Tiiran’s lips seemed to sting. He parted them to explain himself, or apologize, or curse the fae for placing him in the company of such temptation, but then Nikoly’s arm was around him and Nikoly himself was curled against him, a cat for once.
Tiiran didn’t know if he was a pleased cat and ought to ask. The way he ought to ask about Orin: if he and Nikoly had begun something or merely had fun once, if Nikoly thought Orin would be upset about this or wouldn’t care, or… what this had been. Were they courting? Was this what most in the library had, a friendship with extras? Pity?
No. Tiiran refused to believe that at least, because there had been no extras. They’d only kissed. Nikoly had done far too much for Tiiran to be after so little.
Nikoly closed his hand around Tiiran’s wrist again, bringing it up to place Tiiran’s hand on the back of his neck. “Please?” he asked again, in just a whisper.
Tiiran turned to look at him as best as he could. “I didn’t mean it when I called you a puppy like… like he did.” Except he was petting Nikoly now and there was no denying it.
“You’re anxious,” Nikoly answered seriously. “And it calms you to attend to me.”
“Attend to you?” Tiiran echoed weakly, but ran his fingernails across Nikoly’s nape, scratching lightly at the edge of his hair, then over the top of his spine. “You attend to me, it feels like. More than you should have to.”
“But it brings me pleasure,” Nikoly said with a distracting little wriggle. He bowed his head in a silent request. “And you like to bring me pleasure, honeybee, although you’re uncertain how to do it.”
“Pleasure?” Tiiran echoed that too, lost in making Nikoly shiver. “Aren’t you tired of caring for me? Of having to mind my clumsiness in this… inthesematters?”
“When you’re comfortable, you’ll take such good care of me.” Nikoly raised his head to meet Tiiran’s worried stare. “It’s all you try to do, take care of the library and the people in it. You might growl or hesitate, but,” he paused, but then leaned in to speak close, “it’scare, Tiiran. And I want it. I have wanted it for so long. This is me offering myself for whatever you want to give me. Is that plainspoken enough for you to believe me?”
Tiiran made a strangled sound. “I don’t know. I want to…. You shine. Did you know that? Of course you do. I want to make you do that. But I….” He stopped himself. “You should have better. Yet if I say that, you’ll gaze at me, wounded, and I’ll feel like a stray with bloody claws. So instead, what can I give you now? What can I do for you?” He hoped and feared the answer was not tupping, where he would fail yet again. “You must be tired of that too, doing so much for me. You could… you could—you won’t laugh?”
The wounded look was there, but Nikoly shook his head so Tiiran pressed on.
“You could lean against me, or use me as a pillow,” Tiiran finished quickly, glancing away. “Po does sometimes. I’m bony, she says, but I’ll do. Until I hugged Orin, it was the only time I got to,” Tiiran made certain no one was by the door, “touch anyone.”
Nikoly pressed a warm kiss to his mouth. “If I could fit on this bench, I would put my head in your lap.” He shifted closer, wrapping his arms around Tiiran’s chest and then nuzzling into the side of Tiiran’s neck while Tiiran burned. “Not in the way you might be thinking, although if you want that, you have only to ask. But I won’t push you for more today. It took Orin saying so for me to realize that you’re scared. I’m sorry for failing to see it sooner. Know that I will wait, happily. But if you want, only say the words and I’ll kneel before you.”
“If you want to stay like this,” Tiiran got out, humiliatingly aroused from a few words, “then stop tempting me!” He was as tart as one of the cherries.
Nikoly laughed against his throat, adding a kiss before Tiiran could fret. “Do you want to stay like this? And not work?” He gasped dramatically. “Teasing,” he went on, punctuating it with another gentle kiss. “Not mocking.”
“I couldn’t get any work donenow,” Tiiran grumbled, actually annoyed about it because he was already behind from the day before. But he also didn’t move to shake Nikoly off. He didn’t think he could but also didn’t want to. He wriggled an arm free to scratch carefully at the back of Nikoly’s neck again. “Do you really like learning all those skills?”
“What?” Nikoly was faint, stretching and pushing against Tiiran’s hand. “Whatever is useful. Whatever I enjoy.Tiiran?” It was a whine.
Tiiran had the strangest urge to settle him with a deep kiss but didn’t quite dare. He wasn’t even certain why Nikoly was upset.
“I was thinking, earlier.” This morning, in his bath, after he’d thought about other things that had also concerned Nikoly and his mouth. “About how subjects are grouped, or not grouped, here. So that memoirs and personal accounts are put in with the noble family of the person who wrote them, and the incidental knowledge in them—witnessing historical events, or their personal talents, like brewing or winemaking or pottery—is up to the Keepers to remember. It makes finding things tricky, especially now.”
“Hmm?” Nikoly liked the shell of his ear petted too, and the top of his shoulder, and the part of his back that Tiiran could reach without disturbing his robe. He didn’t whine again, which meant Tiiran had done something right.
Tiiran gave the dog-or-wolf marking a scritch. “I figured some families that are known for trade or products would be a better start. I began there and found a dusty, hard-to-read text from a dye-producing region where they make cloth with needles. Oh—the blue they produced was used by the Canamorra in their banners. Obviously, that was before the treason twenty years ago and the old queen’s murder and the Canamorra’s disgrace.”
“Thatpart is the footnote to you.” Nikoly was absently but clearly amused.
“I thought you might like the book,” Tiiran blurted, making Nikoly start beneath his hand. “For the cloth weaving and dyeing techniques of a bygone era. Since you like information. But it’s truly dry. I think even Mattin wouldn’t enjoy it.”
Nikoly turned toward him. “For me?”
Tiiran didn’t know whether to look into those eyes or to kiss the mouth he would swear was being offered to him. “I didn’t know what to get you, if we are….” He was suddenly cold. “Arewe courting?” He shook his head quickly. “Or I could give it to you as a friend. I should go—”
Nikoly’s hands at his shoulders stopped him.
“Tiiran.” It was desperate, soft, and pretty. His lips were so close. Offered.Given. “Tiiran.”
Tiiran couldn’t sit there another moment andnotkiss him.
Nikoly walked Tiiran to his room that night, watching with interest as Tiiran had puttered around the library—real tasks that needed doing that Tiiran was doing distractedly—and watching with even more interest when Tiiran had suddenly stopped, reached up, and pulled the pin from his hair to let it tumble down.
