Page 87 of Tending the Ache

"Am I your only lover?"

Indrie's gaze drops. His ears go pink, the concentrated pink that starts at the tips and spreads, and he says, quiet, almost inaudible, "You know that you are."

"I know you've been on the receiving end of some attention from my men." The edge enters his voice before he can file it down. A possessive sharpness he cannot fully suppress. "I wouldn't want to presume."

Indrie fixes him with a look. The heat is still in his face, bright across his cheeks and vivid at his ears, but the eyes above it are not shy. They are sharp and irritated and luminous with something it takes Eskil a beat too long to identify as offended, and the combination of the blush and the sharpness and the stubborn set of his jaw is so stunning it makes Eskil's cock twitch in his pants.

"You presumed just fine," Indrie says, and his voice is low and steady and his face is blazing, "when you had me walk home with your release leaking down my legs."

The words penetrate the center of Eskil's skull.

For perhaps two seconds his mind is a perfect crystalline blank, wiped clean, emptied of every thought and duty and calculated restraint, and what floods into the vacuum is heat. Pure, annihilating, bone-deep heat, and with it the vivid high-resolution memory of Indrie in the library, in his arms, walking out the door with his clothes hastily relaced and Eskil's come still inside him.

Every scrap of his fraying restraint goes at once.

He leans down and takes Indrie's mouth.

Chapter 26

Indrie

Eskil pulls him forward and Indrie goes.

There is no hesitation. No pause, no internal debate, no careful weighing of consequences. Eskil's mouth is on his and Eskil's hand is in his hair and Indrie's body makes the decision before his mind can intervene. He leans into the kiss and opens for it and kisses him back with a desperation that should embarrass him and does not, because Eskil is kissing him as though two days apart has been two years and the relief of contact is so acute it borders on pain.

Eskil's hand slides from his hair to the back of his neck, gripping, holding him in place, and his other hand finds Indrie's hip and pulls. The tug is unmistakable in its intent and Indrie follows it, climbing into Eskil's lap on the couch, his knees finding the cushions on either side of Eskil's thighs, settling his weight with a care that is entirely for the wound and not at all for his own composure, which is already in ruins.

The position puts him above Eskil. Looking down. Eskil's face is tilted up to his, mouth red and eyes dark, and the expression on it, the raw open unguarded want, makes Indrie's stomach drop and his blood sing and his hands shake where they have landed on Eskil's bare shoulders.

"You're going to be the death of me," Eskil says. His voice is rough and his grin is devastating and his hands have settled on Indrie's hips with a proprietary grip that sends heat cascading down Indrie's spine.

"You are supposed to be resting," Indrie manages, and his voice comes out breathless and thin and entirely unconvincing.

"I'm sitting down. You're doing all the work."

Indrie opens his mouth to argue and Eskil leans up and catches his lower lip between his teeth and tugs, gently, and the argument dies before it forms.

Eskil releases the lip and kisses the corner of his mouth. Then his jaw. Then the soft space beneath his ear, where Indrie's pulse is hammering hard enough that it must be visible, and Eskil's mouth settles there and he sucks, lightly, just enough pressure to make the skin flush and heat, and Indrie's hands curl on his shoulders and his hips roll forward without his permission.

The friction, even through clothing, even with the layers of wool and linen between them, drags a gasp out of both of them. Indrie feels Eskil's hands tighten on his hips and feels the hardness beneath him pressing up through the fabric, and the scale of it brings the library rushing back with enough force to make his head swim.

"Two days," Eskil murmurs against his throat. His voice is low and rough and his breath is hot on Indrie's skin. "Two days of not seeing you and I have been losing my gods damned mind."

"You have been sharpening swords in bed."

"I needed something to do with my hands." Eskil's palms slide from Indrie's hips down to his thighs, gripping the muscle through the wool, and his thumbs press into the crease where hip meets leg, and Indrie's whole body jolts. "I can think of better uses."

Indrie kisses him to shut him up. It is the only strategy available, because his verbal faculties have abandoned him entirely, and kissing Eskil is– There is no adequate comparison. His mouth is warm and sure and he kisses the way he does everything else, with a competence that leaves no room for uncertainty. His tongue slides against Indrie's and Indrie whimpers into it and Eskil's grip on his thighs tightens and he pulls Indrie's hips forward, grinding him down, and the pressure is so perfect and so sudden that Indrie's spine arches and his head tips back and the sound that comes out of him rings off the ceiling.

Eskil chases him. His mouth finds the exposed column of Indrie's throat and he drags his lips down the tendon, open-mouthed, the scrape of his beard leaving a trail of heat that makes Indrie's toes curl. He reaches the hollow at the base of Indrie's throat where the collarbones meet and presses his tongue flat into the dip, and Indrie's fingers thread into his hair and grip.

"You smell like chamomile," Eskil says against his skin.

"I was– I was sorting herbs."

"Mm." Eskil's mouth traces the line of his collarbone, pushing the collar of his shirt aside with his nose. "You always smell like something out of your clinic. Chamomile. Honey. That sharp thing. The pine."

"The antiseptic wash is pine resin. It gets on my hands."