Corin would be telling him he’d need to leave.
He’d had Corin’s hands and mouth on him now, and he’d come twice. He didn’t have any more excuses for delay.
“Go ahead,” he said, his throat painfully tight.
The process of Corin lifting his head and disentangling himself from Aster’s body felt like a premonition of things to come, an inevitable separation that left Aster chilled to the bone despite the warmth of the bed and the sun-heated tower.
Corin levered himself up and flopped down next to Aster on his back with a bone-deep sigh. They lay side by side, both gazing up at the fluttering cobwebs hanging from the rafters. Aster carefully, subtly shifted his weight so that their upper arms touched. Without any comforting contact at all, he might curl into himself and wither away, and even through Corin’s shirt, which he still hadn’t removed, it helped more than he wanted to admit.
“The bottom line is that Marellus is a fucking asshole,” Corin said abruptly at last. “Your valet was probably telling the truth.” He had the good grace to sound slightly embarrassed as he admitted that, and Aster had to bite his lip hard to keep from saying he’d told him so. “Since the contract only had penalties on your side for failing to consummate and for infidelity, he’d have been able to enforce it more or less at will. Why didn’t you tell me that was in the marriage contract? I’d have been a lot more likely to believe your story.”
Aster closed his eyes, cringing inwardly. The contract. The fucking contract, which of course Corin would reasonably assume he’d read…the silence ticked on for three seconds, five, ten.
“Oh, for fuck’s fucking sake,” Corin said at last, voice so void of inflection that Aster flinched. The muscles in Corin’s arm went tense against his, hard as granite. “You didn’t bloody well read it, did you? You didn’t read your own marriage contract.”
Aster pressed himself down into the bed, wishing he could disappear, squeezing his eyes even more tightly closed to try to blot out the overwhelming shame. It didn’t work. “I didn’t—I mean—I wasn’t the one to arrange it, was I?”
“It was your—damn it. You’re very young, and you trusted your parents,” Corin said, and it sounded like he had his jaw clenched. “But you were the one getting married. And I’m really not saying this is all your fault, but you probably ought to have known about those clauses. And more to the point, you should’ve known that if you and Marellus didn’t end up married at all, he’d be claiming a third of your parents’ estate! Which is mortgaged to the fucking hilt. The family would be left with nothing.”
Mortgaged. Nothing.Your fault.The words hit like barbed arrows, piercing deep and burrowing deeper. His parents hadn’t told him they were in debt. He’d known nothing. He’d trusted them, because whatever their faults, they’d always loved him. Maybe they’d thought they were showing their love for him by protecting him from the truth.
Aster couldn’t control the shudders in his chest, but he bit his lip until he tasted blood trying to keep even more sounds inside. By the time he managed to control his breathing enough to speak, his eyes were swimming. Hopefully Corin wouldn’t look at him.
“I didn’t know. They never showed me—” He stopped, taking a deep breath. No. No excuses. “I never asked, though. I should have. I suppose I wouldn’t have run away if I’d known.”
Aster dared to turn his head, a tear sliding down his cheek as he moved. He found Corin facing him too, dark eyes flashing. Fuck, Corin would despise him for his weakness. He reached up to rub at it, but Corin caught his wrist and turned onto his side, pushing up to loom over him. His other hand came up and he brushed his thumb across Aster’s burning cheek, through the tear track, swiping it away, his swordsman’s calluses rough but his touch unbearably soft.
“It’s not your fault,” Corin said, and he sounded as if he really meant it this time.
Probably because he’d decided Aster was too pathetic to be held responsible for anything more complicated than buttoning his own trousers.
“No, I was a fool at best,” Aster managed. He had to own up to his large part in this, not least to show Corin that he could. “But I can’t change any of it now. But wait a moment—he can’t take Cezanne if the contract’s voided, can he? It has to be for the king to offer me up to the first comer. Thank God, I hadn’t even thought of that. So why do you and Fredmund seem to think I’ll need to go—”
“You have to go home because the contract isn’t voided until you’re actually offered,” Corin said grimly. “Until the king enters you into a marriage contract with someone else, you’re still betrothed to Marellus. And if you’re still betrothed, the penalty still applies. You can still run, of course. Nothing’s stopping you.”
No, nothing at all except the impending loss of his family and his home. Cezanne, with its tall whispering sycamore trees and its mirror-clear lake, the ancient library redolent of leather and ink and aged brandy. The portraits of his ancestors and all that they’d built for hundreds of years—gone because Aster couldn’t go through with a wedding. The look that would be in his mother’s beautiful eyes when she walked away from her beloved rose garden, where she’d taken Aster for his evening walks as a little boy, for the last time.
Aster couldn’t help laughing, a rusty, miserable sound that ended in a sob.
Corin’s jaw tightened. “I assumed as much,” he said, somehow understanding everything Aster couldn’t put into words.
He leaned in, stroking Aster’s face, closer and closer until Aster could feel his heat.
Oh, God, he was going to kiss him, and Aster parted his lips in anticipation, his breath coming faster even though tears still gathered in the corners of his eyes. Nothing would distract him more than Corin’s weight on top of him, the thrust of his thick dragon cock, his hot mouth…
“I brought back some hams from the village,” Corin said. “I’m starving, and you must be too. Let’s have something to eat. You can’t make a plan on an empty stomach.”
Aster froze, staring up at him.
Ham.
Aster’s entire life had collapsed into ruin, and he was lying here in Corin’s bed naked and panting and practically begging for a kiss—and Corin wanted ham. Were all men so incredibly dense and obnoxious and infuriating? Was Aster himself so dense and obnoxious and infuriating at times? No, he couldn’t believe it.
“Really? Right now?” He tried and failed not to sound too ridiculously disappointed.
As if on cue, Aster’s stomach let out a ferocious growl.
“Apparently,” Corin said, the corner of his mouth quirking up—and poked him in the belly.
