Page 53 of Prince of Flowers
“Then we can ramble together,” he said. “I listened to you. It’s your turn to listen to me.”
“Okay,” I said, relieved that I could stop embarrassing myself. “I’m listening. Now you.”
“I think I might be falling for you.”
My body froze, the breath suspended in my throat. I blinked at him, cautious.
“This isn’t one of those cute, annoying things you try to do, is it? Where you deliberately misinterpret language, like acquiring ass?”
“No, it isn’t! You’re infuriating. You order me around like I’m nothing. And what’s worse, you consort with gods. Sometimes I can’t stand being around you. But I can’t stand the thought of being away from you more.”
I watched, taken aback, as he paced up and down the room. It was almost cute, the way his eyes kept flitting back and forth, the confusion so clear on his face as he ranted. He stalked up to me, so close I could feel his breath on my cheek.
“Your clever mouth, your sharp tongue — no one ever speaks to me the way you do. And it drives me wild. You challenge me, show me things I’ve never known before, brought me to new heights. It feels — it feels like the sun is shining for the first time in ages.”
I swallowed in the silence, thrilled, terrified, unsure of what to say.
“This wasn’t part of my mission. To seek out the Withering, to find a way to stop it back home? You weren’t part of the plan.”
The lump in my throat bobbed painfully as I swallowed, thirsty, and hungry. Fresh food and drink sat on the table behind me, but I knew I needed something else to slake my thirst, to satisfy.
“So where does that leave us?” I asked, slowly. “What happens now?”
He pressed his lips against me, tongue searching for mine, the roughness of his hands groping — my lower back, a nipple, the tenting bulge in my shorts. I moaned into his mouth, bucked against his body, all questions forgotten, my insecurities vanishing like froth on the shore. I broke away. Not here. He lunged after me, but I held him back.
“Sylvain. Bed. Please. Now.”
He obliged. I yelped when he took me by the waist, whirling me across the bedroom floor, as if in a dance. His towel fell from his hips, his cock thumping against the side of my thigh. I almost laughed, except this was so ridiculous, so hot, how much he wanted me, how much I wanted him.
He dropped me on the bed, the mattress cushioning my landing. That time I actually laughed, mildly flattered at how he was holding back his strength, playing rough, but almost too gentle when he laid me down.
Maybe he’d be rough where it mattered.
Sylvain headed for the bedside table, pulled out the drawer, and extracted the bottle of oil I kept there for — for personal use. He held it up triumphantly, brandishing it, like a treasure discovered at the bottom of a dungeon.
“Aha.”
I leaned up on my elbows. “That’s, I, Bruna gave it to me for my — hands. Yeah. She said it was good for, you know, rough, calloused skin.”
“Don’t lie to me, Locke. I’ve felt your hands. I’ve felt them on my cock. They’re soft as anything.” I blushed, then flinched when he threw an accusing finger in my face. “This luscious essence of coconut is used specifically for self-pleasure. Admit it.”
My lips drew back, because who were we if we weren’t squabbling over the littlest things, even seconds away from intercourse?
“You can also use it to fuck me, you know.”
Sylvain’s cock twitched, like it knew its presence had been explicitly requested. He unstoppered the phial, poured drops into his palm, all without looking, staring so hard at me and my body I thought I would burst into flames. He smeared the oil all along the length of his cock, sighing softly at the sensation as he drew closer.
“Off,” he commanded, nodding at my shorts. “Now.”
I obeyed, tugging them off hurriedly, my cock hard as anything when it flopped out. I stroked myself once, biting my lip, then moaned fully when Sylvain’s slick fingers searched my ass, probed at my hole.
“Oh, fuck, Sylvain.”
“Oh, fuck, indeed,” he rasped, breaking eye contact at last, concentrating on preparing me to take him.
“If you had asked me,” I breathed. “Back at the Oriel of Earth, at the pool. If you had asked to fuck me, right there, I would have let you.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. You hated me. Perhaps you still do, a little.”
