Lan turned his head to give Fen a kiss to bruise his mouth and make his cock throb. Then Lan settled over him, exhaling hot at the side of Fen’s neck before nipping at the skin there as if no longer concerned about the taste of the dye. He was heavier now, most of his weight on Fen, but Fen was occupied with how Lan felt against the inside of his thigh whenever he moved it. He didn’t much care about air in his lungs with Lan’s hair and skin and muscle pressed to his softer places. He moved his thigh a few times to better enjoy the sensation.
Lan reached out without lifting his head to find Fen’s wrist and hold it to the bed.
Fen stopped moving, uncertain, but then continued after Lan grunted, “Do as you please. But you’ll have to wait a bit for more.”
“More?” Fen’s voice was strained from Lan’s weight on his chest. “Soon?”
Lan shifted slightly to the side, granting Fen air again. He nipped Fen’s neck. “Thank you for the compliment. But that’s not how I’ll be winning the other nobles, cub, so get that out of your head.”
Fen twitched. The remarkmighthave been teasing. “Itwouldwin them, if they feel like I feel.”
Lan snorted, his breath trailing over that ticklish spot again and making Fen wriggle. Lan raised his head. “But I don’t want to lie with them, flower,” he explained patiently, still out of breath, “just you.”
Fen blinked. “I meant to have you fuck me,” he remembered, not disappointed but… he had made plans. He’d had a whole conversation with Ati.
“We’ll have other chances,” Lan answered without much concern.
Fen’s heart began to slow. He realized his hands were in Lan’s hair, but the reddish-brown was likely already tinged purple, the knot defeated, the braids disturbed, so he didn’t let go. “When?” he wondered. “Before we break camp? I was thinking of the tent and the bed,” he added to explain.
Lan snorted again. “Always plots with you.”
“I’ll have to do laundry tomorrow,” Fen continued, thinking of spend and blue powder sure to be everywhere. “Why do people do this in beds? Do we sleep in our mess now?”
Lan muttered, “Fuck,” but rolled over in the next moment, taking Fen with him. He kept Fen in his arms while carelessly wiping them both down and blowing out the candle, then carried Fen to Fen’s bed on the ground. He removed his pants and possibly his socks too, although Fen didn’t see, and then pulled Fen in snug against him before covering them both with the last fur.
Fen woke in the dark of early morning, surprised to realize Lan was next to him when Lan usually would have been up before Fen opened his eyes. But Lan shifted and stretched without showing any inclination to rise, then fussed with the fur whenever it moved with him, tucking it back around Fen.
That was familiar enough that Fen nearly drifted to sleep again. He might have, if not for the sudden awareness of his bare skin, then Lan’s, and where their bodies were stickily pressed together.
“Flower?” Lan worried in a whisper. Perhaps Fen had stopped breathing.
“Did I snore again?” A foolish question. Fen didn’t know why he’d asked it. “I didn’t mean to keep you awake if I did.”
“It’s not every night. I think it happens when you’re exhausted.” Lan spoke the words against the back of Fen’s head in a sleepy murmur. “I’m pleased to have worn you out.”
Fen had been trying to ignore the stinging flush in his face and down his neck, but that made him burn hotter.
“I meant to…” Fen trailed to silence with a shiver. “I liked what we did,” he said instead. “Thank you.”
“‘Thank you,’” Lan echoed, starting to sound a bit more awake. “I wasn’t doing you a favor, cub.” He scoffed. “Come here.”
They were already close, but Fen turned over onto his back. Lan had to move to let him. There wasn’t much light. If the sun was rising, it was behind clouds and trees and tent walls. Fen could make out Lan’s shape but not much else.
“The istin,” Fen explained. “Thank you for that. Will they tease you today?”
“Depends on how blue you’ve left me,” Lan answered evenly. “But Race would do it anyway. He’ll say something to you too unless you ask me to tell him not to.”
Fen pulled in a short breath. “Could I?” But then he shook his head and tried to peer through the darkness to see more than shadows. “I don’t mind whatever he might say. Lan… Race has never called me Fenwit, though he had to know the name the same way you did.” It was nearly a question. “You knew of me before you found me there. Were you all in Acana lands for me?”
Lan slid a hand over Fen’s hip. His beard tickled the side of Fen’s face. “For news of other things and of you.” He didn’t move his hand until Fen lifted his hips in interest, then he sighed as if relieved before hauling Fen even closer. He skimmed a few touches across Fen’s stomach and over the top of one thigh. “We’d heard from someone in the holding that the Old Horror had been ranting about me and the weakness of some other Earls, and that he was making plans. I was going to send Race and Dol. But I… needed to think, and Heni wasn’t going to let me go alone, or what she considers alone.”
Fen internally fretted over Lan’s need to do something in order to think clearer but didn’t comment.
Lan pushed out a breath as though Fen not speaking was a remark of some kind. “We learned of the alliance plan, and that The Acana’s Fenwit,” he paused when Fen whined, then leaned in to press his lips to Fen’s cheek, which was soothing for no reason Fen could find. “That Fen-the-flower,” Lan amended, “had already left. So, unless we happened to come upon you and your escort, there was nothing for us to learn and nothing to be done but hurry back. Only then Dol was delayed somewhere, and while we waited, we found you, curled under that bush like something from a story.” Lan dropped his voice even lower. “Fortuitous, though I saw no obvious signs of the fae.”
Fen shivered for that, and the kiss, and Lan’s hand, and the warm darkness around them, and the soft fur against his skin.
“If you had found my escort, was the plan to kill the guards and take me?” He pushed up his hips again, wondering if he was allowed to ask Lan to move his hand, or if he was supposed to wait, or if petting was all Lan wanted now.
