Chapter Forty

Exquisite Mess

Part One

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Tamyn's hand moved down to Abrizhen's chest and began to fumble with the opening of his waistcoat until he finally let out a sound of frustration and took his mouth away to look down.

“You Northerners and all your buttons,” he muttered.

Abrizhen gave a breathy chuckle. He pulled off his cravat, then pushed Tamyn's hand away and made short work of the buttons down his waistcoat and then his shirt.

Tamyn pulled him to sit up and pushed both garments, together with the braces attached to his trousers, over his shoulders and down his arms, lowering his head at the same time to kiss his bare chest, then running a hand down the fine blonde hair there.

Abrizhen felt different than Tamyn remembered. He was still very slim, and had always been in excellent shape, but he had now lost any softness of youth. Valesk was a harsh land, and in these years it had clearly built him up and sculpted him into one of its own hard stone mountains.

Tamyn ran his hands over all the peaks and valleys and ridges of the muscles on his arms and his chest, down to his stomach, and undid the few buttons on his trousers, taking in the sight of him through the heavy veil of lust settling over his vision.

“Tam,” Abrizhen gasped with an air of amazement, “are you really here? This is always where I wake up, and you're never really here.”

Tamyn slid a hand up Abrizhen's chest and neck to cup his face, tearing his gaze away from Abrizhen's body to look into his pleading eyes.

“I'm here,” he said softly, with a frown of concern.

In the past, Abrizhen sometimes had moments where he wasn't certain of reality. It would seem that hadn't changed.

Abrizhen took Tamyn's hand from his face and placed a lingering kiss into his palm. Then smiling, he seized Tamyn's shoulders and pushed him up until they were both standing. He tugged at all of Tamyn's sashes and ties and the layers of robes were quickly dispatched.

As Abrizhen's trousers dropped to the floor, he reached for the drawstring on the loose breeches Tamyn wore beneath his robes, and Tamyn's hand trailed down his stomach, reaching for him.

The moment those long, slim fingers closed around his already straining member, Abrizhen's whole body went rigid and he pulled Tamyn into a crushing embrace to hold onto him as his knees almost gave out.

A harsh grunt sounded against Tamyn's neck as Abrizhen pushed his hips forward into that hand, shuddering violently against Tamyn's body in an unexpected but explosive release.

He leaned weakly against Tamyn, clinging, gasping for breath, and began to laugh at himself.

“Perhaps it's been a while?” Tamyn said hoarsely against his ear, breathing a bit heavily himself.

“Eight years,” Abrizhen said, still laughing softly.

Tamyn leaned back to show him a confused expression.

“What...?”

Abrizhen raised his head and looked into Tamyn's eyes. He still laughed, but his face was pensive.

“Later,” he said.

He plucked the washcloth off of the table to clean Tamyn”s hand, then tossed it aside and took Tamyn in his arms again, kissing him tenderly and moving forward to back him toward the bed. He threw the quilt down and lowered Tamyn onto the soft mattress, pulling away his breeches before lying above him.

Tamyn wrapped his long legs over Abrizhen's, curling their ankles together.

Abrizhen savored the feeling of Tamyn's hardness against his stomach, but he just kissed him for a long time, teasing his lips with the tip of his tongue one minute, devouring him like a beast the next, then parting their lips to look at him, because he loved the way Tamyn would always lick his own lips after being kissed, and he wanted to see it again and again.

Tamyn began to push that hardness against him, though, so he moved his lips over to his ear briefly, then down to his throat.

Tamyn endured silently, only his breath, harsh and heaving, to give him away. He always tried so hard to maintain his composure.

Abrizhen repeatedly drew bits of skin between his teeth, nipping and nibbling, and Tamyn would jump at it, and sigh heavily. Abrizhen moved his lips down, kissing across Tamyn's shoulders and chest. He teased a nipple with the tip of his tongue and grinned as Tamyn shivered and his skin rose in gooseflesh.

He continued down Tamyn's torso, exploring with his hands as well. What Tamyn kept hidden beneath all that billowing gauze was a gracile frame clad in long, lean, and strong muscles, all covered in impossibly smooth, soft and delicate golden brown skin that would redden and become infernally hot when he was aroused.

Tamyn's breathing was growing more erratic, although he struggled to keep it even. Abrizhen moved his hands down to his legs, sliding up the backs of the thighs, up to the very top to stroke the even softer skin there, and this elicited a series of soft, voiceless sounds as Tamyn's throat closed briefly at every exhale. His body began to tremble now as Abrizhen's fingers moved closer to his most sensitive areas.

 

 

“Won't that hurt?” Tamyn said nervously. “I don't know if I'm ready...”

“It's ok,” Abrizhen assured him. “That can wait until you are ready. And when you are, I won't hurt you, I promise.”

“I'm sorry...”

“Don't apologize for saying what you want, or don't. Why don't I just do this for now...”

“What are you...ohhh...”

 

 

Abrizhen took Tamyn's length into his hand, and lowered his mouth over the tip.

Tamyn gasped, his breath coming in rough pants now, his chest heaving, and Abrizhen looked up to see that his lips were open, and so were his eyes, though half-lidded and dark, watching him intently.

Abrizhen drew his mouth up and off again, then extended his tongue to lick so that he could see it.

Tamyn took a deep and ragged breath, closing his eyes and throwing his head back.

Abrizhen smiled and took him between his lips again, moving his mouth down slowly before rising again, repeating this leisurely motion as he watched Tamyn's abdominal muscles begin to flutter.

He always fought so hard to keep himself contained, but when Abrizhen began to speed up his movement, he felt Tamyn swell to full hardness against his tongue, the skin strained taut and ready to burst at any moment.

He moved the hand still under Tamyn's thigh, and gently pushed a finger inside him.

“Zhen...”

Tamyn threw all of his quiet dignity aside, and completely unraveled. He frantically clutched Abrizhen's hair in one hand, the bed sheet in the other, and lifted his hips to move himself between Abrizhen's lips, to push himself further into his throat, finally adding his voice to those urgent gasps, an inarticulate plea in his now unfettered moans.

Abrizhen sucked at him wildly, pressing his finger inside, and Tamyn's cries suddenly cut off into a strangled, growling groan, his back arching off of the bed as he erupted over Abrizhen's tongue.

Abrizhen swallowed, then continued until he had wrung every last tremor out of Tamyn's body. Only when Tamyn softened and his back fell flat again, when his limbs went limp and still, when his breathing began to level, only then did Abrizhen release him.

He crawled back up the bed to stretch himself out over Tamyn again.

Tamyn lay with his eyes closed, long eyelashes still trembling over his cheeks, breathing softly through slightly parted lips.

Abrizhen slid his arms under him, gathering him up in his embrace. Tamyn's long hair was piled on the pillow next to his head, and Abrizhen buried his face in that soft nest of black silk, resting in the bend of his neck and shoulder, breathing in his familiar scent.

He still couldn't quite believe that this was real.

He had loved this person so deeply, for so long, and from so far away.

How was it possible to have him here in his arms now, to kiss him, to smell and taste him, to feel all of that hot skin pressed down the length of his body? How was it possible that Tamyn still wanted him after all this time, after everything he'd done to hurt him?

 

 

Tamyn's mind had scattered into the abyss. When Abrizhen lay down on top of him and nested their hips together, Tamyn clearly felt the hot and iron-hard evidence that he'd recovered from his earlier mishap, but that suddenly faded again as Abrizhen held him.

He felt wetness on his cheek, heard soft sounds beside his ear, and Abrizhen's shoulders began to shake against his own.

He brought one arm up to circle around Abrizhen's waist and raised the other hand to stroke his hair. He turned his face to kiss the side of his forehead.

“Shhh,” Tamyn whispered. “I'm here.”

Those solid arms tightened around him, clinging desperately.

“Do you still love me?” Abrizhen said into the side of his neck.

“Yes.”

Abrizhen raised his face.

“Just like that?”

“Yes.”

“How...”

“When I told you that I always would, did you think I was lying?”

“No,” Abrizhen said plaintively, “but that was a long time ago. You might have changed your mind.”

“If only it were that easy,” Tamyn said with a breathy laugh.

“Why didn't you stay with me then?” Abrizhen asked pitifully. “Last time, when I asked you?”

“Well, I had to put up some resistance, didn't I? I have my dignity to consider.”

“Dignity is overrated.”

“And you?” Tamyn asked quietly. “Do you still love me?”

“More than ever,” Abrizhen whispered. “There's only ever been you. There could only ever be you.”

Tamyn looked sideways at him with some skepticism.

“You know, people love to gossip about the high and mighty. I've heard many rumors over the years of the Prince Heir of Devratha practically living in brothels.”

Abrizhen breathed sharply and turned to the side, propping up on an elbow.

“No,” he said, before continuing with embarrassment, “well... yes. But also no.”

Tamyn raised a questioning eyebrow.

“For a while, I was running around with this pack of young aristocrats. Father wanted me to get to know them, to assess their loyalty to Halany. They liked the brothels. I liked to drink. So, I would go along and drink with them, until they went off to their other entertainments. Then I would get a room and sleep in it, alone.”

“They let you do that in a brothel?”

“They let you do almost anything in a brothel if you have the money and the status,” Abrizhen laughed. “They're also very good at keeping quiet. It made my father think I was sleeping with women, so there was that benefit...”

He glanced up at Tamyn.

“You really don't know loneliness until you're alone in a brothel, listening to everyone else.”

“That sounds dreadful,” Tamyn whispered.

Abrizhen gave a disgusted grunt.

“So all this time,” Tamyn said sadly, “you've really been alone?”

“How could I not be?” Abrizhen said. “I went back to Valesk with every intention of getting ready to become Prince someday, of letting Father marry me off to make more Devrathas. I couldn't see any place for you in that plan that wouldn't be an insult to you. Wouldn't it be equally insulting if I just took up with someone else?”

He shook his head.

“But why are you still alone? I wanted you to find someone who could give you everything I couldn't. Unless... I'm interfering with something here?”

Tamyn smiled sadly.

“There's no one,” he said. “I tried... twice.”

“Oh...” Abrizhen said lowly, a frown passing across his face.

Tamyn's lips quirked.

“Are you jealous?”

“Yes.” Abrizhen narrowed his eyes at Tamyn's sudden smile. “Are you pleased that I'm jealous?”

“Yes,” Tamyn admitted, still smiling. “But there's nothing for you to be jealous of. It turns out I can't keep anyone.”

Abrizhen's frown deepened.

“Were they stupid? Only an idiot would leave you.”

Tamyn threw a sideways glance and his smile soured.

“People tend to want a lover who can love them,” he said. “And I am 'emotionally unavailable' and even 'heartless'.”

Abrizhen looked aghast at this.

“That doesn't sound like you.”

“It would seem that someone stole my heart and disappeared with it long ago,” Tamyn answered softly. “Nothing left behind for anyone else.”

“Well, you can't have it back now,” Abrizhen said. “If it's mine, then it's mine.”

Tamyn suddenly pushed Abrizhen over onto his back, propping himself on his side now. His long hair scattered and then fell into a veil around their faces. He kissed Abrizhen, then smiled at him with a hint of mischief as he traced a finger slowly down Abrizhen's chest.

A spark of ethereal energy erupted from his fingertip, leaving a warm, electric tingling on Abrizhen's skin in its path. Abrizhen's eyes widened and his breath faltered at this thrilling sensation.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Experimenting,” Tamyn said softly. “These past years, I've become quite skilled at a few things, although I've never put those skills to this use before.”

He gazed at Abrizhen with a glint in his eye as his hand moved lower to find Abrizhen's most sensitive parts. Those parts became immediately attentive.

Abrizhen gasped as his entire body tensed.

“What do you think?” Tamyn asked.

“Well,” Abrizhen answered, struggling to keep his breath even, “this room has seen a lot of firsts. I suppose we could add a few new ones.”

“If you want to, you could do it,” Abrizhen said.

“Do what?”

“Fuck me.”

“Zhen...” Tamyn scolded. “Don't talk like that.”

“If you're going to do it, you should be able to say it,” Abrizhen asserted.

Tamyn was full of trepidation. “I don't want to hurt you.”

“You won't. Here, wait a minute.”

Abrizhen went into the bathroom and Tamyn could hear him rummaging through the toiletries and sundries that Didia provided for guests. He returned with a bottle of oil meant for the skin.

“Here, put this on yourself first, and then just go carefully, and you won't hurt me.”

Tamyn looked skeptical.

“If you've never done this, how do you know all these things?”

“Reading,” Abrizhen said with a shrug.

Tamyn's eyes widened.

“There are books about this?”

Abrizhen smiled and ruffled Tamyn's hair.

“Oh, you are so precious.”

“Hey! Just because I'm not a vulgarian like you-”

“Who are you calling a vulgarian? You are talking to the Prince Heir of Devratha. I am nothing if not a gentleman. A kind and generous one at that!”

“Right.”

“Look, I'll show you what a gentleman I am,” Abrizhen insisted, his eyes twinkling. “I'll put this on for you.”

“Oh! ...ooh...”

“Now say that I'm a gentleman.”

“You are... a very kind and... generous... gentleman...”

“Besides,” Abrizhen lowered his voice provocatively, “you can hardly call someone else a vulgarian when you're the one about to fuck him.”

 

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