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Yovan’s schedule at the University did not allow him more than a very short leave. Therefore they departed three days before week’s end so they could enjoy five days on holiday. To avoid losing too much time to an overland trek, it was decided they would journey via translocation. To this end, Evran insisted on using the Seydon carriage and coach driver who had previously travelled inside a corridor. The experience was unnerving for many who tried it for the first time or only infrequently travelled thusly, he explained.
The day of the trip dawned bright and sunny despite the residual chill in the air. They made their way out to the Great Field before Rikara just after daybreak, Yovan and Mered astride their steeds and their parents comfortably ensconced in the carriage. Yovan led them a good distance away from the city limits to a wide empty spot on the meadow far from the main avenue to Rikara.
It was to avoid endangering life and property. Only exceptionally skilled adepts like the Ardan and Ardis or their highly gifted physician Valre Sarvan could generate corridors within close spaces with pinpoint precision. Yet even they avoided doing so too often in order not to encourage the less proficient.
Yovan nudged his steed toward the carriage and caught Asrael’s attention.
“You know the way to Embrith. Will you permit me to take the information from your memories?”
Asrael’s eyes widened and he glanced uncertainly at his spouse. Evran leaned forward, his mouth curving into a reassuring smile.
“It doesn’t hurt unless there’s resistance. And Yovan will read no other memory save what you offer him.”
His words reassured Asrael. He nodded his assent and turned in his seat to slightly face Yovan through the window. Yovan caught his gaze and held it.
Mered watched in fascination as his sire’s eyes glazed over and his features slackened. Yovan stared at him for a few heartbeats. In the next instant, Asrael came out of his trance, blinking a bit owlishly as he did.
“Sweet Veres, that was...” he mumbled. He looked up at Yovan in some consternation. “I shudder to think what would happen were it abused.”
Yovan dipped his head courteously then turned his steed and urged it a few paces away. He focused his stare on the empty space before him.
Suddenly the air shimmered and an unnatural quiet seemed to enshroud their location. The shimmer compressed into a pinpoint of brightness that swiftly expanded into an opening. The opening blossomed into an entryway large enough to accommodate the carriage. Faint light and undulating movement obscured what lay beyond.
Mered gawked at the translocation portal.
“Stay close and only look straight ahead,” Yovan instructed him. “Unless you want to turn giddy enough to fall off your steed,” he added with a grin in answer to Mered’s unspoken question.
His mouth suddenly dry, Mered nodded. Following Yovan’s example, he pulled up his hood and followed his fiancé into the corridor.
They passed through a silver-shot grey mist whose tendrils brushed his cheeks with unsettling iciness. And then they were inside a shadowed tunnel surrounded by utter stillness and silence save for the impossible sound of a non-existent softly rushing wind. The cold air had him drawing his cloak more closely around his body.
In the far distance, he saw a diffuse light. Remembering Yovan’s instructions, he kept his gaze on it. But he could not resist a sideways peek through the corner of his eyes. He quickly regretted the impulse when images of the land they were traversing passed at such a dizzying speed, the urge to empty his stomach came upon him. He swallowed the bile and looked straight ahead for the rest of the brief journey.
Without warning, the light seemed to rush at them and they were through it and outside in bright sunlight on a windswept meadow. To their right a fair distance away lay the prosperous town of Embrith, its structures partially obscured by low enclosing walls. A wide road wound its way to the main gate.
Breathing heavily, Mered turned his head in time to see the carriage emerge from the portal. As soon as the vehicle cleared it, the portal swiftly diminished until it disappeared between one breath and the next.
“Are you well?” Yovan asked.
“Well enough,” Mered replied. “The experience was quite... disconcerting.”
They rode to the carriage. Yovan exchanged a nod of assurance with the coach driver and then peered into the vehicle.
“How fare you all?” he addressed the occupants. “Did they heed you, Ama?”
“Yes, save for your fool of a sire of all people!” Evran answered tartly.
Mered snorted in amusement when he caught sight of Laval’s pasty face now coloring up in the wake of his mate’s reply. His own parents’ features were slightly pinched with uneasiness but otherwise, they seemed to have weathered the passage well enough.
Yovan chuckled at his sire’s discomfiture. He looked at Mered. “Do you know the way from here?”
“I do.”
“Lead on then.”
They rode past Embrith and continued on their way until they left the last of the outlying farms, orchards and homesteads behind. Though within the town’s area of jurisdiction, Woodmere lay a half-hour away by steedback. But the road was well-maintained and the land not heavily wooded. And since the Embrith authorities regularly cleared the region of bandits and the like, it was deemed safe to travel even after dark.
Taking note of how Yovan looked about them keenly, Mered suspected he’d chosen to travel by translocation only as far as the town so he could scope out the land leading to the estate. Every now and then, he gazed long and admiringly at Yovan. The more he learned about his fiancé the more he was drawn to him.
Yovan had asked permission to read Asrael’s memories when he could have easily plucked the information from the latter’s mind without his knowledge. The banker was virtually shieldless and close to mind-blind. He would not have sensed a swift and gentle incursion into his thoughts. For Yovan to seek Asrael’s consent bespoke his respect for others and displayed a courteousness not all highborns possessed.
His generation of the ephemeral corridor which had got them from Rikara to Embrith in mere minutes was on a different level altogether. Yovan had told Mered enough about the mind arts for the youth to know not all True Bloods could travel thusly. But it was one thing to imagine Yovan’s abilities, quite another to see him confirm them with something as spectacular as a translocation portal.
They were uncommon enough even in places dominated by enyra that their appearance drew much attention and curiosity. That Yovan possessed the gift and the skill to wield it with such confidence and precision was testament to inborn power and strength Mered had not thought possible except among the inordinately gifted such as the almost mythical templars and scions of the Royal House. He was reminded all over again that Yovan was a scion of the Royal House.
––––––––
Woodmere lay a short distance from a small tranquil lake. The estate was also bound on one side by a tributary of the River Embrith. The Cordonas had taken advantage of the waterway and installed modern plumbing to serve the kitchens and bedchambers. It was indeed a beautiful estate and evidence of its late owner’s refined tastes.
Yovan was more than pleased with the trellised terrace to the right of the house adjacent to a well-kept bowling green. The stables and outhouses had been tucked away behind the mansion across from the orchard which provided the residents with cranapples and sugar pears. And the drive from the gate up to the front entrance was lined with herbaceous borders and flower-bedecked hedges. It looked like a country home, but it was not rustic.
He also approved of the airy guest chamber assigned him even if it did not have an attached bathing room. The one across the hallway would do very well. Besides his balcony provided him with a wonderful view of the gardens and the wide cobbled path to the mere. The towering silver elms whose branches overhung that side of the house provided bucolic charm as well as shade.
Mered however was not happy that their bedchambers were separated by the senior Seydons’ quarters and an adjoining study. He let Yovan know of his displeasure as soon as they had a moment alone. Yovan was highly amused and pointed out that was precisely why his parents had made sure to set their quarters apart. They obviously did not trust their youngest son not to get into mischief.
––––––––
Remir Cordona scowled as he dabbed at a cut above Mered’s left eyebrow. It was neither long nor overly deep, but the edges were a tad uneven.
“What possessed you to ask Master Yovan to teach you how to fight?” he scolded. “It’s not as if you’ll be riding off to war or some such nonsense!”
Yovan’s eyebrows rose slightly at his future law-father’s comment. He refrained from shaking his head and turned his attention back to Mered, grinning a bit at his intended’s smudged face, tousled hair and ripped shirt.
Mered came upon him sparring with his father in the garden the second morning of their stay. Even at his age, Evran still kept his body fit and his fighting skills honed. Yovan tempered the force of his blows to allow for Evran’s greater years, but not to the point the elder Seydon no longer felt the strain of exertion or the need to employ his skills to the utmost. The youth watched them with fascination until Evran announced himself satisfied and entered the house to seek a cool drink and a warm soak.
Whereupon Mered asked Yovan to teach him how to fend off an attacker. Deciding Mered would be better served if he knew enough to protect himself from assault however unlikely, Yovan agreed. Mered eagerly doffed his jerkin and applied himself with all the excitement of a neophyte.
It became quickly apparent he knew nothing about fighting. Yovan did his best not to push him too far too soon, but the youth nonetheless landed on his back, belly or knees a number of times before he finally perfected a few defensive moves. By then, his face was scratched, he’d suffered the aforementioned cut above his eyebrow, his shoulders were sore, one elbow and both knees were scraped, and there was a welt on his leg which promised to bloom into a colorful bruise. Yet Mered remained exuberant when Yovan ended the lesson and asked that they resume their sparring the following day after he’d had time to recover.
Remir encountered them as they headed for their quarters. He was quite perturbed when he spotted Mered’s face and insisted on tending to his injuries minor though they were. Yovan thought it kind of Remir and a mark of parental concern. Until the Deir made his disparaging comment and went on to chide Mered for incurring damage to his face.
“Bad enough to be plagued with so many blemishes,” he muttered as he cleaned Mered’s cut. “Why in Aisen would you risk adding more to your face? You do realize this may scar. And all these bruises and scratches! Do you wish to go around looking like you participate in brawls like a common thug?”
Yovan frowned when Mered’s exhilaration wilted and his face fell in embarrassment when previously he’d been glowing with pride. He wondered about Remir’s harshness.
“What blemishes?” he asked. “Other than a possible scar, which I believe will fade, I see no other marks on his face.”
Remir glanced at him in surprise. “I meant his unsightly spots.”
“Unsightly?” Yovan’s frown deepened. “What’s unsightly about freckles? I think they’re alluring.”
Remir flushed slightly at the suggestive term. Yovan ignored his discomfort and glanced at Mered. The youth’s crestfallen countenance had brightened once more and he was looking at Yovan with gratitude.
His father finished smearing the cut, scrapes and deeper scratches with ointment. “You’re lucky Master Yovan likes your freckles,” he said. “No more fighting, understand?”
“But Ama—”
“How do you expect bluebloods to respect you if they think you take pleasure in fisticuffs?” Remir tartly pointed out.
“It’s just to defend myself.”
“From whom? You’re going to be kin-by-marriage to the Ardan. Who would dare attack you? Besides, highbred folk don’t go about scrapping like south district ruffians.”
Yorvan snorted. “On the contrary, many a row in the south district are started by highbred folk.”
Remir stared at him in disbelief, but Mered looked at him curiously.
“How do you know that? Have you indulged in scrapping in the stews?”
“And worse.”
Mered gasped. “Worse? Saints, have you ever killed someone?”
“Mered!” Remir exclaimed.
“I’ve come close,” Yovan admitted. “But if I must take a life, I’d rather do so in battle than in some tavern brawl with Deira too drunk or unskilled to defend themselves. Though if anyone does try to kill me, I won’t hesitate to put him down either.”
“Mercy,” Remir whispered in some horror.
Yovan shrugged. “I was trained to fight from an early age even when my father and I had not yet been taken back into the fold,” he said. “It’s part and parcel of being an Essendri. Indeed, Mered needs to learn enough in case he’s challenged by any of my kin to spar.”
While Remir stared at him in some shock, Mered’s eyes lit up in excitement. “Would they?”
Yovan grinned and nodded. “When we’re wed, they’ll seek to test your skills as those who taught me tested mine. There’s no lack of trained warriors in my House.”
“Then you’ll continue to teach me?”
“Enough for you to hold your own in a fight.”
“With sword and knife?”
“And bow and spear and fist. Incidentally, most Deira know at least the rudiments of wielding a knife,” Yovan remarked. “Why don’t you?”
Mered glanced warily at his red-faced father. “They said it’s unseemly to indulge in such things,” he murmured.
Yovan suppressed a sigh of annoyance. Where had Mered’s parents got their notions about aristocratic practices and traditions? Definitely from no blueblood.
“We’ll have to rectify that,” he said. “Once you’ve learned some, I’ll take you to the north district training hall and if Keldon permits, the Citadel drill yard for sword and knife play. Mayhap the archery yard too.”
He felt a thrill of deep pleasure when Mered flashed him a nigh worshipful smile.
––––––––
Mered tossed and turned but sleep evaded him and it was not because of his aching muscles. The vision of his betrothed clad in a low-necked, sleeveless shirt and breeches that clung to his limbs fired his imagination. He kept seeing in his mind’s eye sleek, sinewy shoulders and arms, a firm yet rounded arse and a gleaming, muscular chest. And Yovan defending him against Remir the other day and admiring the flaws his parents kept pointing out would have had him swooning had his father not been present.
Verily, just being constantly around Yovan these four days, exposed to his wit and humor, bearing witness to his grace under pressure or awkwardness, basking in his tender regard, and occasionally tasting his inimitable kisses had left Mered in a state of near perpetual arousal.
The latter was not surprising in a Deir his age—long past the first sharp pangs of sexual awareness, but still months short of his thirtieth year when he could lawfully engage in physical intimacy with others. Ironically, they would be wed by then and have consummated the union. The one circumstance apart from concubinage that allowed a Deir below the age of consent to experience the joys of coupling would take place two months before Mered’s begetting day.
Would that he could drag Yovan to the nearest magistrate and get their handfasting over with, Mered thought. He’d been imagining what it would be like for months now. Truth be told, ever since Yovan kissed him in the orangery.
It had been no ordinary kiss, but a smoldering promise of the delights to come. The few kisses they’d shared since had further stoked his excitement. If only it was just the two of them who’d made the trip to the estate. But with both sets of parents about, the chances of getting Yovan alone to himself for any decent length of time were minimal.
He sat up in frustration and threw off the covers. Despite the chill of a spring night, his body felt much too warm for comfort, the heat fed by images of Yovan both seen and conjured. Especially when the conjured were far more scarlet than anything he’d seen.
Mered got out of bed and walked to the balcony. He threw the window-door open, hoping the brisk breezes would temper his imagination and cool his cheeks. He stepped out and looked to his right where Yovan’s bedchamber lay. It was just two rooms away from his own, a long balcony spanning the back of the bedroom and adjacent study his father had assigned to Yovan’s parents.
The longer he looked, the more he realized the balconies were not all that far apart. Indeed, with some agility and a little help from the overhanging branches of the elms, one could clamber onto the neighboring ones with ease. Mered grinned as he thought of the possibilities.
He hurried back inside, doffed his nightshirt and pulled on a loose flannel shirt, long breeches and boot slippers. And then he made his way back to the balcony and grabbing a long low branch, used it to swing himself the short distance onto the one next door. He hurried across it, the darkness veiling him from the senior Seydons’ notice. He easily reached Yovan’s room, landing just outside his window-door. It was slightly ajar.
Mered crept up to the open door. There was light in the room which meant Yovan had not yet snuffed out his bedside candle. He peered inside, expecting to find his fiancé in bed, perhaps reading the book he’d taken from the library earlier. He nearly gasped out loud when he saw Yovan.
He was indeed in bed, but reading was the farthest thing from his mind.
Yovan lay atop the blankets completely nude. One hand rested on his belly while the other lay further down, hidden by a raised thigh. The candlelight lent a soft sheen to his lightly tanned skin and threw shadows on his sculpted body.
Mered stared at him, taking in the length of his whole body. Just as his gaze landed on the upraised thigh, Yovan slightly lowered his leg. Mered caught his breath when he realized just how his other hand was employed.
It was curled around his shaft and stroking the thick column of flesh. Mered’s eyes widened at the sight of it rising out of a spare nest of dark brown curls. Scalding heat flooded his face. He was intruding on something private and his scruples demanded he leave immediately. But his scruples were no match for the fascination and spikes of desire witnessing Yovan’s self-pleasuring evoked.
Of a sudden he wished it was he who was touching Yovan, who provoked the arousal evidenced by the firmness of his shaft. His breath came in short huffs and he clapped a hand over his mouth. He stifled a moan as he watched Yovan’s strokes quicken. The smothered sounds that accompanied each stroke did not help and soon he was almost sobbing for breath. A sharp gasp followed by a groan heralded Yovan’s release. Spurts of semen spilled over his fist and striped his belly as he rode out his climax.
Mered bit his lower lip so hard, he nearly drew blood. He finally wrenched his gaze away. Veres almighty! He stumbled back a few steps and clung to the balustrade with shaking hands. For the longest while, he stood thusly, waiting for his heart to slow and his breathing to steady. When he deemed himself calmed down, he returned to the door and risked a peek inside the room.
Yovan was staring up at the ceiling, ocean blue eyes half-lidded. After a few more seconds, he sighed and reached for a shirt that hung from one corner of the headboard. He used the shirt to wipe his belly clean.
Mered gulped. Even the sight of Yovan wiping away his spend made for a provocative image.
At length, Yovan pulled the covers up and over his body and snuffed out the bedside candle. Mered remained still lest his betrothed sense his presence now that he was no longer distracted. Only when he was certain Yovan was asleep did he make his way back to his room.
He tore off his clothes, scrambled into bed, and burrowed under the covers. Pressing his heated face into the cool softness of his pillow, he wondered how in Aisen would he sleep now. He should not have spied on Yovan, he chided himself. He had invaded his intended’s privacy. He should be ashamed of himself. But verily, he felt no shame at all.
Watching Yovan pleasure himself made Mered ache with wanting as he had never ached before. The memory precipitated a pooling of pressure in his crotch. He groaned and pressed his groin into the mattress, desperate to relieve the ache and the pressure. Yet he did not care to touch himself.
All the pleasure he’d known at his own hands were nothing beside what an experienced lover could give him. From hereon he wanted to know release at Yovan’s hands. Yovan touching him, kissing him, stroking him to a climax. Fucking him. His imagination got the better of him and he rubbed his crotch against the bedclothes in abandon.
The friction proved enough and intense pleasure exploded in his groin. He muffled his moans into his pillow. Wet warmth seeped into the sheet under him. He did not move for several thumping heartbeats until the wetness became uncomfortable.
With a groan, Mered rolled onto his back. It was the strongest orgasm he had ever experienced. He turned his head and stared out the balcony doors at the darkness outside, his thoughts centered on the Deir he would soon call mate.
––––––––
Yovan glared at the disorderly pile his superior had left behind. Normally, Master Gaval was tidy to a fault. But crises scattered his wits such that he would forget where he lived if Yovan did not remind him of it. He supposed the birthing of a child counted as a crisis to the easily rattled instructor and so he resigned himself to putting everything in order before he headed home.
As a student instructor, Yovan did not have his own office at the State University. Instead he’d been given a desk in a corner of a senior professor’s chamber. He was fortunate he’d been assigned to Master Gaval rather than the University’s much-feared terror Master Ervath. From all accounts, the latter’s hardhandedness did not stop once he left the classroom. Yovan sometimes wondered if the Deir’s brilliance in the sciences was worth putting up with his tendency to run roughshod over his students.
He started to clear Gaval’s desk by putting files and other documents away in the small cabinet behind the table. He then returned books and scrolls to their nooks and shelves in the bookcase by the window. He was rearranging a series of tomes according to volume number when he heard the door open. Given Gaval’s forgetfulness when he was in a tizzy, he assumed it was the Deir returned for something he’d left behind in his haste.
“Did you forget something, Dyhar?” he asked without turning around.
Sleekly muscled arms slid around him and a sturdy body pressed up against his back. Yovan swung around to meet Mered’s impish gaze.
“Yes, I forgot to visit you earlier today,” he quipped.
Yovan narrowed his eyes suspiciously. He was familiar with Mered’s class schedule. “Playing truant?”
“Nay, my last class was cancelled on account of the instructor coming down with a severe bellyache.” Mered wrinkled his nose in distaste. “He probably just had too much to eat at lunch.”
Yovan snorted. “Perhaps. Now why are you here?”
“To visit you of course,” Mered cheekily replied.
“I’m not allowed visits by students,” Yovan reminded him. “Besides, this isn’t my office. Imagine if Gaval was here. He’d be obliged to report us.”
“I saw him leave and in quite a frightful hurry,” Mered said. “I’m no halfwit.”
“I didn’t say you’re—” Mered cut Yovan off with a patently unchaste kiss. Before he could respond, he was treated to a hungry, open-mouthed caress made even more heated by the undulation of Mered’s body against his.
Yovan pulled away with a gasp. “Mer! What are you—”
Again, Mered cut him off, all but soldering their mouths together and crowding him against the bookshelf. Yovan briefly gave in to the pleasurable assault before managing to gather his wits about him. He grabbed Mered by his arms and pushed him away, but he did not let go lest the youth throw himself at him again.
“What are you about?” he demanded. “This is highly improper.”
Mered was flushed and slightly trembling. He licked his lips and drew a shuddery breath. “I want you,” he blurted. “So very much.”
“We’ll be wed in three months,” Yovan reminded him. “You’ll have me then. Surely you can wait.”
“Nay, I can’t!” Mered pouted. “Veres almighty, I’ve been yearning to learn my bed manners longer than I can stand.”
Yovan stared at him. His grip on Mered’s arms tightened. “You know it’s unlawful to have relations with anyone below the age of consent save for a spouse or leman. You’re neither. Would you have me break the law?”
“But no one will know.”
“I will know.”
“Why should it matter? We’re going to be wed soon.”
“Which is when it will be legal to bed you.”
“Why must we wait?”
“Because it’s the law and I don’t care to break it. I refuse to travel down my grandsire’s road.”
“Your grandsire?”
Yovan’s lips tightened. “It was his disregard for propriety and the law that led to his ousting from the royal family and all the difficulties that beset Oda Morev and Ama. Difficulties that compelled Ama to accept the first decent proposal he received at such a late age.”
“That’s absurd. You’re not at all like your grandsire.”
“But if I behave as he did, naught will set me apart from him.” Yovan raised his hand and cupped Mered’s chin. “Don’t think I don’t want you. Indeed, it’s a constant battle to keep my hands to myself when you’re close by. You’re a terrible temptation.”
Mered swallowed hard, just the sight of his throat moving almost undoing Yovan’s resolve. “You’re an even worse temptation now that I’ve—” He stopped and looked down, his cheeks starting to color once more.
“Now that you’ve what?” Yovan frowned when Mered blushed more deeply than ever. “Mer? What is it?”
“I-I saw you,” Mered whispered. “The last night in Woodmere. You were in bed and I, uh, saw—” He looked up at Yovan guiltily. “I saw you, um, touching yourself.”
It took a few heartbeats for his words to register. Yovan’s eyes widened and he gaped in disbelief.
“You saw me? From where?”
“Your balcony...”
“How did you get to—” Yovan stared. “Don’t tell me you climbed your way there.” When Mered winced, Yovan put a hand to his temple. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered. And then Mered’s confession struck him all over again. “You watched me? Deity’s blood!”
“I didn’t mean to!” Mered caught Yovan’s hand when he started to lower it. “I only meant to visit you. I didn’t think you’d— Please don’t be angry!”
Yovan noted the sudden fear in the youth’s eyes. “Rest you, I’m not angry. Just... shocked.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what to say.”
Mered smiled wanly. “There’s naught to say. I’m at fault. I’m so sorry for embarrassing you, but... I’m not sorry I saw you. It affirmed my admiration for you. My desire.”
“Mer...”
“If I have any regrets, it’s that I ache for you so badly and there’s no way to relieve it because you don’t want to.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to. Veres knows if it were allowed I’d be fucking you on the couch this minute.”
Mered caught his breath. His eyes sparkled with elation. “It’s only a few months to go,” he softly pointed out. “Why wait to assuage our longing for each other?”
Yovan snorted. “In this I’m indeed unlike my grandsire. It isn’t I who’s bent on seduction.” He touched his forehead to Mered’s. “Do you truly ache so much?”
“I wager much more than you,” Mered said entreatingly. “Have pity on me.”
“You don’t know what you do to me,” Yovan murmured. He drew back and gazed into limpid moss green eyes. “The Maker forgive me but...” He exhaled. “For you I’m willing to bend the law.”
Mered squinted. “Bend the law?”
Yovan smiled ruefully and ushered him to the couch. As they moved toward it, he focused on the door. Mered caught his breath as the bolt slid into place. He looked at Yovan wonderingly as he drew him down beside him. Yovan pulled him close and crushed their mouths together.
The youth gasped but quickly responded, wrapping his arms eagerly around Yovan’s shoulders. When Yovan let his lips trail down to his jaw and throat, Mered moaned.
“I thought you didn’t want to break the law,” he half stuttered even as he helped Yovan unfasten his collar to expose more of his neck.
“I don’t,” Yovan whispered before sucking the sweet flesh under his lips.
Mered inhaled sharply and then ran his fingers desirously through Yovan’s hair. Yovan left off his kisses briefly to meet Mered’s befuddled gaze.
“It’s forbidden to take a Deir’s virginity before he can legally consent to it unless he’s wed or a leman,” he explained. “But the law is very specific about what constitutes defloration. It requires penetration of either party engaged in a coupling. Or to quote legalese, the insertion of one’s member in any orifice of one’s partner.”
Mered digested the information with palpable excitement. “Then... so long as we only use our hands and kiss each other, we won’t be breaking the law?” he asked so hopefully Yovan softly laughed.
“Technically,” he replied before pulling Mered into a spate of torrid kisses.
The youth responded so enthusiastically, Yovan found himself aroused to a hardness that tempted him to yank Mered’s breeches and drawers down and plow him senseless. Stifling the impulse, he unbuttoned the youth’s breeches and slipped his hand into his drawers to wrap his fingers around the shaft nestled within.
Mered jerked in surprise but did not pull away. To Yovan’s delight, he climbed onto his lap instead to straddle him, making it easier to draw his shaft out. As was natural for a Deir not yet come of age, the rapidly firming column and the tender sac underneath were a pale rose. When he approached his majority, both would darken in hue.
Yovan held Mered flush against him and continued to stroke the firm flesh in his hand. All the while he kissed him with the hunger he’d been suppressing all these months. Mered returned every kiss and caress with breathtaking ardency.
“Please, oh please,” he gasped against Yovan’s lips. “I want to touch you too. Let me touch you.”
Yovan knew himself lost and dipped his chin in assent before marauding the side of Mered’s neck as the youth hurriedly reached down to undo his breeches. He hissed as he felt fingers grip his shaft, free it from the confines of his clothing and start to caress it.
“Holy saints, Van, I can’t wait to have this inside me,” Mered groaned. “I wish we didn’t need to wait to have you inside me.”
That nearly shredded Yovan’s resolve. He took a steadying breath and reminded himself of what they could or could not do.
He lowered his other hand to the youth’s shaft and coated his fingers with emerging semen. He slid the hand down the back of Mered’s breeches to the cleft of his buttocks. Because Mered was astride his lap, the cheeks of his bottom where slightly parted and it was easy to locate the tight entrance to his arse. Yovan pressed a slippery finger in halfway.
Mered reared up with a soft cry. He sank down again and in doing so impaled himself on Yovan’s finger almost to the knuckle. His body all atremble, he trained wide, wondering eyes on Yovan before moaning and burying his face in the crook of his neck.
“Mer?” Yovan ceased his stroking though he did not withdraw his finger. “Are you all right?”
He felt the youth nod against his neck. “So good,” he whispered. “Please, I want— Oh Veres, I don’t know what I want. Yovan...”
His name spoken so helplessly and with so much longing was too much temptation to resist. Yovan thrust his finger in repeatedly while turning his head to catch Mered in a searing kiss. Mered gasped at the sensation. And when Yovan stroked the point within that provoked deep, dark pleasure, he wantonly writhed on Yovan’s lap and pushed down on his finger with abandon.
All the while they continued to kiss and caress each other until their breaths turned ragged and their movements more erratic. Yovan wondered if he’d ever indulged in a more erotic sexual act and decided he had not. As his pleasure spiraled into rapture, he quickened his stroking of the youth’s shaft.
Without warning, Mered climaxed and cried out against Yovan’s mouth. His seed dappled their bellies and crotches and Yovan’s hand. The sight of semen flowing from his shaft pushed Yovan over the edge. Scant heartbeats later, he added to the copious smears on their clothing.
Afterward, he withdrew his finger, leaned back against the couch to catch his breath and await the slowing of his heart. Mered slumped against him and rested his head on his shoulder.
“It was more than I expected,” Mered murmured.
“But you enjoyed yourself I trust?”
“That’s putting it mildly. I’ve never known the like.”
“I should hope so considering it usually takes a partner to help one reach such heights of pleasure.”
“Has that been your experience?”
“It has. But nothing I’ve learned prepared me for intimacy with you.”
That fetched him a smile so bright, it was as if the sun had made a side trip through the office on its way to setting for the day.
Mered clung to Yovan for a long while. He whispered words of awe and gratitude, punctuating them with soft kisses and affectionate touches to Yovan’s cheeks and jaw. Yovan caught one hand and pressed his lips to its palm, his eyes trained appreciatively on Mered until the youth turned rosy all over again.
At length, Yovan plied his handkercher to clean them of the worst of the mess on their groins and clothing. They drew up their drawers and breeches and arranged their tunics to conceal the remnants of their intimacy. Yovan stood up and pulled Mered to his feet. He held him loosely in the circle of his arms.
“Don’t wait for me,” he said. “I haven’t finished putting away everything thanks to a certain untimely interruption.”
Mered giggled. “Say rather an unexpected interlude.”
Yovan snorted and kissed the tip of Mered’s nose. He walked with him to the door which he unbolted and opened.
Before he exited the chamber, Mered grinned in that now familiar impish way. “After we wed, will I be allowed to visit you here?”
“Of course. Why?”
“So we may put the couch to better use!”
Yovan rolled his eyes and made to swat his fiancé’s arse as he stepped out of the room. Mered laughingly evaded his hand and jauntily strolled away, pausing ever so often to look back and wink at Yovan or blow him a kiss. When he turned the corner, Yovan stepped back into the office, shaking his head as the enormity of what they’d done overcame him.
He’d circumvented the law. Ferreted out a loophole that allowed him to justify granting Mered his desire. And while his own lust was partly responsible for his actions, it was not the greater part. It was Mered himself and the need to please him and elicit that smile he seemed to have reserved for Yovan alone. Which begged a question.
When had the youth become so dear to him that he’d succeeded in overcoming Yovan’s closely held scruples?