Ithyris's restraint unravels in layers, and Bryn feels each one go.
First his hands. They slide from Bryn's waist to his hips, fingers digging into the thin fabric, pulling Bryn flush against him so that there is no space left between their bodies. Then lower, gripping the backs of Bryn's thighs, spreading them so that Bryn wraps around his waist, and the new position presses Bryn against the prince's stomach, against the hard, unmistakable line of him beneath his trousers, and Bryn feels how aroused Ithyris is, the full, rigid length of him against the inside of Bryn's thigh, and the reality of it sends a shock through him that is equal parts fear and want in proportions he can't separate and doesn't try to. He is hard too. He has been since the flight, maybe since before the flight, maybe since the prince said good morning on the platform and Bryn's body decided to make a series of deeply inconvenient decisions without consulting his brain. The friction of their bodies together draws a gasp from him that Ithyris swallows with his mouth.
Then Ithyris's mouth. He breaks from Bryn's lips and drags his mouth down Bryn's jaw, down the side of his neck, open and wet, his tongue tracing the tendon, his teeth grazing the spot below Bryn's ear, and Bryn tips his head back to give him room without thinking about it, without deciding to, his body offering access before his mind has processed the request. The sound that comes out of him is not dignified. It is not composed. It is not the sound of a prince or a strategist or a boy who has spent six years keeping himself under control. The prince's lips close over his pulse point and he sucks, hard enough to bruise, and Bryn's hips jerk against him and his hands yank at the prince's hair and Ithyris growls against his throat. The vibration of the growl rollsthrough Bryn's body and pools between his legs and he is so hard it hurts and the hurt is indistinguishable from the want.
Then the growl deepens. It builds in Ithyris's chest, low and resonant, not threatening but possessive, the sound of a creature that has found what belongs to it and is holding it and will not let go, and when it rolls through the prince's body and into Bryn's where they're pressed together Bryn feels it in his spine and his ribs and the base of his cock and he gasps and grinds against Ithyris and his hands pull at the prince's shirt because he needs it gone, needs skin, needs to touch Ithyris the way Ithyris is touching him, needs to know what the scales feel like under his palms and against his chest.
Ithyris sets him down. Bryn's feet touch the moss and his legs buckle immediately and the prince catches him, one arm banded around his waist, and his other hand comes up to cup Bryn's jaw and tilt his head back and he looks at him.
His eyes are black. The amethyst is gone, swallowed entirely, and the scales have spread across his cheekbones and down his neck, flickering violet in the dappled forest light, more extensive than Bryn has ever seen them. His mouth is swollen from kissing, red and wet. His breathing is wrecked, coming in deep, uneven pulls that Bryn can feel against his own chest. He is the most powerful being in his kingdom and he is looking at Bryn as though Bryn is the thing that has brought him to his knees, and the expression on his face is raw and open and desperate in a way that Bryn has never seen on another person's face before, certainly not directed at him.
"Tell me to stop," Ithyris says. His voice is shattered, barely recognizable as the same voice that addressed the court and claimed Bryn as his mate. "Bryn. Tell me to stop and I will. I will stop and I will take you back to the palace and I will never touch you again if that's what you want."
He means it. Bryn can see that he means it, can see the sincerity of it in the shattered remains of the prince's composure, and the knowledge that Ithyris would do it, would stop and step back and endure the agony of it, is what makes Bryn's decision for him. Not the arousal. Not the want. The knowledge that this man, who is trembling with need, is still handing Bryn the choice.
Bryn reaches up and presses his palm flat against the prince's chest. Ithyris's heart is hammering beneath his hand, fast and powerful, and the scales under his fingers are warm and smooth and real and alive.
"I don't want you to stop, Ithyris."
Something in Ithyris's expression breaks open. Not control, though that goes too. Something deeper. Some last barrier between wanting and having that the prince has been maintaining since the moment Bryn walked into the great hall, a wall built of restraint and patience and the desperate effort to not be the thing Bryn was afraid of, and the look on his face when it gives way is the most naked thing Bryn has ever seen on another person. It's not just desire. It's relief. It's the face of someone who has been holding his breath for days and is finally, finally being allowed to exhale.
He pulls Bryn's shirt over his head and throws it and it lands somewhere in the moss and neither of them watches it go. His own shirt follows, pulled over his head with a single motion, and then his hands are on Bryn's bare skin and his chest is against Bryn's and the heat of him is staggering, furnace-hot, the dragon's internal fire burning beneath skin that is smooth and warm and scattered with scales across his shoulders and collarbone. Bryn presses his hands flat against the prince's chest and feels the muscles flex beneath his palms and the scales shift and ripple under his touch, responding to the contact, and Ithyris shudders, his whole body trembling. The reaction isvisible and total, and Bryn realizes with a shock that his hands on Ithyris's skin affect the prince the way the prince's hands on Bryn's skin affect him. That the power here, whatever else is unbalanced between them, runs both ways. His touch moves the dragon prince. His hands make this creature tremble.
He has never made anyone tremble before. He has never had that kind of power. It's intoxicating in a way he wasn't prepared for.
Ithyris lowers him to the ground.
The moss is soft beneath Bryn's back, cool against his overheated skin, and the forest canopy wheels above him, green and gold and dappled with light that shifts as the breeze moves through the leaves. Ithyris is above him, braced on his forearms, and the prince looks down at him with dark, depthless eyes and his gaze moves over Bryn's face, his throat, his chest, his stomach, tracking each detail with a hunger that is methodical and devastating, as though he is memorizing every inch of Bryn's body and cataloging it the way Bryn catalogs trade routes and fortifications. Except Bryn catalogs things to survive them. Ithyris is cataloging Bryn because he wants to remember him.
"You're shaking," the prince murmurs.
"I'm aware."
"Are you afraid?"
"Yes." Bryn swallows. The honesty costs him something but he gives it anyway. "But don't stop."
Ithyris lowers his head and presses his open mouth to Bryn's collarbone and Bryn arches off the ground. The prince's tongue traces the ridge of bone, hot and wet, and his lips drag down over Bryn's sternum with a slowness that is deliberate and devastating. He takes his time. Every inch of skin gets his attention, his mouth open and tasting, his breath warm, his fingers tracing the lines between Bryn's ribs with a delicacy that is at odds with the strength Bryn knows those hands hold, thesame hands that took Syreth by the throat, the same hands that gripped the arms of his throne until the wood cracked. Those hands are tracing the ridges of Bryn's too-visible ribs with the careful, reverent touch of someone handling something precious and breakable, and the contrast is doing things to Bryn that he doesn't have vocabulary for.
Ithyris finds his nipple and closes his mouth over it and sucks and Bryn's back bows off the moss and his hand flies to the prince's hair and grips and the sound that comes out of him is sharp and startled and raw and he would be embarrassed by it if he had any capacity left for embarrassment, which he does not. The prince stays there, works him with his tongue, with the careful edge of his teeth, while his other hand finds the other nipple and rolls it between his fingers, and Bryn is gasping and squirming and pulling at Ithyris's hair and his hips are lifting off the ground, seeking friction, seeking the prince, and he can feel how wet he is at the tip of his cock, smearing against his own stomach, and the desperation of it is humiliating and intoxicating in equal measure.
Ithyris's mouth moves lower. Down Bryn's stomach, his tongue dipping into the hollow of Bryn's navel, his hands gripping Bryn's hips to hold him still because Bryn can't stop moving, his body operating entirely independently of his will. The prince reaches the waistband of his trousers and looks up at him and the sight of Ithyris between his legs, dark-eyed and flushed and devastatingly beautiful, his mouth inches from where Bryn needs him, nearly finishes him right there.
"Ithyris." The prince's name comes out broken. Bryn doesn't recognize his own voice. It sounds nothing like the dry, controlled, strategically composed voice he's used for six years to hold a kingdom together. It sounds desperate and young and honest and it is the sound of a person who has never asked for anything for himself and is asking now. "Please."
Ithyris pulls Bryn's trousers down. Slow, deliberate, peeling the fabric off his legs with a care that makes the act feel ceremonial rather than practical, and Bryn is bare beneath him, fully exposed, and the forest air touches his skin and the vulnerability of it is enormous and total. He is hard and leaking and trembling and the prince looks at the whole of him with an expression that is reverent and hungry at the same time, and the combination of those two things on Ithyris's face, the worship and the want existing simultaneously, does something to the structure behind Bryn's ribs that he will never fully recover from.
"Beautiful," Ithyris says, low and rough and certain in the way he's certain about everything. "You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
"You don't have to..."
"I do." He presses his mouth to the inside of Bryn's thigh and Bryn jerks and gasps. "I have to. You need to hear it, Bryn, because I don't think anyone has ever told you and that is a failure on the part of everyone who has ever looked at you. You're beautiful. Every part of you."
He wraps his hand around Bryn's cock. His palm is hot and rough and his fingers close around him with a grip that is firm and sure and Bryn cries out and his hips buck up into the prince's fist. Ithyris strokes him once, slow, root to tip, his thumb dragging through the wetness at the head, spreading it, and the pleasure of it after the prolonged buildup of the flight and the kissing and the prince's mouth on every inch of his skin is so sharp that Bryn's vision goes white at the edges and his hands fist in the moss.
Then the prince replaces his hand with his mouth.
Bryn stops breathing. Ithyris's lips close over the head of his cock and the heat and the wet and the suction are overwhelming, a pleasure so concentrated it borders on agony, and the prince takes him deeper, his tongue working the underside, his handgripping the base, and Bryn is fisting the moss and arching off the ground and making sounds he will never be able to unhear and will certainly never be able to deny. Ithyris works him with the same devastating thoroughness he applies to everything, patient and relentless and entirely focused on taking Bryn apart, and Bryn can feel the orgasm building at the base of his spine, a tightening, a gathering, and he yanks at the prince's hair with fingers that are shaking.
