Maschi shot a look to Owin that the others would definitely see.
Owin coughed. “They don’t mean anything by it. They just want to know who has bragging rights for the best evening, and who gets to be teased for the next few weeks for having the worst.”
Maschi looked at Owin for another few beats of Owin’s terrified heart, then unfurled some of his frown. “I do not know yet which one I had.”
Dahl let out a small, incredulous laugh.
Maschi was stern and unforgiving… or perhaps just a young man experiencing the effects of too much drink for the first time.
“Owin,” he pronounced it crisply, a confused complaint, and Owin was standing before he realized it, and then walkingaround the table to sit next to him. Maschi tipped his head back to scrutinize him. He thinned his lips, still stained berry-red. “You washed, but you did not sleep,” Maschi observed critically.
Owin presumed Maschi was aware of their audience, but let the others suppose what they would without bothering to address them. He reached into the untied pouch at his belt and pulled out the drying chain of aras blooms to hold it cupped in his palm, for Maschi and no one else to see. “I couldn’t,” he explained simply.
Some of the chain had broken as the flowers had dried, but enough of it remained. That meant it was Ara today as far as Owin was concerned, at least a little. If that still mattered to Maschi.
“You are not like the others,” Owin said quietly. “Do you understand now? Not for me.”
Maschi frowned down at the flowers for a few moments more, then slowly lifted his eyes to meet Owin’s. “I would not be friendly about it, as they were?”
“I would not want you to be.” Owin was a fighter. Perhaps that was why a dangerous mage appealed to him so. “If I were to share a pillow on your bed, I don’t think I would want to leave.”
“You don’t want to be alone.” Maschi was terrible when he was soft.
Owin sighed for it. “No. Yes? Is that what you’ve thought about me all this time? I always thought—” Last night should have proved to him that he would never know Maschi’s mind, not where Owin was concerned. Maschi believed Owin wasprettyand that said it all. “I wouldn’t want to leave it because I’d be near you. I am often near you, if I can arrange it. All the watching you do, you never noticed that?”
Maschi tipped his head that much higher, drawing Owin’s attention to his mouth until Maschi’s words finally sank in. “You don’t talk to me. Not like with them.”
Owin met that ferocious stare. “You don’t talk to me. Not like with them.” But he inclined his head to concede, “Not until last night.”
“You stir up feelings,” Maschi whispered, lips still on offer whether he knew it or not.
Owin sat with his amazement for as long as he could before Maschi would worry. He blinked a few times. “You desire me?” Maschi had said as much last night, but wine was wine.
“I want you,” Maschi corrected, clear enough to be heard across the courtyard. “But I know you do not…” He fell silent as Owin lifted the flower chain and tucked it behind the swollen shell of his ear.
Maschi’s lips parted. He immediately pushed them together to flatten them, but they parted again, softening into a half-smile, as if suppressing happiness was something he had learned, not a natural part of him. Seeing that smile let Owin breathe normally again, at least until Maschi raised his head to trail his fingertips around Owin’s ear and then down the chain.
A single bloom fell to Owin’s lap.
“Ara is over,” Maschi observed gravely, tracing Owin’s ear so lightly Owin struggled not to shiver. “But you ask anyway. And you’re offering more than a kiss. That’s what those mean. But I don’t even know how to kiss you. Not how I want to.”
“Do you think I care, as long as you reach for me?” Owin returned, not at all playful. He bent his head, bringing them closer together and making Maschi go still. “Kissing can also be taught,” he added, deliberate.
Maschi did not fight his shiver, although it did make him glance around them, as if it had forced him to recall that they were not alone. But he focused his attention on Owin again in moments, intent and thoughtful.
With no change of expression or warning for Owin’s heart, he leaned up to press his dry lips to Owin’s before pulling away again. “I am a diligent student,” he informed Owin without mercy. Yet he closed his eyes when Owin placed a hand against his cheek to guide him back for another and sighed and trembled before their lips even met.
His mouth was open, inviting, but Owin kept his kisses slow, savoring the sighs as Maschi leaned in for more, how Maschi followed when Owin pulled back, brow smooth, eyes still closed. Maschi’s hand settled on Owin’s neck, colder than it should have been, but warming even before Owin tugged him close.
Thatmade Maschi gasp, soft and open-mouthed against Owin’s lips, then kiss him back with more confidence. He rose up, his hands sliding to Owin’s hair, and when Owin pulled him into his lap, Maschi stiffened with surprise before pushing forward again. “Owin,” he whispered, the word nearly a moan when Owin splayed his hands across his back. Beneath the yards of cloth was Maschi, pressing himself closer when Owin was apparently too hesitant. Owin tightened his grip to keep him still, but licked into Maschi’s mouth to hear him make a hungry, shocked sound.
He felt a giant with how easy it was to hold one tiny, trembling priest in his arms. But he didn’t mind. He thought Maschi enjoyed being held, and it was hardly a burden to do it. Owin would hold him up, or down, however he pleased, and take great pleasure in the service.
The noise in Owin’s ears was not only the pounding of his heart. He noticed it far later than he should have, and tore away from Maschi’s sweet, yielding mouth to take in the sight of their friends banging the table with their cups and rattling whatever chains were nearby, as if this was still Ara but no one had any bells handy.
Maschi blinked his eyes open, and was gratifyingly slow to do so. His face was aflame and seemed to grow hotter still when Owin looked him over carefully and stroked his cheekbone and the line of his jaw. But he smiled and closed his eyes again before tipping his face up in silent demand.
Owin caught a flash of sparkling red out of the corner of his eye, felt a tickle as the flowers fell and were likely crushed between them, even heard laughter as if Aubrey had returned, but he thought of nothing else in the world, or the Heavens, for that matter, as he bent his head to kiss Maschi again.
The End
