laurent, ‘on the border?’
Damen felt warmth pool in his stomach. ‘Our new palace.’ Softly, into Laurent’s ear. He had returned into Laurent’s physical space, irresistibly.
‘I’m just—’
‘Talking,’ said Damen.
‘Yes.’
‘I want do it slowly, the way you like,’ said Damen, and Laurent closed his eyes.
‘Yes.’
The number
of times that they had made love were still finite enough that Damen could remember each one of them: at Ravenel, the unspoken full of painful secrets; in Karthas, losing themselves in each other; aching sweetness by firelight at a roadside inn at Mellos; the desperation of their first lovemaking after Damen’s recovery.
None of them had been like this, half sprawled on the bed looking up at Laurent. Laurent’s hands smoothed over his chest, up to his neck, then down over the planes of his torso, his abdomen. In the streaked sunlight, they were kissing. He loved the way that Laurent kissed, as if Damen was the only person that he had ever kissed, or would ever want to.
The openness from the baths lingered. Laurent, whose tangle of overthinking usually only disappeared at the moment of climax, had his defences down in the quiet. Damen could hear his soft exhalations of breath; once or twice, a sound passed his lips that he didn’t seem to be aware of. Time unslid the knot of any last ribbon of tension, letting it slip, letting him go further and further into his own pleasure.
Their bodies tangled together, touches blending and blurring. Damen gave himself over to the feeling of Laurent in his arms. It was an age before he put his hand between Laurent’s legs, and felt his legs part.
When he finally slid inside, it felt like time had stopped in the small, intimate space between them, after a sweet forever of deep kisses, of opening Laurent up with oiled fingers. He didn’t move but stayed where he was, in breathless silence. Everything felt connected, open. Their movements were more like nudges than thrusts, their bodies pushing together without the long, sliding separation of withdrawal.
He could feel Laurent drawing closer and closer to his climax, not, as it was sometimes, like he was pushing past the gnarl of his own barriers, but hotly, inevitably. The thrust were longer now, Damen’s body moving to seek out its own gratification.
He heard a choked off sound as Laurent dissolved under him, and Damen was lost to the feel of it, the hot, liquid pleasure of fucking, the closeness, near as a heartbeat. His own body pulsed and flared, an interval of flooding pleasure, and it almost didn’t seem to end but to transform into the sweet, heavy feel of his limbs entangled with Laurent’s, pleasure still between them, the throbs of it ebbing.
For once, Laurent didn’t immediately leap up to clean himself off, but stayed, their bodies collapsed onto one another, the sounds of summer and the ocean coming in from outside.
He reached out and moved a curl of hair from Laurent’s face.
‘Tomorrow, let’s go riding,’ said Damen, thinking of the gift he had already waiting in the stables, a proud five-year-old with a curved neck and a waterfall of mane. He’d lead her out and give her to Laurent, and they’d ride out through fields of wildflowers, the air sweet with summer. When they reached a clearing, Damen would draw their horses together, lean over and kiss him.
Before Laurent could answer, there was an unmistakable knock on the door.
The sound made Damen groan, because he knew what Laurent was going to do. ‘What?’ called Laurent, pushing himself up on an elbow.
The Veretian soldier who entered was no one Damen knew, and showed a remarkable lack of reaction to Laurent with the marks of lovemaking still on him. ‘Your Highness, you asked to be notified when the King’s retinue reached the palace. I’m here to inform you that the King of Akielos has arrived.’
‘Thank you, I can be said to be faintly aware of that.’
Damen started laughing. He lifted his head and said, ‘Bring refreshments, something cool to drink. And if the King’s retinue really has arrived, tell his squires that the King’s armour is in the east garden.’
‘Yes, Exalted.’
The Veretian soldier used the Akielon word Exalted, a choice made weeks earlier. In small ways, the cultures were mixing.
‘We can go riding if I can move tomorrow.’ The words, lazily, long minutes later.
‘All right,’ said Damen, smiling as he thought about his squires rooting around in the east garden for his armour. And then of other things. His smile widened.
Laurent said, ‘What?’
‘You were watching the road,’ said Damen.
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