He goes to the library. Opens a book. Reads the same sentence fourteen times. The bond pulses. The prince is still thinking about him. He closes the book and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and breathes and his cock is half-hard in his trousers and the words on the page are meaningless and he is ruined. He is not even pretending otherwise anymore.
***
Ithyris finds him in the library that afternoon.
The door opens and the air changes, the temperature shifting upward, and the bond flares and Bryn's body responds before his mind has registered the prince's presence, his skin flushing warm, every nerve orienting toward the source of heat.
The prince has bathed. His hair is damp and pushed back and he's wearing a clean shirt, unlaced at the throat, and he smellsof cedar and soap and underneath that, deeper, the mineral heat that is just him. The scent hits Bryn low and primal and his cock thickens against his thigh and he shifts in his chair and crosses his legs and pretends to read.
Ithyris sits beside him. Not across the table. Beside him, on the same bench, close enough that his thigh presses against Bryn's, and the contact sends a current through his body that makes his vision swim.
"You were watching me this morning."
Low. Conversational. The prince opens a book and does not look at him and the casualness of his tone is so transparent it would be insulting if Bryn had any air left in his lungs.
"I was walking to the library."
"The library is in the east wing."
"I took a detour."
"That was an awfully long detour, my intended."
No answer exists that doesn't amount to a confession, and Bryn is not making that confession while the prince's thigh is pressed against his and his scent is filling the space between them and the bond is flooding with a mutual, escalating heat.
Ithyris turns a page. His hand passes close to Bryn's knee. Not touching. Almost. The almost is worse than touching. The almost is a deliberate provocation, and Bryn can feel the edge of amusement through the bond, buried under the want, a wry satisfaction in the knowledge that the prince is dismantling him without laying a finger on him.
"You're doing this deliberately," Bryn says.
"Reading?"
"Sitting this close. Smelling..." He stops, because the next word was going to be incredible and the word after that was going to be please and there are rules about libraries.
The prince turns his head. Slowly. His eyes find Bryn's and they are dark and warm and dancing with something that is not quite mischief and not quite hunger and is entirely devastating.
"Smelling?" he says. Softly. His gaze drops to Bryn's mouth. "Smelling what, Bryn?"
The sound of his name in that register, with the prince's eyes on his lips, sends a bolt of heat through him so sharp he flinches. His hand grips the edge of the bench.
"You know exactly what you're doing," he says. Rough. Embarrassingly rough.
"Yes." The amusement drains from the bond and what replaces it is raw and honest. "I have been sitting in council meetings all morning thinking about the way you looked on that gallery. Gripping the railing with white knuckles. Watching me. And I have been thinking about what I want to do to you and I am running out of patience with this library."
Bryn's cock is fully hard. There is no hiding it.
He closes his book. He stands up.
The prince looks up at him from the bench and his expression shifts, the amusement replaced by something sharper, more alert.
"Your chambers," Bryn says. "Now."
Ithyris is on his feet before the second word has left his mouth.
***
They don't make it to his chambers.
They make it to the corridor outside the library, and the memory of the last time collides with the present and Bryn grabs the front of the prince's shirt and drags his mouth down and the kiss is not gentle. It uses teeth and tastes of desperation and the prince's hands find his hips and lift and Bryn is off theground and his back hits stone and his legs wrap around the prince's waist and the hard length of Ithyris's cock grinds against his through their trousers and they both groan into each other's mouths.
