Reardon was a virgin, of that Jack had already been sure. Long as it had been since he’d known the feel of another’s body beneath his hands, he couldn’t simply take Reardon, thrusting like some drunk in the back of a tavern. But if the young prince was so needy, so full of lust and certain that he wanted Jack to be the first to ravage him, then this act was going to be savored.
Reardon hadn’t shied from his touch yet, not the feel of scars or the brief glimpse of them on his arms. Jack couldn’t bear for those emerald eyes to land on his full form, but he could accept Reardon’s body as tribute, eyes closed and unseeing as Jack devoured him, to make up for the slight of crossing his threshold.
After all, Jack was the monster of this story. He would take his tithe like a troll beneath a bridge, and it would only prove his point.
That was why he chose to give in, because he was owed, and Reardon had asked, and there had to be a balance, an exchange of power that kept Jack in control. If he gave too much to Reardon, he didn’t know what might happen.
Rolling up from lying over Reardon’s body, Jack brought the hand not touching the prince to the ties of his own trousers, letting them drop and his length free. He teased the budding wetness at its tip along Reardon’s crease, and the whine Reardon released was more enticing than any stable boy Jack had ever had.
“Reach back,” Jack commanded, much as he enjoyed Reardon’s arms akimbo on the desktop. “Touch me as I’m touching you.”
Pausing for breath, Reardon brought his arms in first to lift himself and not crush his cheek to the wood when he reached back, left hand grasping for Jack until he had him .
“Feel how hard I am?”
Reardon gave an initial shaky stroke. “Yes.”
“I’m not yet where I will be.” Jutting his hips forward, Jack dragged his tip along Reardon’s crease again so he would understand his size and that he was not yet full. “Keep on. Get me there.” Jack rocked into Reardon’s hand and against those parted cheeks, his arm coiled around him to continue offering similar strokes—an infinite loop of pleasure building.
Each pump from Reardon’s hand pressed his own knuckles against his backside, and the tip of Jack kept teasing there too. In turn, Reardon’s motion rocked him into Jack’s hand, with mewling whimpers and gasps spilling from his lips. Despite the pooling wetness between them, however, it wasn’t nearly enough.
And Jack couldn’t prepare Reardon the way they were now.
He stilled his hand and grabbed Reardon’s wrist with the other. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No!” Reardon cried. “Please, Majesty—”
“Then don’t open your eyes. I will stop and banish you from my sight if you do.”
“I swear.”
Jack released him and stepped back.
“Majesty—!”
“I am only disrobing. Stay as you are.”
The sight of Reardon’s body displayed with open thighs and cock dripping between them made it difficult not to stroke himself to completion just from the view. Jack kicked away his trousers and threw off his shirt.
“Get the rest of your clothes from around your ankles.”
Reardon did so without using his hands or shifting much from how he remained bent over the desk. He seemed to like that position, and Jack might have kept him there, but he had better supplies in the other rooms.
Reardon’s skin was a perfect pale swath of peach, lean muscles down his legs, taut shoulders, narrow hips, and a budded entrance waiting for a slick touch….
“Majesty?”
“Still impatient, little prince?”
“No. Well, yes, but… I will keep my eyes closed, but please, I want to pleasure you as well, whatever ways you want from me. ”
Jack stepped toward him. “Being inside you will accomplish that.”
“Y-yes.”
“But….” Cupping both spread cheeks before him, Jack squeezed the flesh being offered, his cock bobbing forward with its ready tip. “Your mouth would be a good start if you wish it. Eyes closed.” He hooked an arm around Reardon’s knees and scooped him into his arms, eliciting a quiet gasp. Lumbering like an ogre had made Jack stronger, or perhaps Reardon, for all his height and long limbs, was simply that light.
The prince flailed to cling to Jack’s neck but kept his eyes closed as promised. Sure steps brought Jack into the bedroom, hard and weeping though he may be, and he laid Reardon upon the bed with his feet facing the top. Reardon seemed reluctant to be released and dropped his arms slowly from around Jack, fingers brushing lightly across Jack’s cheek. There were scars there too, but Reardon remained content without flinching as he stretched upon the bed.
Turning from him, Jack went to the bath to gather oils. Reardon didn’t disobey by trying to steal a glimpse, merely craned his ears and waited.
“Have you decided, then?” Jack asked when he returned.
“Majesty?”
Jack gave his length a few firm tugs before setting the items he’d gathered on the bed. The back view of Reardon’s prone form had been tempting, but like this, Jack could see the lines of his hips pointing to tantalizing hardness, wet and scarlet red. His lips were equally colored, pouty and parted, as if already answering Jack’s question, “If I may have use of your mouth?”
“O-oh….” Reardon blushed far too prettily, too virginally for Jack to not want to have those lips on him every way he could, but he needed Reardon to say it. “Yes, Majesty. Gladly yes.”
Climbing onto the bed, kneeling at the foot, with Reardon’s head between his knees, Jack began to lower himself. Reardon tilted his head back and opened his salivating mouth to take Jack in.
And oh, the heat —Jack had forgotten how good it felt to be enveloped by such warmth. He trembled as Reardon trembled, the prince’s hands clutching the sheets with nothing else to hang on to and sucking him in a good two, three, four swallows without stopping. Jack’s moisture was lapped up, but Reardon’s mouth’s own watering overflowed past the corners of his mouth, just as his eyes began to water too. Yet he swallowed Jack in again—and again .
“Slower.” Jack barely bit the word out, afraid the young man, supposedly inexperienced, would cause himself to choke. He had unknown talents, because he didn’t gag as he swallowed Jack deeper and then pulled off. “What was that… about never frequenting brothels? Perhaps not as a client.”
“I-I’d never—”
“I know, but then you are a natural.” Jack dipped to Reardon’s lips again, and Reardon sucked him in past the tip without prompting, farther, farther , and then off again.
“D-does that mean I please you, Majesty?” His mouth looked sinfully red and shiny with drool still leaking from the corners.
“You could please me more.” Jack dropped his hips more insistently, forcing Reardon to take half of him at once, but from there he let Reardon control how much he was willing to swallow. Inexperience gave way to instinct as Reardon found a rhythm, taking Jack in and out, in and out, a little deeper each time.
No bath, no clothing, no covers had made Jack feel this warm in centuries, rocking down between the pliant lips of the Emerald Prince.
“Keep on… but touch yourself while you do.”
A grateful hum responded, Reardon’s left hand twisting into the sheets while the right found his length with practiced ease and started pumping madly.
“ Slower . But suck harder.”
Reardon whined, so close to finishing, Jack knew, because he could see his hips stuttering and stomach clenching with the need that wasn’t being met. Jack needed it too. He was having trouble keeping his thrusts into Reardon’s mouth civil. How easy it would have been to fuck that mouth raw, willing and open beneath him—but Jack wanted this to last, wanted Reardon’s thighs quaking from a much better connection.
“Up. Forward on your knees. Now.” Jack lifted away to keep from listing to one side as he calmed the mad thrum in his ears and reached for the oils.
“But Majesty—”
“ Now .”
The strain in Reardon’s face as he stopped stroking was pitiable, but he simply didn’t yet know how much better this could be. He listened, lifting with effort to get onto his knees, head pointing the correct direction now, as he leaned onto his forearms, keeping his ass up and his knees parted.
Jack squeezed himself to still the growing ache, made no easier by that stimulating sight. He’d leave Reardon a blissed-out, gibbering mess if he did this right—and he intended to.
The oil he chose was thick and moisturizing for after a bath and smelled faintly of cedar and roses. The large bed barely shifted with his slow crawl toward Reardon, but he knew when Reardon was aware of just how close he got, because he thrust his hips backward.
“So warm…,” Jack said, cupping Reardon’s ass while his oil-slicked fingers trailed down between his cheeks, teasing lightly at the puckered skin.
Reardon mewled and thrust back harder into his touch.
“So sensitive and desperate, but you have to be patient… so you don’t spill all over my sheets when I first press —” Jack reached the waiting entrance that flexed at his approach, giving way the moment he pushed in the tip of a finger. “—inside.”
“ Jack .”
The utterance made Jack falter. He’d heard Reardon say it before, but not directly calling him that. In such a plaintive voice, it made him want to wring more sounds out of the prince.
“Is this what you envisioned?” Jack twisted his finger in deeper.
Unintelligible murmurs replied.
Jack took that as permission to begin a gentle thrust. Reardon was tight but open enough that a single finger found its way inside without trouble, discovering the slick curves that would soon encompass Jack. Reardon stopped trying to hold himself up and became a limp and submissive puddle, weak sounds of discovered ecstasy catching in his throat as he rocked back and back and back to pull Jack in deeper.
Jack twirled a second finger over Reardon’s hole, picturing the way the prince’s lips had enveloped his head. He pressed a second digit inside.
“Ah!” Reardon’s head snapped up with a pained gasp.
Virgin , Jack reminded himself, returning to only one. “You’re tight.”
“Th-that’s… good?”
“It can be. But too tight hurts. I won’t be fucking you tonight, little prince. ”
“But Majesty—!”
“I will not hurt you. But I can still give you a taste and take my pleasure too.”
Removing his fingers entirely, Jack dripped more oil to coat them, finding that the slide of two fingers, even eventually deeply thrust, made their way in more easily after a time. With each renewed twist, Reardon’s tension receded, any signs that it was too tight or painful banished, as his breathing picked up in their stead. Still, Jack could tell that anything more would be too much.
He started his thrusts slow but gradually began to increase the rhythm. Fresh whines floundered off Reardon’s tongue, fingers clawing into the sheets like before, with his forehead pressed to the mattress.
“Oh… oh… Jack ,” Reardon moaned again, as Jack fucked him with a kind hand, his own length leaking rivulets onto the sheets behind the entrance he so wished to ravish. “Are you certain you can’t—”
“I am. But I promise the taste I do give you will be sweet.”
Thrusting deeper and harder and as fast as he could, Jack soon had Reardon crying out in unrestraint, made even more vocal by Jack reaching around him with his other hand to grip Reardon’s soaked member and pump in time to the twist of his fingers.
The dual touch upon Reardon brought Jack’s hips closer, his hardness finding refuge against Reardon’s thigh. The searing hot skin made Jack moan with Reardon, forgetting he was supposed to be the composed one. He wanted to come. He wanted to pull Reardon there with him. He wanted to fuck his sweet prince until stars exploded behind his eyes and they woke up somewhere else.
“Please… please…,” Reardon begged, and Jack’s mind went blank with his own need, fingers retracting to position himself at Reardon’s entrance and push .
Another pained gasp brought Jack to his senses.
“ Please ,” Reardon said again when Jack tried to pull away.
As a lesson, as appeasement, Jack returned his head and pressed just enough to risk its breach, waiting for Reardon to tell him no.
The prince took in several sharp breaths but said nothing.
Jack risked another shift forward, a faint pop resounding as Reardon gave way and encircled him fully around his head.
Reardon bit his lip as if to keep from crying out, rocking away from Jack to pull him with him, and then back again to bring him in deeper. The moan he released encouraged Jack, but the panted breaths sobered him. He couldn’t go any harder or deeper than this, but he could do this and drive Reardon over the edge with him.
Not once did Jack cease his pumping of Reardon’s cock, thrusting rhythmically behind him in turn but only as deep as his head. It was torture to not pound Reardon into the mattress but also bliss, because it had been so long, and no one had ever felt this rewarding to make sing.
Reardon’s utterances were like pleas for mercy, but mercy to be allowed to come, not discomfort. Once Jack’s urgency grew desperate too, he pulled out and slid his shaft up along Reardon’s entrance instead of in, seeking friction, wetness, warmth , and receiving all in abundance.
“Please,” Reardon continued to beg, but Jack would do no more, only increasing his pace and allowing every few passes of his cock to press its head in again.
Finally, Jack’s grip brought forth a yielding cry, and Reardon sagged, deadweight beneath him. Feeling the sticky proof on his hand, Jack kept on faster, seeking oblivion and the sweet relief that only another body could provide, and then—
Jack shot across the curve of Reardon’s inviting crease, staining his skin in opalescent streaks. He sagged as Reardon had sagged, collapsing atop him. At last he’d had his prince, not as fully as he wanted, but so… so good.
Pulling away to relax back on his ankles, Jack took in the sight of Reardon once more, face pressed to the sheets, eyes closed, with his ass ripe and used, now with Jack’s claim all over it. Nothing had ever looked so beautiful.
“You are a sight… little prince.”
Reardon smiled, half invisible against the mattress but as blissed as Jack had intended. Jack wanted to mold himself across that gorgeous form again, but first, it needed to be cleaned.
“Do not open your eyes,” he warned.
“Yes, Majesty,” Reardon whispered like an exhale. “I am content with your touch.”
Reardon
Reardon had never known such pleasure. No touch of his own could compare. No other indulgence either. The limpness he felt without injury—well, without dire injury, for he would certainly be sore tomorrow—was indescribable and made him incapable of movement or protest as the king lifted his spent and soiled body from the bed.
A few short moments later, he felt himself lowered into a soothing bath, smelling of lilacs, whereas the substance the king had used to ease Reardon’s pleasures had been headier. The king’s release that had stained him was rinsed away, and Reardon went even more boneless, afraid he might sink right down, until a firm body climbed in behind him to act as anchor.
Like that, with the king wrapped around him, Reardon could feel his scars everywhere, but it stirred no wince or need to withdraw, only a deep pity for a man who did not deserve this punishment. Maybe once he had, but not anymore.
“Majesty… if I swear to keep my head forward, may I open my eyes to see the room?”
“I suppose.”
Reardon wasted no time, vision unfocused at first from keeping his eyes closed for so long. The washroom was dim but lit by candles, large and luminous, with multiple wardrobes filling the corners, the bath itself up on a pedestal, just as Reardon would have imagined for a king. His father’s washroom was not nearly so grand, however.
The king was not yet fully softened behind Reardon, a solid presence reminding him of how they’d intimately but also only barely connected. Reardon understood why. Too much had hurt, his body unused to such experiences. He’d only ever teased himself there before, but even that brief, small conquering from the king had been incredible.
Resting gratefully back against the body behind him, Reardon fought every impulse in him to not disobey and look. This close, however, with the king’s arms coming up to hold him in place, gentler than they’d held him at the desk, Reardon noticed something unexpected just out of eyeline.
A wisp of white hair.
Barely containing the smile on his face, Reardon settled more comfortably. “May I assume it gets easier with… frequency?”
“It does. Your body adapts. Is that why you came here tonight, little prince? For me to treat you like a stable boy?” One of the hands around Reardon’s waist drifted between his legs where he was spent. Still, the touch made him twitch in the king’s palm. “If you saw Josie and the others, I’m sure you caught them in similar states. ”
“M-mostly,” Reardon said, mourning the king’s touch the moment he returned to merely holding Reardon against him. “ Mostly that’s how I found them all, I mean, not…. That was not why I came to see you. If I had only wanted someone’s touch, I could have gone to another. I didn’t want another.” He pressed his head to the king’s shoulder. “I wanted my love.”
The silence that answered was as torturous as if the king had brought Reardon to the brink only to leave him cold. The cynical sigh he released as he drew his hands away completely was worse.
“Is that why you asked the night for a him, some… fantasy? I am not your love. We merely shared a night of passion.”
“You may think me foolish, Majesty, but it is not fantasy. Barclay had a vision.”
“What?”
The pull to turn and look the king in the eyes was strong, but Reardon held still. “Before Barclay was chosen as offering, he had a vision of my love. Well, what he saw was difficult to describe, he said, but it was… love, death, and blue eyes in a sea of white .
“There has been much death here, Majesty, but there is still hope. Your court has all found someone to love. With Branwen and Caitlin, perhaps it is something different or moving more slowly, but they all have someone, even your sister, so content with my friend, who never thought he’d find a love of his own. Don’t you understand what that means?”
“That’s why you said blue eyes,” the king murmured.
“Yes. It’s you. You are my love, and I am yours.” Reardon boldly reached to take the king’s hands, that had fallen away. “We can be the final piece to breaking your curse for good.”
“Close your eyes.”
“All right.” Reardon did so, unprepared for the sharp yank of the king’s hands and push forward as the body behind him got out of the bath.
“Wait—”
“Get out.”
“But—”
“You are going to dry off, get dressed, and get out of my chambers. And if you look at me, I will still throw you from the ramparts.” Those strong hands gripped Reardon’s shoulders and roughly lifted him to his feet, forcing him to stumble out of the bath.
“I-I cannot dress blind!” he protested .
Still rough and harried, the king brought a robe that he used to pat Reardon’s skin. Then he grabbed Reardon’s arm and dragged him down the steps leading from the bath, across the stones, until at last he pushed him forward and left him, just a voice over his shoulder. “Dress and stay facing forward.”
Reardon opened his eyes. He was back by the desk, where his and the king’s clothes lay in heaps. Much as this pained him, he grabbed his shirt and trousers. “Majesty, Barclay’s vision—”
“I am not your love.”
“But you could be!”
“You said your Lombard has blue eyes?” The way the king spat the name made Reardon stagger as he tried to pull up his trousers.
“Yes.”
“You hoped it might be him once, didn’t you?”
“N-no, I….” Reardon had , but— “He’d never want me—”
“If he did, you would have gladly taken him instead. And at least he could be with you during the day.”
“You can as well!” Reardon insisted. “We can break the curse—”
“There is no breaking this curse!” the king’s voice bellowed from only a stride behind him. “You are a silly romantic. Now get out. In the morning, you can leave for your kingdom.”
Reardon snapped upright, dressed now but shaken. The king was dismissing him, but he would not let this be the end. “No.”
“No?” the king challenged back.
“I am not leaving.” Reardon stood firm, clenching his fists in resolve. “The secrets of this castle were only part of our deal. I said we would know one another.”
“I think we know one another quite well, little prince.”
The memories of that, the smell of it lingering in the air, mixed with cedar and flowers, only made Reardon more certain.
The crumpled verses on the king’s desk made him certain too, though he hadn’t yet read them. With the king behind him, and Reardon at the edge of the desk, he reclaimed the book he’d brought, using that more visible act to hide how he snatched the parchment too.
“I said I wanted a way to save our kingdoms from all this madness. Breaking the curse will accomplish that, and I am not leaving until I do.”
“You—”
“I will prove you wrong,” Reardon cut off the angry rebuttal, moving swiftly around the desk for the door. “And tomorrow, I will be ready for our next audience. Thank you for the book, Majesty. Good night.” Without waiting for a response, Reardon escaped, knowing the king would not follow, and fell back against the door with a shuddered breath, clutching his prizes to his chest.
Right there in the chilly throne room, he read:
The noble prince went on his quest….
It was a sweet and simple tale that ended as theirs just had, only they hadn’t yet managed to release the beast as the pair in the poem did. Even so, it proved Reardon right, that long before tonight, the king had wanted him, wanted more, wanted freedom and connection and the love he denied himself. He’d nearly thrown away this parchment, judging by its creases, but he’d salvaged it. He did want what Reardon offered. His heart was merely frozen.
Smiling as he held the poem and book close, Reardon slipped behind the icy throne to return to the secret tunnels. Lombard might have been his choice once, but his were not the eyes that haunted Reardon, and now, while Reardon still did not know the true form of the king, he had a picture in his mind of blue eyes on a man with an un-aging, scarred face….
And white hair.