“I bathed and that helped,” he told Tahlen anyway, then stepped closer, ignoring the crick in his neck this caused. “I was surprised to discover faint bruises from your fingers, mostly around my thighs and under my knees, where I have some memory of you holding me. Areyousore? I suppose you’re more used to bedroom exertions than I am, or maybe the acts we did don’t leave you sore in the same way?”
“I’m tired, more from lack of sleep.” Tahlen didn’t look too pleased to learn of Zelli’s bruises, although Zelli had been giddy upon finding them. “You should soak longer. Your bath is heated, isn’t it? Or is that only the family one?”
“Is yours not heated?” Zelli demanded with loud outrage. “There is a house for….”
He fell silent in confusion over Tahlen’s small, incredibly lovely smile. “There is the house for the staff and guards to bathe. I cleaned myself, but I wanted to make sure you were well and didn’t need me.”
“Well. I did.” Zelli didn’t know or care what that was in response to. He had soaked and he had needed Tahlen. He reached out and took Tahlen’s hand by the wrist, pulling it and then Tahlen closer to him while he inspected Tahlen’s fingernails. His relief at the simple touch was overwhelming. With the lust-fever slowly fading, his original problem was getting more noticeable. “Would you like to use my bath? That is the very least I can offer you. You will say I don’t owe you anything, but I would like it. To give you comfort, and also… I’m sure you’ll look pretty there.”
Tahlen laced their fingers together. “Would you like to join me?”
“In the bath?” Zelli wheezed, wondering vaguely what color his eyes had turned upon hearingthat.
“People do sometimes share them,” Tahlen explained, watching Zelli’s face and apparently pleased with what he saw. “Lovers,” he added deliberately, “will sometimes share them.”
Because they were lovers now.
Zelli gaped for several moments, smiling before he caught himself, then confused as to why he ought to stop himself if Tahlen didn’t mind.
“I don’t know that we’d both fit,” he said finally, though not reluctantly. “It was built for Tialttyrins, like the lower sconces in the halls and the beds in the family apartments.” He waved his hand in the direction of his bed, which did not require him to climb a small ladder to get into it. “But now I wonder if I should ask for a higher bed.”
His breathy whisper brought a full smile to Tahlen’s face. “You can stay with me, then, while I bathe. If you like.”
“You always say ‘if you like.’” Zelli complained, or didn’t complain, as Tahlen began to walk toward the bathing room door, their hands still linked. “Then other times, you’ll want me to tell you what I like regardless of what you may like. I’m really not sure what the difference is when you do it. But I would. I would like to stay with you while you bathe.” He said it as though it wasn’t obvious by then with him trailing after Tahlen and standing there when Tahlen pulled away to consider the room.
Zelli got the water going for the bath, glad the tub itself was still warm from his soak. He hadn’t bothered with more than one candle to light the room for his own bath, but he went around lighting a few more, then drew the cord to close the curtains on the high windows, keeping in what heat the water would provide.
Tahlen looked over Zelli’s table loaded with brushes, soaps, and oils. He picked up one jar just to frown at it. “Juniper?”
“A gift from my parent,” Zelli explained as he kneeled down by the bath, which had been carved into the floor and the rock polished to smoothness. It was connected to the same system that filled and warmed the family baths, which was why he used those when he didn’t feel like waiting for his bathing tub to fill.
“You’ve never smelled of juniper,” Tahlen observed.
“It’s not to my taste, no.” Zelli splashed the water as it rose, then looked up. Tahlen’s mouth was a flat line. “I believe it was meant to show me a current trend around the palace.” Tahlen narrowed his eyes. Zelli made his words soft. “You loved your parents very much and they loved you. But mine never intended to be a parent—the consequences of a fae lover; that part of the stories is true. Or can be.” He tested the water again. “There’s a soap there made with goat’s milk and honey that’s much better.”
Tahlen found that one and brought it to the side of the bath without a word, not even to comment on Zelli mentioning his family. He undid the cord at the end of his braid and began to unravel it. Zelli hadn’t considered that Tahlen might wash his hair as well. Zelli was going to get hard while Tahlen cleaned himself, but Tahlen must have known that when he’d suggested this.
“Was….” Zelli simply had to control himself until Tahlen was done and try to keep his mind on other things, although this was a little unfair of Tahlen since he knew Zelli was still experiencing some of his lust-fever. “Was Esrin angry with you?”
Tahlen dragged his fingers through his hair to comb it and watched Zelli watch him do it. “We were gone longer than I told her we would be. So yes. But she was worried. Not angry.”
Zelli was not convinced of that, but whatever he might have argued slipped from his thoughts and did not return. Tahlen took care of his boots and socks, then his belt and his pants. Zelli inhaled deeply, looked away, then looked back because Tahlen wanted him to. Tahlen kept his gaze on Zelli as he pulled his shirt over his head and added it to the pile of his clothes on the floor.
Zelli had not imagined Tahlen’s beauty last night. But the red marks on Tahlen’s shoulder, and lower, near his hip, stole his breath.
Those had been hidden beneath Tahlen’s clothes all day and Zelli hadn’t known until now. “Ididbite you that hard,” he exhaled the realization. “Did it hurt? No, that was a silly question. Ignore it, please.Dothey hurt?”
Tahlen, still gloriously naked, reached down to brush his thumb over the imprint of Zelli’s teeth at his hip. He met Zelli’s eyes. “Not much. Like a bruise.”
“Did others see them when you bathed?” Zelli was horrified but only for a second. Then smug pleasure made him blush and shift restlessly on his knees.
“They may have.” The movement of Tahlen’s thumb was mesmerizing. Zelli had a few difficult moments trying to look away.
“They will know it was me—that I did that to you. They’ll know soon enough if they don’t already with how I behave.” Zelli meant to cover his mouth to stop himself from speaking but ended up sinking his teeth into the meat of his thumb and muttering with his mouth full.
“They will,” Tahlen agreed.
Zelli’s gaze flew up to Tahlen’s face, then down to the mark Tahlen insisted on pressing his fingertips to, and then lower, to Tahlen’s flushed, swelling cock.
