"Vaike—"
The hand on his belly slides lower. Not far. Just enough that Evran's breath catches on the promise of it, just enough that his hips tilt back of their own accord, seeking, and he feels Vaike smile against his neck.
"Go," Vaike says, and his voice has gone deeper, darker, the voice he uses when he is pretending to be reasonable. "Go play in the dirt, little gardener. I will not stop you."
He does not move his hand. He does not move his hips. He does not stop grazing his mouth along the side of Evran's throat.
Evran lets out a laugh that is more breath than sound. "You are the worst man I have ever met."
"You have met worse."
It is meant lightly and that's the way it lands, but something in Evran goes soft and aching at the casual truth of it, at the way Vaike can say a thing like that and have it meanI know where you came from and I know what you survived and I will never be that to you.
Evran turns in his arms.
It takes a concerted effort. Vaike has to let him turn, and Vaike is in no hurry to let him do anything this morning. But after a long, grudging moment the arm around him loosens just enough, and Evran rolls onto his other side and comes face to face with the Warlord of the Drakkari in the grey-gold light of a spring dawn.
Vaike's hair is loose on the pillow, light and tangled, and his beard is shorter than it was in the winter. His face is relaxed and pleased, like he can imagine no better place to be than in bed with him, and it makes Evran reach for his cheek before he can stop himself.
Vaike catches his wrist. He turns his palm and presses a kiss to the inside of it, slow and closemouthed, and then sets Evran's hand flat against his own chest where his heartbeat is calm and unhurried beneath the warm skin.
"Good morning, my heart," he says.
"Good morning," Evran says with a smile too big for his face.
"You are late."
"I am aware."
"Whose fault is that?"
"Yours, entirely."
"Mm." Vaike's mouth twitches. "I accept the responsibility."
One kiss, he thinks.A brief, courteous goodbye kiss that is simple and sweet and can be left behind to keep his lover warm while he tends to his responsibilities. Vaike has responsibilities too, but who is going to tut disapprovingly at the warlord? Not Eira. She'll be too busy tutting at Evran.
He kisses him with the intention of it ending, with the idea that he will roll over and get up and get dressed like a sensible person. Vaike's mouth opens under his at once, unhurried, familiar, and the hand Vaike had at Evran's waist slides down and around to the small of his back, warm and pulling him in so that their bodies meet all along their length. Vaike is still hard between them. Evran is hardening, embarrassingly quickly, from nothing more than this, the kiss, the weight of his hand on his bare skin, the smell of him.
Sensible person,Evran thinks, with some distant despair.
"I have to go," he says against Vaike's mouth.
"Do you?"
"You are not helping."
"I am not trying to help, my heart."
Evran huffs a laugh, and Vaike swallows it, and the next kiss is deeper, wetter, a thorough claim that Evran feels all the way to the base of his spine. Vaike's hand slides down from his back tothe curve of his ass, cups him there, and tugs him in so that their cocks drag together once, deliberate.
Evran moans into his mouth.
"Five minutes," Vaike murmurs, and his voice has gone rough now, not pretending at anything. "Five minutes, Evran. Let me have you for five minutes."
"You are a filthy liar. It's never five minutes."
"I am the Warlord. My minutes are what I say they are."
