Page 42 of Prince of Flowers
17
Morning came,blissfully, wonderfully uneventful. No more midnight ambushes, or whatever time it was that those creatures had decided to attack us unawares. I woke up alone, secretly disappointed that Sylvain wasn’t there to casually rub his cock against my ass.
But I did wake up to a lot of aggressive grunting and moaning. The cocoon had been dismissed from around our bed. I emerged from the tent quietly, hoping to catch Sylvain jerking off. You know, like a pervert.
What I found was almost as gratifying. Bare-chested and glistening in sweat, Sylvain dangled from a sturdy tree branch, using it as a makeshift pull-up bar. He grunted as he lifted himself up, his muscles rippling obscenely with every repetition.
“Rise and shine, lazy bones,” he called out, the Summer Prince himself gleaming in the sunlight. I hated how chipper he was, but I didn’t hate looking.
I grumbled something in response, mussing my hair as my brain tried to piece together the puzzle of getting coffee without a small army of imps to make it for me. Oh, right. I had to brew my own somehow.
Yes, spoiled brat, etcetera, I know. I turned toward the tent, dead set on searching through my packed rations for coffee, when Sylvain’s voice trilled energetically again.
“Time for your morning constitutional, young Lochlann.”
“Don’t call me that,” I growled under my breath. “It’s too early for calisthenics.”
It was always too damn early for calisthenics. The headmasters had made sure to fold regular exercise into our curriculum, in any shape or form a student might enjoy. Namirah had somehow pressured me into doing all this bodyweight stuff.
Sure, I appreciated how it made me leaner and fitter than I’d ever been, enough that I could look into a mirror and say, “Yes, I would hit that, repeatedly.” But gods did I hate every second of it.
I’d heard it was required at one of our rival schools, too. Grayhaven, an academy of the so-called elemental elite. Bunch of bigheaded jerks. Those guys were ripped, but boy, were they self-centered assholes, too.
But all that spellcasting practice meant that they were also really, really good with their hands and mouths — or so I’d heard.
Okay, fine! I went on a date with one of them. No big deal. He looked fantastic in his uniform, and he said all these really sweet things that made me giddy. He liked the black curls of my hair, he said, how the color of my eyes seemed to change depending on how the light hit them. Most of all, he said he liked my smile.
He said some very, very complimentary things about my physique, too. Fine. Maybe exercise wasn’t the worst thing in the world. We made out, did stuff with our hands and our mouths, which was how I learned that Grayhaven’s academic skills had applications in other areas. You know, like under the pants.
No second date, though. The guy was handsome, talented, and smart. He knew it, too, and he wouldn’t stop talking about it. I couldn’t handle all that Grayhaven attitude. And now, like a consolation prize from the universe, I’d been sent an extremely aggravating ball of energy and attitude, combined in a single gorgeous package.
“Regular physical exertion is a wonderful thing.”
Sylvain practically sang the words at me, the world’s most annoying gym instructor. I mentally paged through my tomes and textbooks, trying to remember if I could order my eidolon to snap his own neck.
Fifty burpees later, drenched in sweat and wanting to die, I caved to Sylvain’s pleading and followed him toward something he’d discovered not far from the campsite. And to be fair, the sight alone was worth it.
“Isn’t it glorious?” he asked, smelling of sweat, and for some reason, the fresh scent of earth.
“Oh,” I said. “Oh, wow.”
A pool of still water surrounded by a grove of trees, clear enough to peer into, clean enough to wash off in. It looked beyond inviting, and I really, really wanted a decent scrub. Without saying another word, Sylvain turned away from me and gestured, dismissing his britches, his personal version of modesty.
I goggled, then wrenched my eyes away from the tantalizing sight of his perfect ass, taking the opportunity to shuck my own clothes, drop them in a pile by the pool, and sink into the water.
“Gods above and below,” I groaned, the water so pleasantly warm, wetter than wet. I leaned back, my eyes shut against the sunlight piercing the forest canopy. Water sloshed and splashed as Sylvain got in after me. I opened my eyes.
This was glorious, but also completely awful. The water felt fantastic, my tension dissolving the more I soaked, but it was also stirring up some activity in my nether regions, improving my circulation a little too well. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than to touch myself, and I clearly couldn’t. Gods, the taboo just made it even hotter. Did that make me a pervert? Maybe.
The problem was Sylvain, just sitting there stewing in the same water with me, butt naked. The woods around the pond were lovely to look at, granted. But how could I focus on anything else when Sylvain existed? Simply sharing this space made me anxious, and yet so impossibly aroused. I couldn’t even move my legs, afraid that I’d brush against his under the water. He might take it the wrong way. Worse, I might enjoy it too much.
Sylvain dripped water over his head, scrubbing at his scalp, then sweeping his hair up and away from his eyes. As if I needed to see more of his face. And the way he cupped water with his hand, letting it spill from his fingers and run down his chest, the taut muscle of his neck? I couldn’t pinpoint why I found it so attractive, yet I did, his glistening skin, the veins in his arms, those powerful hands.
He looked down at himself as he scooped more water onto his collarbone, scrubbed, scooped again. His lashes fluttered as his eyes met mine.
Sylvain grinned. “Do you like what you see?”
I rolled my eyes — convincingly, I hoped — and chopped my hand against the water, splashing him in the face. He sputtered, splashed me in return, and we went back and forth for some moments, laughing like boys, like people who could be friends.
