Page 128 of Envious Of Fire
Markadian stares at him, for a moment appearing skeptical, eyes sharpening. Kaleb wonders if he’s laying it on a bit too thick.
The look is wiped away the next instant as Markadian slowly crawls up Kaleb’s body, putting a peck on his navel, then his belly, then his chest, and finally bringing his handsome face in front of Kaleb’s, eclipsing the shimmering lights from thechandelier.
“Tonight,” says Markadian, “you are going to be a star.”
Kaleb nearly forgot. The days blend together. “It is already tonight? The banquet?”
“Poor thing.” Markadian gently runs his fingertips up the side of Kaleb’s face, caressing him preciously. “Are you nervous about your big performance?”
Kaleb weighs the truth against how he wants to seem. “I … shouldn’t be,” he decides to say, playing the role of a confident musician. “I’ve rehearsed a lot. For years, technically.”
“But never for an audience so grand. Isn’t it meaningful to you? To showcase your talent to a room full of … gods?” He hesitates on that last word, choosing it with a note of humor.
Kaleb feels fingers around his slippery, wet cock.
Then those fingers move, stroking him.
“You are so strong, Kaleb. You are a strong man with deep resolve and magnificent …fortitude.” The stroking maintains an even pace. Kaleb’s lips can’t close as he fights yet another desire to come. “Do you enjoy when I say nice things to you?”
“Y-Yes,” Kaleb stammers, controlling his breath.
“This strength of yours, this fortitude, it is something that no one can take from you.” He brings his lips to Kaleb’s left ear and whispers, “No one.”
The words cause the tiny hairs at the back of Kaleb’s neck to stand, prickling pleasurably. Markadian never stops stroking him. Kaleb’s chest rises and falls as his breathing deepens.
Markadian’s lips are at Kaleb’s right ear now. “I like men like you. Strong men with opinions. Strong men with resolve. Strong men who don’t cower in the face of gods.”
These descriptive words are not any that Kaleb would ever have attributed to himself. He has spent so much of his life in fear. So much of it cowering. Was it just that he never had the opportunity to stand? The encouragement to be strong?
The belief that it was possible to be confident?
“Do I have your permission …”
Kaleb clenches up, fighting back the orgasm, waiting for the other half of Markadian’s question, to be asked to be bitten.
“… to kiss you?”
Kaleb opens his eyes to find Markadian’s face before him.
His commanding, yet sensitive and searching eyes.
Markadian is in no way repulsive. He is good-looking by any applicable standard Kaleb can think of. He may be a man, but he is a powerful man, and with no exaggeration, he holds the quality of Kaleb’s very life in his hand. And that isn’t a joke about what Markadian presently holds in his hand.
Kaleb would do this for a friend, wouldn’t he?
A friend who needs him. A friend who wants him. A friend with power and means, who could enrich his life. This is like a trade of goods. Kaleb’s cock, Kaleb’s blood, Kaleb’s body, and now his lips. All for a promise of a good life.
What’s a kiss when a god has already tasted his blood?
“Yes,” answers Kaleb, breathless.
Markadian appears to bask in that single-worded answer, in the soft yet self-assured tone of Kaleb’s voice, relishing in how it feels. His eyes search over Kaleb’s face, delighting in it, hints of pleasure flickering over his warming cheeks. “You’re such a precious little gift,” says Markadian, barely audible, before he brings his lips to Kaleb’s.
They are unexpectedly soft.
Lush and pillowy.
Perfectly between wet and dry, a precise balance of texture that marries perfectly to Kaleb’s parted lips.
