Page 45 of Deven and the Dragon
It was just like Deven taking Fiora to bed under false pretenses, only even worse, because the consequences were so much more grave. Either way, it was a lie, and a critical one.
Fiora cringed, his hands flying back to his face. He could never look at Deven again. He had ruinedeverything. Deven might love him, but he’d never want to act on it now.
“I’m sorry,” he groaned from behind his hands. Deven’s trespass didn’t even seem so big now, compared to his own. “I’m so sorry. Deven, how can you forgive me?”
A long pause followed, and Fiora’s hopes, so high only a few minutes before, sank down and down and down.
“I can forgive you all too easily, because I love you,” Deven said quietly at last. “I love you so much I’d forgive a lot more than that. And because of the consequences of that bloody curse, I know you love me, too — or you did a week ago. I think the question is whether you have enough love left to forgive me for lying to you.”
Fiora couldn’t speak. His heart was too full, and if he tried to get even a few words out he knew the tears would spill over — and that would be beneath his dignity.
Oh, who was he trying to fool, anyway.
He took his hands away from his face and held out his arms.
Fiora was crushed against Deven’s chest before he could blink, Deven wedged onto the bed beside him and wrapped around him, strong and safe and warm. He petted Fiora’s back, and stroked his hair, and murmured in his ear everything Fiora longed to hear:I love you,I’ll never leave you,please don’t ask me to leave you again, I couldn’t bear it, I’d sit outside the castle and pine and wait to catch a glimpse of you…
Fiora wrapped his arms around Deven’s waist and held on with all his might. He let the words wash over him, taking away the last of the curse, and Fiora’s guilt, and his anger at Deven’s betrayal. Who needed extensive groveling, with Deven kept at arm’s length until he’d earned Fiora’s forgiveness, when he could havethis? Fiora had much rather skip directly to the benefits of having an adoring lover, thank you very much.
Deven fell silent after a time, simply holding Fiora close and resting his head on Fiora’s hair.
Could he sleep again? Perhaps. But there was something long and hard poking into Fiora’s side where he rested on Deven’s lap.
Was he sufficiently recovered to do anything about it? Yes, yes he was.
But there was one problem.
“I think I need a bath,” Fiora muttered into Deven’s chest.
Deven inhaled deeply and laughed. Fiora’s head shot up and he glared up at Deven indignantly.
“I didn’t say anything!” Deven protested.
“Yousmelledme, and then youlaughedat me!”
“Would it help if I said I think I need a bath too, and reminded you that your bathtub is more than big enough for both of us?” Deven squeezed him and laughed again when Fiora squirmed in his grasp, trying to get away. The bastard. Howdarehe? “I’ll go and run one, all right? And come back and carry you to it, if you’d like.”
“I wouldnotlike,” Fiora said with a sniff. “Run your own bath, if you must.”
Deven extracted himself and went into the bath, and the water started up a moment later. Fiora laid in bed, trying to convince himself he wanted Deven to shut the door and bathe alone.
It was all moot when Deven strode back out again, flung the covers back, and tossed Fiora over his shoulder.
Fiora argued, and struggled, and made a terrible scene, but at last Deven wrestled him out of his shirt and drawers and plunked him into the tub, starting in on his own clothes immediately. All Fiora’s protests died on his lips as Deven stripped. It was like something out of one of the illustrated erotic works Fiora kept on a shelf in his bedchamber — hidden behind several volumes of a series on the history of agriculture. First the flat stomach, and then the powerful chest and shoulders, as Deven pulled his shirt up and off.
And then — well, everything under Deven’s trousers, as muscled and hard and lickable as the parts above.
Deven climbed in with a splash and picked Fiora up around the waist, settling him so that he was straddling Deven’s lap.
“That was high-handed, undignified, and unbefitting,” Fiora informed him. He shifted a little so that Deven’s cock pressed between the cheeks of his ass, and Deven made a desperate little sound. Fiora shivered. “You don’t deserve this.”
He’d been teasing, mostly, but Deven sobered at once, his smile falling away. “I know,” he said. “I don’t deserve you, you shouldn’t forgive me, and you probably shouldn’t love me, either. But I love you, and you’re not getting rid of me unless you really, really try. You’d probably have to have your mother light me on fire and eat me. Believe me, she’s eager for any excuse.”
Fiora slid his hands down Deven’s chest, tracing the muscles there, and rocked back so that Deven’s cock slid back and forth deliciously. “Don’t talk about my mother right at this instant, if you please,” he said a little breathlessly.
Deven leaned in and finally, finally set his mouth over Fiora’s, his lips firm and hot. Fiora melted into it, moaning into his mouth, and wrapped his arms around Deven’s neck. Oh, he’d wanted this, during his days and nights of fear and sickness and loneliness. He’d wanted this more than anything.
Finally Deven released his mouth and kissed his way down Fiora’s throat.
