Once Upon a Time (Calluvia's Royalty 3)

Rohan turned around, his lips twisting into something that was almost a smile when he saw Jamil’s withering look. “I’m tired, and not really in the mood for our usual denial dance, sweetheart. Shall we skip it? We both know how it ends.”

Two spots of color appeared on the prince’s pale cheeks, the color of his plush lips. He really was incredibly lovely, for a man. It was a pity he was a man. If he weren’t, Rohan would have already been balls deep inside him and fucked this strange fixation out of his system days ago.

“I know no such thing,” Jamil said, haltingly.

“Liar,” Rohan said, walking toward him.

Jamil took a step back, his eyes very bright. Wary. Hungry.

Rohan continued advancing on him.

Wetting his lips with his tongue, Jamil took another step back.

“I know you’ve been thinking about it all day,” Rohan said, stepping closer. “Because I have, too. Come on, admit it, Highness.”

Jamil shook his head, even though his mental presence was already reaching out greedily, entwining with Rohan’s, inviting him in, hungry and needy.

“Is this how it’s gonna be?” Rohan said, smiling sardonically. “You want to keep pretending that you don’t want it?” Truth be told, the prince’s continued claims that he didn’t want this should have pissed him off. It should have. But having been in Jamil’s mind, Rohan knew him. He knew him on the most intimate, deepest level there was to know another person. He knew what made Prince Jamil the person he was now: a boy who had grown up too fast, with immense expectations and responsibilities put on him from very early childhood, a grieving man who had lost his husband and best friend months ago, a man who felt crippling guilt for just feeling good, as if his ability to feel good should have died with his husband. Jamil had molded himself to be the perfect husband, bondmate, and heir to the throne. Anything that didn’t fit those roles—or what Jamil perceived as unfitting—stressed him out to an unhealthy degree.

“You didn’t even love him,” Rohan heard himself say and then nearly sighed in frustration. He had been resolved to leave it alone—the subject wouldn’t exactly endear him to Jamil—but it didn’t work. Something in him wanted to point it out, the same something that wanted to rip that ugly, broken bond out of Jamil’s mind. It made Rohan uneasy. He wasn’t a possessive man, had never been. Until now, apparently. It was almost funny that he felt so insanely possessive over a man he didn’t want to fuck while he had never felt even a little jealous when he was with women he dated.

“How dare you,” Jamil bit off, breathing unsteadily. “You think you know my feelings for Mehmer better than I do?”

Yes. Rohan had to actually bite his tongue to stop himself from saying that. “All I’m saying is that your… feelings for the prince-consort were artificial, born from that unnatural bond you had with him since you were a small child. You know I’m right. You loved him because you had no choice, Jamil.”

The prince glared daggers at him. “I didn’t give you permission to use my shorter name,” he said, completely ignoring what Rohan had said. “It’s Prince Jamil’ngh’veighli for you.”

Rohan chuckled, taking one last step forward until they were toe to toe. “That’s a bit of a mouthful, darling. You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to call you that.”

“You will call me Your Highness. Failing that, you will call me Prince Jamil’ngh’veighli,” the prince said stubbornly, as if he wasn’t trembling from head to toe from their proximity. He was wound up so tightly it made Rohan agitated, too—more agitated than he already was.

Sighing, Rohan pressed their foreheads together. “You need to learn to loosen up,” he murmured, burying his fingers in the prince’s soft hair. “Let go, sweetheart,” he whispered, his eyelids growing heavier as their minds slotted together, slipping into a shallow merge, effortlessly.

Jamil whimpered, his mind going empty with pure bliss. Truth be told, Rohan wasn’t faring much better, his senses quickly clouding with pleasure. The only reason he wasn’t as gone yet was because, unlike Jamil, he actually had experience with merges and his tolerance was higher. He was just rational enough to recognize that this was bad. This was a disaster. They were quickly becoming addicted to a merge—to each other’s minds. He’d heard stories of merge addiction, but it was rare enough and usually nowhere near as extreme as this. The mere fact that Rohan no longer even needed to touch Jamil’s telepathic point to initiate a merge was extremely worrying. Or would be if he were able to feel anything but pleasure at the moment.

“We need to figure out how to get close to Dalatteya.” Jamil’s voice in the merge was low and intimate, almost sleepy, free of tension and primness that always seemed to be present in his real voice. “Then you can leave and we won’t have to deal with this anymore.”