Page 49 of Sword Dance

He had to prop himself on one elbow, which left him with only one free hand. He slid it under one cheek of Varazda’s ass and felt it tense.

“Still a yes?”

“I think so.”

He licked from the base to the tip of Varazda’s cock, circled with his tongue, and took the whole thing easily into his mouth.

He’d never gone down on anyone who wasn’t a lover of long standing, whose preferences and peculiarities he had known beforehand. For him it was too much of an abandonment of dignity for a casual encounter, and the enjoyment of it was all in appreciating the pleasure you were giving the other fellow, which hardly mattered if you didn’t care about him. He knew he was going to enjoy this with Varazda, even before he felt the muscles jump in Varazda’s thighs and heard the soft, sobbing gasp that was the first sound Varazda made.

Varazda made a lot of sounds, more than Damiskos had expected, little half-swallowed exclamations in Zashian, in the dialect of the Deshan Coast, nothing Damiskos could understand. His prick was velvety soft and tasted good. Damiskos sucked him gently, slow but not teasing. Varazda’s body moved under him, pressing up into his mouth, matching his rhythm, graceful as always.

Damiskos was painfully hard, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t remember ever having enjoyed giving head this much. He felt Varazda’s fingers in his hair, tugging slightly. It felt possessive; he liked it.

Varazda was saying something in Zashian, and Damiskos realized it was intended for him. The Deshan accent was too thick for him to understand. He would tease Varazda about that afterward.

Then he realized what Varazda was probably trying to tell him, and so he wasn’t completely surprised a moment later when Varazda came in his mouth.

When he pushed up onto his hands, he saw that Varazda had actually covered his mouth to mute his final, abandoned shout. It had still been more than audible.

Damiskos licked his lips. “Didn’t know the Pseuchaian for ‘I’m about to come,’ did you?”

Varazda shook his head. He drew his hand away from his lips. His cheeks were flushed, and he looked slightly dazed, almost drunk. It made him astonishingly beautiful.

“Your Deshan accent is really cute, too, but I can’t understand a word you say.”

Varazda responded with something that probably meant, “May a dog shit in your ancestors’ holy place,” because that was the sort of thing Deshan warlords said to one another.

Teasing had been the right move, Damiskos thought. They were only friends, after all—had only known each other for a few days. Varazda probably did not want this to get out of hand. He might have revealed more of himself than he meant to, and Damiskos didn’t want him to regret it.

Varazda had collected himself sufficiently to sit up. He pulled down his shirt and tucked his legs under him. Damiskos sat back on the bed, and Varazda’s hands slipped in under his tunic and touched him through the thin fabric of his loincloth.

Damiskos made a noise much less beautiful than any of Varazda’s. Varazda pulled the loincloth down and away, and both of his long-fingered hands explored Damiskos’s achingly hard cock, cupped his balls, moved between his thighs.

Still a yes, unmistakably. He wasn’t performing; this wasn’t anything out of The Three Gardens. He handled Damiskos’s cock like it was something he wanted. Damiskos leaned back on his hands, letting his head fall back with a moan.

Varazda pulled aside the skirt of Damiskos’s tunic and started to move down, in a graceful slither. Damiskos pushed himself up to catch Varazda’s shoulders and stopped him.

“Just use your hands, darling. I want you to kiss me again.”

What had he just said?

Varazda looked up, frozen for a moment, a wonderful little smile curving his lips. He came back up in another slither, hooked one arm around Damiskos’s neck, and brought their mouths together in a hot, deep kiss while his other hand deftly worked Damiskos’s cock. He teased with long, light strokes, his fingers supple as the petals of flowers, his grip tightening as he sped up, until finally it was fast and firm, and Damiskos clutched him and came in wave after wave of sensation poised on a knife-edge between pleasure and pain.

He sagged back, breathless, and found himself gathered in and hugged against Varazda’s chest, his forehead on Varazda’s shoulder. They remained like that, Damiskos breathing in the scent of Varazda’s hair, until an interior voice suggested he should pull himself together before Varazda started thinking him clingy. He felt pretty clingy just then.

He straightened up, wincing when he saw what a mess he had made of Varazda’s shirt. Varazda had been looking at him with a kind of soft, thoughtful expression, but his smile brightened.

“I should clean up, shouldn’t I?” He disengaged from Damiskos and got up from the bed in a beautiful unfolding of white limbs. “Such a messy business.”

In more ways than one, Damiskos thought. He was glad Varazda was taking this brisk, friendly line now, because of course it was the right line to take, and he would do his best to keep in step.

He could think of literally nothing to say.

Varazda was pouring water into a basin and tidying himself up. He retrieved a pair of pyjama pants from the chair beside the bed, stepped into them, tied them, and only then pulled off his shirt, which he dumped in a heap on the same chair.

“You’re a slob,” Damiskos observed, looking at the shirt instead of at Varazda’s bare chest and lovely, muscular arms.

Varazda gave an exaggerated sigh, picked up the shirt, and draped it over the back of the chair.