Page 26

Tiiran woke to the urgent need to run to the bath room, and rolled from a too-large bed to stumble to his feet. The dim light through the window told him it was early morning, so he was late, but hopefully Po was at the library already. Tiiran didn’t need to do all the tasks he did every morning, but the assistants would be expecting breakfast and Tiiran preferred to have everything set up before they arrived, especially after the last few days since he'd barely been there.

A thought that finally stopped Tiiran in the middle of the bath room, where he then also realized he was naked.

He looked down at his body, flushed to his toes, then turned, but the mirror over the sink didn’t allow him to see his behind and the bruises that might be there. He did catch a glimpse of his reddening face in the glass, but focused on trying to take the quickest bath possible.

When he emerged, damp and shivering because his towels hadn’t been fully dry and he hadn’t waited for the bath water to finish heating, Orin was in the chair by the fireplace… which had a fire in it. On the bed Orin and Nikoly had made from smaller beds the night before was a tray loaded with food and a ceramic teapot. A stack of fresh towels was next to it.

Tiiran stared at the tray with some consternation, then turned to Orin. “I don’t understand.”

“Oh, I know.” Orin gave him a smile though his gaze held some concern. “Did you want to dress?”

“I have to go.” Tiiran’s mind lagged as it had all morning. “The library.”

“Nikoly left earlier to make sure the doors would be unlocked,” Orin informed him. “At least use a towel. Your hair is dripping and you must be cold.”

Tiiran padded forward to snatch a towel and start squeezing his hair with it. “I slept through Nikoly waking and leaving, and then through you leaving as well?”

Orin’s smile grew a little less concerned and a little more vicious. “You did.” His satisfaction was obvious.

Tiiran plopped down onto the edge of the bed, towel over his head, to stare at Orin some more. Then he remembered he was naked and dropped the towel over his lap. His shoulders crept up.

“Tiiran.” Orin sighed heavily, losing his smile altogether. “This is why I stayed—and why I got you food. Eat something, please.”

“You’re here to untangle me.” Tiiran looked at the tray so Orin wouldn’t see him struggle with his mistakes.

“I’m here to make sure you’re all right,” Orin corrected lightly. “If it would make it easier for you, I would tie you up and let you drift. I want to know if you have questions, or regrets, or if—outside of the moment—you didn’t like anything we did.”

“Do you?” Tiiran poured himself a cup of tea and drank it plain and hot, wincing at the first sip. “Did you?”

Orin sighed again. “You aren’t going to provoke me into spanking you again until we’ve talked.”

Tiiran twitched before glancing over. “That wasn’t…. Was that what I was doing?” He reached down to rub his backside. “I really wanted to know. Maybe I did something clumsily and you went along with it to be polite.”

“Of course you did some things clumsily, but only because you’re new to them. And your pup and I found it charming, so end that worrying now.” Orin leaned forward. “Eat.”

Tiiran wrinkled his nose. “Tea first.”

Orin’s eyes narrowed. “Still not going to be provoked. But you don’t leave here until you eat. I promised Nikoly.”

Tiiran met his stare but quickly looked away. “You stayed,” he said softly after a while, aware Orin could wait forever for Tiiran to give in. To give way , he remembered Nikoly saying, although this was slightly different. “You both stayed.”

He hadn’t realized Orin was tense until Orin relaxed back into his chair. “I suspect it will take a while for you to accept and understand. But yes, we stayed. And we will return if you want it—at least, I will. I haven’t asked your pup but he would likely sleep outside your door if given the chance and you didn’t let him in. You’ve ensnared him well, kitten. I hope you realize that.” Orin paused, then waved at the air, as though to fae who could not be seen. “And since I can hardly deny it, you’ve ensnared me too. Which you know.”

“Do I?” Tiiran turned back to him. “How? Wait, no, don’t answer that. That’s a silly question. I’m probably going to ask many silly questions. It’s embarrassing that I have to.”

Orin stared at him without blinking, making Tiiran feel even more foolish. Then Orin shook his head.

“Last night, Nikoly told you that you intimidate others because of how quickly you figure things out. Or something to that effect. My point being that you ask questions because you don’t understand things, but only the things that go unspoken. Things that perhaps, in many cases, should be spoken, regardless of wounded feelings or pride. And you cut right through messes, a hot knife in butter. That scares people.” Orin considered him for another moment before continuing. “Ask your questions. If we were scared of them, or you, we wouldn’t be here. Just know they aren’t silly.”

Tiiran swallowed a sudden lump in his throat, then put his cup of tea back on the tray so he could leap into Orin’s lap.

Orin caught him with a deep grunt, then pulled him close to tuck Tiiran into the crook of his arm and arrange Tiiran’s legs to hang over the other side of the chair. Once he had Tiiran settled, he put his mouth to Tiiran’s wet hair and held him, breathing in and out, before finally easing his hold enough to let Tiiran breathe too.

“Were you worried?” Tiiran had been told to keep asking questions.

“Yes. Despite what you might think, you surprise me frequently.” Orin splayed his hand over Tiiran’s stomach. “Yesterday was eventful, to put it mildly. And the last time something upset you, you ran.”

Nikoly had spoken of that too.

“I didn’t realize running would hurt you,” Tiiran admitted.

Orin nodded slowly, considering his answer. “People who aren’t used to help sometimes prefer being alone to deal with problems. You are free to continue to do that. The fae know we can’t control you.” Orin had controlled Tiiran plenty, and Nikoly had his ways too, but Tiiran didn’t interrupt. “You can also come to us to ask your questions, or yell, or make suggestions. I expect that will also take time for you to accept. That’s all right.”

“An experienced lover wouldn’t require this much work.” Tiiran crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you angry with me?”

Orin’s eyebrows went comically high. “For not having lovers?”

Tiiran put his head on Orin’s shoulder, then realized his hair was wet and straightened up so he wouldn’t soak Orin’s clothes. “Are you? I cried on you last night.”

“As you cried on me after I turned your backside a lovely red. As happens with some after the sort of play we enjoy.” Orin gave Tiiran’s stomach a little pat. “It just means you felt a lot. That’s all.”

Tiiran leaned back to study Orin. “Is it always going to be like that?”

Orin studied him in return. “If that’s what you want from me.”

He was being careful.

Tiiran scoffed and wiggled free, slipping to his feet a moment later. He poked a finger in Orin’s startled face. “What of what you want? Am I someone you respect or not, Elorin Vahti?”

“Full name,” Orin murmured, then gently took hold of Tiiran’s finger. “I respect you a great deal, Tiiran of no known family. Perhaps more than most others who walk this country. I’m sorry. I’ve gotten in the habit of being overly cautious and slow with you. I will rectify that now.” He tugged Tiiran closer by his finger. “I want all you might want to give me, kitten. Bed play where you look to me as one might look to a master of knowledge, and bed play where we roll and tumble as any others might. And sometimes no bed play at all, like our evenings in your library.”

He called the library Tiiran’s to appease him.

Tiiran scoffed again from habit, then tossed his head.

“Then why do you not kiss me the way Nikoly does?”

Orin blinked several times, then frowned. “How does Nikoly kiss you?”

“I mean,” Tiiran pronounced slowly, “that he asks for kisses simply to have kisses from me.”

“Ah.” Orin pulled Tiiran’s finger to his mouth to gently kiss his fingertip. “He likes your attention, kitten. That’s part of why he asks. But I didn’t because I didn’t know you wanted that from me.”

“You thought I only wanted mean Orin,” Tiiran realized out loud, face burning as his fingertip was again kissed.

“Not exactly, but that’s close enough to my meaning.” Orin smiled so widely it showed the beginning of lines at the corners of his eyes. Tiiran distantly remembered one of Lanth’s former lovers saying laugh lines were such a comfort to see on a face. He might have been describing Lanth. “So if you want to return to my lap and exchange feverish kisses for a while, feel free.”

“I want….” Tiiran considered it even while he was reaching out to touch Orin’s jaw and the short beard that Tiiran would never be able to grow. “I want to be able to kiss you just to kiss you,” he decided. “If we’re lovers now, isn’t that what we should do? Isn’t that what you do with your others?”

He considered Orin with wide eyes.

Orin opened his mouth, then shut it with a snap. He tipped his head into Tiiran’s hand even while regarding Tiiran with very Orin-like suspicion.

“Are you trying to end up over my knee again already ?” Orin’s tone was almost admiring. “Greedy cat.”

“You said ducklings were selfish,” Tiiran reminded him.

“You’re more terrifying when you try to pretend,” Orin observed, admiration staying in his voice. “You’re incapable of dishonesty, I think. You try to lie, sometimes, but you’re rubbish at it. When I imagine you wandering the palace as it currently is, I break out in a cold sweat.”

Tiiran scoffed. “You and Nikoly. I took care of myself for years in this palace.”

“Cold sweat,” Orin informed him again. “And there are no others, as I told you yesterday.”

“I’m not a child just because I’d only ever one had lover before you and Nikoly. Well, a lover of a kind.” Tiiran put his nose in the air. “I know how most affairs work, even the ones outside the library. Whatever Nikoly says, I wasn’t that jealous.”

“Rubbish liar.” Orin clucked his tongue. “You ran from us, Tiiran.”

“Because I wasn’t special anymore!” Tiiran huffed at him, throwing his free hand around in a wild gesture. “But of course I wasn’t. I realize that now. It was just a stupid fantasy I didn’t know I had, and it doesn’t matter anymore. I was wrong.” He rubbed his chest. “I do admit when I’m wrong. I’m not some Master Keeper with shit for brains and too much self-importance.”

Orin opened, then shut, his mouth. He waited several beats to speak. “And Nikoly’s lovers? You weren’t upset at the idea of them touching him?”

Tiiran looked to the side. “I… knew they would be better than me. And I was imagining foolish things, as I said.” A tiny growl escaped. “But people who are only dazzled by his face shouldn’t be allowed to touch him. They don’t see that he’s lonely, and hungry, and takes on far too much just to… just to please me.”

Orin rose to his feet, forcing Tiiran to step back or get onto his toes. “And me?”

“You’re allowed to touch him.” That didn’t sound how Tiiran had intended. “If Nikoly wants you to, of course. Which he does. He thinks you’re beautiful, because you are.”

Orin put a hand over Tiiran’s mouth. “I meant, are people allowed to touch me according to your rules? That doesn’t upset you?”

Tiiran took hold of Orin’s wrist and Orin let him lower his hand so Tiiran could speak. “I don’t like it.” Another tiny growl. “But I accept that it will happen because you’re so very attractive and compelling, Orin, and—”

Orin shoved him backwards onto the bed.

The mattress rocked. The contents of the tray rattled and sloshed until Orin picked it up and moved it to the chair. Then he stood over Tiiran, who was now on his back, naked in front of a fully dressed Orin.

Orin seemed to like the view. “Whatever you are trying to convince me of, remember I am not one of your assistants.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Tiiran briefly put his thighs together but that didn’t make him any less naked. His skin was flushing with embarrassed heat but so was his mind. Tiiran liked to be humiliated, Nikoly had claimed. Tiiran only knew that after a while, the burning, embarrassed sensation was so strong that he couldn’t think anymore, and with Orin, he liked that. He met Orin’s hot stare. “But obviously you aren’t an assistant. You’re Orin. Assistants whisper about you .”

“So I must want to tup all of them?” Orin questioned, tone light—which Tiiran didn’t believe for a moment. “Or is this you testing me again? You know the consequences of that.”

“Hmm.” Tiiran kept his mouth shut but Orin must have heard the words he hadn’t said. He stopped, then leaned down to put a hand around each of Tiiran’s ankles.

“Greedy kitten.” Orin was fond of calling him that. “Nothing happens until I look you over. I want to be sure I didn’t seriously hurt you.”

“Before you hurt me again?” Tiiran wondered, then squawked when Orin slid his hands up to his waist and flipped him onto his stomach. Orin put a knee on the bed and a hand in the center of Tiiran’s back so Tiiran couldn’t raise himself up.

The burn within Tiiran was so much hotter than before. He turned his cheek to the mattress and shivered. Orin was looking at him. Just looking, but Tiiran already wanted to beg him for something, give him something.

“I couldn’t see in the mirror,” Tiiran confessed, out of breath for no reason. “I wanted to see.”

Orin pressed a kiss to the small of his back, then another where Tiiran’s backside started to curve out. “Good. Good kitten. I’m going to touch you now. We will do this every time. Understand?”

Tiiran inhaled. “Yes, Orin.”

His behind got another kiss, this time a little lower. Then Orin skimmed his fingertips over sore places before pushing down. The touch was light, but Tiiran squirmed. Orin hummed and did it again elsewhere, before sliding his big hands down to urge Tiiran’s thighs apart. He stopped again. Looking .

“Does it look well?” Tiiran asked, not nervous but with his stomach quivering. He’d never been studied from that angle and didn’t know what to do.

“It looks beautiful.” Orin began to stoke sensitive places, apparently enjoying Tiiran’s squirming. “You look like….” He sighed but said it. “You look like you have been with me.”

“How many have you left like this?” Tiiran huffed to the bed, but Orin must have heard his muttering, because he gave Tiiran’s backside a smack.

“And you’re not jealous?” Orin demanded incredulously, rubbing over the place he’d hit while Tiiran shuddered and felt his blood pound. “Behave, kitten. You’ll have trouble sitting today as it is—which is part of the experience, so that you remember for next time. Not that I’ve think you’ve forgotten, considering your behavior this morning. Get your knees up under you.”

Tiiran did so, only to gasp at another spank, light but firm. “Yes, Orin,” he remembered to say too late. It was slightly uncomfortable at this angle, his face to the bedding, his back bowed, but he didn’t entirely dislike it. “But, Orin,” he began, then froze, but no smack followed the words, so Orin must want to hear what he had to say. “Last night,” he exhaled it, shivering, “did I do something wrong?”

“No.” Orin seemed fond of kissing Tiiran’s backside, and of petting it over and over again, sometimes down over the curves and other times cupping them or squeezing them apart. “But are you making plans, kitten? I thought you didn’t want me near your boy. Then yesterday, you put him at my feet.”

Everyone kept harping on that and not what Tiiran was telling them. “That’s not what I said,” Tiiran reminded him. “I know I am new to this and foolish, but…”

He should have expected the blow, and nearly had, but not the strength of it. He whined to the bed, luxuriating in the hot echo of it through his body and mind.

“You’re not foolish.”

Orin was so lovely. Tiiran whined louder for him, then shook his head. “I don’t understand. You said… you said I was wrong. But it felt right. It feels right. You didn’t want us both to suck your cock?”

Orin made a noise in his throat, but instead of striking Tiiran, began to pet him again, up between his thighs, then light and maddening behind his balls. Tiiran didn’t know if he should tense or relax, if Orin wanted to make him whine some more.

“Tread carefully, Tiiran,” Orin said at last, after some time of silent, gentle torture. “This involves more than cocks.”

Tiiran agreed, since he did have his backside in the air. “Are you going to fuck me now?”

Orin made that sound again, frustrated possibly. But that was his own fault. Tiiran was here, facedown and ready to be taken, his thoughts already clouding at the edges.

“Did you want to work today or not?” Orin demanded. He continued to touch Tiiran, the tips of his fingers inching ever closer to where Tiiran would like to feel them.

Tiiran scoffed—but quietly. He had worked sick. He could certainly work with a well-used hole.

Probably.

“Are you staying tonight?”

“I can.” Orin sounded calm, but Tiiran’s lower back received another kiss. “You want me to?”

Orin clearly had no idea what he did to Tiiran’s chest. Or didn’t believe it. He talked about Tiiran’s doubt but his was plain too.

Well, plain to Tiiran.

“Yes,” Tiiran said simply. “And also Yes, Orin . Yes, I do.”

Orin gripped Tiiran’s hips and hauled him back to the edge of the bed until Tiiran could feel Orin’s body heat and his toes brushed the side of one of Orin’s legs. Then Orin slid a hand through Tiiran’s hair.

“You’ll hurt us both, won’t you? But we happen to be those that like that. Honeybee, sweet, with a sting.” He stroked all down Tiiran’s back and sides, over and over, enjoying Tiiran shaking under his hands. “I think you like that too. Or at least, you could find it useful. You like things that are useful. Prettiness is for others but not for you? We should make you see that you are.”

“Make me?” Tiiran echoed, breathing harder although Orin was still only petting him.

“Oh, yes.” Orin’s rumble was delicious. “I earned your trust and I’m not risking that. not even now. But… you want me to.”

“You aren’t scared of my claws, you said,” Tiiran reminded him, moving his cheek back and forth over the blankets as he imagined the forceful tupping he was going to get.

“No. Only of losing you.” Orin’s hands stopped. “You remember me saying that?”

“I remember everything you say,” Tiiran admitted. “I just can’t think about it when you’re near because you’re so much, Orin. Maybe… maybe like I am. Too much?” His insides were writhing and hot. He shivered and squeezed his eyes shut. “Am I?”

“You’re enough to take everything I have and maybe everything Nikoly has too, if we aren’t careful.” Orin tightened his grip, leaving Tiiran to imagine bruises that Nikoly would see and know Orin had had him first. Orin was jealous, in this one way. He worried over Tiiran yet they were the same.

The realization came with a moment of clarity. If he and Orin were the same, at least in some ways, then Orin might not ask for what he wanted either. He could be afraid too.

“Orin.” Tiiran couldn’t raise his voice. “Orin, may I see you? Can I roll over?”

“Game not to your liking?” Orin wondered, releasing him.

“No! No, I…” Tiiran interrupted himself, flopping onto his back with his legs spread awkwardly and his knees bent. Orin was still dressed and exceptionally large from Tiiran’s current perspective. He was also openly concerned that he’d frightened Tiiran. Silly bear , Tiiran thought to himself, fond and happy. “I just want to kiss you first,” he finally remembered to explain.

Orin’s eyebrows went up and down and then up again. “Kiss me just to kiss me? Or are you truly scared?”

Tiiran scoffed without meaning to, then reached up. “ Orin .”

He was bracketed by Orin’s arms within a moment, his body covered without being crushed by Orin’s weight.

“Handsome,” Tiiran informed him, scowling only slightly at the healing cut over Orin’s eye. “You are handsome in a less polished way than some, but that’s what I like. I’m not alone in that; Nikoly couldn’t take his eyes from you when he saw you naked. And his pleasure at having your cock in his mouth….”

“Tiiran.”

“Anyone in the library would love to be where I am right now.” Tiiran continued to give Orin details he needed to hear. “But it’s me here. Me you chose.” His voice rose on a hint of a question there against his will but he pressed on when Orin waited for him to finish. “I don’t want you to think I’m asking for too much.” Orin made a sound Tiiran ignored. “But in my imaginings of what it might be like to be under you—” Orin made the sound again “—I was too excited to stop and consider kissing. I like the other things, of course.”

“Of course,” Orin agreed, possibly amused now.

Tiiran pet him rather than glare. “But I could have… we could have kisses too?”

“We could.” Orin pressed Tiiran to the bed to take his mouth in a series of slow, deep kisses that continued until Tiiran tried to get his legs up and around Orin to enhance the heavy grind of their bodies. But Orin seemed to take that as a sign that he should stop to watch Tiiran wriggle and whine and struggle to focus.

“More of this?” he inquired, polite as a house servant with an important guest. “Or return to the previous game? I am content with either, kitten.”

Tiiran stared at him until his thoughts cleared somewhat. “You know perfectly well what I want.”

“Maybe I want you say it, little beast.”

Tiiran was not a little beast. But he felt like one, hungry and mean without kisses or firm hands on his bottom. The snarl was on his lips but he caught it and bit down to hold it in.

“May I please roll over again, Orin?” he asked with all of that in his tone anyway.

Orin didn’t budge, although he did rumble. “Why?”

Tiiran squeezed his eyes shut. “Because I liked it before.”

“You might like it this way too,” Orin pointed out, almost calm, but then Tiiran was on his knees again, his shocked breath turning into a shuddery moan against the bedding as Orin pushed his shoulders down and arranged his legs to better display him. “And you call Nikoly shameless.” Orin might have clucked his tongue to tease him but Tiiran could not have cared less. Orin got him so hot everywhere, even his thoughts were warm and bright.

“Yes, Orin,” Tiiran agreed, not much caring what he was agreeing to. “But….” A pinch stopped him, made him wheeze and then turn his face to a new spot on the bedding to try to cool it. “Thank you,” he mumbled. “‘S good. I’ll take all of it.”

“Kitten, you….” Whatever else Orin might have said was buried under a rumbly growl and then Orin storming away to find his pack and rummage around. Tiiran shivered until Orin’s hands were on him again. “All that I have, and you won’t need to tell him so when you see him. He’ll know.”

Tiiran started to ask how Nikoly would know, but then he heard Orin open a jar or vial of some kind, and forgot the question altogether.

When Tiiran limped into the library long past the time he would usually have arrived, most of the assistants were at the copying tables but Tiiran’s gaze went right to Nikoly at the desk. Nikoly swept a look over him, smiling in welcome then frowning in worry before the smile returned, slow and knowing. Tiiran would have blushed if he hadn’t already been red as a beet from the walk over.

Tiiran raised his head as he went directly to Nikoly at the desk, his face so hot his hair should have caught fire when he noticed the cushion Nikoly had put on the stool for him. Then he saw the small, neat pile of letters and requests, and the carefully arranged inkpot and writing utensils, and looked up to his waiting Lyli.

Nikoly dazzled in the morning sun, as usual, although he did look slightly tired, and his clothes were the ones he had worn the day before. He hadn’t shaved, something Tiiran sighed enviously over when he put a hand to Nikoly’s stubbled jaw. The gawking and single sly whistle from the copying tables were nothing until Tiiran had seen to his most important task.

“You did well,” he told Nikoly earnestly. “Thank you. I’d kiss you but they are going to tease us as it is.”

Nikoly’s eyes dipped closed, his pleasure obvious for the few moments he allowed himself before he cleared his throat and looked away. “That would stop you?”

None of the others could have heard him.

“You don’t like to be embarrassed, you said.” Tiiran should probably stop touching him in that case. “Know that I’ve seen all of them with love bites or moving gingerly after an encounter, and yet I gave them grace and left them alone. Also know that if anyone says anything that bothers you, I will savage them.”

Nikoly looked back, his lips twitching. “You won’t, because you love them. But,” his eyes briefly closed again, which wasn’t fair, especially when he gave Tiiran that please look a moment later, “my honeybee, know that if anyone bothers you, I will likewise deal with them. Now,” he carried on while Tiiran stared and tried to imagine Nikoly being rude to anyone, “would you like to sit or stand today? I thought the cushion might help but that was before your activities this morning.” He bent down, putting his lips near Tiiran’s ear. “You’re glowing.”

Tiiran sputtered, then coughed, then turned to look over the library. Po wasn’t even pretending she wasn’t watching him. When their eyes met, she waggled her eyebrows. Tiiran had no idea how she did that. He turned to the pile of letters for relief, although there weren’t as many as he would have expected, especially with him gone for half a day.

Nikoly said, “Amie has been sniffling since she got here so she might not stay the day.”

Tiiran nodded and reshuffled the pile accordingly, then, below the top of the desk although no one was nearby to see anyway, he reached for Nikoly’s hand. “Thank you.”

Nikoly made an inarticulate noise before his training took hold of him again and he nodded. His hand stayed in Tiiran’s until both of them had work to attend to.