Cross Purposes (Chronicles of Ylandre, Book 5) (21 page)

“Huh? He’s a friend.”

“Only a friend?”

“Yes. Why, what do you think he is?”

“Someone who’s shown great interest in you from the start,” Keosqe replied, his voice low and hard. “Someone who might not think himself just your friend.”

“Mirdan?” Tristen hooted. “For Veres’ sake, just because you can’t pass the time with me without trying to get me into your bed doesn’t mean others think the same way!” He repented his words as soon as he said them. “I don’t mean your attentions are unwelcome,” he hastened to explain. “It’s just that you’re…”

“The only one who forces his affections on you,” Keosqe flatly said.

“Nay! That isn’t at all what I meant!” Tristen blew his breath out in frustration. Forcing calm on himself, he carefully said, “You’re the only one who thinks of me as other than a friend. Truly you are. And I’m flattered you deem me worthy of your regard, Kes-
tyar
.” He reached out a hand and cautiously rubbed his lover’s shoulder. “Why do you think otherwise of my friendship with Mirdan?”

Keosqe glanced at him, a brooding look on his face once more. “Because you have no qualms about showing how much you care for him even in front of others. I wonder if I’ll ever know that joy.”

Tristen gasped. “But I do show you,” he insisted.

“When? Where?” Keosqe challenged. “Name one instance when you’ve done so with others about.”

“I—” Unable to think of an example, Tristen flushed. Keosqe smiled at him sardonically.

“There is no instance, is there?”

“Wait! Mirdan knows about us. I told him a while back.”

“No doubt at his insistence. Yet even he believes you don’t care for me as I do for you.”

“You eavesdropped on us?” Tristen asked, a little indignant.

“Nay, you were talking quite loudly. Understandable if you thought no one was near enough to hear you.” Keosqe sighed. “And you didn’t deny what he charged nor do you deny it to me now. He spoke the truth then.”

“That isn’t so!” Tristen shook his head. “I would be the most horrid person in the land if that were the case. You wouldn’t want me then, now would you?”

Keosqe stared at him. “You
would
use that against me,” he remarked.

“What do you—?”

Tristen cringed when Keosqe closed his eyes and hung his head as if in defeat. At length, he looked up, his expression sad and resigned.

“I could never not want you even if you told me to my face that you loathed me.”

Tristen gazed unhappily at him. They had never argued like this before. It troubled him. He did not like quarreling with anyone, but least of all did he wish to exchange heated words with his lover.

“I want you to be happy,” Keosqe quietly said. “If you no longer wish to continue, say so now. I swear I won’t take it against you.”

He leaned over to take back the flute. Tristen quickly grabbed him by the wrist. Keosqe looked at him warily.

Tristen stared at his fingers locked around Keosqe’s wrist. The noble had offered him a way out of their liaison. But if Tristen truly wanted their affair to end, why had he stopped him? Tristen closed his eyes.

Because he did
not
want to end it. There was no going around that fact. Whatever his misgivings, resentments, or confusion over Keosqe’s behavior toward him, he could not deny the noble had somehow made a place for himself in his heart. He’d become a vital part of Tristen’s life; a part Tristen suspected he would long for at best and languish over at worst were it taken from him. He did not know if this was love, but he did know he would sorely miss Keosqe were they to part ways now.

“I don’t want to break with you,” he whispered. “Nor do I wish to discontinue our … our relationship. Indeed, I … I count myself blessed that you care so much for me.”

He uncurled Keosqe’s fingers from around the flute and wrapped his own around the crystal instead. He gulped as he contemplated the enormity of what partaking of the
mirash
entailed. Was he ready to yield all of himself? He glanced uncertainly at Keosqe. His lover was regarding him somberly, but with the slightest hint of a challenge in his violet eyes. Or maybe it was disbelief. That decided the matter for Tristen.

Ready or not for this ultimate union of their bodies, he knew for certain he was not ready to part ways with Keosqe. If yielding himself thusly to his lover would reassure him enough that he would cease talk of ending their relationship, so be it. Tristen took a deep breath and, gazing steadily at Keosqe, slowly downed the
mirash
. His eyes widened in surprise at its wine-like sweetness, a slightly astringent aftertaste the sole indication that it was a medicinal drink.

The effect of his compliance was immediate and dizzying. No sooner did Tristen replace the glass on the table than he was swept into a kiss of such scorching intensity that he forgot to think or breathe. Without bothering to release him, Keosqe stood up with him in his arms and bore him to the bedchamber.

The seal of their lips broke only when he placed Tristen on the bed. Tristen gasped a little fearfully when Keosqe all but tore his clothes from him, stripping him bare in half the time it usually took. However, he discarded his own clothing as recklessly and that calmed Tristen somehow.

He’d half-expected ravishment, but he should have known Keosqe would never treat him basely. He would approximate a forced taking or occasionally employ some roughness to heighten pleasure, but never had he taken Tristen against his will or subjected him to true violence.

To give the
mirash
time to take effect, Keosqe engaged them in lengthy foreplay. They also took the edge of their nigh desperate need for union by sucking each other to completion together. Tristen trembled when he saw that Keosqe was still semi-hard even after spending in his mouth. That presaged nightlong lovemaking that would likely leave him aching from vigorous usage well into the following day.

He was still recovering from his orgasm when Keosqe leaned down to press kiss after smoldering kiss to his mouth, throat, and chest. Shuddering from the sensations, Tristen only dimly felt the downward slide of Keosqe’s hand to his crotch. He gave a startled cry, however, when Keosqe reached further below to finger the tiny aperture hidden by his seed pouch.

Tristen understood what that portended as surely as he knew the location of the sheath and its function. But the knowledge could not in any way compare to the actual experience of direct stimulation. His breathing quickened as Keosqe proceeded to stroke the delicate flesh until it started to moisten and the seed sac over it steadily contracted inward and upward to completely expose the entrance to his sheath. His body had fully turned and was more than ready for genital breaching. At this point, the desire for penetration intensified to the extent that Tristen found himself lifting his hips to encourage the entry of Keosqe’s fingers into him.

But Keosqe had other plans and he shifted position to kneel between Tristen’s legs. He grasped Tristen’s knees and pushed them up and apart. Tristen caught his breath when Keosqe’s gaze upon his nether region turned decidedly hungry. He closed his eyes and turned his face away, unable to watch whatever his lover would do next. Thus he was taken completely by surprise when he felt the stroke of Keosqe’s tongue against his sheath and the sensitive flesh around it.

Tristen alternated between shocked gasps and strangled cries as he was pleasured in yet another new manner. The need to be breached grew ever stronger and when Keosqe took to pushing the tip of his tongue into the now fully expanded passage, he instinctively reared up and into the sensual incursion.

He begged for something then. To which Keosqe huskily said, “If you insist,
ariad
.” Only then did it dawn on Tristen that he’d pleaded for his lover to end the maddening torment and take him. But there was no retracting his words. Not when Keosqe’s eyes glittered with ravenous lust that brooked no last minute protest. And certainly not when he could feel Keosqe’s shaft positioned to grant him his plea.

He gasped as Keosqe pressed into him. It stung as his lover’s shaft slid in to the hilt, tearing the vestigial protective membrane within. But with the slight pain came exquisite sensation wrought by the stroke of hard flesh against the countless nerves that lined the slick passage. After his initial gasp of discomfort, he found himself moaning in pleasure, the sounds increasing in volume as Keosqe quickened and deepened his thrusts.

It was as when he was penetrated from behind yet different. Instead of sensation radiating from one point of pleasure inside him, here it felt diffused over his entire groin. Nevertheless, it was as intense and enjoyable and Tristen could not stop himself from crying out or keep from lifting his hips to meet Keosqe’s every thrust in a frantic bid to draw him inward as deeply as possible.

The rapture of their bodies’ union was simply too great to resist or deny.

His journey to completion seemed swifter than usual and he could not help nigh screaming as he approached his climax, so powerful was the ecstasy that steadily unfurled in his groin. He locked one leg around Keosqe’s waist and urged him on, aware only that every incursion of his lover’s shaft wrought him pleasure so exquisite, he thought it would drive him mad. When he reached his peak, he did keen helplessly, as wave upon wave of rapture swept throughout his body.

Keosqe pounded a few more times into him before he groaned harshly against Tristen’s throat and spent himself inside his contracting sheath. Tristen gasped in shock at the sensation of intense warmth not only coating the passage, but also swiftly flowing inward toward his belly. Before the last of his orgasm had faded away, the warmth entered his womb and all of a sudden, as Keosqe’s seed came into contact with the walls of the chamber, heat flared within in one brief burst. It triggered another climax and Tristen cried out helplessly as he was once more engulfed in profound pleasure. Trembling uncontrollably, he clung to Keosqe, as if doing so would bring back calm and balance.

It took a long time for him to come down from the sensual heights to which he’d been propelled. He winced when Keosqe withdrew from him, as much from the feeling of loss as from the mild soreness of genital defloration. Without thinking he turned into Keosqe’s arms and buried his face in his lover’s chest. All his medical learning had not prepared him for the actual experience of reproductive intercourse and he now struggled with the pleasure and unexpected sense of fulfillment yielding in this manner had wrought for him.

“I never imagined…” he stammered softly. “It wasn’t as I expected… Is it always like that?” He looked up. “So strong, so … overwhelming?”

Keosqe tenderly ran his fingers through Tristen’s hair. “I gather from my past partners that it is. I can’t tell you from personal experience.”

“So you haven’t…?”

Tristen shook his head. Of course Keosqe had not played the mare and perhaps never would. He was heir apparent to a powerful fief-lord and a scion of the preeminent House in the land. Deira of such high station rarely yielded themselves and that was only in the conjugal bed to a fane-wedded mate, the permanence of a marriage solemnized in religious rites proferring the privilege on both partners. Handfasted spouses did not always receive the right given the possibility however remote of separation since civil union was the one form of Deiran wedlock that could be dissolved by the courts.

“I would do it for my spouse if he so wished it,” Keosqe quietly added.

Tristen blushed at the thought of knowing Keosqe as utterly as Keosqe knew him. Did he really want to play the sword? Was he even capable of giving as much pleasure as he had received thus far? And then the implications of Keosqe’s words struck him and he sucked in his breath sharply.

“I see you’ve given thought to marriage,” he muttered. “I fear it hasn’t crossed my mind just yet considering my years. Or rather lack of them.”

He hoped his roundabout evasion of the matter would suffice.

Keosqe chuckled. “It is too soon for you to think about such things,” he agreed.

Tristen sighed with relief. He wriggled closer to take the edge off what could be construed as rejection. As he did, he realized semen did not smear his abdomen. He flushed even deeper at this further evidence that he had yielded all of himself—a turned Deir did not ejaculate.

“Thank you,
ariad
,” Keosqe murmured.

Startled, Tristen peeked at him. “For what? Oh, you mean, um…”

“Yes.”

“Well…” Tristen pressed his burning face to Keosqe’s chest. “I’m glad this pleased you.”

Keosqe laughed, the husky sound arousing Tristen all over again to his dismay. “Pleased me? You have a gift for understatement.” He slid a thigh between Tristen’s legs, nudging them apart. “You bring me more joy than I ever expected to know.” He reached down and took Tristen’s shaft in hand.

Tristen groaned as he was stroked to renewed hardness. Distracted by the steady stimulation, he could not find the wherewithal to resist when Keosqe drew him into a spate of devouring kisses. Nor did he protest when Keosqe left off stroking his shaft to cup his buttocks and pull him flush against him, his parted thighs cradling the noble’s hips. All he managed was a soft gasp as Keosqe pressed into him once more.

He moaned at the shallow incursions; almost as if Keosqe was dipping into him.
It isn’t enough
, he dazedly thought.
Deeper.

Keosqe must have sensed his need or perhaps read his mind for he rolled Tristen on his back and slid in to the hilt. Tristen could not help a mewl of relief at the intense pleasure of his thorough impalement. Whereupon, Keosqe obliged his unspoken request and filled him to the brim with every thrust.

As he was virtually pounded into the mattress, Tristen forgot to think about anything but the thick flesh that relentlessly cleaved him and made him understand what it meant to feel complete.

* * * *

It was nearing dawn when Keosqe took him one last time, coaxing another orgasm out of Tristen’s exhausted and thoroughly sated body. Tristen moaned as the aches of his complicit ravishment made themselves known down yonder. His lover had not limited himself to genital intercourse but made good use of Tristen’s arse as well.