“Are you ready for this?”
He reaches down, squeezing the base of his cock—still shining with our combined cum—in one hand.
“If I think about it too much, we’ll be back where we started,” he admits, cheeks pink with embarrassment. “But, yeah. I want to wear it.”
Briefly, I debate cleaning him up first, but something deep in my gut simmers with the idea of him wearing my gold and the remnants of my desire at the same time.
Slipping the ring around his heavy sack, I carefully tug his cock into the loop as well, checking his expression to make sure it’s not too tight. The glint of metal is beautiful against his skin, and I smile softly.
“Pliesimoni,” I say clearly enough that he can hear the incantation.
Golden filigree swirls out from the band, leaving his balls free but wrapping his cock in an intricate but solid cage.
Jasper’s throat bobs, and the possessiveness singing through my veins dies a quick death.
“Lobiretimi,” I blurt the counter-spell, and the cage withdraws, leaving only the smooth gold ring.
I search his face for panic but find only confusion. Oh. I thought… Coughing lightly, I hastily cover my gaffe.
“That’s how you take it off, which you will if it hurts or you want to get clean or you have doubts.” There are more than enough spells for cleanliness that removing it for hygiene isn’t strictly necessary, but I give him the out, anyway. “In fact, if it isn’t comfortable?—”
He cuts off my words with a kiss, then retreats so he’s resting on his elbows. “No. I like it. Lock me up.”
Taking him at his word, I nod slowly. “Pliesimoni,”
“You’re not sure about this, are you?” He runs one finger along the curling geometric lines of his new cage.
“You’ve spent a lot of time at the mercy of other people,” I hedge. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m stealing your autonomy.”
“I get it,” he says. “But they took my magic and my choices from me. This is me giving you something completely different. Besides, it’s hardly the only piece of my anatomy that you own.”
His hand takes mine, flattening it over his heart to make his meaning clear, and I gape athim.
“You…”
“Love you? Yeah. Have for a while. I figured it out when I was up to my elbows in your blood and facing a world without you.”
I shake my head, wanting to protest that it’s too soon, that he can’t mean it. The words won’t come.
“You dinnae have to say it back. Ah ken it’s fast.” He looks away, and my heart falls.
“It’s not that,” I reply, then bite my lip, trying to choose the next words carefully.
“You’re worried about the Library,” he intuits. “About being impartial.”
“Among other things.”
Love is a terribly long-term concept. I wasn’t planning on breaking up with him, but the contract implies an end date. Even if it didn’t…there are so many ways that this isn’t fair on him.
I’m tied to this building. I can never leave.
I can’t age.
I can’t die.
Even if he loves me, and I love him back, I can’t choose him over the rest of them. I’m not sure I want to. He’s not asked me to…yet. But won’t jealousy be a problem? Isn’t it somewhat inequitable if I harbour feelings for half of the heirs, but not the rest? And if one of them terminates the contract, they’re all terminated. Those were the conditions. All of them or none of them.
How can Jasper be content with knowing that we could break up, and neither one of us would be responsible?
