| |
Yandro hastened to his front door, a little irritated by the increasingly loud and demanding raps on it. He took a quick look out the peephole and started when he recognized his visitor. It was way past Ministry hours and week’s end as well. What reason would Jareth Hadrana have to visit him in his home when he had never done so before? He quickly slid back the bolt, opened the door, and let Jareth in.
A very upset Jareth.
“Dyhar, what is wro—” Yandro started to ask as Jareth swept past him into the small and cozy parlor.
The ambassador spun on his heel and cut him off to ask, “Were you abused in your childhood?”
“I beg your pardon?” Yandro stared at his superior in bafflement and a little surprised that he should ask so personal a question.
“When you were in the orphanage,” Jareth said, his voice hard. “Were you ever molested or assaulted by the older wards?”
“Why in Aisen are you asking about that?” Yandro countered.
“Because I have to know if you were hurt that way!” Jareth almost bellowed.
Baffled by Jareth’s agitation, Yandro reached out and clasped one broad shoulder, giving the ambassador a gentle shake.
“What brought this on?” he softly asked.
Jareth visibly collected himself. “I was at Council and the new vicon—”
“Vicon Hovare,” Yandro supplied.
“Yes, he was present. Avan Dryon requested that he be allowed to make a report—” Jareth shuddered suddenly. “Saints almighty, I never imagined how cruel life could be in the public orphanages!”
Yandro caught his breath. Of the six orphanages in Rikara, only two were run by religious orders. The other four were government funded and administered. And now it appeared certain of their deficiencies had been discovered by a cleric in royal service no less.
Kithan Hovare was the Citadel’s new vicon, an ordained minister assigned to assist a priest in charge of a church or chapel. As assistant to the Citadel chapel’s resident priest, he helped Avan Dryon administer to the Deira within his jurisdiction, which covered the fane district directly adjacent to the royal keep. Since the Veresian Church did not address worshippers’ spiritual concerns alone, but also tried to take care of the indigents and outcasts of society, priests and their assisting vicone oft visited the charitable institutions in their fane districts.
If Yandro recalled correctly, the keep’s fane district included the second-largest public orphanage in the city. Vicon Hovare appeared to have unearthed something unsavory enough to elicit such a strong reaction from Jareth.
Suspecting the worst, Yandro met Jareth’s gaze. “Tell me,” he murmured.
Jareth inhaled sharply before answering. “Vicon Hovare’s report included evidence of sexual assault of orphans in the public institutions by older wards,” he tightly said. “After uncovering the abuse in his fane district, he visited the other city orphanages to see if it’s just an isolated case. Unfortunately, it isn’t.”
Jareth pulled away, his features pinched in revulsion at what he’d learned. “He said the problem is limited to the public orphanages and it’s largely due to incompetent administrators or inadequate staffing and therefore monitoring of the children’s activities.”
He shuddered slightly. “What horrifies me is that it has gone unreported for years either because administrators are indifferent to their charges’ well-being or fear repercussions should their negligence be discovered. The vicon only discovered what was happening because he’d been asked to temporarily fill in as administrator for his district’s orphanage while the Ministry of Public Welfare looked for a replacement.”
His eyes gleamed darkly as he added, “The previous administrator died when he was set upon by a gang of older orphans. They claimed he’d looked the other way while they’d been raped by senior wards years earlier.” He gazed searchingly at Yandro. “You grew up in an orphanage. Did you suffer similarly?”
Yandro pursed his lips then blew his breath out. Jareth’s recounting of the vicon’s report resurrected unpleasant memories and for a moment he was disinclined to share them. But Jareth looked so horrified, so anxious on his behalf, he knew he could not withhold that part of his past from him.
“I was almost raped when I turned twenty,” he finally admitted.
Jareth sharply sucked in his breath, no doubt shocked that the incident occurred when Yandro was just an adolescent. “Almost?”
Yandro nodded. “I was fortunate. The youth who accosted me was slightly inebriated,” he explained. “You’re surprised orphans can get their hands on liquor? Don’t be. Sometimes, drinking is the only way some of them cope with their lot in life. Many are not above pilfering from an administrator’s stock or robbing stores even it means risking arrest or worse at the hands of the authorities.”
“So you escaped assault because your attacker was drunk,” Jareth said, as if repeating the fact helped calm his fears.
“He was also not too much bigger than me though he was some years my senior,” Yandro continued. “Had he been with his gang, however, matters would likely have gone otherwise. I’m just thankful he was stupid enough to try and take me by himself. I fought him off and escaped with little more than some bruises and torn breeches. After that, I made sure never to be alone. I always stayed around other children my age.”
He grimly smiled. “At one point I organized several of my fellow wards into a defensive group. We were able to keep attackers at bay for the rest of my time at the orphanage. And then, just before I was discharged to fend for myself, Eiren Sarvan conducted a medical mission in our district. We met and, well, you know the rest. He won me the Ardan’s sponsorship which enabled me to go to university and eventually find employment at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
Jareth gazed at him as if he were trying to ascertain his veracity. At length, he sighed and seemed to relax.
“Thank Veres,” he whispered. “When I heard... My belly nearly emptied itself there and then. The mere thought of you—” He broke off and looked away, eyes downcast and mouth tight.
Yandro recognized Jareth’s need not only for comfort over his shock, but also reassurance that he was truly whole and hale. It touched him that the ambassador’s concern went beyond professional consideration. It seemed Jareth cared for him on a personal level after all.
“Becalm yourself,” he murmured. “I am unscathed. I escaped the fate of so many of this city’s castoffs.
“Only by sheer chance,” Jareth said, his voice harsh once more. “Damn it, you could have been—”
Without warning, he hauled Yandro into a tight embrace, pulling him up until he was on tiptoe and peppered his face with fevered kisses—his forehead, his cheeks, his jaw. They stood flush against each other, chest to chest, groin to groin. Yandro could not ignore the hard prod of flesh below his belt. Nor could he deny his own burgeoning arousal as he responded to Jareth’s passion.
Jareth pressed even closer and their shafts rubbed against the other through the fabric of their breeches. With a soft groan, he insinuated a leg between Yandro’s, increasing the sensual friction between them.
Pleasure surged through Yandro’s limbs as Jareth ground against him. His shaft swelled to its full length and soon ached to be freed from its confines. Whereupon Jareth lowered one hand between them to smooth his palm over the telltale bulge.
“Veres preserve me!” Yandro softly cried out.
In that moment, something shifted inside him and he knew there would be no turning back if he allowed that shift to lead him.
––––––––
Jareth thought Yandro’s outburst was a protest, but the sudden weave of Yandro’s arms around his shoulders belied that. Relieved he would not be rebuffed, he tempered his kisses to gentle nibbles along Yandro’s jaw to his chin and down his throat. This elicited a soft moan, raw with want and low with passion. Jareth groaned at the gorgeous sound and quickly straightened to seal his mouth once more to Yandro’s parted lips.
Yandro forced his hands between their chests and for a frustrating moment, he thought his aide would push him away. But instead Yandro started to undo the clasps of Jareth’s tunic. Given tacit leave at last to take what he desired, Jareth swiftly unbuckled his belt to hasten his disrobing. As soon as he was shorn of tunic and jerkin, he reached for the buttons of Yandro’s shirt and undid them with practiced speed and ease.
The shirt slithered off revealing Yandro’s lithe torso to him for the first time. Jareth ran his palms over smooth, ruddy skin marred by the occasional scar, which served to remind him of Yandro’s less than sheltered life.
One fading scar on his left shoulder beckoned to him. An irregular gash inflicted by the jagged ends of a broken bottle, he guessed. A belated need to protect Yandro overcame him, and he kissed and licked the scar as if to soothe away the long ago pain of its infliction. Before long, he moved along the top of Yandro’s shoulder to his throat, letting his tongue pave a moist trail and while a sharp nip or nibble here and there left a path of telltale bruises.
Yandro responded to his ministrations with a spate of soft moans, which further aroused Jareth. He dropped his hands to the latter’s buttocks and cupped them, relishing the feel of them through the thin trousers.
Yandro pushed away slightly, his face flushed and his eyes bright. He tugged on Jareth’s open shirt and said, “Let‘s go.”
Jareth pulled him back, unwilling to part their bodies. “Where?”
“My bed,” Yandro huskily replied, drawing out of Jareth’s arms to lead him to his bedchamber.
This time, Jareth did not hinder their progress, but smiled at Yandro’s boldness. He had not thought his aide had it in him to meet his overture with another one. It pleased him and, after being subjected to the pseudo-innocent behavior of past adjutants with too obvious designs on him, it was utterly refreshing.
They finished undressing each other on the way to the bed. Jareth vaguely noted the spare furnishings, but acknowledged that what was there lent an air of cheer and hominess to the chamber nonetheless. He smiled again when he saw the generous width of the bed, the thickness of its feather mattress, the plumpness of the pillows, and the fineness of the beddings. Yandro had chosen comfort over appearance when he’d furnished his apartment, yet managed to make everything pleasing to the discerning eye as well.
They fell upon the bed, their mouths sealed in hot-tongued union, hands roaming over naked flesh and limbs tangling in the need to bring their bodies closer.
Jareth had known Yandro was no innocent and was now pleased to reap the benefits of his aide’s experience. He grinned when Yandro insisted on returning the favor of having his shaft sucked, shifting about so he could tend to Jareth’s tumescent length simultaneously. It became a race then to see who could bring the other to pleasure sooner, but neither really minded who would win. Not when the bliss of such long-awaited intimacy overwhelmed their senses and all but erased any desire for dominance.
Yandro blessed him with a luscious gush of seed within seconds of his own spending. He licked his lips of every drop of semen, then looked down a little dazedly at Yandro. His aide still lay with his head on Jareth’s thigh, looking back at him through half-lidded eyes, a small smile curving his lips.
“I trust you enjoyed yourself?” he lazily drawled.
Jareth grinned. “As much as you apparently did.”
He reached for Yandro and drew him up to lie beside him.
As they lay together pleasantly sated and waiting for the beating of their hearts to slow, Jareth realized he had not experienced as strong an orgasm as he’d just shared with Yandro. And this just from the use of their mouths upon the other. He could not quite imagine what to expect when they went further. That is, if Yandro agreed to go further.
Jareth lifted a hand and brushed a stray curl from Yandro’s face. He followed with a soft, slow kiss, gently pulling on Yandro’s lower lip as he ended the caress.
Yandro opened his eyes and gazed at him, the brilliance of his teal-hued irises in stark and beauteous contrast to the coppery tone of his skin. Jareth wondered that he’d been able to hold back from ravishing his aide after his first glimpse of those wondrous eyes.
“What do you desire?” Yandro asked in a hushed voice.
“All of you,” Jareth replied. “If you’ll allow it.”
His aide’s teasing grin nearly did his self-control in. “I invited you into my bed,” Yandro murmured. “How can I not allow it?’
“I wish to be certain,” Jareth said. “I want no regrets between us come morning.”
“You plan to stay the night, do you?” Yandro remarked with a small chuckle.
“And other nights.” Jareth shifted atop him, easing Yandro’s legs apart with his own. “I suspect this one time won’t be enough for me.” He kissed the side of the latter’s neck. “I know it will never be enough.”
Yandro groaned softly. “You really have a way with words.”
“I’d rather have my way with more than words,” Jareth retorted. “Oil?”
Yandro directed his attention to the bedside table with a tilt of his head. Jareth reached for the bottle of bluish-green liquid and regarded it with a small frown.
“Do you have lovers here often enough that you leave this in plain sight?” he asked, disliking the sharpness of his tone but unable to suppress it.
Yandro’s eyes widened a moment in surprise. Jareth chided himself for revealing his sudden jealousy. But then Yandro beamed and his eyes crinkled at the corners in what looked like delight.
“Nay, I don’t take many Deira to my bed and those I have so infrequently that I gave them cause to complain.” He raised his hand and cupped Jareth’s jaw, rubbing his thumb under his chin. “It was close at hand because I had no one to share the night with. Until now.”
The image of Yandro pleasuring himself planted itself firmly in Jareth’s mind and he closed his eyes in an effort to concentrate on not spending so soon. Saints! The last time he’d been unable to put off his climax for a reasonable length of time had been during the first year after his sexual awakening. He opened his eyes and glared at his smirking aide.
“Not another word!” he commanded. “I want this first time to last a long while and you’re not helping, ensorceller that you are.”
“I only want to reassure you that you aren’t one of a multitude,” Yandro replied cheekily. “In truth, there hasn’t been anyone else in the past year.”
Jareth’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Then all those times I sensed you in rapture, you were tending to yourself?”
Color flooded Yandro’s cheeks. “I was right! That is how you keep track of us!” he exclaimed. “Really, Dyhar, that’s going too far!”
“Jareth.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m about to pound you into the mattress. Formality has no place here or now, does it?”
Yandro gaped but still managed to look so endearing, Jareth had to kiss him into further inarticulateness. When their mouths parted, Yandro lifted his eyes to gaze at him with such unabashed worshipfulness, Jareth nearly stopped breathing.
“Jareth,” Yandro murmured, saying the name almost reverently. “I never imagined I’d be allowed to call you by name.” He suddenly dimpled. “But then I never expected to share my bed with you either.” His smile widened. “Or that you’d actually be jealous of the others who have.”
“Why shouldn’t I be?” Jareth rejoined. He unstoppered the bottle and dipped his fingers into the oil. It was herb-scented with a trace of spice. “You are a prize I deeply craved and the thought that I was the only one denied your favors rankled. Not to mention that perhaps you cared little for my company while desiring intimacy with others.”
“But I did desire your company,” Yandro averred. “And intimacy. I was only being careful given your history with my predecessors.”
“That should irk me,” Jareth remarked. “But strangely, it doesn’t. Indeed, I’m pleased with your restraint. It’s a relief not to be used for purposes of personal advancement.”
As he spoke he lowered his hand and eased his oil-slick fingers between the cheeks of Yandro’s buttocks. If Yandro had not lain with anyone in a year, Jareth would have to prepare him for penetration more thoroughly than if he’d lately had carnal relations. Still, he did not expect Yandro to flinch when he inserted his fingers. And the anxiety that suddenly clouded his eyes gave Jareth reason to believe his aide had abstained from playing the sheath far longer than a year. He stopped the inward progress of his fingers.
“When did you last yield?” he asked.
Yandro flushed deeply before replying. “I never have.”
Jareth stared at him in surprise. “Never? Yet you’re quite experienced in the art of pleasuring others,” he said a little disbelievingly.
“So long as it doesn’t entail being breached.”
“Why so?”
Yandro sighed. “Self-preservation, what else? I’m small, a Half Blood, and, as you like to tease me, too delicate-looking for my own good.” He smiled somewhat crookedly. “Too many see me as their inferior at worst or, at best, theirs to direct as they wish. So I take charge at once and make it clear I’m not one to be trifled with.”
“Or to bend over for anyone. But now you would do so for me.” Jareth gazed at him long and searchingly. “You honor me.”
Yandro bit his lower lip. “Others would say I aspire to elevate myself,” he said, unable to keep the tinge of bitterness out of his voice.
“They would be hopeless fools to think thusly,” Jareth retorted, his voice hardening for a moment. He stroked the inside of one thigh with his other hand, enjoying the small shiver that ran through the slender limb under his palm. “I’d hoped you’d deign to share yourself with me. I never expected you would bestow your first yielding on me as well. You honor me, Yan,” he repeated emphatically.
Yandro’s smile was heartbreakingly grateful and lent his face such striking beauty it took all of Jareth’s self-control not to simply shove his shaft into him. He leaned down and drew Yandro into an ardent kiss, distracting him from the continued thrust of fingers into his arse. Soon enough, he found the spot within that oft helped supplant discomfort with wondrous sensation as evidenced by Yandro’s sudden pushing against his hand and the lovely sounds he uttered against Jareth’s lips.
Satisfied that Yandro was ready for breaching, Jareth withdrew his fingers and straightened. He smeared a generous amount of oil along the length his shaft and then pulled Yandro’s hips onto his lap and parted his buttocks, exposing the tiny entrance to his arse now glistening with oil. Once more leaning down and capturing Yandro in another long kiss, he slowly entered him.
If Jareth had wanted more proof that this was Yandro’s first time to yield, there was an ample amount of it in the way Yandro whimpered into his mouth, how his hands clutched shakily at Jareth’s arms as he was filled and when the muscles of his buttocks clenched to hinder further incursion.
“Nay, bear down on me,” Jareth murmured, scattering kisses on Yandro’s temple, now damp with a thin sheen of sweat.
Yandro started at the reminder. With a chagrined smile at having forgotten how to make penetration easier, he obeyed and Jareth slid in all the way without further resistance. Obviously, Yandro’s discomfort also lessened for though he winced as he was fully filled, he gave no other sign of pain.
“Are you well?” Jareth asked.
Yandro took a moment to take a deep breath and then looked at him, his eyes ablaze with wonder.
“You’re finally inside me,” he whispered. “The saints be praised, I never imagined I would know this pleasure.”
“Sweet Veres,” Jareth said with a groan. “You’ll undo me too soon if you keep talking like that!”
He gave in to his body’s need at last and began to thrust into Yandro. He kept his thrusts low but deep and with just an edge of roughness he could not hold back having lost control of his passion once he was fully seated in Yandro’s backside.
Yandro half sobbed as he was relentlessly cleaved. The sensation of hard flesh sliding deep into him and stroking that point of pleasure within forced the tight coil of pleasure in his belly to slowly but steadily unravel while unmooring him from all the restraints he’d place upon himself for so long. He threw his head back, panting for breath, as rapture rapidly crept up on him whereupon Jareth pressed his mouth to his throat, sucking at the flesh and nibbling on his skin. Yandro gasped raggedly at the added stimulation. He had not known before this night just how sensitive his neck was.
And still Jareth continued to plow into him, plunging in to the hilt, the titillating slap of flesh against flesh drowning out all other sounds. Yandro lost himself to the spiral of sensations leading up to an orgasm that promised to eclipse every previous release he’d experienced.
He felt the curl and caress of fingers around his aching shaft where it lay between their straining abdomens. Yandro let out a strangled gasp. The pleasure was indescribable and almost too much to bear. He eased his fingers under Jareth’s, indicating he would take care of stroking himself.
“Take me hard,” he begged. “I want to still feel you tomorrow.”
With a roguish grin, Jareth let go of his shaft and, after urging Yandro’s legs around his waist, firmly gripped his hips. He concentrated on driving in as deeply as possible, the sounds of his groin meeting Yandro’s buttocks startlingly louder as his thrusts quickened. Yandro’s stroking of his shaft likewise swiftened and he moaned helplessly at the rapturous sensations inundating him. The sight of Jareth above him lost in ecstasy, his skin rosy from exertion, his gasps and grunts increasingly voluble, his gaze steady on his shaft repeatedly sliding into Yandro’s arse, heightened the pleasure until Yandro thought he would expire from it.
Jareth suddenly thrust into him with particular force. Yandro saw him stiffen and heard his harsh gasp. And then he felt the coating of his innards with liquid heat. The thought of Jareth’s seed spilling deep inside him thrilled him to the core. It was an experience he’d never thought to share with anyone, let alone the ambassador.
Both sensation and emotion shoved him over the edge and he cried out as an explosive orgasm flooded him until he was overwhelmed to near oblivion.
He felt liquid warmth coat his fingers and he glanced down dazedly to see his seed had also dappled their bellies. A moment later, Jareth wiped up a spot of semen on Yandro’s abdomen with a finger. Raising it to his mouth, he sucked his finger clean all the while eyeing Yandro with renewed lust. Yandro felt the heat of his blush spread from his cheeks to his throat and down to his chest.
He’d never shared anything so intimate with anyone before. That it was Jareth who had acted thusly their first time to couple felt like a benediction. One he suspected would never be matched by anyone else.