Page 118 of The Boy Bride

That was surprisingly frank. “You want me to?”

“Yeah.”

“If you’re asking … ”

Vanu sat up, grinning, and yanked open the ties of Lill’s trousers. He slid the fabric down and off, tossed the trousers in an extravagant arc off the bed and across the room. Lill giggled, a little bubbling noise of delight.

And there he was, in nothing but his shirt pushed up onto his chest. He was wearing one of the necklaces Vanu had given him for the wedding, and his braids were strewn on the pillow around his head. He’d drawn his legs up, ankles crossed, but he didn’t resist when Vanu eased his knees apart. His legs were gorgeous, slender and white. His rosy cock was as pretty as the rest of him.

Vanu settled himself between Lill’s legs, propped on his elbows. He slid a hand under Lill’s thigh, and he felt the faint ridges of old scars. Not battle scars, like Vanu carried all over him, but scars from a whip. He wanted to kiss them, but he also didn’t want Lill to know that he’d noticed them.

He hooked Lill’s leg over his shoulder and bent his head and did what Lill had asked him to do.

* * *

Lill felt unmoored from the world. Like the dust of his old life had settled and he was floating up into the blue mountain air. But he wasn’t alone; Vanu was with him. Vanu’s hand had felt wonderful, but Vanu’s mouth …

Lill had given up trying to stay silent. He was moaning aloud. His whole member was inside Vanu’s mouth. He hadn’t known one could do such a thing, that “put my mouth on your cock” meant all of this: not just licking but sucking, swallowing, enveloping him in this perfect, velvety warmth.

He tried to stay still, but his body wanted to thrust up into Vanu’s mouth the way he had bucked against Vanu’s hand. Vanu seemed to have anticipated this, because he was holding Lill firmly, one arm wrapped around his thigh, the other hand spread on his belly, which was its own extra layer of bliss. He withdrew, swirling his tongue around the tip of Lill’s cock, and Lill threw his head back on the pillow with an absurd noise that he couldn’t believe he had made.

He looked down past the folds of his shirt at Vanu, who was looking up at him with laughter in his blue eyes.

“Want me to carry on?” Vanu whispered.

Lill could feel Vanu’s breath on his wet skin. He put his own hand on Vanu’s on his stomach, lacing their fingers together.

“Forever.”

Vanu nuzzled into the junction of Lill’s thigh and groin. His stubble prickled, but the hair of his head was silky soft as it brushed against Lill’s leg. He used his teeth, gently nipping at a sensitive place—a ridiculous thing that surely should have felt bad, but didn’t.

Lill bit his lip to keep from saying, “Stop!” He knew if he did, Vanu would. He squeezed Vanu’s fingers, hoping that would encourage him.

It must have, because Vanu unwound his arm from around Lill’s leg and used his free hand to engulf Lill’s balls. His thumb probed into a place that Lill didn’t know the name for. Now his tongue was there too, and his tame-beast teeth.

Distantly, like a bell tolling far away, Lill heard in his mind the words of the old incantation: I am a tool of the Great King and subdue my desires … It sounded like nonsense, like a language he had forgotten how to speak, a clanging dissonance that he had once thought was music. And yet he could remember how it had felt for the words to have power. They were still there, lurking in his mind …

Vanu drowned out all of that by flattening his tongue against the base of Lill’s member and licking up to the tip, then swallowing the whole length again and sucking, hard.

Lill gasped, back arching, muscles clenching, fighting instinctively against the explosion of sensation that came over him. He’d thought he had lost control already, but there was so much more to relinquish, he hadn’t realized—he couldn’t let himself—he couldn’t⁠—

“No,” he panted, “no no no no⁠—”

Vanu, undefeated Lion of the Summer Pass, did something with his hand—Lill was too far gone to even tell what it was—wrung out the last drops of Lill’s resistance, and Lill climaxed. It went through him like an arrow, like a lightning bolt, and then—he hadn’t expected this, but he hadn’t known what to expect—it lingered, gloriously, like a sunset, like ripples expanding on a still lake, little shivers of bliss chasing through his body.

Vanu knelt up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You said ‘no,’” he signed. “But I didn’t think you were talking to me … ”

Lill rolled his head limply side to side on the pillow. He had very much been talking to himself. Vanu nodded.

“Are you the best in your generation at that?” Lill asked, finding his voice.

Vanu grinned. “Might be.”

“I believe it. Aren’t I lucky?”

And then suddenly, as if he’d lost every form of self-control at once, Lill found his eyes welling with tears. He gulped and slapped his hands to his face, as if he could push them back, but they kept coming; he was crying like a child, sobbing and shaking, and he didn’t know why. What would Vanu think?

He could feel Vanu move above him, and Vanu’s lips brushed the back of his hand. Startled, Lill peeked through his fingers. Vanu drew Lill’s hand down and kissed his wet cheek. He flopped down to lie on his back on the bed beside Lill. He pulled Lill’s shirt down over his hips and patted Lill’s thigh. He was acting as if nothing Lill was doing was very odd. That only made Lill cry harder.