Page 9 of A Heaven to Reach For

“You will want it. Trust me on this at least.” Owin handed Maschi the cup once Maschi was done, and watched Maschi frown, and study first him, then the water, before taking the cup to drain it. When he was finished, Owin plucked the cup from him and set it down on the nearest surface.

Maschi stared at him, backlit by the fire, some normal color returning to his face at last.

“The others let you live like this?” Owin’s tongue had decided to act for itself.

“Like what?” Maschi wriggled his stockinged feet. He had holes in his stockings. That was not the Duke’s doing. “Why would they say anything?”

“Because they are your friends.” Owin could speak severely and abruptly too. “You need new blankets—and stockings… and food. Is this some priest thing? Even you cannot fit on that bed.”

“Not a priest,” Maschi muttered, and pulled up his cowl to remove it, or try to.

Owin finally came forward just to keep Maschi from strangling himself. The aras blooms tickled his hand, and he stopped to take those first, pulling on them gently so as not to yank Maschi’s hair. The flower chain went on the desk, and only then did Owin come back to bury his fingers in the warm cloth of Maschi’s cowl. He tugged, and perhaps misunderstanding, Maschi stood up.

He did not even reach Owin’s chin. He did not come close.

“Who else would fit in this bed?” Maschi asked seriously, apparently still worrying over Owin’s last comment.

Owin pulled the cowl over and off Maschi’s head and pretended he was not thinking what he was thinking.

“Oh,” Maschi went on, as if realizing how his words might have been interpreted. He peered up at Owin’s hopefully blank face, then dropped his head. He reached for the belt around his tunic but Owin reached it first, and focused on untangling the knot instead of the clear words coming out of Maschi’s innocent mouth. “I’ve never had anyone else in it. Which must be obvious to you.” His voice hitched as Owin slid the belt free. He did not raise his head. “I’m sorry I’m being a bother. I ruined your evening with my childishness.”

“You’ve assisted us all in worse situations,” Owin responded without thinking, staring with a certain amount of shock at his hands hovering over Maschi’s waist. “What was childish?”

Maschi scowled at Owin’s chest. “I said I was sorry.”

“There is nothing you did today that the others didn’t do.” Except for the flowers, but Owin couldn’t think of them without his throat tightening. “I never understand you.”

Maschi looked up at last. “Sorry.”

“Are you apologizing for me not understanding you?” Owin could not seem to move, although he was far from drunk and should have had no problem. “There are many things I don’t understand. You’re the one people expect to know things.”

“I do know things,” Maschi confessed, brows drawn, his lips red. “I know lots of things. I know… that you have a t… a temper, but you don’t hold grudges. I know you’ve had your nose broken, t… tw… more than once, and your arm, and several of your fingers. I know you have a sister and a nephew you speak of fondly, and that the other guards and the Duke respect you. I know the others are happy to be assigned tasks with you.” His frown did not lessen, not for one moment. “I know you’ve slept with many of them. But none of them steadily, though I think you would like that, if they offered. From the sound of it, you like to comfort as much as t… tumble. Though you also seem to be good at that, if they spoke the truth. I am not surprised.”

“You have been spending too much time with Dahl.” Owin could not seem to make his heart be calm, or to stop his fool mouth. “I am muscle, not a poem.” He settled his hands on Maschi’s waist at last, closed his fists around yards of black cloth, but notMaschi. “He kissed you. Twice.”

“And you have known him,” Maschi returned, a sharpened blade. “All of them. You would not kiss me. Not even as Margaretdid. You would not. I… I knew you would not. Yet I allowed myself to forget.” He closed his eyes and immediately swayed forward, dizzy with drink or exhaustion. He opened his eyes again and kept his chin up, pinning Owin to the spot. “That you do not want me as a closer friend, I understand. I am strange. I am trouble. And though I do not understand what most consider pretty enough to be beddable, I am not that, either, am I? Not like you. Not even today, when you might have had anyone.”

Owin wanted to put Maschi’s hand to his ear, to his nose, to help Maschi comprehend what his eyes apparently could not. But what emerged from him was something else entirely. “I find you pretty.”

The hoarse admission brought Maschi’s gaze to his once more, judging. “No, you don’t.”

“If you were not drunk, if it is the experience you are looking for, I would happily offer to help you. Here. Now.” The rasp stayed in Owin’s voice. “Although you would need a bigger bed.”

The judgement intensified, prickling the hair at the back of Owin’s neck as if Maschi had lit another fire.

Maschi tipped his face up higher, stained lips on display. “What would you do to me?”

“With you,” Owin corrected, hands twitching to pull Maschi that much closer. This was wine. Or magic. Or grace. “Whatever you have thought about on this inadequate bed.”

Maschi dismissed that with a small toss of his head. “What haveyouthought about?”

Owin could not look away. “How soft your mouth is when you allow yourself to smile. Although, I think” –he hoped his rough voice made it clear that he did not tease—“I would have to train you to use it.”

Maschi dropped his head to Owin’s chest. “Owin.”

His hair was as soft as Owin had imagined. “Because I am a bit of a brute,” he stroked the fine hairs at Maschi’s nape and marveled at Maschi’s shivers, “I imagine some buggery. Having you, on a much bigger bed.” Ara had put thoughts of this in Owin’s head so strongly they could no longer be denied. Ara made him think of crushing aras blooms so that he could mark Maschi’s hips and thighs with smears of blue in the shape of his hands. Owin would kiss Maschi on every splash of the color,forevery splash of it, this Ara and all of them after, if Maschi permitted it. Owin groaned. It was nearly too much to imagine after so long of not allowing himself to. “I’d have to train you for that, too. You are rather small, mage.”

His answer was a puff of air before Maschi raised his head. His eyes were wide and wondering for one moment, then sorrowful.

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