Page 52 of Stitches
“Another daydream?” Ashmedai asked.
“Yes. I can’t recall the cat’s name, but she was very like Aurora. Slightly longer hair. My mother’s cat. She was always very sweet with me.”
As Levi attempted to scratch lower toward the base of Aurora’s tail, she whipped up and darted away with another “Prrp!” and disappeared right through Ashmedai’s bedchamber door.
“She has the run of the castle,” Ashmedai said, “and likes it that way. She’s not used to company, other than Dreya, but I think she likes you. I found her after I first moved in. She was hiding in a closet, not knowing yet that she could pass through walls. I don’t know who she belonged to, if anyone from the castle, but she’s been mine for centuries.”
Only then, as Levi turned in Ashmedai’s arms to face him, did he realize the king was dressed as he was—in nothing but a robe.
Ashmedai’s robe was red but otherwise identical to the one Levi wore. Behind Ashmedai, his kingly clothing was draped over a tall wingback chair in front of a fireplace that hadn’t been lit when Levi went into the washroom, but now it blazed, casting golden light along Ashmedai’s white face.
Without his usual high-collared tunic, Ashmedai’s clavicle and a small peek of his chest was visible. At first Levi thought he saw scars, but they were more like protrusions, ridges, three distinct rows of them one beneath another across Ashmedai’s chest, and possibly a fourth where Levi couldn’t quite see.
He wondered where else Ashmedai had ridges.
“I-I… left my clothes by the bath,” Levi said. He and Ashmedai were still closely met in the center of the room, but no longer touching, and yet, being so near each other made Levi’s breath pick up. The desire mixed with the denial of contact made him want to push the robe from Ashmedai’s shoulders.
“That’s fine,” Ashmedai said—answering Levi’sactualcomment, not the thoughts in his head. “You’ll likely need to borrow some of my clothing anyway. I can return yours tomorrow. Would you like to pick something out?” The king gestured behind him, beside the fireplace, where a large wardrobe rested.
Levi normally saw Ashmedai in the same—or similar—outfits of red and black brocade with gold trim. He couldn’t imagine wearing something like that himself, but surely Ashmedai had softer things, casual things to drape himself in when he lounged here alone. Levi wanted to see that. He wanted to know Ashmedai as he was when he was his most private self.
“Levi?”
Levi hadn’t meant to, but his hand had reached of its own accord to touch those fascinating ridges. They were too symmetrical to be scars. They almost felt like bone. Ashmedai had claws after all, however delicately he used them, as well as points on every tooth. Levi had read about many creatures of myth, all of which someone in the Dark Kingdom had emulated after the curse, sometimes a combination of several. He didn’t know what Ashmedai was supposed to be.
“More of my strangeness,” Ashmedai said quietly, referencing an old conversation about how they both had trouble accepting who and what they were.
Levi answered with the sentiment he had finally taken to heart. “No such thing in the Shadow Lands.” He flattened his hand over the ridges, mimicking how Ashmedai had covered and smoothed the stitches over Levi’s heart. Feeling Ashmedai shiver, which was far too tantalizing an act from the Shadow King, Levi found his nerves strengthened.
He lifted his other hand to the opening of Ashmedai’s robe and drew both sets of trailing fingers downward, parting the soft fabric as he went, until he reached the tie at Ashmedai’s waist. The king made no move tostop him, so Levi undid the tie and pushed the robe from Ashmedai’s shoulders like he’d envisioned.
Similar ridges to what arched across Ashmedai’s chest were also along his ribs, as well as lining his elbows and knees, usually in three or four parallel rows. None crossed over the flat of his stomach, but some curled up around his hips, fading downward where they pointed in a tantalizing V.
Ashmedai’s cock was also ridged, with fainter but clearly there lines, especially visible with how he was hardening
Levi wanted to touch every one of them.
“I want to pleasure you as you did me,” he said, beginning to untie his own robe.
“I-I barely touched you,” Ashmedai sputtered, like it was no great feat, though for Levi, he had never known anything as blissful.
“You can touch me now,” Levi said, letting his robe fall to join Ashmedai’s on the floor.
Levi had never been bare in front of anyone but Braxton, and then, it was always clinical. Where once he would have been frightened, now, those nerves were pure anticipation. He watched Ashmedai reach for him with what Levi still felt was undeserved reverence, yet from the king, he knew it was genuine.
The first touch was simply along Levi’s cheekbone, and then down his neck over his heart. Ashmedai seemed to be tracing all the places where he had already smoothed away stitches, mimicking how he had touched Levi beneath his clothing in the rain, only now nothing encumbered him.
Finally, once every other part of Levi had been gifted a caress, and they were both hard, Ashmedai reached between Levi’s legs. Gentle claws found Levi’s cock, and the soft underside of his fingers curled firmly.
Levi gasped and bucked into his grip. “M-may I… touch you too?”
It seemed words failed Ashmedai, but he nodded.
Levi’s hands had a roughness to them, the hands of someone who had worked hard over many weeks. He thought that might make them unpleasant against the preternatural smoothness of Ashmedai, but the king shuddered with every stroke along the lines of his beautiful ridges. Ashmedai was so warm, both his touch on Levi, turning into rhythmic strokes, and his cock in Levi’s palm.
“I want my mouth on you,” Levi husked when they were both panting.
Ashmedai laughed, more like a startled eruption. “I… don’t mean to doubt your desires but… do you know what you’re doing? Whatwe’redoing?” he corrected, for he clearly didn’t mean to imply he doubted Levi’s skills, only that he wondered if Levi was aware of what this type of intimacy meant.
