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Evemer obeyed without an instant of hesitation.
His mouth was clumsy against Kadou’s, his lips heart-wrenchingly soft. When he cupped Kadou’s face a split second later, his hands were so gentle and warm that Kadou momentarily forgot where he was. Kadou tilted his head a little to correct the angle and, led by pure force of habit because his mind had gone utterly silent and still, he opened his mouth, kissed back, made it deep and real.
At the barest touch of Kadou’s tongue against his bottom lip, Evemer made thissound.
Oh, that sound. It was quiet and short, not even a tenth of a groan, yet it wasso fucking genuinethat Kadou’s entire body thrilled with sensation, like lightning crackling down his spine as that sound imprinted itself on his bones and arrested the whole of his attention.
His eyes were closed, but he saw the light shift through his lids, the lantern raised. Kadou slipped his hands up around Evemer’s shoulders, sank his fingers into Evemer’s soft hair—gods, just as he had at the bathhouse—
Evemer made that goddamnsoundagain, that soft sigh into Kadou’s mouth that was unmaking his entire world and putting it back together all sideways.
“Do youmind?” Kadou turned his face aside just enough to snarl. Evemer’s mouth, open and hot, fell against the corner of his jaw.
“Oh.” The light swung away. “Sorry to interrupt. Have a good night.”
Evemer drew back just enough to part from Kadou’s skin, and they both paused, listening intently and breathing each other’s air, until the footsteps faded away down the alley. Evemer stepped back, putting as much space as possible between the two of them in the archway.
“I’m so sorry,” Kadou said quickly, stamping down the thunder that roared along his every nerve, that urged him to move forward and put his arms around Evemer’s shoulders again. Hefeltevery excruciating hairsbreadth of the space between them as if each was as vast as a chasm. “It was all I could think of—but even so, I shouldn’t have ordered—if there’s anything I can—no, shit, what am I saying, I can’t just—”
“It’s all right,” said Evemer. “Quite all right. It was all you could think of.”
“Yes.”
“They would have found us.”
“Right.”
“And it was good. Smart, I mean,” Evemer added quickly. “Smart of you to think of it.”
“I panicked. I thought—the thieves the other night, you know—”
“It was per—it solved the problem perfectly.”
“I’m really very sorry,” Kadou said. He swallowed, tried not to notice whether he could still taste Evemer on his lips. “I swear I won’t ever do that again.”
Evemer made some frustrated noise, which sparked echoes of thatothernoise ringing and bouncing around in Kadou’s brain like a purse of coins dumped onto stone. “Don’t swear that.”
“What?”
“If we are in a similar situation and that is a similarly perfect solution, you’ll want to have it available. As an option.”
“I . . . suppose,” Kadou said slowly. His nerves were still singing, his hands could still feel the warmth and . . . and, gods, the deliciousbreadthof Evemer’s shoulders under his palms. He couldn’t think. “Are you sure?”
“I’m not offended. Even if I were, I’d prefer to endure a small offense if it is the price to keep you out of a greater danger. But I am not offended.”
“All right. All right, if you say so.” That was good. That was very good. He wouldn’t want Evemer to be offended. Kadou tried to shake the fog out of his mind. “I’m glad you’re not—I mean, I’m relieved that you—I just don’t want to overstep. I’ll try to come up with something else and—and next time I’ll be prepared, so I won’t have to make you . . . endure that.”
Evemer was quiet for a long moment. Kadou wished he could see his face. “My lord,” he said, eventually, and that seemed to be that.
Evemer swiftly made the executive decision that he wasn’t going to think about it.
The lesson here seemed to be that he ought to do everything in his power to keep himself and His Highness out of any more alleys. No good came of lurking about in them.
He wasn’t going to think about it any further.
He wasn’t going to think about the way he’d felt like his knees had been swept out from under him when His Highness said those three words (Kiss me, now. Kiss me, now. Kiss me, now), and he wasn’t going to think of His Highness’s mouth, or His Highness’s mouth, or His Highness’s mouth, or His Highness putting his hands in Evemer’s hair like he was going to pull him around and show him how to do it better, how hewantedit—
No. No, he was really not thinking about any of this anymore. Nor was he thinking about how he wasn’t going to think about it.
