Asking if Tahlen minded seemed foolish withthatevidence before him.
Zelli bit down harder, then let go. “But you didn’t like leaving bruises on me?” One of many questions Zelli now had.
Tahlen stopped stroking the mark. “You can’t remember getting them. I should’ve been better.”
“I hardly think so.” Admittedly, Zelli couldn’t recall a lot of details of the night before, but he knew he’d been happy. “I remember the first time, you know. Mostly. I don’t think it could’ve been better. So I’d rather you not say that again.” He frowned and looked at Tahlen until Tahlen swallowed, then nodded. Zelli nodded too. “But… later, if you could show me how you held me to mark me so, and perhaps do it again, I would not object.”
Tahlen tipped his head up and shut his eyes. He released a slow breath and continued touching the pinprick spots of red and darker bruising from Zelli’s bite. Zelli didn’t think he should apologize for it, not with how Tahlen was acting, but he didn’t understand. From what Tahlen had said, his other lovers might have nibbled, but certainly hadn’t done anything so forceful.
“I remember the first two bites as well,” Zelli offered, no less confused but much, much hotter when Tahlen’s second sigh echoed with the same longing. “The water is ready for you.” Zelli waited until Tahlen’s eyes opened to stir the surface with his hand. “You know how you look and you invited me to watch you bathe. Yet, I think if you knew what it did to me, you might not have. I might give you more of those. I’ll want to, anyway.”
Tahlen studied Zelli for another moment, then eased himself into the water. The tub, although not long, was at least deep enough for the water to reach Tahlen’s waist, then his chest when he came over to sit on the low, carved bench seat at the end near Zelli. The ends of his hair swayed in the water. His skin flushed with color as it warmed.
“This is how it feels,” Tahlen remarked so softly Zelli wasn’t certain he was meant to hear.
Tahlen sank down until all of him was beneath the surface, then sat up again, a thousand shimmering trails of water running down his shoulders and chest, leaving Zelli no one place to stare at.
“Maybe I shouldn’t improve the bath house for all of you so you’ll keep coming to mine,” Zelli mused. “No,” he added sadly not even a heartbeat later. “No, I should improve it anyway. The guards’ living quarters as well. They’re too cold and it’s still summer. Winters must be uncomfortable.”
Tahlen turned toward him, frowning without any other sign of anger or displeasure. “I believe you care about these things. But if there’s something else on your mind, or you have a question, you can ask me.” He paused. “Or tell me.”
Zelli snorted at that but inched closer on his knees. “I don’t know what kind of lovers we are. May I touch you?”
Tahlen raised his eyebrows, then indicated the spot behind his ear where there had been a braid. “You were allowed that anyway.”
Zelli shifted in place. “But you’re naked, and though I desire you as ever, I’m not mindless now. It’s different. I offered the bath to help you, but I also want to touch you in intimate ways.”
Tahlen took hold of the soap and pressed the jar of sweet-smelling flakes into Zelli’s hands. “If you like.”
Tahlen already knew he liked. Or maybe he didn’t. He didn’t always read Zelli correctly, even knowing Zelli as he did and as obvious as Zelli was.
Zelli poured a handful of flakes into Tahlen’s palm and clutched the jar desperately when Tahlen rubbed his hands together to make the soap grow foamy, then smoothed his hands over himself below the surface of the water.
He was going to smell like Zelli everywhere: on his stomach, down between his legs, along his thighs. Zelli stared avidly while offering more soap flakes for Tahlen to wash his chest. Tahlen had already washed tonight. It was really only his hair that needed the attention. But he had invited Zelli to this, and he reached up once to brush his thumb over Zelli’s lip in order to gently pull it from where it was pressed by Zelli’s teeth. Then he left his thumb there, so Zelli bit it instead.
“Warm honey,” Zelli breathed.
“Better than juniper,” Tahlen agreed with a shiver. He held out his hand for more soap, but withdrew it before Zelli could give it to him. He considered Zelli with cautious interest. “Is there something you would like? You’ve said you wanted to help me and to touch me. But I thought with your fae problem, you might be bolder. Instead, you stare and bite your lip.”
“You’re worth staring at.” Zelli swallowed painfully. “I bite because I can’t think of what else to do with—rather, I can, but I shouldn’t. I would like to remember more of last night, what I was allowed to do with you. I’m certain that, you being as you are, you pleased me greatly. But what did I do for you? What may I do for you out of the many impulses I have now?”
Tahlen’s expression was not exactly a frown. “It doesn’t have to be tit for tat. I don’t need it to be. For me it’s… you worrying. You worried last night too, even with your fever.Ask, Zelli,” he said at last. “Ask and we’ll see. Hurt me or protect me, or both, remember?”
Zelli nodded slowly. “Right now, I think I want to protect you more. Protect is not the word I want, but you confuse me so often. Is it protective to want you to use my bath? Are we the sort of lovers where I might wash your hair for you?” He blinked to hear himself. “Or help you wash it? Though I only have these soaps and not whatever you might use to make it so….”
His compliments for Tahlen’s shining hair went unsaid. Tahlen was too still for a moment but then ducked his head in assent and sat back.
Zelli poured far too many flakes into his hand and scooted to the edge of the tub behind Tahlen, part of the hem of his robe falling into the water. His sleeves dipped into the water too. He hastily rolled them over his wrists before giving up on them altogether. Tahlen’s wet hair curled around his forearms like grass in a pond. The water was hot and the heat had seeped into Tahlen’s skin, which was mostly smooth but marked with traces of old scars and moles that Zelli didn’t remember from the haze of the previous night.
Lifting the mass of Tahlen’s pretty hair exposed Tahlen’s back and shoulders. Zelli spent several distracted moments running his hand over them, leaving bubbles behind and sometimes gooseflesh, although his hands should have been as hot as the water by now.
He rinsed Tahlen off once he realized how distracted he was and Tahlen let out a small grunt before sliding down. He had a fist around his erect cock but wasn’t stroking himself or trying to bring himself off. Zelli nearly suggested he should, but Tahlen opened eyes that must have been closed to look at Zelli upside-down. In the candlelight, his gaze seemed unfocused.
“It is quite a thing, being your chew-toy.” He didn’t remark on Zelli’s small sound of indignation. He reached up to draw Zelli’s hand back to his shoulder and pressed it over the bite mark. Then he shuddered. “More than I imagined.”
They stayed like that, Tahlen eventually closing his eyes again, Zelli breathing hard and damp under his nightshirt, until Zelli abruptly remembered what he was supposed to be doing. His hand shook around the jar, which was ridiculous. He was a Tialttyrin, as well as an adult, with a chew—a lover.
He used a proper amount of soap and took his time both so his excited tremors would stop and because this was a privilege. He soaped the ends and then worked his way up, lightly scratching around the roots, pleased when this drew a groan from Tahlen.
