Page 55 of Patron of Mercy

He fumbled with Thanatos’s shirt, pulling it from his belt, reaching for the buckle. Thanatos leaned back, out of reach of his lips.

“You’re hurt,” Thanatos whispered.

“I don’t care,” Lach huffed. Thanatos shook his head. When Lach bent his head to kiss his neck, he felt Thanatos swallow. How often had Thanatos denied him anything? “Please, Thanatos.”

“No.”

Lach’s face fell. It was absurd, but he needed to feel the connection. Without Mis, he was listless. Adrift. The very last thing he could stand was to “rest” while Thanatos rushed off to work again.

Before he started to sink into that worry, Thanatos cupped his cheek. “Get on the bed,” he whispered.

All too eagerly, Lach complied. Thanatos rarely took the lead in the bedroom. It’d been a surprise—a revelation—to find that the god bent to his demands back when he’d just been Glaucus, son of a fishmonger and general louse. Now, even when Thanatos crawled onto the bed with him, there was something soft and accommodating about it.

With careful hands, Thanatos undressed him. When Lach reached for him, Thanatos tutted and shook his head. “I’m only doing this if you relax.”

Lach narrowed his eyes, but when Thanatos sat back on his heels to wait, he took a deep breath and relaxed back onto the pillows, slipping his hands under the small of his back. “Don’t trust myself,” Lach admitted.

“Better,” Thanatos said, pressing gentle kisses down Lach’s collarbone and lower, across his chest, down his stomach. Every brush of his lips was soft, tingling, leaving a trail down his torso that had heat rushing into Lach’s cheeks. In the past, he’d always pushed for more, demanded what he wanted, because he thought that was the only way he’d get it. But here Thanatos was, offering, if Lach could only relax enough to let him.

His eyes fluttered shut as Thanatos licked a stripe from the base of his cock to the tip. He sucked Lach off gently, his hand moving in slow strokes in tandem with his mouth. When Lach tensed under him, arching his back, Thanatos paused. He didn’t pull off, didn’t chastise him, but instead slid a hand up his chest, all the way, till it settled on Lach’s cheek, firm and steady.

He peeked down and saw Thanatos staring at him, light brown eyes molten as he hummed around the tip. Lach whimpered. The smooth brush of Thanatos’s thumb over his cheek reminded him to breathe through it.

Lach’s peak wasn’t explosive, but the slow, hot rise of magma. When he came, shuddering, into Thanatos’s warm mouth, it felt like Thanatos had wrung him dry. He eased his arms out from under himself, only distantly aware of the pang in his shoulder.

Thanatos was still dressed. Lach reached for him. But the god cocked a brow, and Lach dropped his hand, empty. Only then did Thanatos release his cock from his trousers. He stroked himself where Lach could see him. His balls tightened toward his body, and Lach’s gaze flashed up to watch pleasure wrinkle his brow. He came across Lach’s belly, but all Lach could do was watch his lips part, that shudder of relaxation work its way up his spine.

Thanatos leaned over to lave his tongue over the wet streaks of come on Lach’s skin. “Fucking Hades,” Lach cursed as he watched. Thanatos smirked up at him and caught another spot on his tongue.

“It’s a little weird when you use his name at a time like this,” Thanatos said, his voice a low rumble.

Lach wasn’t to be put off so easily. “Thanatos—”

“What?”

Lach bit his lip. “Will you stay with me tonight? I want to feel—”

He could ask—he knew he could ask—but this was soft and selfish. Thanatos didn’t have to sleep. He could, but he could also disappear. Go help lost souls. Do about a thousand things more important than holding Lach all night because he was lonely.

Already, Thanatos was shedding his silk shirt, kicking off his trousers. His skin against Lach’s was warm and soft and felt like home. Only that silly watch’s metal clasp was cool as Thanatos slung his arm over Lach’s middle.

“Yeah, Lach.” He leaned over, and the kiss he gave Lach was soft and chaste and tasted downright sinful anyway. “I’m staying.”

Lach swallowed past the lump in his throat, nodded, and tucked his head in the crook between Thanatos’s neck and shoulder. “Me too.”

Al Fresco

Thanatos woke with the morning sun pouring in the window, and the first thing he felt was amazement.

Lach was there.

He hadn’t been sure when he went to sleep that he’d wake alone, but it wouldn’t have surprised him. Waking with Lach by his side on the boat had been novel and comfortable, but really, when they were trapped no more than a dozen yards from each other in any direction, where was there to escape to? Now, there were miles of island Lach could be off exploring. Or shopping, which was apparently something he sneaked off to do now.

Lach had money. Somehow it was both shocking and not a surprise at all. It only made sense after all; Gaia could pay better in mortal riches than most gods, and she had never been miserly. At the same time, it was hard to imagine scrawny, scrappy little Lach, who was determined to work too hard for everything he got, ever amassing a fortune. But he’d had millennia in which to do so.

He glanced down at the watch on his wrist. It was beautiful: pink-tinged gold with a leather band, and a round face crowded with bold Roman numerals. If he’d wanted such an accessory, he might have chosen it himself.

But Lach had thought of him and bought it.

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