Fergal took Gregor’s face in both hands. Held him the way Gregor had held him a hundred times—firmly, completely, with the unshakable certainty of a man who had found the thing he was meant to hold and would not let go.
“What matters is that you loved me enough to kill for me. You loved me enough to carry the weight of it alone for decades rather than risk losing me. And you loved me enough to tell me the truth even though you believed it would end us.” His thumbs brushed the tears from Gregor’s cheeks.
Gregor leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Fergal’s, and the breath that left him was the longest exhale Fergal had ever heard, as if Gregor had been holding it since the night he’d stood over Peter’s body in the dark.
“I love you,” Fergal said, and the words were different now. They were light, free. “I love you, Gregor. I have loved you since I was fifteen, and I will love you until the fire inside me goes out. And now that every door between us is open, I intend to walk through all of them and make myself at home.”
Gregor made that sound again—the broken, released one—and when he spoke, the words came out on a breath that had been trapped behind locked doors for years.
“I love you.” His voice shook. “I love you, Fergal. My sweet, brilliant, stubborn baby boy. I have always, always loved you.”
“I know,” Fergal said, smiling through his own tears. “I’ve always known. I just needed you to say it.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you.” Stronger now. Steadier. The words finding their footing like a man learning to walk on new ground. “I love you.”
“Keep going. You have years to make up for.”
A sound that was almost a laugh broke from Gregor’s chest. “I love you, baby boy. I love you. I am so desperately, hopelessly, completely in love with you that it has been the organizing principle of my entire existence for years, and I was too afraid to say it, and I’m sorry, and I love you.”
Fergal kissed him.
The kiss felt new. Different. They’d kissed so many times before, but never like this. They’d never been two people with no walls between them, no secrets, no locked doors. It brought a new layer to their touches, to their kisses, to the soft sighs they shared between them.
Gregor’s hands came up to Fergal’s face, no longer trembling. Gregor’s mouth was soft, open, yielding in a way Fergal had never felt from him. The man who always controlled, always led, always held the reins was letting go, fully opening for Fergal in every way.
Fergal kissed him deeper, and then Gregor put his hands on Fergal’s hips and lifted him. Fergal wrapped his legs around Gregor’s waist and clung to him, pressing his chest against Gregor’s as their mouths remained fused.
Somehow, Gregor managed to walk them into the bedroom without stumbling, without hitting anything, which was a damn miracle since they never stopped kissing. He laid them down on the bed, together. Always together. Forever together, finally.
Time lost all meaning as they kissed and kissed and kissed, both unwilling or maybe even unable to stop. As if they both needed this time to reconnect, or maybe to connect for the first time without any walls between them. No more secrets. No more hiding.
When he was finally able to let go of Gregor’s mouth, Fergal undressed his mate. Slowly. Button by button, the shirt falling open to reveal the broad chest and the scattered scars Fergal knew by touch. He kissed each scar. The one on the shoulder from a training accident two centuries ago. The thin line along his ribs from a knife fight he’d never fully explained. The faded marks on his knuckles from years of combat. And the scar on his cheek—the Murphy souvenir, the mark of the night he’d walked away from corruption—Fergal kissed that one longest.
Gregor was beautiful. Fergal had always thought so, but tonight, without the faint shadow of a secret dulling the connection between them, the beauty hit him with a force that made his chest ache. The silver hair. The gray eyes, still damp, still vulnerable. The body that was strength and discipline made flesh, scarred and imperfect, and absolutely, devastatingly perfect.
Fergal took his time. This mattered too much to rush. He kissed Gregor’s mouth, his jaw, his throat. He traced the lines of his collarbone with his tongue and felt the muscles jump beneath his lips. He kissed his way down the broad chest, pausing at each scar, each mark, each piece of history written in skin.
His nipples were sensitive, Fergal discovered. The slightest flick of his fingers, and Gregor made the most beautiful sound.And when he licked them, sucked them, rolled them between his teeth, the man nearly came undone.
Gregor’s breathing changed, became faster, louder as Fergal’s mouth moved lower. His hands found Fergal’s hair, not directing, just touching, his fingers threading through the dark strands with a gentleness that was more intimate than any grip.
“I’ve got you,” Fergal murmured against his stomach, and felt the echo of every time Gregor had said those words to him—at the lake, in the library, in the cell, in the dark.
Gregor’s cock lay like iron against his stomach. Like weeping iron, threads of precum smeared on his skin. Fergal crawled lower and licked them clean. Oh, the sound Gregor made when Fergal suckled on the tip, cleaning that too. Like a low growl, so needy and wanton. So very unlike Gregor.
So Fergal took his time to explore that gorgeous cock. Thick and heavy, like hot velvet in his hand, against his lips, his tongue. He traced veins and licked broad stripes up and down. He suckled and teased with the tip of his tongue. He took him into his mouth, his throat, then let him slide out again, inch by inch.
He took Gregor apart with every touch, every lick, every kiss. The man lay panting now, hands no longer in Fergal’s hair but double-fisting the sheets, as if he were holding on for dear life.
“Fergal…” he moaned. “Baby boy…”
“Sshh, I’ve got you.”
He was still dressed himself, which wouldn’t do, so he let go of Gregor for a moment and got rid of his own clothes with careless haste, dropping them right on the floor. Gregor didn’t even chastise him for it, which spoke volumes about how distracted he was. While he was at it, Fergal also grabbed the lube from the drawer.
