Page 26 of A Suitable Brat
Westin thought he was doing quite well with Sun’s not-quite rejection but some hurt made his voice tart.“Oh, do I?”
“Yes.”Sun was confident, his head tipped up, his lips curved.“Your Hely thinks so too.”He turned again, letting his jewelry glint inches from Westin’s face.His voice was silky and vicious.“If you don’t like these cuffs, you should say so.That’s what you’d tell me to do.Use your words.” He added that in a mocking tone, all the while watching Westin with dark, dark eyes.
“I am not territorial,” Westin insisted, the lie making his voice rough.“Someoneshouldgive you nice things and care about you.”He meant that even with his heart pounding and his palms itching.“But….”He barely stopped himself in time.
Sun reached for one of Westin’s hands and pulled it to his neck, just below his ear, before letting go.“But?This is a space for the truth, West.You said so.”
“They’re gorgeous on you,” Westin admitted hoarsely.“But I don’t like seeing them.”He stopped again, mouth open in horror.“I won’t tell you to take them off.”
“Just take them off, then,” Sun suggested before Westin could go on.He inched his chin up even higher, then turned away, his eyes briefly closed, his breathing unsteady.He wet his lips.“If you dislike seeing them so much, tear them off me.”
“But they matter to you.”Westin forced himself to say it.
Sun only shrugged, which might or might not have been a lie.“Someone who likes me offered to buy them for me, and I thought that I could have them, and perhaps sell them later if I ever needed money.And I look good in them, don’t I?And then I also thought, maybe if I wear gifts from someone else, Wes will notice.”Westin would swear his heart stuttered but it might have been the slight hitch in Sun’s breathing.“And you did notice.And you don’t like them.”Oh, he was pleased with himself now, all the while gazing at Westin with a challenge in his expression.“Will you tell me to take them off?Or will you simply do it yourself?”
He shivered at the first glancing touch against the shell of his ear but otherwise kept still when Westin slid the lowest cuff free.The brat wanted him to and Westin wanted it more than he could ever say.Maybe that waswhySun wanted it, although Westin didn’t think so, not when Sun tipped his head to prompt Westin to take the next one as well.Westin was gentle.He would never tear them off, but Sun had known that when he’d said it.
Maybe it was that one of the candles was failing, leaving them in worse light, but Sun’s eyes were endless again.Hungry, as if Westin taking care with the cuffs was better than him ripping them away and now Sun was going to demand even more from him.
“Oh,” Westin said aloud, giving Sun every treat he could think of.“I don’t like seeing them on you,” he told Sun again to make Sun flush prettily.“Especially when you weren’t wearing a scarf from me.”Many would have been surprised to hear Westin handing out challenges almost as Sun did while slowly stripping some other man’s gifts from Sun’s body.“Despite the rain,” he added.“And the cold.”
Sun’s laugh was startled.He glanced up with more hunger.“Your last one blew off over a bridge a while back, on the windiest day I’ve ever seen.I was hoping for a replacement before this winter….”He trailed off, leading and impertinent.“Is that one meant for me?”
Westin did not generally knit designs into his work.His scarves were plain compared to jewelry, and yet Sun’s wriggle said Westin’s answer had better be yes.
“It is now.”With his palm full of jewelry, the stirring inside Westin had calmed enough for him to leave the final cuff at Sun’s nose in place, although he tucked the rest of the cuffs into his pocket instead of handing them to Sun.He would eventually, but for now, they were out of sight.Sun must have approved, because he closed his eyes to allow Westin to rub the places where the cuffs had pinched.His ear was bare now.For Westin, although really for Sun.
For both of them, Westin reasoned, with faint worry at what his family might think of that.
“I’m not normally one to care about territory,” Westin rationalized out loud.“I can’t be.But I do care for what’s mine, that is true.What is the family’s,” he added, to be fair, but then sighed heavily.“What is mine.Not that I would ever demand….”He fell to silence when Sun turned to look at him directly, eyebrows raised.“I can’t be that interesting.”It slipped from him in disbelief.
He got sulky attitude.“I’m too young to know better?”
“Urgh.”The inarticulate noise would have shocked Westin on any other day.Tonight, it was just one more discovery about himself.“Brat.”The brat smiled with pleasure to hear that.Westin nearly made the noise again.“I meant that I am….”He suspected that if he claimed to be boring, Sun would gesture to the curtain and all the people who had heard them in here.“I am only like this with you,” Westin tried, then realized that was not a strong argument either.“But that would still not be enough for someone as lively as you.That’s what I meant.I don’t expect to be your one-and-only.”
Again, he fell silent, watching Sun stare at him and then look away, his chin still raised high, his eyebrows still up.Waiting.
“Oh.”Westin wondered if he was blushing.He was too old to only now realize all the things he wanted and how much he wanted them—and how he was allowed to want them.Sun had claimed Westin’s cock for himself, but Westin hadn’t considered the rest of him to also be part of that claim.“Do you want me to be your one-and-only?”
Sun turned back to him, all attitude.“Does Hely share?”
“Do you?”Westin pressed, a thrilling sort of greed in his blood.A dangerous thing to feel and yet he didn’t run from it.“You may be a lark in my hand but not in a cage, and….”He waited a moment when Sun scoffed but then repeated himself, hardening his voice.“Notin a cage.No matter how much you pout or look at me like that.But,” Westin cupped Sun’s cheek, “in my hand.There would only room for you there.I never thought to be a one-and-only, but I’m not the sort to keep both hands full anyway.”
Sun gave him another crisp look of challenge.
“But you already demand that,” Westin realized, warm with relief and growing pleasure, “both of my hands full with you.That’s what you like.”He nearly purred it, limbs unexpectedly heavy with contentment.He saw the sulk beginning to form around Sun’s lips and warded it off with a kiss.“If you wanted to put chains of gold around my cock, brat, I won’t stop you.I told you it was yours and then gave it to you.Right here, for Hely and others to hear.That was the point, was it not?”
Sun slid against him hot as melted candlewax, his face back at Westin’s shoulder.He released a shaky breath and clutched Westin’s waist.“Mine.”
Westin wondered if he was meant to hear, it was said so quietly.Thunder rumbled somewhere far away.
Sun spoke again before Westin could ask.
“Are you sure you want me in your home with your family?All those children your sister has, with me around?”Sun said it as though he didn’t know lullabies because one of his first tasks at a very young age had been to watch over village children younger than him.“Your mother who sends you letters that wait for you at the barracks, all about your business and what your father has been up to.What?”He pulled back to give Westin an accusing look.“You speak of them often.I listen to you.”
“You do, don’t you.”Westin did not ask.
“I always listen to you.”Sun’s lower lip trembled on the verge of a pout before he put his cheek to Westin’s shoulder.The sulk stayed in his voice.“You don’t listen to me.”
