Laurent closed a fist around the head, and slid his thumb over the slit, pushing down into it a little.
Damen’s whole body curved. The grip felt more like ownership than a caress. Laurent leaned in, let his thumb delineate a small, wet circle.
‘You liked this too, with Ancel.’
‘That wasn’t Ancel,’ said Damen, the words coming out, raw and honest. ‘That was all you, and you know it.’
He didn’t want to think about Ancel. His body strained, like a strap pulled too tight. He did what was natural to him, but Laurent said, ‘No,’ and he couldn’t touch.
‘You know, Ancel used his mouth,’ he said, almost nonsensically, desperately trying to distract Laurent, to distract himself, fighting to hold himself in place against the sheets.
‘I don’t think I need to,’ said Laurent.
The rise and fall of Laurent’s hand was like the slide of Laurent’s words, like every frustrating argument that they’d ever had, stymied, tangled up in Laurent’s voice. He could feel the tension in Laurent, sharp like the feel of his own heartbeats. Laurent held his former mood within him, constrained, and converted into something else.
He fought it, as it rose inside him, striking out for resistant purchase in the silks above his head. But Laurent’s free hand curtailed his movement, pushing down on him in hot, insistent command. He was caught unexpectedly in Laurent’s eyes, and it hit, in a tangled burst, Laurent fully clothed above him, a prince in full panoply, his shiny boots alongside Damen’s thighs. Even as Damen felt the first tremor rolling up his body, the moment was transforming, too much communicated between them. He felt suddenly that he should look away, that he should stop or turn back. He couldn’t. Laurent’s eyes were dark, wide, and for a moment looked nowhere but at him.
He felt Laurent pulling back, pulling away, shuttering himself, trying but not quite able to manage a cool snap withdrawal.
Laurent said, ‘Adequate.’
Breathing roughened, still trembling with climax, Damen was pushing up, chasing the look in Laurent’s eyes to catch it before it was gone.
He caught Laurent’s wrist, felt the fine bones, and the pulse, before Laurent could rise from the bed.
Damen said, ‘Kiss me.’
His voice was husky with pleasure that he yearned to share. He felt the warm flush that suffused his own skin. He had pushed himself up, so that his body made a curve, the planes of his abdomen shifting. Laurent’s gaze splayed out instinctively over him, then lifted to his own.
He’d caught Laurent’s wrist before, to hold him back from a blow, a knife strike. He held him now. He could feel the desperate urge for retreat. He could feel something else too, Laurent keeping himself apart, as though, this act being finished, he had no template for what to do.
‘Kiss me,’ he said again.
Dark-eyed, Laurent was holding himself in place as though pushing himself past a barrier, the tension in Laurent’s body still telegraphing flight, and Damen felt the shock with his whole body when Laurent’s gaze dropped to his mouth.
His own eyes fell closed as he realised that Laurent was going to do this, and he held himself very still. Laurent kissed with a slight parting of his lips, as though he was unconscious of what he was asking for, and Damen kissed him back carefully, dizzy with the idea that the kiss would deepen.
He drew back before it did, just far enough to watch Laurent’s eyes come open. His heart was pounding. For a moment, looking felt like kissing, an exchange in which the distinctions of intimacy blurred. He was leaning in slowly, tilting Laurent’s jaw with his fingers, and kissing him softly on the neck.
It was not what Laurent had expected. He felt the slight shock of Laurent’s surprise, and the way Laurent held himself, as though confused as to why Damen wished to do this, but he felt the moment when surprise turned to something else. Damen allowed himself the minor delight of nuzzling. Laurent’s pulse reached a little crescendo under his lips.
This time when he drew back, neither of them broke fully from the other. He lifted his other hand to brush Laurent’s cheek, slid fingers into his hair—shifting gold under his marvelling fingers. Then he took Laurent’s head gently in his hands and delivered the kiss he’d longed to deliver, long, slow and deep. Laurent’s mouth opened under his. He couldn’t stop the slow, spreading flush of heat he felt at the touch of Laurent’s tongue, the feel of his own, sliding into Laurent’s mouth.
They were kissing. He felt it in his body, like a tremor he couldn’t still. He was shaken by the force of all he wanted, and he closed his eyes against it. He drew his hand down Laurent’s body, felt the raised gathers of the jacket. He himself was naked, while Laurent was fully, untouchably clothed.