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“I was telling youI’m fine.”
“You’re fine,” Kadou echoed, a little delirious.
Evemer had never lied to him. Evemer would never lie to him. By comparison, Kadou’s own mind had lied to him on dozens of occasions—hundreds. Why should he listen to those dark, guilty whispers, instead of the one person in the room he could trust?
“I’m fine,” Evemer said, crowding him closer against the wall. Oh, the heat of him, the height and breadth of him. He was so strong, so warm, so solid andreal. Kadou tugged those fistfuls of Evemer’s kaftan, wanting him closer, closer, closer. Evemer’s mouth hovered a hairsbreadth from Kadou’s, as close as he could possibly be without kissing him again. Kadou’s pulse was thundering—he could feel the galloping beat of it through every part of his body.
“Could I get away from you if you tried to hold me?” Evemer said. Gods, he was so close, and not nearly close enough.
“Probably. Yes.” In an even match of pure physical strength, Evemer would win. He was taller, bigger, better trained.
“If you have power over me here and now, it’s because I want you to have it. I’ll give that to you, and anything you ask for. I’ll give it gladly,” Evemer rasped. He was trembling too, Kadou noticed dizzily—he slipped one hand up to cup the back of Evemer’s neck. “Command it of me and it’s yours.”
A few panting breaths between them—both of them unsteady, trembling, tense. Evemer’s arm around his waist was as tight and possessive as Kadou’s grip on his clothes and the back of his neck.
Kadou’s eyes fell closed as he released the last whispering fragments of guilt and hesitation. Easy to do, when every thought in him was eclipsed by pure desire and everything in him yearned toward Evemer like the ocean rising inexorably to the moons when they pulled it to the straining peak of the king-tide, the highest swell of the season.
Evemer . . . waited. Waited for his command.
“Kiss me,” Kadou whispered, his heart in his throat.
Evemer made thatsoundand obeyed immediately, kissing him deep and hot anddemanding. “Again. Ask me again,” Evemer murmured into his mouth.
“Kiss me,” Kadou said. He couldn’t think. “Kiss me. Kiss me.”
Evemer groaned outright and kissed him, and kissed him, his hand knotted in Kadou’s hair, his arm tight around his waist, his body pressed entirely against Kadou’s.
“I wanted you,” Kadou confessed in a rush like the breaking of a dam. “I’vebeenwanting you.”
Evemer made a pleased sound and scraped his teeth against Kadou’s lower lip.
Kadou gasped and held him tighter, shuddered as Evemer bit his lip again, as Evemer licked into his mouth. It wasn’t enough—he wasn’t close enough, he needed—“Closer,” he said. “Closer, gods, come here—”
Evemer, as effortless as breathing, shifted his hold and lifted Kadou from his hips, pinning him up against the wall without once breaking the starving, devouring kiss. Kadou wrapped both legs around Evemer’s waist, locking his ankles and pulling him impossibly closer.
If there had been any lingering doubt that Evemer wanted him, that first delicious grind together would have torn it to shreds—he was hot even through both their clothes, as hard as Kadou was and probably as aching, and Kadou arched into him, dropping his head back against the wall as he breathed, “Yes, there—like that. Like that.”
He was sofucking closeto throwing every piece of good sense into the sea and bidding good riddance to it. He was shaking with the adrenaline of the kiss, of escaping death, and—gods, he wanted. He wanted to burn out all the adrenaline and the terror and the scrambling, desperate possessiveness with a few scorching minutes up against a wall, just like this—just exactly like this, because against all the odds both of them were, blazingly, still alive.
He pulled Evemer’s mouth back to his, cradling his face in both hands, gasping again and again for air that seemed to be in alarmingly short supply as Evemer rocked against him, making that little noise of want almost constantly now, and Kadou would have killed for him again, would have given Evemer anything he wanted, would have happily ordered Evemer to ravish him right here against the wall in this cold, rancid wine cellar if it made Evemer groan aloud like that again, and—
Kadou’s eyes flew open. “Stop,” he gasped, jerking away from the kiss so sharply he almost cracked his head on the wall behind him.
Evemer froze in place. He was still making those soft wanting noises—oh, god, he’d meant it, hadn’t he? He’d do anything Kadou told him to, even right here, and he’dlikeit.
Kadou breathed through a new surge of lust, and forced his legs to unlock from around Evemer’s hips. “We have to stop.”
“What?”
“Put me down.”
Evemer obeyed, still breathing raggedly, letting Kadou slip down the few inches to land, shakily, on his toes. Evemer propped his arm on the wall by Kadou’s head, leaning into it hard. “Did I do something?” he panted. “It was too much?”
“No.” Kadou closed his eyes once more, not that open or closed mattered at all in the full dark. He laughed miserably. The only other alternative was bursting into tears. “No, not that at all,” he said. His voice cracked—his mouth was dry. He swallowed. “We’remarried.” Evemer was still for a moment, and then Kadoufelthim realize, with his whole body, what Kadou meant. Evemer collapsed against him, his head dropping to Kadou’s shoulder, his muscles going lax with defeat. Kadou put his arms around him again, loosely now—it seemed so natural already.
“We’re married,” Evemer said. He sounded desolate, and Kadou hated himself for it, hated this room, hated anything that made Evemer sound like that.
The lambent want still shimmered through his veins with every wild beat of his heart. If it had only been him, he would have said to hell with it all, and thrown himself back into Evemer’s arms, but it wasn’t. “Do you—do you understand?” he said. Evemer nodded weakly against his shoulder. “Spell it out. I need to be sure.”
