“No. These are mine.” I nuzzled into them and breathed in their sweet scent and his arousal. “Everyone else gets the ones on your head, but these are mine alone.”
It only occurred to me what I’d said when I looked up and saw the surprise on his face. Yep, that was me wanting exclusivity. I was not a casual kind of guy and there was the proof.
“Okay,” he whispered. “Those are only yours.”
I smiled up at him, relieved and so pleased that he agreed. And then I got back to blowing him, humming my pleasure when soft petals touched my face as I got him off. After he came down my throat with a powerful yell, I kissed each tiny flower. He chuckled at me, but I didn’t mind.
“Your turn,” he said and helped me stand up.
I fully thought he’d blow me now, but instead, he took off his trousers and got that little purple jar out before laying down on his back in the grass. I dropped to my knees all over again, my cock throbbing. “But you’ve just come,” I had to say.
“And I will again.” He chuckled and handed the jar to me. “That’s mostly for you. Then you can t-take me. Please.”
Still shy and hesitating, but he was taking control. Lust swamped me as I got my cock out and slicked myself up while staring down at the beautiful man biting his bottom lip and getting hard just from watching me. He practically sighed when I eased inside him, and I bellowed in pleasure to be wrapped in his tight, hot body once again.
There was absolutely no finesse in how I was fucking him. “I can’t… I need…”
But he nodded. “Just fuck me.”
Oh, god, yeah! I could tell when I started pegging his prostate with every thrust because he started wailing and writhing on the grass, his cock stiff and leaking already. The sight of him lost to his pleasure, the sounds he kept making, and the feel of him gripping me so tightly had me coming in no time. He was right there with me and even pulled me down on top of him to moan in my ear.
Long minutes passed before I eased away from him and sat back only to pause in absolute wonder when I saw that he was outlined in flowers. Big, small, one that vined along his hip—there were flowers peeping out of the grass all around him. They were the softest colors, and the pink ones matched the blush on his cheeks.
Hydris laughed when he saw them and sat up, but I noticed that the ones that had been around his head and shoulders started to die right away. “Oh, no,” I whispered as I realized any that he didn’t touch were withering.
“I used to be able to do this every time I took a step outside,” he said as he petted a flower by his knee. “I could make paths of flowers all around the palace, and they’d last the whole season. But since the curse, as soon as I stop touching them, they all die.”
The flower he’d been petting withered and slumped into the grass the moment he took his touch away by standing up. All of them were dead now. I actually felt the hot sting of tears and had to sniff them away. That was one of the saddest things I’d ever seen.
I cleared my throat. “We need to break the curse.”
He stood up and went to get his trousers. “I wish I knew how.”
“Does anyone have a guess? Surely, after three years, someone who knows about magic has a theory at least.”
We paused to wipe off with his handkerchief, which he then stuffed into the pouch with the little jar of lube.
“Well,” he said as he dressed, “the current thinking is that my brothers and I need to learn or grow or something that makes us change. We are our courts, after all. But they’re also saying my father did this instead of it being done to him, so I don’t know what to think.”
I had a guess. “How long has Mannix been in charge?”
“Um, five years, I think. Why?”
“Did your father ever talk to you about taking control back from Mannix?”
His eyes went wide as he stared at me. “We… We had a fight just before the curse hit,” he whispered. “But I didn’t… I didn’t know!” His eyes filled with tears as he waved his hand toward the barrier, the lake, the people who didn’t like him.
“Now you do.” I cupped his sad face and smiled encouragingly. “Maybe you’ve been growing this whole time, hmm? You just needed someone in your corner, right? Cheering you on.”
His eyes all glassy and bright, he smiled just enough back at me. “Others have tried. I see that now. Lady Naunet. Lord Ottokar. But I couldn’t…”
“Well, then, you’ve got a whole squad of people who want to help. We’ll all support you. It’s not like we’ll have to use swords and cannons to get Mannix out, right?” Fuck me, I hoped we wouldn’t have to do that. “So, you can absolutely do this.”
“What if it’s not enough?”
“Then maybe it’s another step in a process that we’ll figure out as we go.”
“Together.”
