“Yes.” Gregor hooked his fingers into the waistband and drew the pants down slowly, pressing kisses to every inch of skin he revealed. Fergal lifted his hips without being asked, and the trust in that unconscious gesture tightened something in Gregor’s chest until breathing became difficult.
He pulled the pants free and settled between Fergal’s legs, his hands resting on Fergal’s thighs, feeling the muscles tremble beneath his palms. In the faint glow of the ward lights, he could see Fergal’s cock, hard and flushed, curving toward his stomach. He could see the rapid rise and fall of Fergal’s chest. He could see Fergal’s face, half-shadowed, eyes dark and wide and fixed on Gregor with an expression that was equal parts desire and vulnerability.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” Gregor said, and the words came out rough and honest and entirely without his permission. He didn’t take them back.
Fergal’s laugh was breathless. “You don’t say things like that.”
“I’m saying it now, so you may want to pay attention.”
He lowered his head and pressed his lips to the inside of Fergal’s thigh, and the high, broken whimper that Fergal had clearly never intended to produce sent a bolt of heat straight to Gregor’s own cock, which was straining against his pants with anurgency he was ignoring. This wasn’t about him. Tonight was for Fergal.
He kissed up Fergal’s inner thigh, slow and open-mouthed, feeling the muscles quiver under his lips, tasting salt and clean skin and something underneath that was purely Fergal. He could feel the heat of Fergal’s cock against his cheek, could hear Fergal’s breathing fracturing into sharp, staccato gasps above him.
“Gregor.” His name, spoken with a rawness that had nothing to do with technique and everything to do with what was happening beneath the physical. “Please.”
The “please” undid him the way it always did. Gregor turned his head and ran his tongue in one slow, flat stroke up the underside of Fergal’s cock, from base to tip.
Fergal’s hips bucked off the mattress, and the sound that tore from his throat was strangled and desperate and so perfectly wrecked that Gregor committed it to permanent memory alongside every other sound this man had ever made that was his alone.
He took the head into his mouth, letting his lips stretch around the girth, his tongue tracing the ridge where shaft met crown. The taste of him flooded Gregor’s senses—salt, musk, the faintly smoky undertone that was unique to dragon shifters, all of it concentrated into something heady and intoxicating. He held still for a moment, letting Fergal feel the wet heat of his mouth, letting the sensation sink in past every layer of thought and worry and royal obligation.
Then he began to move.
Slowly. A gradual descent, taking more of Fergal into his mouth inch by inch, his tongue working the underside, his hand wrapping around the base to cover what his mouth couldn’t reach. Fergal was thick—thicker than Gregor had expected, which was a thought he’d examine later because he’d clearly notdevoted enough attention to Fergal’s anatomy—and the stretch of his lips, the weight on his tongue, the fullness pressing toward the back of his throat was grounding in a way that surprised him.
He found a rhythm. Slow pulls upward, his cheeks hollowing, suction tight, his tongue swirling the head before sliding back down. Each stroke drew another sound from Fergal—moans that were growing louder and less controlled, interspersed with fragments of Gregor’s name that sounded like they were being pulled from his chest rather than formed by his mouth. Fergal’s hand was in Gregor’s hair, fingers buried in the strands.
Gregor increased the pace, his hand working in tandem with his mouth, a twist at the top of each stroke that made Fergal’s thighs clamp against his shoulders. He could feel the tension building in Fergal’s body—the muscles drawing tighter, the breathing going ragged, the restless shifting of his hips as his body chased the pleasure Gregor was building.
“I can’t… Gregor, I’m…” Fergal’s voice was wrecked, scraped raw, barely recognizable as the sharp-tongued prince who’d been arguing about seating arrangements an hour ago. His fingers tightened in Gregor’s hair. “I’m close, I’m so close…”
Gregor responded by taking him deeper, relaxing his throat, swallowing around him in a way that drew a sound from Fergal that was closer to a sob than a moan. He wanted this. Wanted to feel Fergal come apart, wanted to taste him, wanted to be the reason that relentless, brilliant mind finally, mercifully went quiet.
He slid his free hand up Fergal’s stomach, feeling the muscles clenching and releasing in involuntary waves, and pressed his palm flat over Fergal’s heart. The heartbeat beneath his hand was wild, thundering, the rhythm of a man approaching the edge.
Let go, he thought, his mouth too full to speak.I’ve got you. Let go.
As if Fergal had heard him, his body seized. His back arched off the mattress, his hand fisted in Gregor’s hair, and he came with a cry that he muffled against his own forearm—a raw, shattered sound that vibrated through them both. Gregor felt him pulse against his tongue, tasted the hot, bitter salt of him, and swallowed, working him through it with steady, gentle pressure as the waves crested and broke and gradually subsided.
Fergal collapsed. His body went boneless, every muscle unlocking at once, the tension that had been building for weeks draining out of him like water from a broken dam. His hand slid from Gregor’s hair to his shoulder, fingers slack, trembling with aftershocks.
Gregor pressed a kiss to Fergal’s hip. Then his stomach. Then his chest, working his way back up the body he’d just taken apart. Fergal’s skin was damp with sweat and radiating the kind of heat that came from deep release, and when Gregor reached his face, the expression he found there nearly cracked him open.
Fergal’s eyes were wet, the glassiness of a man who’d been wound so tight for so long that the sudden release had broken something loose inside him. He looked younger than he had in weeks. He looked like a man who’d finally, briefly, set down every single thing he was carrying.
Gregor kissed his forehead. “Stay there.”
He retrieved a warm washcloth from the bathroom and cleaned Fergal gently and unhurriedly. He dragged Fergal’s pants back up, lifting his hips with one hand and sliding the fabric up with the other, a process made more complicated by the fact that Fergal was approximately as cooperative as a sleeping cat.
“You didn’t…” Fergal started, his voice drowsy and hoarse.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re hard.”
“Observant as always.”
“Let me…” Fergal’s hand reached for him, but Gregor caught it and pressed a kiss to his palm.
