Page 63 of The Prince and the Ice King

“I didn’t stay beyond that moment, but that’s how I knew your desires, because I heard you speak them as I left, longing for a ‘him’ instead of a queen. You think you know me, but I have not changed since the days I bedded my stable boys.”

“But you have,” Reardon said, not sobered or ashamed as the king surely wanted him to feel with that admission. All he could imagine was those brilliant blue eyes on him. “I’m glad you told me, and I forgive you, because you did turn away like the good man I know you to be. All I ask is that you offer the same mercy to me. Forgive my coming here… and give me what I beseeched of the fates that night. If you want me, take me.” He flattened more wantonly on the desk. “Take me and let me know your touch.”

The hand on Reardon’s shoulder loosened like it might lurch away, but the one on his back shifted, sliding down his hip slowly, and then hungrily over his ass with a firm grip, as the king twitched tellingly where he teased between Reardon’s thighs.

“Yes,” Reardon gasped. “Please… let me be yours.”

“I forbid you to look at me.”

“Not once will I attempt to see you, Majesty, unless you ask it of me.”

“I will not. And I will not give in again. This is only for tonight.”

Reardon gave no answer to that, because he refused to believe it would be true.

He closed his eyes.

The king squeezed his backside again, and then brought both hands around the line of his untucked shirt. His palms raked up Reardon’s skin beneath the fabric, and though even his hands felt scarred, that did nothing to diminish Reardon’s wanting.

With an insistent tug, the king tore the shirt from Reardon’s head, returning his hands to travel down the same route they had gone up. Even without seeing him, the contact offered a promising thrill. Reardon didn’t care how many scars marred the king. In his mind’s eye, he conjured a powerful, faceless man with those intense blue eyes, wearing a blue doublet with white-gold embroidery. Before knowing the king became human at night, Reardon had already been making it for him.

Textured palms slid around Reardon’s waist, up his chest and down like had been done to his back, feeling him everywhere with slow precision. Long fingers spread over every part of him, applying the perfect pressure to make him shiver. With the king’s hips pressing in flush against Reardon’s, a lone hand strayed beneath the band of Reardon’s trousers, through the coarse hair there, and right to his burning flesh.

No frantic touch of his own could compare to someone else wrapping their fingers around him or passing a warm thumb across his slit. Reardon whined, hips rocking in reflex, which both pumped his cock into the king’s hand and pressed the curve of his ass against the hardening length behind him, but Reardon’s trousers were too tight for the king’s hand to move much while merely down the front of them.

“Take them off,” the king ordered.

Reardon fumbled to obey him, hands trembling uselessly, but once he got the ties undone, his trousers fell loose to his ankles, leaving him naked and still bent over the desk. Sordid tales of romance told Reardon what came next. Basic anatomy, secret whispers, the instinctive straying of his own hands—he knew what came next, and he longed for it in ways no solo pleasuring or pining after a man could satisfy.

The king was still dressed, though, still holding Reardon down and stroking him, making Reardon’s belly hot and his loins ache.

“Please, Majesty.Take me.”

“So impatient, you don’t even know how much more pleasure there is in waiting.” His grip tightened, but the movement of his hand slowed, an agonizing slide, as the king’s hips began to rock forward, subtle teasing of his clothed cock between Reardon’s cheeks.

“Ihavewaited…. My whole life I’ve waited, please.”

“I will, but you need to slow down.” The king’s free hand pressed so hard on the middle of Reardon’s back to keep him in place, he had trouble taking a deep breath. “Do you want me to hurt you? Because it will not feel nice if I fuck you raw like you think you want.There is an art to this, little prince, like clothing crafted or a bard tale composed. Do you understand? Or do you want the culmination to be a disappointment?”

The warning came with immediate reprieve, the pressure on Reardon’s back lessening while the hand between his legs gathered every bit of slickness leaking free and pumped harder. “S-slow,” Reardon conceded. “Whatever pace you set.”

The whole of the king’s body molded over Reardon, the feel of soft fabric tickling his bare skin, and then breath tickled his ear as the king whispered, “Good little prince.”

Jack

Reardon was a virgin, of that Jack had already been sure. Long as it had been since he’d known the feel of another’s body beneath his hands, he couldn’t simplytakeReardon, thrusting like some drunk in the back of a tavern. But if the young prince was so needy, so full of lust and certain that he wanted Jack to be the first to ravage him, then this act was going to be savored.

Reardon hadn’t shied from his touch yet, not the feel of scars or the brief glimpse of them on his arms. Jack couldn’t bear for those emerald eyes to land on his full form, but he could accept Reardon’s body as tribute, eyes closed and unseeing as Jack devoured him, to make up for the slight of crossing his threshold.

After all, Jack was the monster of this story. He would take his tithe like a troll beneath a bridge, and it would only prove his point.

That was why he chose to give in, because he was owed, and Reardon had asked, and there had to be a balance, an exchange of power that kept Jack in control. If he gave too much to Reardon, he didn’t know what might happen.

Rolling up from lying over Reardon’s body, Jack brought the hand not touching the prince to the ties of his own trousers, letting them drop and his length free. He teased the budding wetness at its tip along Reardon’s crease, and the whine Reardon released was more enticing than any stable boy Jack had ever had.

“Reach back,” Jack commanded, much as he enjoyed Reardon’s arms akimbo on the desktop. “Touch me as I’m touching you.”

Pausing for breath, Reardon brought his arms in first to lift himself and not crush his cheek to the wood when he reached back, left hand grasping for Jack until he had him.

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