Page 55

W here the first kiss had felt like a drizzle after a long drought, this one was a downpour.

The moment their lips met, Emery opened his mouth, and like the spell jar dredged from the depths of his heart, a noise was dredged from depths of his throat, greedy and wanton.

Ambrose’s senses overloaded. He was drenched in the smell of Emery—spiced cider and wood smoke. He soaked in Emery’s arms around him, hands exploring him.

“Wait, wait.” Emery pushed him back with two hands fisted in his shirt. “If we do this, I just—I need to know. Your loyalty to the witch king. You … Are you still—?”

Ambrose thought the phrase that came immediately to mind was most ironic, since the witch king was now—after several centuries—truly alive. But Ambrose said it anyway. “He’s dead to me.”

Emery’s smile, and the kiss that came after, tasted of relief.

All hesitation burned up in the rising heat of it.

One of his hands wound powerfully around Ambrose’s neck, the other roaming in an unfettered exploration of his body, raking down his ribs, then—finding the hem of his shirt—underneath clothes, mapping a scorching path up the curve of his spine and along the landmarks of each scar.

Emery touched the tributaries of burns on his shoulder, the slim crescent where a dagger had slid between his ribs, then the lightning bolts under the line of his chest.

Ambrose shivered so violently it broke the kiss.

Emery smiled against his mouth. “Sensitive?”

“Mm.” Nobody had touched him like this. Like his body was a story and they were dying to know what happened next.

If he hadn’t been so fixated on kissing, he might have told Emery about those particular scars. How they were the only ones he’d chosen. The only ones with a happy ending.

They could do that in the morning.

He’d snatched stolen looks at Emery’s body before, but now he had permission to touch and explore.

Still braced against the mattress, it was unfair he only had one hand to thumb over a perked nipple before stroking down his ribs.

Years of Morcant’s abuse had left him thinner than he’d been in Hellebore’s memory, the bumps of each rib countable by touch.

Emery didn’t stop kissing, but self-consciousness bowed his body inward. Ambrose paused.

“Sorry. Sometimes Morcant’s curses left me unable to eat much for days,” Emery said.

Ambrose wasn’t ignorant to his own insecurities, which would doubtless surface if he acted on his desire to be as close to Emery as two people could be. He was no Prince Charming, but he recalled the lessons from the books he’d read thus far.

“I find you criminally attractive,” he said. And winked.

Or tried to.

It was not particularly seductive.

Emery’s face turned an incandescent shade, then he burst out laughing.

Not the response Ambrose had been aiming for, but at least he’d put Emery at ease. “I’ve still not mastered winking.”

“I don’t care. I want you so fucking bad right now.”

Ambrose couldn’t contain his grin.

Morcant was still out there. The witch king, too. They really ought focus on the danger, but within Emery’s wards, in his arms, Ambrose thought, I could die tomorrow, and my sole regret would be never having spent this night laughing and touching and loving him.

So he did.

Emery arched, encouraging him to touch farther south of his belt.

Ambrose still braced against the mattress.

Now, he couldn’t resist pressing Emery back until he had to choose between falling into the bed or holding on.

He chose the latter, an arm flung around Ambrose’s neck, the other hand seizing a handful of Ambrose’s arse.

Ambrose’s eyes widened.

“Sorry. Shit, am I moving too fast?” Emery said. Ambrose had spent so long desperate for this sort of affection, he was not keen to wait a second later. He didn’t want to be treated delicately. He took Emery’s hand and put it back where it had been.

Emery looked relieved and said, “Okay?”

Ambrose pinned him flush against the mattress to demonstrate just how “okay” this was.

He hooked Emery’s legs apart with a strategically placed knee and groaned when Emery responded by trying to grind against his thigh.

For a moment, Ambrose let him, before grasping Emery’s hips and holding him still.

“Ambrose. Are you teasing me?”

“You seem to like it.”

Emery let out a long, tortured groan. “I do . Should have known you’d be that kind of top.”

“Top?”

“Another of our gay little words. Means, like, the one who, uh, gives while the bottom receives.” At Ambrose’s disconcerted look, he added. “Unless you prefer to—?”

Ambrose wasn’t, well—He didn’t have certain equipment to hand. He’d never gotten to take full advantage of his current anatomy, either.

He kissed the spot on Emery’s neck beneath his ear. “How else can it be?”

Emery’s breath hitched. “Well, there are, like, tops and bottoms, or you could be vers, or a side—Fuck, keep doing that.” Ambrose had lowered his mouth to one of Emery’s nipples after noticing how sensitive he’d been to the ministrations of his hands.

“Fuck. Okay—uh. There’s doms and subs, too.

You can be a dominant bottom, like a power bottom, so you take it, but you’re in charge.

Or a service top. You’re the giver, but you’re really, uh, handing all the control to—to—” Ambrose had tongued a line down to Emery’s navel, marveling at how violently he shivered. “God, what was I saying?”

“Control?” His tongue ventured lower.

“ Fuck , Ambrose. Fuck it. I’ll teach you the queer sex lexicon—sexicon? Later. I’ll teach you later. They’re just words, and they don’t matter, because right now I’d let you do whatever you wanted to me.”

A tug of satisfaction nearly made Ambrose smirk. “So, you’re a bottom.”

Emery’s mouth fell open. “I’m a switch,” he said weakly.

“You never covered that one.”

Emery made a frustrated noise. “It means I don’t care who’s in charge or where my dick goes, but right now I’d like you to touch it.”

Ambrose didn’t need telling twice. His mind had explored many possibilities, some he wasn’t sure how to discuss, but he could start with the obvious.

He tried not to look too eager as he tugged Emery’s trousers down, freeing his cock. It had a slightly upward curve, a perfect circle of pink peeking out from the ring of his foreskin.

Ambrose’s mouth filled with too much spit. He ran a curious hand along the length, marveling at the different textures of skin over the head and shaft. He had no clue what he was doing, but lust crushed any anxiety over his inexperience.

Emery had propped himself up on his elbows, but at the first stroke, his eyes fluttered shut on a muttered curse. “Spit. Spit on your hand.”

Ambrose did, wetting his palm, firming his grip, and at the second stroke Emery fell back against the pillows.

After a few shivering groans, he said, “No, okay, stop, or this will be over too soon.”

“Am I doing it wrong?”

“No. There are other things I’d like to try.”

“Tell me.”

“Well”—a soft gasp as Ambrose thumbed the sensitive spot below the head—“I want to please you, too.”

Ambrose’s nerves fluttered. He’d reached a point of uncertainty. He didn’t know what he liked, let alone how Emery’s preferences coordinated with his own, and he didn’t want this first time to disappoint for fear it could be the last.

He’d been caught up in the kissing, in how natural it was, but this part—giving and receiving, tops and bottoms, doms and subs. It swirled in his mind as he tried and failed to place himself within categories built by people whose bodies weren’t like his own.

Seeing him floundering, Emery reached down to still his hand. “Would it help if I asked questions?”

Ambrose nodded.

“All right. Where do you want it?” Emery squeezed Ambrose’s hand around his cock to leave no ambiguity about what he meant.

Ambrose’s mouth watered. “Anywhere.”

Emery tilted Ambrose’s chin up, his gaze hot and intent, reading Ambrose closely. “Be specific.”

He could think of two places he’d particularly like, but one made him more nervous than the other.

“My mouth.”

“And do you want me to take charge?”

Ambrose nodded.

“All right. Get up.”

The deep vibrato of Emery’s voice was more compelling than any arcane charm. Ambrose rose and stood at the edge of the bed. Emery kicked his trousers off the rest of the way and swung his legs over, standing.

He was only a few inches shorter, but didn’t seem that way when he gripped the back of Ambrose’s neck and said, “Get on your knees.”

Ambrose very nearly buckled to them. He kneeled, holding Emery’s hips, now face-to-face with what he wanted.

“Listen to me,” Emery said, gently demanding. “If you want to stop for any reason at any time, say petrichor .” He smirked. “Or tap my leg thrice if your mouth is full.”

“Is that a spell?”

He let out a breathy, endeared laugh. “No. It just means ‘stop,’ no matter what. It’s important. While we’re both, well … not new to this, but new to each other, and given this—” He ran his thumb along the rune line of the arcane collar. “It’s important.”

Ambrose could not conceive of wanting this to stop. All his nerves centered around being good enough so that it never would. But something about the way Emery said it all, like he’d thought about it before, rehearsed it—

He’d fantasized about being together like this before.

It made Ambrose weak. He wanted to ask what else they did in the theater of Emery’s dreams and fantasies, but not now, when one was about to play out.

“What was the word?” Emery asked.

“Petrichor.”

“Good.” Emery put a tender thumb to Ambrose’s lower lip, parting it from the top. “Now open your mouth.”