The words settled over Gregor like a warm cloth, easing tension he hadn’t realized he was carrying. He pressed a kiss to the inside of Fergal’s knee, then lowered his hand between Fergal’s legs.
His first finger circled slowly against Fergal’s entrance, spreading the lubricant, feeling the muscle tense and then gradually relax under his touch. Fergal’s breath came in little puffs, like a man who was consciously willing his body to open. Gregor gave him time. He had infinite patience for this, forFergal, for the process of earning access to the most private part of someone’s body.
He slid the first finger in slowly, and Fergal exhaled long and shaky, his head pressing back into the pillow. “Oh.”
“Okay?”
“More than okay. Don’t stop.”
Gregor worked him open with unhurried thoroughness. One finger became two, and Fergal’s hips shifted, pressing down, seeking more. The tight heat around Gregor’s fingers was extraordinary and almost unbearable in its promise of what was to come, and he had to close his eyes for a moment and breathe through the surge of want that threatened to shatter his careful pace.
“Gregor, I swear to every god,” Fergal panted, his hands fisting the sheets, “if you don’t?—”
“Patience.”
“I’ve been patient for years.Years.I’m done with patience. I want you inside me right now, or I will?—”
“You’ll what?” Gregor curled his fingers, finding the spot he was looking for, and Fergal’s threat dissolved into a strangled cry, his back arching off the mattress.
“That,” Fergal gasped when he could breathe again. “More of that. And also you. All of you. Now. Please.”
The “please” again. Gregor’s weakness, his undoing, the one word Fergal could wield like a master key to every lock Gregor had ever built.
He withdrew his fingers gently, wiped them on the sheet, and reached for the lubricant again, slicking himself with hands that trembled—barely, but enough that he noticed, and Fergal, watching him with dark, heavy eyes, noticed too.
“Come here,” Fergal murmured, reaching for him, and Gregor went.
He settled between Fergal’s thighs, one hand braced beside his head, the other guiding himself into position. The blunt press of his cock against Fergal’s entrance made them both hold their breath, suspended in the fraction of a second before everything changed.
“Look at me, baby boy,” Gregor said.
Fergal’s eyes found his. Dark, wide, brilliant with want and trust and something deeper that Gregor couldn’t name without his voice breaking.
He pushed in slowly, oh, so slowly. Feeling Fergal’s body resist and then yield, the tight ring of muscle stretching around him, the heat engulfed him inch by glorious inch. The sensation was…
There were no adequate words. Three and a half centuries of experience, and nothing, nothing had prepared him for the feeling of Fergal’s body opening for him, accepting him, drawing him in with a trust so absolute it was almost sacred.
Fergal’s hands gripped Gregor’s shoulders, his fingers digging into muscle. His breathing had gone ragged, his jaw clenched, his brow furrowed with the effort of accommodating the intrusion. It had to be uncomfortable—Gregor was not a small man, and while he knew Fergal had had sex while at university, it had clearly been a while— but Fergal didn’t tell him to stop.
His body gradually relaxed around Gregor, the tension easing degree by degree, until Gregor was fully seated inside him and they were pressed together so completely that he couldn’t tell where he ended and Fergal began.
He held still. The discipline required not to move, to give Fergal time to adjust, was the hardest thing Gregor had ever done. Every cell in his body was screaming at him to move, to thrust, to chase the exquisite friction that was right there, but hedidn’t. Fergal’s comfort mattered more than his pleasure, and it always would.
“Okay,” Fergal breathed. His grip on Gregor’s shoulders loosened slightly, his body settling, adjusting, accepting. “Okay, I’m good. Move. Please move.”
The first stroke was slow, a careful withdrawal and return that tested the angle, the depth, the response. Fergal’s eyes fluttered shut, and the low, guttural groan that resonated through his entire body was the most intoxicating thing Gregor had ever heard.
He found a rhythm. Slow, deep, controlled, building their pleasure with every thrust. Fergal moved with him, his hips rising to meet each stroke, his body learning the pattern and matching it with that quick adaptability of his.
“Faster,” Fergal demanded because, of course, he did. Fergal had never met a pace he didn’t want to accelerate.
“No.”
“Gregor—”
“I said no.” Gregor lowered his mouth to Fergal’s ear, his voice dropping into the register that always made Fergal shiver. “We’re doing this my way, baby boy.”
Fergal made a sound that was half protest, half surrender, but his body went pliant beneath Gregor’s, the last traces of resistance dissolving. He stopped trying to control the pace and gave himself over to it. To Gregor. The trust of it—the complete, conscious surrender of a man who ran kingdoms and argued law and fought battles with his mind, choosing to hand all of it to Gregor—was humbling in a way that transcended the physical.
