Page 25

He leaned down and kissed Nikoly’s waiting mouth, sliding his other hand to the bed and then slowly sinking to feel Nikoly’s naked body against his skin. Nikoly kept his hands at his sides but Tiiran reached for them anyway, pushing them up by Nikoly’s head to hold them there while he kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him. Until Nikoly was moaning and his eyes were shut, and when Tiiran pulled away, he frowned but held himself still.

Tiiran released Nikoly’s hands, fascinated at how Nikoly kept them where Tiiran had put them without any visible struggle or even another frown. Nikoly did shiver and move his head as if hoping for another kiss but only gasped and shuddered when Tiiran went for the side of his throat instead. His cock remained stiff, pressed hot to Tiiran’s stomach until Tiiran wriggled down to inspect Nikoly’s unadorned nipples.

Those got a kiss too, each of them, and then, because Nikoly’s hips began twitching upward almost immediately for those kisses, Tiiran tried a suck. First one, then the other, before continuing on to Nikoly’s navel, also sadly bare.

“Why did you take them out?” he wondered, gravel in his voice as he came back up to lick and rub Nikoly’s nipples, and to make certain Nikoly hadn’t moved his hands. “Thank you,” Tiiran told him between licks, with a shudder of his own when Nikoly inched his thighs apart.

That was an invitation, or so it felt to Tiiran. He also felt that he had no idea how to tup Nikoly properly, if that was what Nikoly was asking for.

He gripped Nikoly’s hips to shove them back down to the bed. “Nikoly?”

“Lyli,” Nikoly begged softly, “ Lyli for you. Please. I took them out because I didn’t know what we might do or how I would sleep, but if you miss them, then I’ll wear them for you. I can get them now if you wish me to.”

“You aren’t going to move a fae-cursed inch,” Tiiran hissed at him, with a hip twitch of his own because Nikoly liked that, his cock jumping. “You stay here and let me learn you.” He swept his palms over Nikoly’s ribcage, down to his stomach, then back to his hips to keep him down. To pretend to keep him down, he would have said, but he wondered vaguely if Nikoly truly felt himself at Tiiran’s mercy.

Tiiran curled his fingers, pushing in hard enough to bruise. He used his teeth—lightly, lightly—on Nikoly’s left nipple, then the right, wondering if they throbbed and felt as good as Tiiran’s sore backside. He suspected they did; Nikoly arched up for it.

“Lyli,” Tiiran began quietly, bruising all Nikoly’s loveliness, crushing and biting reddened, peaked skin, then kissing the same places with what little gentleness he possessed. Nikoly was groaning, as if the whispered name was more than enough to bring him close to finishing. “Lyli, sunflower, you’re holding so still for me. Orin would tell me to praise you.” He kissed Nikoly’s stomach and all over his markings, sliding up so he could roll his hips down against Nikoly’s as best as he could, almost as if they were fucking, as if Tiiran were inside Nikoly and pressing forward to find his own pleasure.

“Exquisite,” Tiiran told him deliriously, shocked at how true that was, though it was only the press and rub of their cocks against Nikoly’s firm stomach and Nikoly gasping for more.

Lyli’s hands flexed. His eyes came open to fix on Tiiran with shining hunger.

“Lyli,” Tiiran called him again, deliberately, and kneeled up so he could wrap his hands around Nikoly’s wrists and come close enough to nearly kiss him. “The more you behave, the more I want to—” a garbled, frustrated noise left him, “—the more I want .”

Lyli choked, lips wet and red. He must have bitten them. “Do what you please to me. I’m yours.”

Tiiran almost slipped and collapsed on top of him. “Orin,” he whined without turning to the presence behind him blanketing them both with familiar approval as well as something newer and far hotter, “Orin, he says he’s mine.”

“Do you think he lies about that?” Orin asked one of his questions where the answer was clear. Nikoly’s breath caught in his throat. Tiiran quickly shook his head and Orin was the one to purr. “So take what’s yours, kitten.”

The rough statement drew a tiny moan from Nikoly. Tiiran kissed him to soothe him, moving up to deepen the kiss almost immediately, nipping at his lips before taking his mouth. On his knees, he shifted up, then ceased kissing long enough to manage a complaint. An order. Two orders.

“Help take these off me. Touch me.”

Nikoly shoved Tiiran’s underclothes down before wrapping his arms around Tiiran’s shoulders and pulling Tiiran back to him.

“Thank you, pretty.” Tiiran breathlessly praised him before kissing him again, shuddering wildly when Nikoly began to stroke their cocks together. “When I know how, I will please you so much. You’re so good.” He kissed Nikoly’s open mouth, catching gasps and careful moans. “Lyli.” Nikoly shook at the name. Tiiran kissed his lips, his chin, his throat. He found the markings again and scraped his teeth over them, thought of Nikoly bleeding and hard, tears in his pretty eyes, and bit down to make Nikoly moan louder. “I’ll use you. Not gentle, not good at first, but I will. Will you beg? Is that what you want?”

“ Yes .” It was long, drawn out, as if Nikoly had forgotten how to breathe, or speak.

Sucking a new bruise made Nikoly’s hand stutter in its motions. Tiiran did it again, harder, pulling away only to whisper, “Show Orin you’re mine. Say ‘Yes, Tiiran.’”

“Yes,” Nikoly’s voice was hoarse but the sweetest sound Tiiran had ever heard, “Yes, Tiiran.”

Tiiran nearly peaked at the violent tremor from Nikoly beneath him as he spilled over his hand, over Tiiran’s cock and his own, against Tiiran’s skin. Tiiran shoved him down to take his mouth again, kissing hard as he rocked into the hot spill and Nikoly whimpered and squirmed as if it was painful but let him.

“Beautiful.” Tiiran could not be silent. “The sounds you make. I want them. I… Lyli.” He slowed but didn’t stop moving his hips. “Lyli. Lyli. Nikoly. Look at me.”

Nikoly’s eyes fixed on him, glazed and distant, starry with pleasure. Pain-drunk , Tiiran thought, although he also didn’t think that was entirely right either, for all that Nikoly was shuddering from the sensation of Tiiran continuing to grind their cocks together.

Tiiran slowed more, then finally stopped, not bothering to catch his breath before giving Nikoly softer kisses. He dotted Nikoly’s face and his lax mouth with them as Nikoly’s chest heaved.

“Lyli,” Tiiran told him finally, quietly, watching Nikoly close his eyes and then open them to answer.

“Yes, Tiiran?”

“You’re wonderful,” Tiiran told him truthfully. “You’re like cake. I want to look at you forever, and tear you apart with my teeth, and taste you, but I doubt I’m thinking clearly. You were good. So good. Right, Orin?”

“That was a thing of beauty I’m honored to have witnessed,” Orin remarked, voice still rough. “I’m half tempted to tell you to start again just to see what you’ll do. But it’s not my place here to tell you to fuck him.”

A whimper slipped from Nikoly. Tiiran met his eyes and nodded in agreement, since it was Orin’s place as far as he was concerned and Nikoly clearly would have agreed, at least at the moment. Then he turned his head to explain that to Orin and whatever thoughts he’d scraped together left him all over again.

Orin, freshly bathed with damp hair and possibly damp skin, stood naked in the door to the bath room, a towel in one hand that might have been meant for modesty but had likely been forgotten when he’d stepped out to watch Tiiran awkwardly tumble Nikoly. The towel dangled from one hand, so when Tiiran swept a look from Orin’s dark gaze to his bare shoulders and thick, hairy chest and stomach, there was nothing to stop him from moving his attention lower, to Orin’s large, fat cock or his thighs. Although, once Tiiran saw Orin’s cock, that was where his focus stayed. He’d had that in his mouth.

Well… some of it.

Tiiran did eventually realize he was staring and looked away, his gaze bouncing up to Orin’s amused expression before returning to Nikoly, who was… also staring at Orin’s naked body. Nikoly looked away after nearly as much staring as Tiiran had done. He glanced up to Tiiran, eyes wide with something like panic.

Tiiran rubbed his face against Nikoly’s shoulder. “It’s all right. Of course you’d stare. I’m staring.” He pressed his cheek to Nikoly’s shoulder as he twisted to see Orin.

Orin looked at Tiiran, then at Nikoly, then at Tiiran again. “I can go,” he offered, desire raging in his gaze if not his voice, “if you’d like privacy to continue.”

“Continue?” Tiiran had made Nikoly give way and gotten him to spill just by saying his name; a victory bards ought to sing about. But Orin’s suggestion abruptly reminded Tiiran that he hadn’t finished and his underclothes were down around his knees. He must look ridiculous, aroused and covered in seed, his bare behind in the air.

Then again, Orin’s gaze roamed over their bodies, Tiiran’s body, with hot interest.

“Don’t go,” Tiiran ordered breathlessly. Although Orin was no one’s duckling, so he added, “Please.”

“What does your pup think?” Orin asked as if merely curious, as if his eyes weren’t full of fire.

“Nikoly?” Tiiran looked back at Nikoly and had to touch his lovely face when Nikoly smiled.

“He watched us,” Nikoly murmured, turning his warm face into Tiiran’s touch. “I can watch you, if you want him now.”

“You’re more generous than I am,” Tiiran told him breathlessly, but then frowned because he didn’t know if that was true. It was still easy to imagine Orin fucking Nikoly—still easy and still arousing and Tiiran wanted to snarl at someone about it or just shove them together and take his turn watching. Push and yell and claw and scream until he didn’t need to snarl because everything made sense again and everyone was happy.

“Or are you?” he wondered only moments later. “Are you as selfish as me?”

Nikoly attempted to argue. “You’re not selfish…”

“I am, if I have permission to be.” Tiiran put more weight onto Nikoly to keep him trapped, then turned his head to find Orin. “Do I have permission to be?”

Orin’s surprised laugh was perfect. “If it’s within my power, kitten, it’s yours.”

“Help me finish.” Tiiran should have been ashamed at the way he demanded instead of asked, but Orin appeared very pleased with him, and so did Nikoly when Tiiran added, “On Nikoly. Because he’s mine.”

“ Tiiran ,” Nikoly whispered, although there was no way he could genuinely be shocked. Tiiran knew what the assistants got up to. They liked to discuss it in detail.

Orin moved with hardly a sound, announcing himself with a hand splayed over the small of Tiiran’s back. With the other, he reached beneath Tiiran to take a firm hold of his cock. He pushed, forcing Tiiran down onto his elbows, his face to Nikoly’s. “If I am again Master,” Orin’s voice caressed them both, “then I’d like my strays to kiss.”

Nikoly’s mouth opened under Tiiran’s, both of them desperate to obey, or just to kiss as Tiiran went breathless for the work of Orin’s hand.

Orin didn’t waste time, getting Tiiran off with a few confident strokes and then continuing to milk seed from him long after Tiiran gasped and shuddered at the discomfort of it. He thought of begging Orin to leave off, and then that it was a good sort of feeling too even though it made him shy away before he pushed back into it. It was only when he was groaning and he put his head to Nikoly’s shoulder to hide his confusion that Orin finally stopped.

Nikoly’s hands were warm up and down his sides. Orin removed the hand holding Tiiran in place.

“All wrung out at last?” he asked, as though he didn’t know what he’d done.

Tiiran made a lost noise against Nikoly’s shoulder, then collapsed onto him when his strength gave out. Nikoly bent his knees, holding Tiiran to him while shushing him, as if Tiiran was still making noises. His body twitched beneath Nikoly’s hands.

He wanted more. He also did not, so vehemently that he wasn’t sure what to do. Fortunately, Orin was there.

“Now a tired kitten will sleep a true sleep, I think.” His hands settled over Tiiran’s ribs, and then Tiiran was lifted from the bed and Nikoly’s arms and turned. Orin held him against his chest for several moments, considering Nikoly, apparently, which made Tiiran look down at Nikoly as well.

Nikoly was flushed, limbs loose and open, stomach and groin covered in pearly seed, his lips parted. He watched Tiiran and Orin with dazed interest.

“He liked that,” Orin informed Tiiran, as if Tiiran didn’t have fucking eyes. Tiiran dropped his head to Orin’s shoulder.

“We could both cover him,” he suggested, enjoying the hum as Nikoly bit his lip and snuck a hand down to his soft cock to tease it. “Shameless.”

“He is supposed to be your treat, not mine,” Orin reminded him, tone telling Tiiran something Tiiran didn’t understand, not with Orin holding Tiiran so they could both ogle the pretty in Tiiran’s bed.

“Not my bed,” Tiiran realized a moment after that. “Our bed, Orin.” Our treat , he added in his thoughts, giving Orin’s skin a kiss that brought Orin’s gaze to him. “Let’s sleep.”

“Yes, Tiiran,” Orin agreed, and carried Tiiran back to his original spot on the bed to carefully set him down. He lifted Tiiran’s legs, rudely, Tiiran decided, but allowed Orin to gently remove his useless underclothes anyway. Then Orin put his legs back down and disappeared, and Nikoly started to make noises as if he meant to get up.

Tiiran turned toward him, his slow, heavy body still tingling from how Orin had teased him after making him spend. Nikoly looked over before rolling onto his side to face him. Tiiran leaned in and kissed him, reveling in Nikoly’s quiet surprise and in how he melted against Tiiran and stayed that way even when Tiiran ducked his head to sleepily mouth at his markings.

“Cake,” Tiiran told him. “Warm like tea.”

“Honeybee.” Nikoly replied with such fondness that Tiiran stopped kissing his skin to cuddle in closer.

“That’s not going to help the mess,” Orin remarked. Tiiran cracked an eye to watch Orin bend over them. He frowned only slightly when Orin tugged him this way and that so he could wipe Nikoly’s spend from him with a warm, damp towel.

“Orin, you’re a blanket.” Tiiran sighed happily for finally saying it.

Orin paused.

Nikoly moved quickly to muffle a snort in Tiiran’s hair. He almost immediately began to comb it with fingers, slowing when Tiiran hissed.

“My scalp is sore,” Tiiran informed them both, then focused back on Orin. “Nikoly needs cleaning too, Orin.” Orin met Tiiran’s stare. Possibly, he’d intended to clean Nikoly too, or expected Nikoly to offer, or maybe he’d assumed Tiiran would clean him, since a lot of the mess was Tiiran’s. Before Tiiran could take back his request, Orin returned to his work, cleaning Tiiran’s cock and making Tiiran squirm all over again.

So he had intended to offer and Tiiran was being given a message. Tiiran squirmed all the harder for it, panting when Orin finally stopped.

“If he doesn’t mind, I’d be happy to help him there,” Orin said pleasantly, glancing to Nikoly.

“He doesn’t.” Tiiran huffed at the idea, then propped himself up with weak limbs to watch Nikoly watch Orin as Orin carefully cleaned the drying seed from his stomach. Nikoly bit his bottom lip, not quite containing a small, soft sound when Orin cleaned his cock too.

Tiiran looked at Nikoly’s cock in Orin’s big bear paw and made a similar noise, then smacked his lips. “My jaw is also sore. And my backside. Tomorrow is not going to be pleasant.”

“You earned all of it, and explicitly asked for most of it.” Orin paused in attending to Nikoly to meet Tiiran’s eyes. “You did very well, kitten. Both of you did. I couldn’t be more touched that I’m allowed to be here with you.”

“You could be more touched,” Tiiran grumbled, “if you got into bed already.”

Nikoly laughed then slapped a hand over his mouth. “My apologies, but you’re wonderful like this, honeybee.”

“Honey, indeed.” Orin straightened before returning to the other room. When he came back out, he went to the fireplace and put out one of the candles with his fingertips. He startled at the second candle, when Tiiran muttered, “Next time, we should do something so everyone finishes.”

Orin stared at Tiiran, then to the side of him, probably exchanging a look with Nikoly about how Tiiran was pain-drunk or inexperienced and didn’t know what he was saying.

Tiiran slumped back down to the mattress but his scowling muscles were as loose as the rest of him so he couldn’t even frown. “What? You like each other.”

“You’ve had a lot of pleasure today, along with some new, strong emotions,” Orin said reasonably, after only a little pause. “You’re off balance right now. That’s all.”

“If you think you’re getting a ‘Yes, Orin’ for that….” Tiiran looked away from Orin and rolled onto his side to put his back to Nikoly. “I’m new to fucking but I’ve been your duckling for a while already. Haven’t I? And I’ve been… I’ve known Nikoly for almost a year, and I know what he’s told me. I saw you two the other night and I felt you both now.”

“ Duckling ?” Nikoly echoed faintly, but then raised his voice. “You ran from us the other night, bee. Because you thought we would want to be together. You’re jealous of whoever speaks to me. Some play might be permitted, but we would never….”

“It’s fine.” Tiiran curled his hands to his chest to hold onto the lingering, fading warmth there. For a moment, for longer than a moment, for the whole afternoon and evening, he’d thought that he’d felt what others did. The two of them talking, concerned for him, concerned for each other had filled him with a comforting heat mingled with a longing for what was right in front of him. Longing .

Nikoly had said that was what it was like miss home, to have a home to miss. People who knew him , Orin had said. But Tiiran had once again mistaken friendliness and desire for deeper affection, he just hadn’t assumed it about himself this time. “I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

“Tiiran...” Orin approached the bed.

“You keep insisting I couldn’t want you the way I want Nikoly,” Tiiran argued, gaze on the wall. “Nikoly forgets I’ve cared for myself my entire life before he ever showed up with his orange slices. But my thinking isn’t to be trusted?” He was so tired . “I’d like to sleep now.”

“Strong emotion building up and then suddenly giving way can cause new, heightened feelings.” Orin was still trying to be reasonable.

“I’m pain-drunk or whatever it is called when there is little pain but it feels the same. I understand.” Tiiran couldn’t put any fury or ice in his words. He slurred them, but at least got them out.

“This isn’t meant to make you feel foolish, kitten.”

Tiiran didn’t even scoff.

Orin came around to his side of the bed. “I don’t believe that you don’t want me as you want Nikoly,” he began once Tiiran met his eyes. “But I am older, and I have nothing to offer you except bed play and my promise I will do my best to try to protect you.”

“I’ll let you fuck me and then I’ll grow tired of you?” Tiiran closed his eyes. “You’re one of the only people to ever make me feel good even when I’m as jumbled as the contents of a Master Keeper’s desk, you fucking cockwomble.”

“ Tiiran .” Nikoly was almost scandalized.

“I’ll call him what I want. He’s my… Orin, and he tangles me just to untangle me, and I allow him to do that. I’m sensible enough for that but not for anything else. I understand.”

“Honeybee, please don’t cry.” Orin kneeled on the bed to reach for him.

“ Honeybee to you now too?” Tiiran demanded, curling to hide his face against Orin’s knee, which then got wet, because Tiiran was crying. “Oh,” he realized aloud, “I will apparently argue even when pain-drunk. But I felt these things before. I did . I just didn’t know they were wrong.”

Orin rested a hand over the back of his neck. “You’re not wrong. You’re just overwrought and need to sleep.”

“If I may at least settle one argument,” Nikoly interrupted in a tone that Tiiran knew to watch out for, but Orin possibly did not, “Orin, there is a book for you on that table.”

By the time Tiiran realized which book Nikoly meant, Orin had left him to cross to the table, now wedged against the wall by the door. Nikoly pointed to direct Orin, and then Orin picked up the slim volume bound as simply as any other library copy, except for the pressed Orin on the front.

Orin held it with both hands, inhaling softly, then flipped it open.

Tiiran was lying atop the blankets and had nowhere to hide.

“This is your handwriting, Tiiran.” Orin said it as if he knew Tiiran’s hand well, although Tiiran couldn’t remember writing anything for him but a list of his borrowed books. He slowly and carefully turned a page, very clearly reading the start of the poem Tiiran had copied for him. “Thank you, kitten.” Orin’s voice was warm and rumbling. “I’ll read it under the moon and stars and think of you.”

Something in that made Tiiran want to frown, and it was not the return of the comforting feeling in his chest since that was apparently not to be trusted. “You sleep outside? I thought outguards were welcomed in the homes of nobles.”

“Sometimes we rest for the night between towns.” Orin looked over another page, then closed the book gently and held it in both hands again. “And sometimes I like sleeping under the sky… though admittedly less as I get older.”

“Firelight would be better to read by. For your eyes,” Tiiran clarified, not missing a moment of Orin bringing the book to his pack and setting it down with a little sigh. “You’ll get headaches.”

Orin turned to consider him. His expression made Tiiran feel small and silly, his heart bigger than his ribs. “Poems and a snarl? I am truly blessed by the fae tonight. Say what you will, Tiiran, it’s true.”

Teasing again. Tiiran rolled onto his back to ignore them both.

“He’s been hanging onto that poem for a while,” Nikoly revealed.

“Shut up,” Tiiran told him tightly. “I’m sorry I can’t do this right.”

“You’re doing very well.” Nikoly wriggled over to curl against his side again, tugging a blanket up over him at the same time. Tiiran shivered, suddenly aware of how cold he actually was, that he was just lying there, naked while he sulked. “You do well in everything, bee. It’s intimidating.”

Tiiran did scoff for that. “You are skilled at everything and everyone admires you. Even me, which you know because you tease me.”

“Tiiran,” Nikoly exhaled against the back of his neck, “when I realized your scowling and fussing over me meant you cared for me, I couldn’t believe it. You’re determined, and clever, and people really do fear you. I knew you thought I was pretty, but that you also want to protect me from those you believe wouldn’t treat me well? That I didn’t know. You are the authority in that library, and you are the authority over me, and I will call you Master Keeper even if you don’t feel you’ve earned that rank yet.”

Tiiran looked up, desperate, and Orin was there at the side of the bed, wonderful warmth in his gaze while he watched Tiiran struggle.

Throat tight, Tiiran extended a hand. Orin climbed into bed next to him, leaving the last candle by the fireplace to burn. Nikoly tossed over the remaining blanket, thin though it was, and Orin accepted it, yet arranged most of it to fall over Tiiran.

Nikoly wrapped an arm around Tiiran’s waist. “Tiiran? Did I frighten you?”

Orin rolled onto his side and brushed Tiiran’s cheek with his fingertips. He answered Nikoly as if aware that Tiiran couldn’t. “We both worried over his emotions and how he might struggle to accept this and then we gave him everything he wanted all at once. I’m sorry, Tiiran, we could have done this better.”

Tiiran shook his head, then swallowed. Opening his mouth did him no good; no words emerged. He shook his head again, then grabbed Orin’s hand and pulled it to his chest.

“ But, Orin ?” Orin guessed. “Rest now and find your arguments later, my exhausted kitten.”

Tiiran fought for words. “Touch me? Just touch. I…. It’s good.”

“Like a blanket?” Orin was so wonderful. “But perhaps with a bit more force?” He curled an arm under Tiiran and pulled until Tiiran was up against him, his back to Orin’s chest, and Orin was holding him tightly. “Kitten needs sensation to quiet his mind,” Orin explained softly, which was when Tiiran realized Nikoly was fretting. Orin gestured for him to come closer, which Nikoly did, wiping more of Tiiran’s tears away. “Pressure is easiest,” Orin went on, gentle and quiet. “He likes to be held tightly, don’t you, little cat? That’s it.”

The words of approval were for Nikoly, pressed to Tiiran’s front.

They told him the warmth at the thought of them wasn’t real, then told him it was. If Tiiran hadn’t been a stray, maybe that would have made sense.

“Comfortable?” Orin wondered, and Nikoly murmured into Tiiran’s neck that Tiiran still felt cold to him. Tiiran ended up bracketed by them as if they were heavy bookends around a precious book on a high shelf in a Master Keeper’s office.

The feeling remained in Tiiran’s chest, warm and aching at the same time, and he fell asleep with it even if it wasn’t real.