“What?” Corin snapped, relief making him irrationally angry. If Aster had simply stayed where he’d been bloody well supposed to—something that didn’t seem to be his strong suit—no one would’ve had to go temporarily insane with worry and guilt. “Where the hell were you?”
Aster’s smile widened, ratcheting Corin’s blood pressure up another painful notch and making his temples throb.
No one should be that pretty when you were furious with them, it simply wasn’t fair. Maybe not everyone liked freckles and a wide mouth and broad shoulders above a slender body. In fact, Corin would’ve sworn up and down that he wouldn’t, that he strongly preferred small features and luscious curves.
But Aster’s eyes would’ve been enough to draw anyone’s attention. Bright and long-lashed and the color of the sky when Corin had flown so high the clouds were little puffs below him. Sometimes he’d do tricks, flipping and rolling, tumbling down and then soaring again. When he went to his back and stared straight up, he gave himself vertigo sometimes, feeling as if he might sink upward into infinity.
That was the color of Aster’s eyes.
No, not everyone would appreciate Aster’s unassuming beauty. Marellus had overlooked it completely. But apparently Corin bloody well liked it, damn it all to hell.
And then the smell hit him. Brandy, and lots of it.
Brandy.Corin’sbrandy, that he’d had stashed behind the wine where only someone very determined to get drunk would find it, and where he’d hoped he’d forget about it so as not to get very drunk himself.
“Hello,” Aster—purred. There really couldn’t be another word for that low, smooth tone. “What’s got your knickers in a twist?” And then he slumped against the doorjamb and dissolved into helpless-looking giggles, absurdly lovely eyes even brighter and pink mouth hanging open in a way that should’ve been unattractive and really, really wasn’t.
As Corin stood staring, more nonplussed than he could ever remember being in his life, the giggles started to morph into long, sobbing hitches in Aster’s breath.
No. No, he could in fact become more nonplussed. Appalled, even.
His mind moved slowly, as if stuck in some kind of nightmarish goo.
Aster had started to cry.
When people cried, someone had to take care of them—that was simply decent.
(And while Corin didn’t disdain men who cried, as so many did—one of the most ferociously hardbitten men-at-arms he’d ever served with wept into his gin and sang about a shepherdess’s lover who’d been lost at sea after every battle—he also ran like hell to make them someone else’s problem.)
There was no one else around whose problem Aster could be.
Fuck.
“It’s not so bad,” Corin ventured, brow prickling where sweat would’ve been if he’d been human. “You don’t need to—I mean—it’ll be all right.”
“No,” Aster gasped, slumping lower, hands on his knees now. “No, it fucking won’t!” He burst out laughing again, shoulders shaking, sliding down the wall—oh, God, no, not again—Corin dashed forward just in time to catch Aster as he nearly collapsed to the floor.
And for the second time in less than a full day he had a double armful of unwanted guest, all firm in the right places and yielding everywhere.
Only this time Aster was conscious, which he showed instantly by bringing his arms up and looping them around Corin’s neck, pressing their bodies together tightly in the process. One of his hands slipped under the collar of Corin’s shirt, fingertips tracing his skin with delicacy despite their swordsman’s calluses.
The resulting shiver went all the way from the crown of Corin’s head to the backs of his knees. Touching Aster had been one thing.
Being touched, it seemed, was quite another.
Aster clung to him, wriggling closer, rubbing his body against Corin’s in a way that had to be entirely innocent and yet only succeeded in making his skin prickle everywhere and his cock start to stiffen with every glancing bit of contact. And then, with a long, contented-sounding sigh that ended in one last hiccupping sob, Aster went limp, apparently counting on Corin to take his full weight.
He did, having to fumble one arm down and wrap his hand…under Aster’s ass. One of the cheeks fit perfectly in his hand, his fingers dipping toward the crease.
That hand went so rigid he was probably leaving bruises.
Bruises. On Aster’s ass, in the shape of Corin’s fingers…
Aster had to be able to feel his erection against his stomach by now, since Corin didn’t think it would be possible to get any harder. He stood frozen, bathed in the rosy sweetness of Aster’s body mixed intoxicatingly with brandy fumes, trying desperately not to push his fingers deeper between those round cheeks. Silky waves of hair tickled his jaw.
“I think I want to lie down,” Aster murmured into his neck. “You carried me up those stairs last night, didn’t you? You can do it again.”
He certainly could, if Corin didn’t wring his neck first.
