AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Yes.’
‘I want do it slowly, the way you like,’ said Damen, and Laurent closed his eyes.
‘Yes.’
The number
of times that they had made love were still finite enough that Damen could remember each one of them: at Ravenel, the unspoken full of painful secrets; in Karthas, losing themselves in each other; aching sweetness by firelight at a roadside inn at Mellos; the desperation of their first lovemaking after Damen’s recovery.
None of them had been like this, half sprawled on the bed looking up at Laurent. Laurent’s hands smoothed over his chest, up to his neck, then down over the planes of his torso, his abdomen. In the streaked sunlight, they were kissing. He loved the way that Laurent kissed, as if Damen was the only person that he had ever kissed, or would ever want to.
The openness from the baths lingered. Laurent, whose tangle of overthinking usually only disappeared at the moment of climax, had his defences down in the quiet. Damen could hear his soft exhalations of breath; once or twice, a sound passed his lips that he didn’t seem to be aware of. Time unslid the knot of any last ribbon of tension, letting it slip, letting him go further and further into his own pleasure.
Their bodies tangled together, touches blending and blurring. Damen gave himself over to the feeling of Laurent in his arms. It was an age before he put his hand between Laurent’s legs, and felt his legs part.
When he finally slid inside, it felt like time had stopped in the small, intimate space between them, after a sweet forever of deep kisses, of opening Laurent up with oiled fingers. He didn’t move but stayed where he was, in breathless silence. Everything felt connected, open. Their movements were more like nudges than thrusts, their bodies pushing together without the long, sliding separation of withdrawal.
He could feel Laurent drawing closer and closer to his climax, not, as it was sometimes, like he was pushing past the gnarl of his own barriers, but hotly, inevitably. The thrust were longer now, Damen’s body moving to seek out its own gratification.
He heard a choked off sound as Laurent dissolved under him, and Damen was lost to the feel of it, the hot, liquid pleasure of fucking, the closeness, near as a heartbeat. His own body pulsed and flared, an interval of flooding pleasure, and it almost didn’t seem to end but to transform into the sweet, heavy feel of his limbs entangled with Laurent’s, pleasure still between them, the throbs of it ebbing.
For once, Laurent didn’t immediately leap up to clean himself off, but stayed, their bodies collapsed onto one another, the sounds of summer and the ocean coming in from outside.
He reached out and moved a curl of hair from Laurent’s face.
‘Tomorrow, let’s go riding,’ said Damen, thinking of the gift he had already waiting in the stables, a proud five-year-old with a curved neck and a waterfall of mane. He’d lead her out and give her to Laurent, and they’d ride out through fields of wildflowers, the air sweet with summer. When they reached a clearing, Damen would draw their horses together, lean over and kiss him.
Before Laurent could answer, there was an unmistakable knock on the door.
The sound made Damen groan, because he knew what Laurent was going to do. ‘What?’ called Laurent, pushing himself up on an elbow.
The Veretian soldier who entered was no one Damen knew, and showed a remarkable lack of reaction to Laurent with the marks of lovemaking still on him. ‘Your Highness, you asked to be notified when the King’s retinue reached the palace. I’m here to inform you that the King of Akielos has arrived.’
‘Thank you, I can be said to be faintly aware of that.’
Damen started laughing. He lifted his head and said, ‘Bring refreshments, something cool to drink. And if the King’s retinue really has arrived, tell his squires that the King’s armour is in the east garden.’
‘Yes, Exalted.’
The Veretian soldier used the Akielon word Exalted, a choice made weeks earlier. In small ways, the cultures were mixing.
‘We can go riding if I can move tomorrow.’ The words, lazily, long minutes later.
‘All right,’ said Damen, smiling as he thought about his squires rooting around in the east garden for his armour. And then of other things. His smile widened.
Laurent said, ‘What?’
‘You were watching the road,’ said Damen.
