“It’s nothing,” Jacob tried, as he always did. “A poor excuse for a story. A mess.” Kaz would take it anyway. It was his nature. He took everything he inspired. But for Jacob, there were kisses in return, warm at his eyelids. Jacob opened his eyes with a sigh. “Tomorrow. I’ll put it on your tea tray.”
Kaz dropped his head to the pillow to stare at him. He snuck a hand under the covers and left it over Jacob’s chest. “I’m sorry.” He always said it. Tonight, he added, “I am your curse.”
Jacob put his icy fingers on Kaz’s arm, focused on the bumps he raised. “You’re not my curse, muse.”
“But I will not let you hide,” Kaz argued mournfully, “I can’t.”
That was the truth. Nonetheless, Jacob leaned in to kiss that sulky mouth and got tremors in his stomach for the hunger in how Kaz kissed back. Kaz reeled him in by his undershirt, stronger than he looked. He was less gentle, possessive and fiercely so. Jacob was kept here, too, trembling and weak despite all his big words in public, silent and eager at a moment’s notice when Kaz kissed him like this.
Kaz’s strength had to be in his magic because he weighed almost nothing, had no muscle to speak of. He rolled Jacob onto his back and climbed over him and Jacob spread his legs and let himself be undressed. Kaz was allowed anything and knew it, pressing kisses down Jacob’s throat and across his chest before reaching impatiently for the jar of Blue Seal.
Jacob wished to be taken. He loved soft mornings and the seductions Kazimir was capable of. He also loved belonging to the firebird, loved Kaz stringing pearls around his neck to make him pretty, and hiking Jacob’s knees up to leave him open. He loved Kaz taking him without regard for anything but his own pleasure and then afterward, more kisses, and his hot mouth, and Jacob slowly returning to his mind while Kazimir drew a bath for him.
But tonight, or this morning, perhaps, if it was late enough, Kazimir could not stay away from Jacob’s mouth for long, and continued to kiss him, although his kisses slowed. He was more tired than he seemed, but kept Jacob beneath him while he stroked him with a slick hand, and was not inclined to move even after Jacob had finished. He bit Jacob’s collarbone, obviously pleased with himself. His hair was light between Jacob’s fingers, impossible to hold, and, as if he knew whenever Jacob had almost recovered his words, he would rise up to kiss him into silence.
Kaz’s cock was half-hard. Jacob was greedy for it. He was Kaz’s mistress, yes, his kept boy and his lover and his happiness, he was spoiled and allowed to touch that cock at last, and fed pearls from it until Kazimir was satisfied that he was cared for.
By then, Jacob was running his hands along the slender back, the knobs of Kaz’s spine, and pulling the silken robe back into place to keep smooth skin protected.
Kazimir weighed nothing, and yet was heavy when he finally fell against Jacob’s side and buried his face in his shoulder. He tugged Jacob’s undershirt out from the blankets to dab ineffectually at the mess they’d created, and Jacob snorted in rude amusement before taking over the task and finally throwing the shirt to the floor.
Some people had never cleaned a single thing in their entire lives, and with Kaz, it showed. But he did try.
Jacob got a few more kisses for it, each one softer and slower than the last, until they finally stopped. He ran a light touch over Kaz’s temple, then down the back of his neck, trying to soothe the ache.
The beautiful creature sighed for him.
“Yasha.” Kaz’s voice was already clouded with sleep again.
“Rest,” Jacob commanded, although he should do the same and knew he wouldn’t, not yet. A few swallows of bourbon and Kaz’s touch had banished the visions for a time, but that was all. A more selfish man might have kept Kaz awake, grasping for whatever he could have as long as he could have it. He’d had four years already and it was not enough. Jacob was, tragically, not as selfish he ought to be. It was a truth about himself that he had faced in too many futures, and it was one of the things Kazimir loved about him, which meant Jacob could not change it because he was just selfish enough not to give Kazimir up.
“Foolish bird,” Jacob whispered when Kazimir’s breathing was even once again, “you are not my curse. I am yours.” Kaz’s breath did not stutter; his eyelids did not flicker. Jacob stared at his slightly parted lips and his flushed cheeks and smiled at the faintest hint of a snore. “The signifier of the age. The firebird here to shine light on what we’ve done, and to mourn it. A phoenix forced to witness our human horrors, the worst of what we are capable of. So much darkness you have already seen, and then there is still what is to come.”
Jacob’s voice broke at last, with no one else to hear it. He was in bed next to Kaz but he was cold, and clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering or a scream from escaping. It could not be true but also very much would be. He breathed in and wished for whiskey, more kisses, time. He should have had more time.
“A satchel will not be much comfort,” he said when he could speak again. He had often tried to find these words but they only ever emerged when he would not have to see Kaz’s reaction. He rested his hand against a soft cheek. “I know what it is to see gray in all directions. To look down because you are scared to look up. But that’s why I was spared, why I’m here, your flower in the field.”
He couldn’t stop himself now. “You are going to be that for others, and you don’t even know it. But it’s always true. That voice of yours has love and heartbreak and hope enough to make fairies weep.” That was new, but felt true, as if fairies who might know Kaz now would still know him decades after this night. Jacob did not expect to be remembered, but Kazimir the Great would be.
“Are you telling bedtime stories again?” Kaz startled him with the sleepy question, humming thoughtfully before Jacob could summon a reply. “Little tales to please a little imp?”
He wondered if Kaz could feel how fast his heart was beating. “You are not an imp any more than you are a wolf.”
“Who said I was a wolf?” Kaz complained without opening his eyes. “Do you have a story for me?”
“Demanding creature,” Jacob chided despite his tight throat. “Does your head hurt?” He closed his eyes to brush a kiss over Kaz’s temple. Kaz exhaled sweetly, which Jacob took to mean his head was splitting. “And only a story can cure it? And a child’s story at that?” Jacob clucked his tongue. “What if it’s not a worthy tale?”
“Fool.” Kazimir snuck an arm beneath Jacob and wrapped a leg over him and muttered insistently until Jacob was half on top of him. Then he relaxed again. “Mine.”
Not an imp or a wolf, but perhaps part dragon.
“For whatever I am worth, I am yours,” Jacob agreed.
“Then you will eat tomorrow,” Kaz decreed, only slightly less imperious for the way he snuffled into Jacob’s neck. “You are lighter than one of my tailfeathers.”
“My stories are not,” Jacob said suddenly, not certain why, except that Kaz never told him what he thought of them. Jacob had insisted on it.
“They do not start that way, but they end that way,” Kaz argued, his lips on Jacob’s skin.
