Kings Rising (Captive Prince 3)

Laurent said, ‘It’s our last chance for a real bed before the Kingsmeet.’

Damen didn’t have time to answer that Laurent had dismantled the bed, because Laurent was pressing against him. His hands came up automatically, to grasp Laurent’s sides over the thin fabric of the bed shirt. They were kissing, Laurent’s fingers in his hair, pulling his head down. He could feel the sweat and the dirt of three days’ ride on himself, against Laurent’s clean, fresh skin.

Laurent didn’t seem to care, even seemed to like it. Damen pressed him into the wall, and took his mouth. Laurent smelled of soap and fresh cotton. Damen’s thumbs pushed into his waist.

‘I need to bathe.’ He said it into Laurent’s ear, let his lips find the sensitive skin just behind it.

They were kissing again, deep, heated kisses. ‘So go and bathe.’

He found himself pushed backwards, looking at Laurent across a stretch of space. Leaned against the wall, Laurent indicated to the small wooden door with his chin. His pale brows arched. ‘Or do you expect me to attend you?’

In the adjoining room, he looked around at the soaps and fresh towels, the large wooden tub full of steaming water, and the smaller bucket alongside it. All of it had been arranged in advance, a servant bringing the towels and drawing the hot water. The evidence of planning was in fact very like Laurent, though Damen had never experienced it from him quite in this context before.

Laurent didn’t follow him in, but left him to wash, a utilitarian task. It felt good to slough off the dust and dirt of the road. And there was something tantalising about breaking off to spend an interval washing. They had not before had the luxury of extended lovemaking, deliberate and unhurried as a First Night. His thoughts ribboned with all the things they had yet to do.

He soaped his body thoroughly. He dumped water over his hair, scrubbed it, dried himself all over with the towel, and stepped from the wooden tub.

When he returned to the bedchamber, his skin was flushed from the steam and water, the towel looped around his waist, his bare torso and shoulders damp with scattered droplets from the tips of his hair.

Here, too, was evidence of planning, and he could see it now for what it was: the lit candles, the joint bedding, and Laurent himself, clean and dressed in a bed shirt. He thought of Laurent, waiting for him expectantly. It was charming, because it was clear that Laurent was unsure exactly what to do, yet, typically, had acted to take control of everything.

‘First time to entertain a lover?’ Just saying the word made him flush, and he saw Laurent flush too.

Laurent said, ‘Are you bathed?’

‘Yes,’ said Damen.

Laurent was standing on the other side of the room, near the stripped-down bed. He looked tense in the flame light, a nervy steeling of himself.

Laurent said, ‘Take a step back.’

Damen had to look behind himself briefly, because stepping meant his back hit the wall. The pallet and bedding were on the floor to his left. The wall was a firm presence at his back.

‘Put your hands on the plaster,’ Laurent said.

The three flames on their candlewicks made the light move, heightening Damen’s sense of the room. Laurent was coming forward, his blue eyes dark. As he did so, Damen placed his palms flat on the plaster behind him.

Laurent’s eyes were on him. The room was quiet, the thick walls meaning that the only sound was from the fire, even the outside was no more than a reflection of candlelight in the black glass panes of the window.

‘Take off the towel,’ said Laurent.

Damen lifted one hand from the wall, tugging the towel loose. It unwound, and slid from his waist to the floor.

He watched Laurent react to his body. Virgins and the inexperienced tended to get nervous, which he enjoyed as a challenge to be overcome, hesitancy turned into eagerness and pleasure. It pleased some deep part of him to see in Laurent the flickering of a similar reaction. Laurent eventually lifted his gaze from the place where it had, instinctively, dropped.

He let Laurent see him, see his nakedness was on display, the strident fact of his arousal. The flames in the stone hearth were too loud as they consumed the young cut wood.

‘Don’t touch me,’ said Laurent.

And dropped to his knees on the floor of the inn.

The simple sight of it outstripped words or thought. Damen’s pulse escalated wildly, even as he tried rather desperately not to presume that any other action would necessarily follow from this one.

Laurent wasn’t looking back up at him, he was looking at Damen’s nakedness. Laurent’s lips were parted, the strain in him greater now that he was closer to its source. Damen felt the first flutter of Laurent’s breath against him.

Laurent was going to do it. When you see a panther opening its jaws you don’t get your dick out. Damen didn’t move, didn’t breathe. Laurent had a hand on him, and all Damen could do was stand, palms and back flat against the wall behind him. The idea of the frigid Prince of Vere sucking his cock was impossible. Laurent put his own palm to the wall.

He could see the planes of Laurent’s face from this different angle. The pale sweep of his lashes hid the blue eyes beneath. The quiet room around them was a surreal backdrop of simple furniture and a stripped bed. Laurent put his mouth to the tip.