Lan inclined his head again, responding to what Fen hadn’t quite asked. “It means I don’t know what to do with you, but that I’m also thinking of what I would like to do with you.”
The second part was how The Geon had always looked at Fen. It had never made Fen warm.
Fen swallowed. “Which is to tup me?”
“Among other things,” Lan admitted, then made a noise, perhaps at Fen’s thoughts showing on his face. “You’re beautiful. You know that.”
Fen shrugged but it was an absent gesture. “Many say so. But not you, not often.” And not as if it made him warm too.
“You want me to say it more?” Lan was incredulous, then amused, with nearly no space between. “What else will you demand, flower?”
Fen had not once lost his breath in his father’s court, even in moments when he’d had to flinch and brace himself. His chest was tight now, his heart a drum. He wet his lips. “Not demand,” he said softly although not sweetly, “ask. The ways of the Bal… they keep rituals that have lasted through ages, and growing up, when I heard of them, I…. I always thought they seemed a wonderful thing. The Acana, of course, disapproved, and no doubt The Geon would have too.”
Lan moved his feet off the bed. “Tell me.”
Fen released the edges of the robe and shivered to send it to the ground.
Lan pulled in a breath.
His gaze fell to Fen’s naked feet and thighs, then traveled up. He said nothing while Fen shook and didn’t know where to place his hands and so fluttered them uselessly as if that would conceal his cock or make the rest of him more appealing. Perhaps only his face was beautiful and his mouth was all that was desired.
But Lan continued to stare, sweeping another long look to Fen’s toes and back before seeming to even notice the bursts of dark blue at the base of Fen’s throat, hastily tossed handfuls of powdered istin blossoms. If not processed, istin would stain, but not permanently as it did when used for dye. It was also a medicine.
“Istin was all Ati had on hand,” Fen explained, a tremor in his voice that he could not smooth out.
Lan got to his feet. He moved closer to Fen without making a sound.
“With the Bal, colors are worn in this way when it’s one’s first time with a lover.” Fen could not find any honey in him to offer. “Any lover or a particular one,” he added, then realized it was not explanation enough. “They use dyes that have not been treated, wanting to leave stains but not anything to last beyond a few days. It’s meant, or so I was told, to be marks of shared joy, although perhaps also for some mutual embarrassment when others see them.” He tipped his head back and shivered under Lan’s stare. “I didn’t think would be allowed, or anything shared with… anyone else. If you wouldn’t mind, I would like it now, though I won’t expect you to bear the marks as well.”
Lan took hold of Fen’s restless hands by the wrists and dragged them up through the dye powders over Fen’s collarbone before placing them both on his chest. He let go when Fen pressed his fingertips into the warm skin.
The act left behind ten smudged impressions, evidence that Fen had been allowed to touch. Fen stared at them breathlessly before splaying his hands to explore further. He could feel Lan’s heart if he pushed in and did so, both to learn it and to see his handprint over where the heart was hidden from him. That was evidence too, to be seen by anyone who cared to look if they caught Lan bathing. Fen imagined many people cared to look, no matter what Lan thought about his own beauty.
He looked up, his lower lip between his teeth as he traced individual ribs and gently scratched the thickest patch of hair before following the trail down to Lan’s waist. Hardly the touch of an experienced lover, he supposed, but Lan didn’t stop him.
“I know most of what to do,” he informed Lan earnestly, if giddily, “and I’m prepared. Oh—” He tore his hands from Lan’s chest and knelt down to dig through Ati’s robe to find the tiny sealed pot Ati had given him. He stood up to hand it to Lan, who accepted it with a twitched frown and another study of Fen, turning away only to place the pot on the bed near the pillow.
“Cub,” Lan’s voice was rough as it hadn’t been before, “youknow. But what do youwant?”
Fen opened and shut his mouth, jerking one hand to the side to indicate the bed because Lan was already aware Fen didn’t know specifics or what Lan might want. “You,” he answered at last. That much, he was sure of.
Lan tossed his head and made a noise, but took a moment before speaking. He remained rough. “And that pleases me. Greatly. But have you even been kissed, flower?”
Fen nearly put his hands to his cheeks but quickly dropped them to his sides, where Lan found them and again placed them on his chest. Fen pushed out a small, grateful sigh while wondering if Lan would mind if he grabbed and squeezed him there, or buried his face against the plump handfuls the way Race sometimes did to Dol.
He shook his head and tried to focus on Lan’s question. “Once,” he admitted, “on a feast day, in the orchard on a night with clouds over the moon outside. One of the guards was drunk, I think, and pulled me in before seeing who I was when clouds moved.”
“So, no,” Lan said, changing history to make Fen happy, then put his arms around Fen as that guard had done and pulled him close. But his mouth did not mash against Fen’s, although Fen couldn’t have said he was gentle. Lan lifted Fen from his feet and kissed him, slow at first, and then harder when Fen parted his lips and reached up to get his hands into Lan’s hair.
Fen startled a moment after that, trying to minimize the damage from his stained fingers, but Lan offered another kiss, a brief, soft press, like a question, and Fen returned to being kissed without a thought. Strange that it was so different, that he could feel where they were connected all the way to his toes, that it made his chest tight and his heart pound.
His feet eventually touched the ground again but he did not recover his breath. Kisses could go beneath ears, he discovered, and on the side of his face, and to beneath his chin before returning to mouth to begin the circuit anew. A moan left him when it reached beneath his ear again. Before he could apologize for failing to control himself, Lan did it again, and again, until another moan slipped out. Then Lan returned to his path of gentle kisses while Fen was left to shiver. He only took Fen’s mouth again when Fen turned toward him hopefully, and then he pulled back. He watched Fen closely while Fen struggled to reopen his eyes.
“I know there’s more.” Fen meant it as a question, not a complaint, but something in his face or his tone made Lan curve his reddened mouth in a faint smirk.
Lan curled a hand around Fen’s wrist and held Fen’s hand against his lower stomach where it must have fallen. Fen glanced down to it, then turned his face up to Lan again. Lan half-growled a sound, then kissed Fen’s mouth again, a fiercer, hard press that sent sharp pangs of longing or hunger straight to Fen’s cock and made him stretch onto his toes to get closer.
When Fen blinked his eyes open, distantly amazed to realize they’d fallen closed again while he’d been clutching Lan’s shoulder and trying to return kisses as best as he could, Lan had a new look on his flushed face. The viciously pleased look did something to Fen’s knees. He might have fallen if he hadn’t been already been in Lan’s arms.
