Page 49 of Connor and the Dragons

Connor came back clean and damp, with his shirt sticking to his shoulders, and a package of pastries Sky and Moerrven had given him. I dove into the pastries, he started gathering up his cipher pages.

“Sky and Moerrven have more names for me, so I’m going to run across and try and figure out how those fit into the ciphers.” He tucked the pages under his arm, checked that his bracelet was on, and stopped in front of Kessrin, reaching a hand out and cupping the ice dragon’s fine jaw. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

Kessrin drew himself up in his robe. “Yes, of course. I am a centuries-old dragon, Connor. I have outlived two wars. I believe I can manage one morning in a rented room.”

“Okay.” Connor’s mouth twitched, and he kissed him anyway. Then he pointed at me on his way out. “No orgasms. You’re done for a few days. Hands off your own cock. Be good.”

“I am always good, Sir.”

His eyebrows shot up.

I huffed. “Fine, I promise I will be good.” I took another pastry and ate it in one bite. It was a flaky thing, buttery goodness paired with a tart berry of some sort, and it was divine. Connor was smiling as he slipped out. Kessrin went to the window, and a handprint bloomed across the glass too. I considered asking him what was wrong, but he’d just pretend he was okay, wouldn’t he?

What I needed was a plan. And one more of those pastries. I helped myself to it, and walked over to stand next to Kessrin.

“We should bathe,” I said. “You smell like cum and armpits.”

This was a lie, Kessrin never smelled anything but delightful. If I had to venture a guess, I would have thought it was a latent magical ability of his. Still, he sniffed his robe and frowned.

“Very well. You may go first.”

“I was thinking we would go together. It would be very efficient. We could begin our work on the mission sooner.” I wasn’t entirely sure what our work on the mission was, but it felt like good reasoning.

“Could we both not just bathe very quickly?”

“Nah. This is far more practical,” I said.

He stared out the window for a moment with his ears going pink. “Very well. For the sake of the hot water.”

The bathroom was at the end of the hall, shared with several other rooms. It was a small tiled room with a latch on the door and a copper tub big enough for a troll, which I suspected was the reason Sky had picked this lodging house. I wasn’t sure if the hot water was from a natural spring or some form of magic, but it was deliciously warm at all times, and I wasn’t a man to question something like that.

I ran the water as hot as it would go, stirring a hand through it to make sure it stayed perfect as the tub rapidly filled. Kessrin folded his robe and set it on the stool with the corners squared. I tore mine off and threw it on top of his, and a muscle ticked in his jaw, but he turned away from the stool and forced his attention on the tub, shivering a little.

“It’s very warm,” I said.

He avoided eye contact with my dick as he stepped into the tub with his back very straight and sat down at the far end, folded, like he intended to leave most of the tub for me.

A thin skin of ice formed on the water around his knees.

“That happens,” he said stiffly. “It’s normal.”

“I shall climb in and warm the water back up if that’s okay.”

He nodded, and I unceremoniously shoved him forward and got in behind him instead of across from him, and pulled him back against my chest before he could draft an objection. He was cold all the way through. I put my arms around him under the water and let my heat go, the real heat, the kind I keep banked around furniture and fabric. The ice skin vanished. Steam came up off the water in a rush and fogged the little window.

“This is an added efficiency I had not considered. My heat keeps your bath warm. You wouldn’t get that if you bathed alone.”

Kessrin made a small sound in his throat and did not move away.

“I am going to wash you now,” I said. “Not for efficiency, but because I’m feeling a strong urge to grope you.”

Kessrin huffed.

I used the good soap Sky had found in the market, the one that smells like oranges. I started with his hair, using a small cup to pour water over it, then massaging the soap into it until he groaned and leaned back into the touch. I washed his neck and the tops of his shoulders, where he carries the whole kingdom, and I dug my thumbs into the muscles there until the knot beneath them gave and he let out a long breath.

“You are very tense for a man who slept well,” I said.

“I have a great deal on my mind.”