Page 11 of The Beauty and His Beast

Camdyn bit his lip. “Can I still kiss you?”

“You don’t need to ask to do that.”

“Okay.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to his husband’s forehead. How silly of him to think that Everild would do anything to hurt him. Everild was on his side since he stepped into the church. He was kind and handsome and—and now that the threat of consummation was removed, Camdyn still actually wanted to share some part of himself with his new husband. “Will you undress me?”

“Camdyn—“

“I want it. I want you to see me, and I want to see you as well. But—but nothing else. I just want to hold you and talk and kiss.” He hesitated. “Is that okay? Can we do that?”

Everild asked, “You’re certain?”

“Yes. I’m certain.”

The cloak was already unpinned; his husband removed it from the sheets, folded it, and set it on the desk. Then he took off his boots. As he did this, Camdyn let his slippers fall to the floor. They were so thin and soft they didn’t make a sound.

Everild gently pulled him up so that they stood face-to-face. For a moment, they merely gazed at one another, hand in hand, and then Everild kissed his nose again, just like at the altar, and reached for the sash cinched around his waist. It pooled onto the carpet, a puddle of red silk. The robes loosened. Everild simply slipped them down his shoulders. Camdyn freed his arms and let the fabric drop to his feet. He was completely bare except for his white stockings that ran to his mid-thigh. The bedroom wasn’t cold, but he shivered at having his skin so suddenly exposed to the air.

He chanced a glance at Everild, looking up at him through his eyelashes. His husband watched him with the same expression he had worn all day whenever he looked at Camdyn: with a bit of wonder and overwhelming gentleness.

“There you are,” he said in his lovely, low, gravelly voice. It made Camdyn smile. He wanted to hold him, to kiss him again, but first—

He placed his hands on Everild’s hips. “I want to see you,” he said with more confidence. He tugged lightly at the black pants. “Can I?”

Everild looked conflicted, brow furrowed, a frown on his face. But then, finally, he nodded.

“Okay,” Camdyn murmured. He untied Everild’s laces, slowly, carefully, then tugged the pants down. Everild helped, stepping out of them, revealing his large, muscled thighs, the hair between his legs, and his member.

It was curious—Camdyn had expected to combust from embarrassment or cry with terror once he saw his husband naked for the first time. But here, looking at the whole of him—still tall and broad, every bit of him just so large, and all crisscrossed with scars, a light flush running up his chest and neck to his face as Camdyn stared—he was positively fascinated. It didn’t change anything, the lack of clothing. He was still Everild. He was still the same man who had protected him that morning, comforted him, and shielded him from his fears and from the strangers in the church. The man who had brushed his tears away at the altar and kissed him so gently. The man who had sent apple pudding to their table because Camdyn had mentioned that he liked cooked apples in his oatmeal.

The man standing in front of him was his husband. They would get to know each other better, but Camdyn knew Everild now, and he was a good man.

He smiled and embraced him, burying himself in Everild’s chest when the man pulled him closer, tighter, running his hand through his hair and along his neck, rubbing his back in slow, soothing circles.

“Here I am,” Camdyn said.

They eventually moved into the bed, wrapped up in fur blankets and one another’s arms. His husband’s fingers traced idle patterns along Camdyn’s hip as he rested his head on Everild’s chest. There was still revelry in the great hall. He heard the distant music and dancing below. But here, in their bedchamber, it was just him and Everild and the sound of Everild’s heartbeat and the feeling of Everild’s lips as he kissed the top of his head and pulled him closer.

Everild asked, “Will you tell me about the monastery?”

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything.” He paused. “Tell me about Cenric, or your gardens, or just your days there.”

Camdyn didn’t think he could talk about Cenric yet without crying, and the gardens weren’t particularly exciting, even if Everild said he was interested in hearing about them. He hummed a little, thinking, and then began, “It was built near a beach. The monastery. Anytime I could, I liked to walk down it. Sometimes I had to collect seaweed for medicine or a few stews. Other times I offered to fish. But most of the time, it was where I went when I had spare time.”

“What did you like about it?”

“The sand under my feet. The smell of the sea. How vast it was. Sometimes I just sat and watched the waves and thought about all the ships and boats on the water and all the creatures underneath it. How they were all there, on that expanse, but I couldn’t see them from where I was. I just always thought that was—” He tried to hold back a yawn and failed. “Sorry—that it’s amazing.”

Everild seemed just as exhausted, though. His words came out slow and a little muddled. “Did anyone ever visit by boat?”

“Oh, I hoped! It would have been so exciting! But no, never. I saw whales sometimes, in the distance. The first time Iever saw them, I called everyone out of the monastery to look at them—all the brothers must’ve seen them for years and years beforehand, but they all indulged me. It was fun…”

They fell asleep like that, holding each other, drifting off to the sound of Camdyn’s memories given voice.

???

He woke well before the sun rose. It was a habit ingrained in him at the monastery. Once he was old enough to stand for early morning prayers, Cenric gently shook him awake and led him, yawning and bleary-eyed, to the church where they and the rest of the monks huddled together and sang, their voices entwining into a melodic thrum of devotion to God.

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