Page 54 of The Second Marriage
Taral’s breath puffed warm around his mouth as he laughed against Sejun’s shoulder. “Nice? That’s all I’ve managed?”
“Well, you haven’t started yet,” Sejun said, and prodded Taral again until Taral began to move.
If Sejun had visions of Taral bending him in half and breaking the bedframe, he was surely disappointed. What Taral wanted was to lie in his arms and kiss his mouth and his throat and move inside him slowly, relishing each push in and each searing drag out. They had done this before, in a sense, although really Sejun had done it and Taral had simply lain there and provided a convenient appendage for Sejun to enjoy. This time Taral would do as he pleased, and Sejun didn’t seem to mind. He kissed Taral and tightened around him with every thrust until Taral felt sweat break out all over his body from the wave of pleasure that washed over him each time he pressed inside.
“My alpha,” Taral said to him, kissing his ear.
Sejun drew in a sharp breath. “You should come now, because I can’t bear to have you inside me after I do, and I can’t hold out much longer.”
Taral pulled Sejun’s hips toward him, shoving himself ever so slightly deeper. “Don’t hold out. I want to feel you come apart around me.”
Sejun huffed. “If that’s what you want, I won’t deny you.” He fell silent and turned his head aside, his fingertips digging into Taral’s back as his body grew tense. His legs fell open around Taral’s hips, then tightened again, and he gave a cry and pulsed around Taral’s cock in rhythmic flutters as his hot spend pumped across Taral’s belly.
Taral waited until Sejun relaxed again, then carefully withdrew. His cock was so hard it ached. He knelt between Sejun’s splayed thighs and stroked himself off, slick with oil, as Sejun looked up at him, sated and smirking.
“Are you going to cover me with your spend?” Sejun asked. “Is that what my omega would like? I’ll go around all day tomorrow still reeking of you, and every alpha in the palace will know who’s claimed me.”
Taral did like that, as it happened. He moved his hand faster. When he felt his orgasm rising, he closed his eyes and sent a silent prayer to the One God: for love, for joy, for a good marriage. Then he spilled his benediction over Sejun’s skin.
They performed the most cursory of clean-ups, a wet cloth wiped over the messiest bits, and then curled up together in the bed. Taral tucked Sejun beneath his arm and kissed the top of his head. He felt bruised deep inside, a sore place where something was moving within him. He knew what it was. He was afraid to put a name to it.
“It was a nice evening,” Sejun said, then broke into a huge yawn.
Taral kissed him again. “Very nice. Let’s sleep.”
CHAPTER25
Sejun cherished the books Taral had bought for him because they were a gift and because Taral had thought of him to buy them, but they were not, as it happened, particularly well written. He had many idle hours to fill while Taral was off in a stuffy room listening to tedious speeches, and there were only so many strolls around the gardens and midday courtyard parties one could stomach. He needed something good to read.
“I know just the place,” Nirav said when Sejun asked him where he could find a quality bookshop, and offered to take Sejun there the next day. Sejun accepted the invitation with gratitude.
He met Nirav at the Bear Gate in the morning, late enough that the sun was high above the palace walls; Nirav claimed any time before noon was too early to be out and about in the city. He was surprised to see another man waiting at Nirav’s side, a nobleman from the quality of his tunic, but not someone Sejun recognized. Nirav had said nothing about bringing a friend.
Nirav hailed him as he drew near. “Sejun, this is Tarush. He’d like to go with us as he’s looking for a gift for his sister. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” said Sejun, who didn’t actually mind, and also couldn’t think of any polite way to decline.
Tarush had curly black hair pulled back into a knot and a sober bearing that Sejun wouldn’t have expected from a friend of Nirav’s. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back and in utter silence, so that after a while Sejun ceased to notice his presence. Nirav launched into a long and detailed story about some scandal an acquaintance was involved in that might have been sexual in nature, although Sejun wasn’t confident in his understanding of the euphemisms Nirav used. Following the story’s meandering narrative occupied most of Sejun’s attention, and he didn’t think to wonder why they headed into an unassuming residential neighborhood instead of toward the market district. He was taken off guard when Nirav came to a stop and said, “Here we are.”
“Oh.” Sejun blinked at the building before them, a painted three-story house like those found everywhere in Banuri. The windows on the lowest level were shuttered, and he saw no signs that there was a shop within. “Do you have an errand to run first?”
Nirav laughed. “No. This is the shop. I told you that you wouldn’t be able to find it on your own, and this is why.” He stepped forward and rapped on the door. After a few moments, the door opened, revealing a small, hunched person dressed in a man’s tunic and trousers but with the veil of an unmarried woman covering their face and hair. Nirav said, “Are you open?”
The person coughed beneath their veil. “Might as well be.”
After such an odd welcome, Sejun fully expected a dim, cramped shop filled with dust and cobwebs, and mummified insects along the windowsills. Instead, once the owner threw all the shutters open, the space proved to be bright, airy, and immaculately clean. Tables lining the walls displayed a variety of books, leaving the center of the shop open. Sejun browsed with pleasure, flipping through the pages to see what was on offer. There were several tempting romances, and he struggled to narrow his selection to three, mindful of the expense. He also found a travelogue about Mokaneng that he thought Taral would like. He added that one to his stack.
“I’m impressed that you read Chedoy for pleasure. I find that reading in a foreign language is unbearably tedious.”
Sejun glanced up. Tarush had come to stand near him and was looking at the cover of the book Sejun held. “Oh—well, I didn’t have much of a choice, I suppose. There are only so many books written in the Mountain Kingdoms. If I wanted more to read, I had to learn how to do it in other tongues.”
Tarush’s mouth twitched. “As good a reason as any, I suppose. And now you know Chedoy so well you can meddle in our affairs.”
Sejun stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending, before his body heated with the sudden flush of a confrontation. He looked around for Nirav, but he was on the far side of the shop, chatting with the shopkeeper and oblivious to Sejun’s predicament. He tried to think of how Taral would advise him to respond. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”
Tarush’s eyebrows drew together. “No? Your grand mountain delegation, here to cast judgment on a war you didn’t fight? The Skopoy surrendered to us, and by all rights the Kasauli belongs to Chedi, as it did before the Skopoy infringed on our borders. Any negotiations you conduct are illegitimate.”
“But I’m not involved in the negotiations.” Sejun gestured with his book. “As you see by my current pastime. I’m in Banuri to accompany my husband, that’s all. I hardly know anything about the situation at all.”