Page 34 of Deven and the Dragon
Deven shook and spilled, deep inside Fiora’s pliant body, and collapsed, shuddering. Slim, strong arms wrapped around his back and held him there. He breathed against Fiora’s hair. It still smelled of lemons and sunshine. Devon closed his eyes and let himself drift.
He could have this, for now. And he’d make it last as long as he could before the world came rushing back in.
Deven snored. Perhaps Fiora ought to have minded. With other lovers, he’d found himself nudging their sleeping bodies with his toes, or sometimes his elbows, until they snorted and rolled over and stopped.
Perhaps Fiora would mind Deven’s snoring too, once he got used to it.
Since he might not have long to get used to it, it didn’t matter much.
Fiora turned his head to stare at the ceiling, unable to bear watching Deven any longer. He’d look again in a moment. He wouldn’t be able to resist the sight of Deven inhisbed, inhisbedchamber,his. But for now he couldn’t look. It only made Fiora’s chest clench tighter, his lungs laboring.
Fiora knew what he was doing. He didn’t regret it. Andrei would — Fiora squeezed his eyes shut, a tear leaking out anyway. Andrei would be livid, incandescent, utterly inconsolable. And Fiora’s parents…more tears slipped past his eyelids and ran down over his temples. Their horror and grief and rage would know no bounds. The people of Ridley would be lucky if Fiora’s mother didn’t lay waste to the whole town when the news of Fiora’s death reached her.
He turned his head again, enough to see the rose leaning up in a glass of water on the nightstand. Deven had stayed awake long enough to rub them both down with a cloth he’d fetched from the bath, and had filled a glass of water for the rose at the same time. His smile as he set the stem carefully into the glass and then bent to give Fiora a kiss would be preserved in Fiora’s memories forever. Which wouldn’t be that long.
Was the curse already taking effect? Fiora felt fine. Tired, and sore in some truly delicious places, but fine — more than fine.
The rose glowed in the lamplight. Was that really how Fiora’s skin looked to Deven, all pale-blue tinted and velvety? Fiora had made the comparison himself, of course, but only as a fantasy. He hadn’t really thought anyone else would see a resemblance.
Fiora had already been teetering on the brink. Deven, all stumbling words, standing before him with that little rose clutched in his huge hand, had pushed him over.
He was in love. Against his will, against his common sense, against all his instincts for self-preservation, he was hopelessly, thoroughly in love.
Perhaps he felt fine because Deven, too, was in love. Years of going over and over the curse, sometimes dissecting it on paper and sometimes in his mind, had left every word branded into his brain. If Fiora didn’t love, his lover would die. If Fiora did love,hewould die. The only options were to avoid physical love altogether, which had been Fiora’s solution thus far — or to consummate his feelings only when he was certain they were both genuine and returned.
He was certain his own were genuine, and that Deven would be safe from the curse’s effects.
As to the other, he could hope and pray with all his might, but he knew in his heart of hearts that his gamble was likely to fail. Deven had been tight-lipped about his romantic history, but reading between the lines, there wasn’t much of one.
A sexual history, now — that was another matter. Andrei’s lectures on Fiora’s foolishness, over the past fortnight, had focused heavily on Deven’s reputation in Ridley. Andrei had gone to town and chatted up the locals himself, and had also enlisted Fred and several of the housemaids in the same endeavor. All had heard the same story: Deven was notorious, wildly popular with widows, young women with a taste for adventure, young men with a taste for other young men, and anyone else who wanted an uncomplicated night or two of pleasure. He was wildly unpopular with everyone related to anyone who fell into those categories.
All agreed that Deven failed to live up to the cliché of loving them and leaving them, since he skipped the ‘loving them’ part entirely. At least no one could claim Deven had lied to them, which was something, Fiora supposed.
Even if Fiora were much, much more attractive than he was, he could hardly expect to be the very first to touch Deven’s heart, presuming he had one. No, Fiora was sure he did, and a warm one, too. Whether or not it was the sort of heart that could offer Fiora the love he longed for and needed was another matter.
Still, Fiora couldn’t regret what he’d done. It had been an irresistible impulse, an overwhelming torrent of desire, carrying him away before he could even rationally make up his mind. But if he had been able to pause and think, he thought he would have done the same. Perhaps Deven would never love him, and Fiora would die.
He thought he could — and he smiled to himself over his own morbid joke — live with that. He could make his peace with it.
He might feel differently about it once the curse took hold and his death became something more than abstract. How could he know? But he’d rather risk his life and actuallyliveit than go on forever, pining and miserable and lonely and alone.
And Deven might love him. If not now, then before the curse crept up and snuffed Fiora out. He might love him.
Fiora would cling to that hope, and wring every drop of happiness he could from his own recklessness in the meantime.
Chapter Sixteen
Deven dreamed thata chicken was sitting on his head. Feathers up his nose, and something choking him…he coughed, woke and flailed, and inhaled another mouthful of Fiora’s long hair.
Fiora stirred and mumbled, rubbing himself against Deven’s suddenly very interested cock. He brushed most of Fiora’s hair off his face and then slipped his hand in between their bodies so he could fondle Fiora’s ass.
Chicken dreams aside, this was truly the best way to wake up Deven could imagine.
Fiora pulled away with another sleepy mumble, and Deven froze, drawing his hand back slowly. Had he overstepped? When Deven woke the night before, after his post-coital nap, they’d gone for another round, rubbing off on one another in the intimate space created by a shared bed, smiling lips kissing lazily as they went.
And then Fiora had fallen asleep in Deven’s arms. It certainly felt like an open invitation.
“My ass is too thin,” Fiora muttered.
