Vana
Vana doesn’t know which of them comes first, but the sensation is distinctly doubled. A thunderclap followed by an earthquake. Vana’s hands fly from the headboard and seize Daromir’s shoulders. Vision blurring at the edges, each breath is the sweetest dagger.
Daromir kisses him slowly, and Vana can barely kiss back. Everything is real—viscerally, incredibly real, from the faint pain in Vana’s palms from clutching the bars too tight, to the slick skin of Daromir’s ass beneath his heels.
Kisses rain on Vana’s lips, his jaw, each touch hauntingly strange yet familiar. Then Daromir sits back, and Vana reluctantly lets go enough to allow Daromir to flop down on the bed next to him. Instinctively, Vana rolls half on top of Daromir to kiss him again. Sweet, barely-there. Vana tries holding his hair back, but a strand falls between them.
“Fucking this,” Vana mutters, spitting the hair out of his mouth. Maybe he should cut it all off.
Daromir pulls him down. “Don’t you dare.”
“What?” Vana asks, cuddling against Daromir’s side, his cheek pillowed on Daromir’s heaving chest.
“I know what you’re thinking. I like your hair.”
The grin spreading across Vana’s face is ridiculous. He can’t help it. Daromir strokes through his hair as they regain their breath, and every soft movement grounds Vana into himself. Brings him back from the brink of orgasmic insanity.
That’s a problem. Vana doesn’t want to think clearly now. He doesn’t want Daromir thinking clearly either—not now. Not yet. “Don’t,” Vana says when Daromir tenses, though his hand doesn’t stop moving in Vana’s hair. “Don’t say anything. I don’t want to wake up yet.”
Daromir rubs his neck, just under the hairline, sending gentle tingles through him. “This isn’t a dream, love.”
“Daro…”
“I learned my lesson about not telling you shit, all right?” Daromir tugs his hair teasingly, then returns to the gentle massage. His touch is reassuring. Exactly what Vana needs. “Why did we never do this before?”
Vana traces a circle on Daromir’s stomach. “I never thought you wanted to.”
Daromir says nothing for a while. Maybe that’s it, and Vana can just enjoy the moment of peace. Enough that little physical discomforts come back—the come drying on his stomach. The blankets twisted in a lump beneath his side. His skin too tight, too aware of Daromir beside him. The room is only half-lit, but it’s still too bright.
“I’m sorry,” Daromir says eventually.
“For what? The best orgasm of my life?”
Daromir sighs. “This has been hanging between us, hasn’t it? You’ve wanted this for a while, and I didn’t realize.”
“Nothing to apologize for. I didn’t want you to realize.”
“Why is that?” Daromir pulls him closer. “I like this. You here, with me. Nothing left between us. This is right.”
Vana agrees—fuck, does he agree, with every fiber of his being. But he can’t believe anything in his life would be so simple. “I was afraid.”
Thankfully, he’s talking to Daromir, who understands the rest without Vana having to say it. “I would be afraid too.” Daromir pulls him closer again. “What we have is important. You’re everything for me, Vana. I’d be scared of that changing, except… breathe, damn it.”
Vana hadn’t noticed himself holding his breath.
Daromirkisses the top of his head, which thoroughly ruins Vana’s composure. Almost as much as the rest of what Daromir says. “Except nothing’s changed for me. I think maybe most bloodguards don’t feel like this about their wards. And maybe I’m a little dense.”
“That makes two of us.”
“You’re supposed to disagree when I call myself dense,” Daromir complains. He rolls over, pushing Vana onto his back. Vana moves willingly, heart quickening as Daromir blocks out the light. “You’re my life, Vana, but recently I’ve been feeling like something was missing. Something I couldn’t fix. I know you’re always worried I’ll get sick of you, but it’s the opposite. I neededmoreof you. I needed this.”
He leans down and kisses Vana lightly.
Then deeply.
When Daromir pulls away, Vana is beautifully hollow, all his worries carved away and filled with light. He needs Daromir too—and he’s glad to need him. This bond isn’t a burden, it’s his wings. But Vana can’t put all that into words right now, so all he says is, “Can I sleep here tonight?”
“Always,” Daromir says, because he understands.
