Another adjustment of his hips made another squelch. Aster stirred, moaned, tensed around Corin’s knot, squeezing it like a vise and making Corin tremble.
He shouldn’t. He couldn’t.
And yet he was, moving faster and deeper now, shifting his hips in little circles, propped on his arms to keep his weight off of Aster’s smaller body, gazing down at his lovely face.
When had he finally understood how lovely Aster truly was? Maybe all along, only he’d been distracted by flashier beauty. Aster had been like one of his wild namesakes growing in the shade of a peony, neglected by those who didn’t have the discrimination and taste to recognize its perfection. But the peony, to overextend a metaphor, had proven to be a cheating bitch. No beauty made up for that. Aster…God, look at him. And feel him. And…Corin leaned down and pressed his face into the curve of Aster’s throat.
No clue what actual asters smelled like, or if they even had a scent. But this Aster smelled like roses and sex, like sweat and salt and his come and Corin’s, likehis.
He nipped gently at the corded muscle in the side of Aster’s neck. Aster sighed, squirmed, subsided again. Corin thrust one more time, just once.
Fuck, he had to stop.
Or he could stuff his knot even deeper, fuck Aster with it harder and harder until he woke fully erect and moaning helplessly, startled and disoriented and about to spend all over them both. Aster’s cries of shock and desire would taste so delicious when Corin licked them out of his sweet mouth.
Corin froze, even his hips stilled at last, chest heaving with his rasping breaths.
He could abandon every principle he’d ever held dear and use and abuse Aster for his own pleasure, excusing it on the basis that he’d give Aster pleasure too—whether he liked it or not.
No. Because he might have given up on being the perfect knight, given up on sublimating his own needs into those of the people who depended on him but never appreciated his dependability. But that didn’t mean he lacked standards and morals of his own.
All right. He couldn’t pound Aster to bits before he woke. But he couldn’t pull out, either, not without inflicting physical damage worse than his transgressions.
And nothing prevented him from enjoying his current situation within some reasonable boundaries, after all.
Corin lowered himself to one elbow, holding up enough of his weight while still pressing his body down onto Aster’s, savoring every inch of his soft human skin. His own wasn’t rough, precisely. But it did have the faintest texture of his scales permanently embedded. Aster felt like silk.
The other hand, he slid under Aster’s back and down, down, until his palm smoothed around the curve of Aster’s equally silken ass. A gloriously soft handful that he could squeeze and knead, pushing it in and pulling it away from the other cheek, the motion massaging his knot at the same time and making him lightheaded. He settled down on the pillow beside Aster and nuzzled his soft hair.
It wouldn’t hurt to slide a finger between Aster’s cheeks and feel where they were joined, would it? God, he felt good, inside and out. Even with Corin’s knot stuffing him full and keeping him from leaking too much, he was slick around his rim, the skin taut and stretched to its limit.
Corin shuddered and thrust once, just fucking once, eyes closed and face pressed to Aster’s hair, savoring having him wrapped up and enclosed and filled and possessed.
Aster made a little sound—and Corin felt his body come back to awareness, that slight increase in tension that meant consciousness. Corin froze, eyes popping open, breathing as lightly as possible.
“Corin? Are you—oh,” he said, sleepy and confused on the first word and much sharper at the end. “You’re still inside me.”
“Yes.” His voice sounded bizarrely rough, not like his own at all. Corin cleared his throat, belatedly remembering he had his face right next to Aster’s ear. He pulled back an inch. “My knot hasn’t gone down yet.”
“Your knot. Your—I think I fainted. I had no idea that was possible. Corin?” His lost, plaintive tone felt like a kick to the chest.
Aster shifted his weight, and Corin went rigid with the effort of not thrusting into him again. Gentle hands settled on Corin’s sides. Not soft—a swordsman’s hands; even if Aster hadn’t gained much skill, he’d put in the time training. But his touch seemed tentative, as if it wouldn’t be welcome. Careful, even though he was the one who’d been plowed open in a way no human would expect or probably even want.
And that was unacceptable—heartbreaking even. More than Corin could bear.
He vibrated with the need to do something, to fuck Aster into next week or to say the right words, to soothe the anxiety and fear he knew underlay Aster’s pitiful uncertainty and doubt that Corin wanted his touch.
Words—the right ones, at least—had never been his strong suit. And fucking Aster again might send the wrong message. An honest message. But wrong.
Corin pushed himself up so that he could look down into Aster’s face. Blue eyes all clouded with worry and confusion met his, irresistible in their appeal.
He had only one answer to that, to any of it. Before Aster could say anything else that’d make him feel like a fucking monster, he bent down and pressed his mouth to Aster’s softly parted lips.
This kiss couldn’t have been more different from before. He’d claimed Aster’s mouth earlier, forced him open. This time he teased him, coaxed him, nibbled so softly at Aster’s swollen lower lip that he opened easily, with a sigh that sent a shiver down Corin’s spine. The hands on his sides grew bolder, fingers digging in, one sweeping up to cradle the nape of Corin’s neck.
And then he lifted his hips, moaning into Corin’s mouth, spreading his thighs wider to let Corin push that tiny bit deeper.
Fucking him while he lay there insensible would’ve been a wicked pleasure all its own, but this—this was infinitely better, thrusting down into such incredible tight softness and feeling Aster arch under him, bodies straining together. Aster’s cock had even gotten half hard again and pressed against Corin’s stomach in a way that suggested he didn’t hate having a knot buried in his ass after all.
