Page 44 of Storm Front
It felt good to do this, worship Nyx with his mouth, his tongue. It had been some time, but Azaiah had the hang of it soon enough. He went slowly, discovering what made Nyx arch and shudder as he drew him closer and closer to the edge. By the time he’d remembered that Nyx liked a bit of teeth and a lot of tongue on his shaft, Nyx’s hands were in his hair, pulling as he thrust into Azaiah’s throat.
Azaiah choked, but he didn’t mind, especially when it made Nyx shout something that was half a curse, half a plea for release.
He sucked until he tasted the tang of precome, then pulled off, smiling down at Nyx, who was writhing and glaring at him.
“Death is a fucking tease,” Nyx muttered, as Azaiah concentrated on what he needed and then reached for his discarded cloak to find a vial of it within the voluminous folds.
“You don’t like anything if it comes too easily,” Azaiah reminded him, leaning up between Nyx’s wantonly spread legs to slick himself. “Even in this.”
“Even coming, you mean?” Nyx gave a rough laugh, but his eyes were locked on Azaiah’s hand as it moved up and down. “Did you have that with you?”
Azaiah shrugged, head going back as he shivered from the touch of his own hand. “There are ways to bring things to me. You’ll see. You’ll learn them yourself when we walk together.”
The flash of longing on Nyx’s face was echoed in the pang in Azaiah’s chest, the bond they both yearned for and could not yet have. But Death was patience incarnate, and for Nyx, he would wait. As long as it took.
The sky rumbled above, thunder echoing in the clearing around them, and he tipped his head back further to show off his throat—a gesture of submission even if Nyx was the one on his back. This wasn’t the first time Azaiah had fucked him, but Azaiah had a feeling that Nyx was too wound up tonight for any more teasing. So while he would have considered fingering Nyx until he was sobbing, Azaiah instead moved to line himself up, staring hungrily at Nyx for every flash of reaction as he pushed inside.
As always, he couldn’t believe how warm Nyx was, the tightness so hot around his cock. Nyx needed very little time to adjust and was trying to fuck himself on Azaiah’s cock before Azaiah started to move in truth.
The thunder rolled again as Azaiah took him, not rough but firm, driving in over and over as Nyx fell apart beneath him. “Ah, yes, you take my cock so well, my soldier. Let me hear you.”
Nyx was loud, not seeming to care that someone might find him here, on his back in a garden for this strange, ghost-pale man. He cried out, tightening around Azaiah, grabbing desperately for his shoulders. “Yes, fuck, give it to me—”
Nyx liked it hard when Azaiah took him like this. Sometimes, when he wasn’t as caught up in court politics and family drama—mostly when Azaiah found him in some battle camp—and was in a more playful mood, he liked to make Azaiah ride him, control the pace, decide when they’d come. But that playfulness had diminished over the last handful of years, as Nyx spent more and more time in the palace than at war.
Azaiah kept up the rhythm as his own peak neared, and he shifted so he could fuck Nyx and take his cock in hand, stroking fast. “You’ve earned it, my soldier. Take your pleasure. I want you to.”
Nyx came before the words were out of Azaiah’s mouth, going tense and tight around him. There was no self-consciousness on his face as he came, eyes tightly shut and mouth parted, grabbing fistfuls of the ground beneath him as he spilled all over his stomach. Azaiah loved to watch Nyx like this, caught up in sensation, lost to it in a way that—he hoped—took away Nyx’s worries, if only for a time.
It was all he could do, until the day their companion bond was sealed.
Azaiah’s vision went white as he fell onto Nyx, his own release a scalding wave that drew a low, soft cry from him. He felt dissolved by it, body jerking helplessly, as lost to the ecstasy as he was to the man who had given it to him. When the last of it ebbed away, he drew back, gently disentangling himself to sit at Nyx’s side in the grass.
Nyx was sweaty, still catching his breath, naked and wanton on Azaiah’s cloak. He had one arm up over his eyes, and he flung the other out to grab Azaiah’s hand, which he gave a firm squeeze. “Thank you. I needed that.”
“Yes,” Azaiah said, pleased to see how much more relaxed Nyx was now. He could feel, beneath the last jolts of his orgasm, the pull to do his duty once more. Death could not linger here, no matter how much he and one imperial soldier wished he could. “I can tell.”
A smile flashed over Nyx’s harsh features. “So modest.”
“I’m a god, Nyx. We’re not known for our modesty.” Azaiah shrugged. He was sitting cross-legged, not caring that the grass beneath him was scratchy and damp.
Nyx laughed softly and dropped his arm. His smile was sweet, and Azaiah returned it, reaching out to push Nyx’s hair off his forehead. The moment lasted as long as it could, before the growing thunder and the weight of his responsibilities—and Nyx’s own—became too strong for either of them to linger.
They dressed in silence, words unnecessary, and it wasn’t until Azaiah had drawn his cloak back around himself that Nyx turned in a slow circle, frowning. “Was this… you?”
Azaiah looked around. For a moment, he didn’t know what Nyx meant—and then he saw it. The flowers around them were wilted, blooms as desiccated as if they’d been plucked from their stems and hung upside down to dry before a fire. He could make them out in the moonlight, a perfect circle of death, and the sight gave him the unpleasant sort of shiver.
Wasit him? “I don’t know,” Azaiah answered, as Nyx finished straightening his clothing. “I wasn’t aware that my pleasure would take life from something.”
The thunder boomed, and he glanced up, dreading the feel of rain on his face. But there was none, and while he’d never known this to happen before, perhaps that was only because they’d never fucked in a field of flowers. Or maybe they’d simply not noticed.
“I expect mystical shit when I’m with you,” Nyx said. He looked like a general again, severe and unyielding, but there was less tension in the way he held his shoulders, and the look in his dark eyes wasn’t as troubled. “I wish I could be with you always.”
“You could be,” Azaiah said, though perhaps he shouldn’t have.
Nyx looked away. “I can’t. Not yet.” He sounded despondent, and Azaiah didn’t want that.
He moved forward and dropped a kiss on Nyx’s brow. “I must go now. It is said I wait for no one, Nyx, but I will always wait for you.”
