He stands in front of it.
His hand is on the latch. The metal is cold beneath his fingers. His heart is beating fast but his hands are steady, and the steadiness surprises him and does not surprise him at the same time, because he has been preparing for this moment for days.
He takes a deep breath.
He opens the door and steps inside.
The room is warm.
A fire in the fireplace, not roaring but steady, well-tended, casting the space in that same reddish-orange glow that Evran remembers from the ale room. The walls are draped in Windfar tapestries, the furniture dark and heavy. A table near the window, set with a pitcher of wine and two cups. A washbasin in the corner. A large bed against the far wall, the covers turned down.
Torsten is at the table.
He is seated with his back to the window, a cup of wine in his hand, his legs stretched out before him and crossed at the ankle. He is dressed simply, a loose shirt unlaced at the throat and dark trousers, and his blond hair is slightly damp, as though he has bathed recently, and in the firelight it looks darker, more gold than wheat.
His eyes find Evran in the doorway, and they darken. Not with surprise but with hunger, deep and predatory, waiting rewarded.
"You came," Torsten says.
Evran closes the door behind him. The click of the latch is very loud in the quiet room. He steps forward, one step, then two, and makes himself hesitate. Makes his movement tentative, uncertain, wanting to be here but not sure he should be.
"I almost didn't," Evran says, and his voice is soft, nervous. "I waited until he was asleep. I almost lost my nerve three times."
Torsten sets his wine down and stands. He crosses the room with measured confidence, knowing exactly how this night isgoing to go, having planned it the way he plans everything, with precision and presumption and a complete lack of concern for anyone's desires but his own.
He reaches Evran and puts his hands on his jaw and kisses him before Evran can say anything else.
The mouth is wrong. Everything about it is wrong, the pressure, the taste, the angle, the person behind it, and Evran's body knows it and rejects it and he has to override every instinct he has to stay where he is and not recoil. But the revulsion is manageable tonight, contained by the cold clarity of purpose that has replaced the panic he felt at the stable wall. He is not the same man who froze with his back against the wood and his lips sealed shut. He is the man who decided to be the trap, and the trap does not flinch.
He kisses Torsten back.
It is not good, his lips moving mechanically, his jaw tight, his hands at his sides, but Torsten does not seem to require much enthusiasm to be encouraged. The kiss deepens, Torsten's tongue pressing past Evran's lips, and the taste of wine fills Evran's mouth and he swallows around the nausea and keeps his mind on the only thing that matters.
The bedside table. The drawer. The vial.
He holds it in his mind. He knows where he is going. He knows what he needs.
Torsten pulls him further into the room, his hands moving from Evran's jaw to his waist, gripping, pulling their bodies together. Evran's skin crawls, his stomach turns, the taste is wrong and the smell is wrong and the hands are wrong, too narrow and too grasping, and the wrongness of it registers in his body with the same rejection it always does. But tonight he holds it at a distance, observes it rather than drowning in it, because tonight he is not enduring this for its own sake. He is enduringit for seven more minutes, and then it will be over, and the man whose hands are on his body will be in chains before morning.
The thought is steadying. He holds it close.
Torsten guides him toward the bed, his hands on Evran's waist, his hips, the small of his back, and each touch is a violation, small, incremental, building. Evran lets himself be moved. He lets Torsten lead him across the room and lets the bed come closer and reminds himself of the dagger on his thigh and the plan in his head and Bran's knock that will come in seven minutes, maybe six.
The backs of his legs hit the mattress. Torsten pushes, not hard but insistent, and Evran goes down. He lands on the furs and quilts and Torsten follows him, crowding over him, and the weight of another body pressing him into the bed sends a spike of revulsion through him so sharp it nearly breaks the surface. But he clamps down on it, shoves it into a box in the back of his mind and locks it there, and focuses on the plan, the drawer, the minutes remaining.
Torsten is kissing his neck, his mouth hot and wet against the skin below Evran's ear, and his hand is sliding beneath the hem of Evran's shirt, fingers pressing against his stomach. Evran's muscles contract involuntarily, flinching away from the touch, and he disguises it as a gasp, as though the sensation is pleasure rather than disgust.
He lets it go on. He lets Torsten's mouth move down his throat. He lets the hand on his stomach creep upward. He lets himself be pressed into the furs, and he counts seconds, and he counts breaths, and when enough time has passed and the knock will come soon, he puts his hands against Torsten's chest and says:
"Wait."
Torsten lifts his head. His face is flushed, his lips wet, his eyes glazed with want. "What?"
"I forgot to bring oil."
The words come out breathless, embarrassed, perfectly pitched between I'm sorry and I wanted to be prepared. They imply intent, imply that Evran came here expecting, wanting, to go further, and the only thing stopping him is a logistical oversight.
Torsten's expression transforms. The frustration that flickered across his face is replaced by something else, a raw, undisguised need that borders on disbelief, as though he did not dare hope to lay claim to all of Evran so soon, as though the mere suggestion that Evran wants to be taken is more than he expected to get tonight.
