Carefully, Corin went to one knee on the edge of the wood frame of the bed. Ropes strung across it held up a mattress stuffed with straw for bulk and pine needles for freshness; not the most luxurious bed, but clean and comfortable enough. Aster had traveled here alone across rough terrain, and he’d certainly slept in much rougher places on the journey. But only one thin blanket lay across the mattress, and Corin knew the tower didn’t have another. Even with Aster’s cloak wrapped around him too he’d be frozen by morning.
Corin himself, with his dragon metabolism, was the only other possible source of warmth for the bedroom.
He’d been avoiding looking down as he brought Aster upstairs, but as he lowered him to the bed, sliding an arm out from under his knees but still holding him around the shoulders, he couldn’t help himself.
No, Aster didn’t at all look like someone who’d tempt Corin, not even for a moment, damn it. Those coppery lashes fanned out over his pale cheeks, the spill of freckles beneath, the pink lips parted a little, too dry and still so soft-looking. Plush, even. Far too vulnerable and delicate to be the type of man Corin preferred, someone who could take his full strength without breaking. And far too masculine, with the golden stubble gleaming on his jaw and the muscular weight of him, to be a lady Corin would want to treat with a true knight’s gentle chivalry.
Of course, he could always find a middle ground. Half his strength, enough to pound Aster through the mattress, and kisses and caresses to keep him sweet while he took what Corin gave him.
He gritted his teeth together as his cock undeniably went to full mast, pressing painfully against the rough wool of his trousers—he hadn’t bothered with anything under them today, as all of his drawers needed mending and he couldn’t be fucked about it.
Damn and triple damn. Aster felt glued to his chest, to his arms, because he simply couldn’t release him and let him down onto the bed.
What would he look like beneath his fine garments? Smooth and sleekly muscled, perhaps. Strong enough, after all, to withstand the way he’d spread Aster’s legs and…
With a burst of willpower born from his total, overwhelming self-disgust, he dropped Aster like his touch was poison, threw the inadequate blanket on top of him as quickly as possible, and fled the bedroom, all but flying down the stairs.
He stopped in the doorway to the hall, leaning his forehead against the wall and closing his eyes. His breath rasped in his ears. One hand twitched toward his cock, still straining, and he clenched it into a fist. Behind his closed eyelids he saw the sprawl of Aster’s long limbs in Corin’s own bed, and then Belinda’s lips and breasts, and then a pair of blue eyes, it didn’t matter whose, either of theirs.
Fuck, fuck, something had gone terribly wrong in his brain.
No,notfuck. Definitely not fucking anyone, because Aster had to be entirely off-limits.
Even if he hadn’t been Belinda’s brother. Even if he hadn’t been too young, and if at least half of Corin’s desire didn’t seem to be stemming from some twisted mix of frustrated lust and vengeful fury, and even if he hadn’t beenBelinda’s brother, for fuck’s sake!
Even without all of that, Aster was helpless for the moment and in Corin’s care for as long as the weather lasted—because it would be snowing by morning, he was quite sure, and they’d be cut off from the world except for Corin’s ability to change form.
Any human would be helpless in Corin’s hands, vulnerable and afraid. Belinda had told him as much, screaming it in his face when she told him how she’d never wanted him, only his lineage and his family’s wealth, the envy of her friends for having attracted the attention of a man no one had been able to catch.
Corin swallowed down bile, pushed himself off the wall, and strode into the hall.
Enough. He hadn’t even really thought about Belinda in months. He’d been sure his lingering love and bitter hatred had subsided at last. And now Aster’s arrival had stirred it all up again, and his brain buzzed like a beehive. He’d been alone too long. Celibate for far too long.
He had to take a breath. Put up Aster’s horse, brush and feed the beast, close all the windows. Prepare for the storm.
Prepare to care for his guest, because he had nothing to offer but a hunk of lightly flame-roasted wild boar, which humans couldn’t eat, a crust of bread, and possibly an apple or two.
He’d fly down to the village first for supplies and hope the exhausting journey in the freezing gale left him too spent to even think about…anything.
Because when he returned, he’d need to share that narrow bed with Aster if he didn’t want him to freeze to death overnight.
ChapterThree
Before passing out likean idiot, Aster’s last thought had been how incredibly embarrassed he’d be when he came to.
Of course, he hadn’t counted on waking up too comfortable and cozy to give a good goddamn about anything at all.
He blinked his heavy eyelids open and curled a little tighter into the perfect warmth that surrounded him up to his chin. In the grim, watery light filtering in through the window near the end of the bed, he could faintly see a plume of his breath steaming in the chill. The frigid air slapped the exposed skin of his face like a duelist’s gauntlet, and that pattering sound must be cold rain or snow or some other sky-born misery. Ugh. The weather had clearly taken the turn he’d anticipated as he rode up the mountain.
But it didn’t matter. He had a coverlet over him, and a mattress beneath, and he’d melted into goo in between the two. It didn’t matter at all that he detested snow and ice, and he missed his home, where it never got cold enough to freeze—and where he might never be welcome again.
A chill went down his spine despite the heat radiating all along his back.
Aster let out a little whimper, and he tucked his chin and tried to tug the blanket all the way over his head without putting a hand out from under.
“Are you all right?”
Aster yelped as his heart flipped sideways and tried to claw its way out of his chest. The galvanic shock that shot all the way down to his toes had him flipping to his back and then sitting bolt upright, the blankets sliding off as he flailed.
