“Stay,” Charon ordered. He pressed the tip of his cock to Yves’ lower lip, and Yves whined plaintively. “Keep your mouth open.”
Yves stroked himself faster, failing to stay still as Charon took his own length in hand. “I can do that,” he tried to say, but withCharon’s thumb parting his teeth, it came out in an unintelligible moan.
“No. You’ll stay.” Charon was flush with heat, his eyes dark and wide, his black hair hanging over his face. “You’ll be good for me, won’t you? You know how.”
Yves tried to lurch forward to take Charon into his mouth, and Charon pulled him back.
“Be good, Yves,” Charon said. The way he said Yves’ name sent a ripple of pleasure down his back. Charon came into Yves’ mouth as he held him there, coating his tongue, and Yves closed his eyes and rocked his hips forward. “Don’t swallow until you’ve come.”
Yves kept his eyes closed as he stroked himself through it, mouth open, enthralled with with the taste of Charon. Charon removed his thumb and tilted Yves’ head by his throat. Just that touch was enough to tip Yves over the edge, and he swallowed heavily as he came, caught between Charon’s legs with his hand on Yves’ throat. When he looked up again, Charon was looking down at him almost fondly.
“There,” he said. “You do know how to be good.”
“I’m always good,” Yves said, and for the first time in that terrible, chaotic night, Charon laughed.
Yves slept on Charon’s couch. They stayed up with the cookie tin open between them and read books in silence just as they had a thousand times before, as though what had happened in the baths—or the cells, or the House of Silver—hadn’t disrupted a perfectly ordinary evening.
And that was fine. Yves had said that it didn’t need to mean anything. But they weren’t acting as though it hadn’t happened; they were acting as though it were just a part of their usual routine, like slipping into a robe. That was far more dangerous. Discomfort and avoidance meant Yves could file it away as afavor between friends. This felt like Yves’ feelings for Charon were bleeding into everything, muddling his plans.
He woke in the early morning to the sound of Charon sitting up in bed, and he turned around to look up at him. Moonlight slid along the edges of Charon’s jaw and glinted in his eyes. For a second, it seemed like Charon was looking at him, but then he turned aside.
“You’re thinking about that boy, aren’t you?” Yves asked. He kept his voice quiet, unwilling to break the stillness of the moment.
“No.” Charon’s voice was just as soft. “Someone like him.”
Yves didn’t dare move. He felt like if he did, the uncertain balance of the quiet room would tip over, and Charon wouldn’t speak again.
“He thought he was in love, but when all you know is pain, any comfort feels like love. It’s the first thing they teach you.” Charon’s voice was low, but Yves caught the pain he couldn’t quite hide. “Half of them fall in love with you when you’re the one bandaging their wounds. But he didn’t know that it was happening to him, as well. He was too young to see it.”
Yves stared at Charon. He’d turned his head from the moonlight, and his shoulders were hunched as though he were trying to sink into his own shadow.
“Charon,” Yves said, “I?—”
“His name was Nikos,” Charon said.
Yves sat up carefully. He moved across the room and climbed onto Charon’s bed. His feet slid on the soft sheets, and he braced himself on Charon’s arm for balance. His hand slid over the tattoo of the hawk with a flaming branch—a bird that spread wildfires, chasing out prey and devastating the land in its wake. It was a predator clever enough to hunt, but too thoughtless to consider the consequences.
Yves covered the tattoo with his palm.
“Nikos is a nice name. I bet I would have liked him.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Charon said.
“Oh, Charon.” Yves smiled and rubbed his arm. “You know better than to tellmewhat to do.”
Six
Yves had spentthe night in Charon’s room more times than he could count, but this was the first time he’d woken up in Charon’s bed. He was tucked in the cool, light covers, with his favorite blanket from the couch draped over his shoulders, and a plate with an egg tart, toast, and fruit sat on the bedside table.
If this was the way he’d be rewarded for giving a blowjob to a friend, Yves was about to start beingverygenerous. He sat up and checked the window just in case Charon was out in the garden, but the only people there were Johan and Oleander with the cat. Charon had no reason to stick around, of course—Yves had told him that it hadn’t meant anything, after all—but Yves couldn’t help himself. He tied his robe, grabbed the breakfast tray, and slipped out of Charon’s room.
He didn’t need to go far to find Charon. He was downstairs, along with half the House of Onyx, an exhausted-looking Laurent, and most of Yves’ suitors. They were all crowding around a woman with curly blond hair and a white gown embroidered with strawberries. Lord Marteau had her hands in his and was speaking warmly into her ear, and Laurent was being accosted by Lord Yeltsey, who kept pointing at the stairswhere Yves was standing. Raul hunched in the back, looking anxious and lost. The woman with Lord Marteau looked up, and Yves gripped his tray tightly with both hands.
“Oh,” Yves said. “Hello, Pearl.”
Pearl was Yves’ youngest sister, barely nineteen and cursed with enormous eyes that made her look perpetually lost. She stood and ran up to Yves, who had to juggle the tray to give her a confused, one-armed hug.
“Peter and Tony are outside with the carriage, Darr,” Pearl said. “Harriet’s calming Mother down. Sunny keeps saying you’re fine, but everyone says there was a fire in the Pleasure District, and when I saw that burned building down the way, I almost couldn’t go on. Are you well?”
