Once Upon a Time (Calluvia's Royalty 3)

“What about the boy?”

“What about him?” Rohan said impatiently. “Make sure he doesn’t contact his master. I’ll meet you at the Blind when the area is safe enough.”

“You aren’t joining us at the safe house?” Sirri said, her tone becoming suspicious. “Just what exactly are you doing? Where are you?”

“It’s none of your business,” he said and hung up.

Turning back to Jamil, he found Jamil stroking his kiss-swollen lips absentmindedly.

Rohan stared. He had just kissed Jamil. Kissed. Put his tongue down another man’s throat. And loved every moment of it.

Blushing, Jamil crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Bad news?”

Rohan looked away from Jamil’s lips. “I need to lie low for a while. Can I stay for the night?”

Jamil’s brows knitted, his body radiating indecision.

“All right,” he said at last. “You’ll have to stay in my rooms. I had security of the palace improved since you were gone. Now there are cameras in every room and turning one off must be authorized by two people. Only the personal quarters of my family aren’t constantly monitored for privacy reasons.”

“Thanks,” Rohan said, his gaze drawn back to Jamil’s lips. They were still shiny and bitten red. So damn pretty.

A baby cry broke the spell.

Jamil strode toward the crib. “Shh,” he murmured, lifting the baby and cradling her against his chest.

Rohan tried to look away, but his eyes kept returning to Jamil and the child. Their daughter. He would like to say he was looking at the child, but that would be a lie. He watched Jamil smile at the infant, cooing at her and baby talking. Jamil’s green eyes were lit up, shining with naked love. It made Rohan’s stomach clench.

It was probably really, really messed up to feel envious of a child. His own daughter. This kind of possessiveness was fucking unhealthy—creepy. Granted, everything about his attachment to Jamil was a little bit creepy. Rohan didn’t feel like himself around Jamil at all. All this tender, possessive, proprietary shit wasn’t who Rohan was. But when he was around Jamil, his brain seemed to melt into a pile of mush and all rational thoughts flew out of his head.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Jamil said when the baby stopped being fussy and settled contentedly against Jamil’s chest.

The sight made something inside him twist.

“She is,” Rohan said, turning away. “She’ll be your spitting image when she grows up.”

Not that I’ll be around to see it.

Chapter 17

Jamil felt painfully transparent as they entered his rooms. If he really tried—if he really wanted—he could find a safe room for Rohan to spend the night in, a room that wasn’t Jamil’s bedroom.

He didn’t want to.

He stared at the bed as Rohan disappeared into the bathroom. With numb, unsteady fingers, he started undressing. He slipped into his sleep pants, shivering as the cool, smooth fabric touched the sensitive skin of his bare thighs and buttocks. He didn’t put on a shirt.

He got into the bed and lay down on his back.

He told himself nothing was going to happen.

Nothing was going to happen.

Rohan wasn’t interested in men that way. He’d made it crystal clear in the past.

Jamil’s fingers touched his lips. They still felt a little swollen and oversensitive. His eyes slipped shut as he remembered Rohan’s lips, his teeth, his tongue inside him.

His face warm, Jamil shook his head. It hadn’t been a real kiss. There had been nothing sexual or romantic about it. It had been pure need, an insatiable, soul-wrenching need to be closer, to be one, that manifested in such a way. Jamil had felt Rohan’s thoughts and Rohan hadn’t been thinking about the softness of Jamil’s lips or the pleasure of kissing him. Closer, tighter, deeper was all Rohan had thought and wanted. The desire to be merged had been so intense it left no place for things like sexuality and sexual desire. It was a desire, just a different one. Scarier. Hungrier. Baser. A craving they could no longer fight after so long apart.

His body was still aching with it, a maddening itch that couldn’t be scratched—or rather, it could be scratched only by one person.

Sighing in frustration, Jamil looked at Mehmer’s portrait.

But even looking at his husband’s dear, familiar features didn’t help. It had been a year and a half since Mehmer died. The pain was no longer fresh, the remnants of his torn bond barely there. He didn’t feel like a married man anymore. He had invited another man into the bed he’d shared with Mehmer and it didn’t feel wrong. He didn’t feel like he was betraying Mehmer in any way. The thought should have been freeing, but all it did was unsettle him. Jamil honestly didn’t trust himself not to do something… unwise now that his guilt was no longer there to stop him.

“Something unwise?” Rohan said with a wry smile, emerging from the bathroom. His dark eyes were glinting with humor. “Even your thoughts are so very proper and princely, Your Highness.”