sterngaze | open post

[Cardan laying his head in Liem’s lap is less exciting than some other things that could have happened as a result of his request, but it’s the one that Liem is probably better equipped to handle right now, given his slightly sleep deprived state. Regardless, Liem cycles through surprise and swiftly on to a budding, tentative delight at having his lap used as a pillow, which is something he has never experienced before. It strikes him as unexpectedly intimate, which immediately seems a little absurd given that they share a bed every day. But then, Cardan never uses any part of him as a pillow when they’re in bed.

Somehow he manages to keep his wandering thoughts from running off with his expression. At Cardan’s direction, he returns his attention to the sky.]

Very well. Let’s see…

[There’s a pause before he begins in earnest, as he scans the stars above and picks out the familiar shapes in it. After a moment, he starts speaking again.]

The first constellation I learned would have been the Pyre. Right now it’s hidden behind the tree, but you’ll be able to see it when we return home. The Pyre is quite bright, and its tip is our pole star, so it’s never hard to find.

[This is an area where Liem has had little formal instruction. He has to take his time as he talks, calling up things he learned from departed family members or the pages of old books.]

If you look at the moon, right now, and then about halfway between it and the trees, you’ll see five stars in a rough line, which we call the River. On the side of the River that’s closer to the moon are seven paler stars called the Dew Drops, and those are the hardest to pick out that I know of.

[He seems willing to continue for as long as Cardan wants him to, pointing out the Pack and the Threshold and the Cup and the Patriarch among others, though after long enough his knowledge will eventually begin to fail him. But it’s pleasing to tell Cardan things of no particular import, just because Cardan wants to know them and they have nothing more pressing with which to fill their time.

And it’s also pleasing to run his fingertips through Cardan’s hair as he does, which Liem will eventually hazard after he’s become comfortably ensconced in their activity—because it looks very soft, and because despite their close association for the past few weeks, Liem has touched Cardan even less than Cardan has touched him. He has, in fact, hardly touched anyone at all since they were wed, for any reason, and has been going a little insane about it.

So he pets Cardan’s hair, as he tells him about his stars, to the extent that he can.]

[ Cardan tries to imagine Liem as a child learning about the Pyre, and inevitably can only think of him the way he is now: serious and thorough, dressed in a tiny suit with tiny cuff links, perhaps already holding papers. Then he tries to imagine such a child dealing with Iago, and feels a prick of sympathy that no one asked him for.

Thankfully, he's distracted almost immediately by Liem's explanation. He lets that patient, even voice lead him through the stars, occasionally reaching up to follow along the path of an imaginary line as Liem describes it. The touch in his hair is a pleasantly shivery surprise, after all; Liem may feel him sigh and lean into it, his eyes half-closed, like a cat settling into being pet. And when, eventually, his questions thin out and Liem's answers trail off, he lets the silence creep in.

It's not uncomfortable.

It's probably the most content he's felt since he's arrived in this household. He's tempted to let that be it, to sit in companionable silence until Liem remembered that he had appointments to tend to, and Cardan would pull himself up and they would trudge back to the moth and fly back home.

He could just let it happen that way. But--

He will reach up, anyway, and touch light fingertips to Liem's jaw. Cardan traces the line of it down to his chin, then up the other side, over the point of his ear -- softer than Cardan's own -- down the slant of a cheekbone and over the curve of his mouth. Slow, considered, like learning yet another constellation under Liem's steady instruction.

Except that there is no guide, this time, only Cardan's own measured breaths and the carefully even look on his face. ]

[Liem doesn't know what to do with the easy, comfortable feeling that settles between the two of them as they rest there on the hillside, watching the sky. He cannot remember a time when being with Cardan has ever felt this uncomplicated, not since the very first moment he arrived at the estate for the wedding celebrations, and he cannot help but mistrust it—though for different reasons now than he would have had before. It seems impossible to him that the peace could last, and his awareness of its impermanence makes anxiety prickle at the very back of his mind.

He has long had a special talent for being uneasy with easy things.

Although his fingers continue to idle through Cardan's hair, his gaze can't linger on him for long without having to return to the stars. He seems to have gained a shyness about meeting his eyes, having lost whatever armour his certainty about Cardan's disdain for him had lent him. It's harder, with his husband's head pillowed on his thighs, looking alarmingly content to be there, to be satisfied with their indifferent union, with its business-deal vows and its loveless marriage bed.

And it's impossible to keep his eyes from his husband when his fingers alight without warning on his face, and wander it with such deliberate care. Liem finds his gaze drawn back to linger intently on Cardan's, hardly daring to move as fingertips trace his jaw, his ear, his cheek, his lips.

He's done much the same, when he's alone and the sun is risen outside, and he's trying to imagine the face he might see if he were to meet his reflection in the mirror. It's almost a meditative exercise; quieting, if a little wistful. But the feeling he gets when he meets that measured, even look isn't quieting at all.

He says in soft, light tones, ones not meant to be taken too seriously:]

Am I a pleasing diversion, Cardan?

[ Cardan's smile flashes white in the darkness. ]

The stars were the diversion.

[ And this time he does hook two fingers in Liem's collar, and does pull him down, so that Cardan only need to sit up halfway to kiss that serious mouth. Liem feels cool against his own heated skin, and Cardan lets that ground him, lets it temper his own savage impatience to something gentler and sweeter, more question than demand.

It's been a little lonely.

When was the last time he's gone so long without touch? At least a decade, surely, and be that as seconds in the span of an immortal life, he nonetheless feels the absence. Imagining the rest of that immortal life -- or at least a significant portion of it -- whiled away with naught but meaningful glances and suggestive brushes of his hand at the small of Liem's back is... unbearable.

Imagining one more month of that is unbearable. And stupid, because Liem was right: Cardan knows what he wants, too. What point is there in denying them both? ]

[Cardan flashes him that moon-bright smile, a smile that strikes Liem as more dangerous than any of the poised, sharp-edged ones he's levelled at him previously, and his heart gives a single, hard thump in his chest. Fingers snake into his collar to tug him closer; surprise flickers in Liem's eyes before he simply bends, compliant, as Cardan leans up to meet him.

But there is more patience underpinning that questioning kiss than he expects. And it is longing, rather than compliance, that makes him slide his arm around Cardan's back, just below the line of his shoulders, so he can linger, indulgently, with his answer.

Since the night they were married, Cardan has wasted not a single opportunity in making sure that he is always on Liem's mind. Liem has had no peace from him, found no solace—not in work, nor in leisure, not at social functions, nor in the privacy of his own bathroom. He has been nigh-unable to escape him for weeks, and in that entire time, excluding the night of their wedding, Cardan has kissed him on exactly one occasion—and even that had been cut cruelly short.

He cannot remember ever wanting to be kissed so much, for so frustratingly long. Cardan does not need to demand anything from him; all he needs to do is offer what Liem still, even after last night—especially after last night—doesn't have it in him to resist.]

[ It's something like relief. Liem indulges him, kisses him back, and Cardan cannot help the warm satisfaction that curls within him, though it is being outpaced rapidly by keen, sharp want. Cardan still half-expects to have his own trick pulled on him, to be rejected just before the moment of satisfaction; it would be a faerie thing to do, the story-like repetition irresistible for many of his kind. But Liem is unlike any Folk he knows, and Cardan finds himself a little tired of mistrust.

Loath as he is to abandon the -- novel, charming -- feeling of being held up, he's still going to sit up. This requires him to stop kissing Liem, which is a shame, and also means Cardan must twist a little awkwardly to face him. But it also means he can cup Liem's face in his hand and look at him, bathed in moonlight and frustratingly handsome for it.

Cardan likes that, too. ]

You asked me, once, whether people often hate it when I kiss them. [ He remembers it, because he hadn't expected Liem to be clever. He recalls also his own flash of annoyance, and what his revenge had looked like.

The lazy grin curling on Cardan's face assumes that they are both in on the joke. ]

Since I don't intend on kissing anyone else, I suppose it's your good opinion I ought to court.

[ Which is to say that he will do it again, and again after that. Time feels endless here; why shouldn't they tarry a bit, after such a long wait? ]

[The kiss that Liem gives Cardan feels like it has been a long time in coming. Behind it lies all of his want and loneliness and frustration, his bruised longing and the sheathed edge of his impatience, and he has not nearly been satisfied when Cardan stops kissing him so that he can finally sit up.

But he is mollified some by the warmth of Cardan’s hand cupping his face, and the view of him grinning at him, with his raven’s-wing hair still tousled from the idle attention of Liem’s fingers.]

Then you haven’t kissed me nearly as much as you should, [he says, with a hint of dry accusation masking his surprise. That Cardan would intend on kissing no one else but him is news to Liem, and he finds it especially surprising given how determined his husband had seemed to be to light aflame the paltry scraps of rapport they’d managed to scrape together. He would not have guessed those to be the actions of a man who cared about kissing his husband any time in the near future, nor about winning his esteem.

When Liem kisses him again, though, meeting the warm, lazy curve of his mouth with tender curiosity, the covetous slide of his arm around Cardan’s waist suggests he’s already formed his opinion. He’s more than half convinced that by the time they set foot back inside the house, Cardan’s good humour will have worn itself out, leaving the entire trip as little more than a pleasant dream—but it’s impossible to care about that now, when he is so beguiled by Cardan’s lips on his lips, his lean body tucked close, and the gentle thumping of his heart against the forest’s background music. He is tempted to nibble at that wicked mouth—so he does, gently, and wanders to trail cool kisses along the sharp line of his jaw.

So perhaps Cardan’s plans for vengeance were not so terribly shortsighted after all.]

And yet I am still so richly rewarded, [ Cardan drawls, and doesn't bother suppressing the little shiver he'd felt at the touch of those teeth. His face tilts easily to accommodate Liem's wandering kisses, and his laugh is a little breathless. If it's strange -- to have gone from cold war to this -- so what? If the peace is tenuous, if they are to start bickering again once the manor's walls close in on them, is that not only reason to enjoy the here and now?

Cardan has always been intemperate.

Liem is close, closer than he has been on any night except the one before, and this time Cardan is less encumbered by wounded pride. He remembers too well the body hiding beneath those well-tailored clothes, moon-pale skin and muscle, pliant against his hands. He wants to feel it again -- wants to sneak hands beneath Liem's jacket and run his fingers down his chest, feeling the shape of him under the fine fabric.

So he does.

It's odd, still, to feel no warmth; Cardan wonders what it would be like, skin-on-skin, wonders if his touch feels hot to Liem. Wonders how quickly he could remove the bothersome barriers of clothing from them both.

Perhaps he'll start with the shirt; Liem could stand to be a little more disheveled, anyway. ]

[Liem's only reply to Cardan's drawl is a low hmm—because he's right, he has only ever been rewarded for his prickly treatment of his spouse, and because Liem would rather keep kissing him now, while he has the opportunity, than scorn him for his temper and his mischief.

Which is not, he's aware, a good way to encourage better behaviour.

But he likes the breathless cadence of that laugh, and he likes the willing ease with which Cardan tips his head beneath Liem's lips, and he likes the way those clever hands drag down the contours of his chest. And in all honesty, he likes the self-satisfied drawl too, so the odds of Cardan getting exactly what he wants at this very moment are looking pretty good. Liem takes a shallow, distracted breath, his touch wandering Cardan's back through the barrier of his shirt, and noses further down to kiss his neck.

This, despite the strange forest-green quality that makes Cardan smell so different from any human or vampire Liem has known, is still familiar: the hot skin of his throat, the pulse fluttering beneath the path of his lips. Liem sucks a kiss against the side of his neck, enchanted—then, recalling with curiosity the shiver Cardan had for the scrape of teeth on his lip, he teases his fangs over the kiss-damp skin.]

[ Liem has evidently found a good spot. Cardan will shiver again for the touch of his mouth; bizarrely, paradoxically, his skin feels overheated in the wake of Liem's touch. He's distracted from Liem's shirt by the want to card fingers through his hair. As it turns out, he has too many places he wants too touch and not enough hands.

He's reshuffling his priorities when he feels teeth-- no. Fangs.

The reaction is immediate. Cardan sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes fluttering closed; the fingers on Liem's shirt buttons stutter, then bite, pressing hard into cool skin. There is an animal instinct to it, a swift sense of caution, like the feeling of standing at the edge of a cliff--

For a moment, he is suspended in it, in the hot thrill of danger that rushes down his spine and straight into his cock. He's always been unwisely fond of this kind of risk, always too enamoured with the challenge of it, as moth to flame.

He opens his eyes, looks down at Liem. The expression on his face is coolly imperious-- though his breath comes quickly and his pupils are dilated, black-on-black. For a heartbeat, he will only stare.

Then he smiles one of his sharp-edged little smiles. ]

Don't tease something you aren't going to do, Liem.

[ The hypocrisy of that demand does not escape him. ]

[Cardan's reaction is fascinating. Not just because of the way his breath sucks in and his pulse jumps, though Liem certainly notices those things, just as he notices the stutter and bite of the fingers on his chest. There's a part of him that will always thrill in the moment of realization, the visceral reaction that comes when someone feels the promise of his teeth and can't help but anticipate their bite. It sends a shiver right through him, heady and thrilling.

But the really fascinating thing is the look Cardan gives him, like he's gazing down at him from a throne instead of on a hillside with Liem's mouth still just a breath away from his neck. He didn't expect Cardan to swoon at the touch of teeth at his throat, but this is a reaction he's never received before. That sharp little smile pairs amazingly with the wide pupils, the quick breaths; he looks like he's staring death in the face and isn't particularly impressed, which is outrageously sexy.

But it does not really look like the reaction of someone who is pleased with the direction things are going.]

I'm not going to bite you unless you want me to.

[He leans back a little, trying to better gauge the look Cardan is giving him. It could simply be goading, he supposes, but if that's the case then he doesn't understand where the sudden chill has come from. A little furrow appears between his brows.]

Or… did you think I would refuse?

[ Cardan blinks.

...this is not quite how he envisioned this going, either. Liem was supposed to feel provoked into doing the thing that Cardan and his very obvious (to Cardan) arousal want him to be doing, not into asking ridiculous, self-evident questions.

His eyebrows inch up. ]

You haven't shown any particular desire to.

[ Which is, in fact, insulting. It's not like he doesn't know that Liem feeds; his smell is the sharpest of his senses, and it's not particularly hard to note the faint scent of blood, nor the way Liem looks just a little perked in the aftermath.

Cardan's hand leaves Liem's chest to make an airy, dismissive gesture. ]

I presumed you had little taste for immortal blood.

[ He presumed this because the alternative is worse. ]

[Liem regards Cardan’s incredulous expression with a faint frown, mostly because he’d been trying to be respectful and his husband has once again found his peculiarities irritating instead. It is unusual for higher vampires to marry outside of the vampire aristocracy, and there isn’t much precedent to dictate how one should treat a warm-blooded spouse. But he’d imagined that thirsting after him as a meal or a plaything would make their union seem demeaning, especially to royalty.

He recalls what Cardan said to him after the night of their wedding, after he’d brought Cardan into his bedroom for the very first time:

Never have I been insulted with such an excess of consideration.]

I’ve spent the last several weeks convinced that you couldn’t stand me.

[He has not, actually, been dissuaded from believing that to be true, but that had doubly been his assumption prior to tonight. His hands do not move from their places: at Cardan’s hip, at his back. In fact, they have gone very still.]

I did not imagine you would welcome the opportunity to let me drink your blood, except perhaps as a chance to make me regret my interest.

[ The difficulty is that Liem is not incorrect: Cardan has been annoyed with him, and he very well may have found a way to make the experience of drinking from him fraught. It’s possible that he is doing it right now.

Neither of those things, in his mind, preclude fulfilling a marital duty – and he had assumed this to be one. Had braced himself for it, prior to his arrival; had thought it would, perhaps, not be so bad after all, upon that first flutter of attraction, way back on the night of their wedding.

But Liem had never asked, and Cardan would never offer himself up only to look a fool.

Now, however– ]

Are we not wed? [ His tone is a little arch. ] Why would I have denied you such a thing?

[Liem is too incredulous to rein in the sharp little puff of breath, not quite a laugh, that escapes him at the sound of Cardan’s question. Since when has their marriage inclined Cardan to give him what he wanted? Yes, why indeed should Liem doubt Cardan's generosity with his own lifeblood when seeking his good graces has been like trying to bottle moonlight?]

Perhaps for the same reason you decided not to fuck me last night, [he says primly.

It's a little unfair of him to drag Cardan's little prank back into the open after he already apologized, but Liem is well used to apologies that serve no purpose other than to help the giver feel absolved, and he is rather tired of them—just as he is tired of Cardan getting sassy with him for failing to read his mind.]

Or for any other reason you might like. I couldn't possibly say.

[ Cardan’s eyes narrow. His fingers find Liem’s hand on his hip, close around his wrist; for a second it might look like he is going to pull it off him, but he doesn’t. Instead, his hard grip seems like it means to keep Liem there. ]

Nothing, [ he tells Liem, quietly, ] was stopping you from canceling on your little banquet.

[ He’s shifting to rise into a kneeling position -- slow, deliberate. His focus never strays from Liem's face. ]

Nothing– [ His free hand finds Liem’s shoulder, pushes him back, against the grass. If he permits Cardan this, he will find his husband straddling him, his forearm braced against the ground. ] –barred you from touching me all these weeks.

[For a still, clear moment, as Cardan’s eyes narrow and his fingers close around his wrist, Liem thinks he’s landed himself in exactly the same circumstance that led to their needing to come here to begin with. He thinks he’s finally irritated Cardan enough that his husband wants nothing more to do with him, burned through his goodwill in the very same night that he’d managed to earn it.

But as it turns out, he still doesn’t understand Cardan very well at all.

He doesn’t bother to resist the hand pushing at his shoulder, forcing him back until he lands with a gentle thump against the grass. He doesn’t bother, because Cardan’s right, he can admit that he’s right, and Liem isn’t even sorry. He chose not to give him a second chance that night, when he stalked out of their bathroom. He chose not to give in to Cardan’s little campaign of torments and distractions. Ultimately, he’d chosen his pride and he’d chosen to do things his own way, as he’s been doing for years. He can’t blame Cardan for doing the same, even if Cardan’s way has been driving him more than a little crazy.

He’s still annoyed. Though, with his husband leaning over him, quiet and menacing and intent, it’s impossible not to feel electrically horny as well.

His hand is still splayed on Cardan’s hip. As the elf straddles him, Liem slides his other hand up his thigh. He says, evenly,]

I’m touching you now, you impossible man.

And they said Mab was the miracle worker, [ retorts Cardan, acidly. If Liem has complaints about this, he's going to have to wait until Cardan runs out of breath, because he's going to kiss Liem like it's the last thing he's getting to do in this life.

...on second thought, he's going to bite Liem, and then he's going to kiss him.

It's not like he's not aware of his responsibility in this mess. He's capricious, and cruel, and difficult; it's why he'd tried the apology in the first place. But it hadn't seemed to matter for longer than an hour, and now they're here, and he's at the end of his patience. And even if nothing else works, they appear to have no issues with mutual desire.

Case in point: the nigh-painful longing that hand on his thigh sends through him. How absurdly satisfying it feels have Liem trapped under him -- all slim, surprisingly solid muscle and steady hands. Liem's ire only makes it better, makes the spiteful, foolish part of Cardan prickle with excitement -- not unlike that brush of fangs at his throat, though this time Cardan is the one showing teeth.

He has decided, in the split second before he'd moved, that they were long past preambles. His fingers leave Liem's wrist, because he needs them elsewhere. Namely: he's going to slide his hand inside Liem's trousers and palm his dick, finding it as surprisingly cool as the rest of him.

A part of him is afraid that if he doesn't seize the moment, they're going to find something new and exciting to fight about. ]

[Initially, Liem had hoped that he might get to touch more of Cardan without treading on his pride and making him all prickly. That ship has sailed so irrevocably it's completely out of sight, but when Cardan leans down and bites him, the spike of lust that flares in his gut is hot and immediate. Their kiss muffles a sharp, impatient noise. Fuck the circuitous maze their marriage is threatening to become; he has much more pressing things to devote his attention to right now.

Things like the warm contours of Cardan's palm rubbing over his cock. Liem squirms under the touch, his fingers gripping tighter on Cardan's thigh, and he decides immediately that Cardan still looks far too put-together for their current activities. The recently freed hand on his hip slides down, makes a detour over the modest curve of one ass cheek, then climbs again—to his waist, where Liem will begin methodically tugging Cardan's shirt free of his trousers.

The longing from before seems to have evaporated completely, buried beneath the weight of Liem's frustration and long leashed want. He kisses Cardan with hungry insistence, and when he pauses for breath Liem waits like a stalking wolf before pouncing on him again. But between kisses, he still manages,]

You… have made my life… so difficult, Cardan.

[Is that a miracle? Seduction by means of terror campaign? It hardly seems deserving of the title, though Gusairne also makes Liem's life difficult and the amount of sexual tension between them has always been zero, so clearly Cardan is doing something special.]

[ Yes, Cardan thinks as he breathes in the noise Liem makes; yes at his easy reaction to Cardan's touch. ]

You could have [ he's already a little winded, and mildly reconsidering starting this fight with someone who doesn't breathe; except that the merciless assault of kisses is intoxicating, and he's never regretted anything less in his life ] asked me to stop.

[ Would he have? Possibly. But Liem didn't ask, is the point, has made no attempt to shield himself from Cardan's terrorism, and doesn't appear to be particularly eager to get away from it now.

If Liem is working on disheveling Cardan, then Cardan is not far behind: he's going to make short work of Liem's fly, so he can take him in hand and stroke, rather than just palm at him. He doesn't bother to be artful about this -- far too wound up by the simmering frustration between them -- but he will be unrelenting, greedy for signs of Liem's pleasure, for the interesting feel of cool skin where he's used to heat. Idly, he wonders if fucking Liem will be like fucking a particularly attractive marble statue.

He supposes there is only one way to find out.

Cardan's free hand finds its way to the fastenings of his own trousers... the loosening of which will, in confluence with Liem's ministrations, free the whip-like tail from beneath his clothing. He shivers, distracted for a moment, as it uncoils into the night air; Liem may feel the odd, twitchy sweep of it over his thigh. ]

[Liem may not need to breathe, but Cardan's touch is distracting him quite competently from actually continuing their quarrel. The breath he snags between greedy kisses sighs from him on a groan, low and hungry, as he squirms again into that incessantly stroking hand. He slides his own hand beneath Cardan's clothes at the first opportunity, eager for the touch of hot skin beneath his palm, and rucks the fine fabric up his back as his arm slides around him.

He could be trying harder to control himself, could be making Cardan work more to tear his composure to ribbons, but he doesn't have the patience for that right now. Besides which, he's been nothing but composed for weeks on end, and now that Cardan is on top of him again, helping himself to his body, he sees no point in pretending that this isn't exactly what he wanted. Short-lived as the peace between them was, Liem is still grateful for his apology; it makes the prospect of fucking his husband at the very first opportunity after last night far less embarrassing.

But he does tip his face up and nip again at Cardan's lip, and this time he isn't particularly gentle about it. He has been an absolute terror, after all.]

What in the world [he mutters as Cardan is unfastening his own fly] makes you think I wanted you to stop?

[ This time, Cardan doesn't protest the caress at his back -- rather, he will pause for half a breath to reach back and pull the bothersome shirt wholly off, dropping it carelessly into the grass. After, he presses close again, into the touch, loath to let go for longer than he absolutely must, longing to feel skin on skin. The little burst of pain left by Liem's teeth pulls a heated little sound from his throat; the rush of his own blood is deafening in his ears, frantic as his breathing.

He'll smile, then: a secretive, lazy thing, tucked against the line of Liem's jaw. ]

...I didn't.

[ It's true enough.

And it gives him time to breathe, for a second, having wrestled open his own troublesome trousers. Then he'll reach for himself. His cock -- hot, so much hotter than even the rest of him -- slides against Liem's, Cardan's long fingers wrapping around them both, his exhale shivery against Liem's skin. His's hips rock forward, shallowly -- and again, and again as he strokes them both off, and it feels wonderful, and strange, and triumphant all at once.

In the back of his mind, he realizes that he cannot remember the last time he's felt so overwrought from simple touch. ]

[Liem is reminded, as Cardan leans back briefly to rid himself of his shirt, that he has never actually seen Cardan unclothed before. The sight of him stripped to the waist, bare but for the glitter of jewellery against his skin, only makes him more curious, more eager to touch—and more frustrated that he's let himself wind up flat on his back without having removed so much as his jacket first. There are still too many layers between most of him and Cardan's skin, and it is too late to do much of anything about it.

It's too late because Cardan is already pressing close again, and because Liem can't imagine sitting up at this point so that he might shed some of his clothing. He doesn't want to imagine anything that isn't Cardan's weight on top of him, the long, lean line of his body hemming him flat against the grass. He just wants to slide one hand into that crown of dark hair and the other over that warm, slim back, and lean up to kiss the shell of one pointed ear.

So he does.

And when Cardan's cock slides fever-warm against his own, when those clever fingers begin to stroke them both, Liem clutches him close with another unsteady breath to press greedy kisses against the crook of his neck, the bared line of his shoulder.

He could bite him. He wants to bite him. But he also wants to hear Cardan say it first—or maybe again would be more correct. Either way, he's feeling just petty enough at the moment to not want to give him this specific thing, the reason for their fight in the first place, without him asking for it. So he kisses him, and he does tease, deliberately, with the light scrape of teeth—

But he doesn't bite.]

[ It's perfect.

For a moment, it's only perfect: the way their bodies fit together, the way Liem's mouth leaves pleasant goosebumps blooming on Cardan's skin, each uneven breath he coaxes out of his husband's lungs-- Cardan cannot think of anything he'd like more just then than the friction of their bodies and this quiet rhythm they're finding between them.

...then those teeth tease over his skin, again. He feels it, again, the shiver of want and fear; Liem might feel it too, in the way Cardan's cock pulses with it, in how his fingers tighten on them both... and then stutter to an abrupt halt. Even though Cardan aches for the sudden absence of touch, of movement, when his whole body feels like it's burning up with need.

Even then. ]

...Liem.

[ He sounds deceptively mild about it.

Cardan is going to lift his head, and then push himself up -- just enough for him to look at his husband's face. His own is flushed, and the little half-smile he wears is irritated -- as is the persistent twitch in his tail. A hand finds its way to Liem's face; Cardan's fingers brush over his mouth, his lips-- ]

I have asked from you only one thing: don't tease that which you will not do.

[ The fingers press, asking -- no, demanding -- admission to Liem's mouth. Demanding leave to press down on the soft pillow of his tongue, as if it were naught more than Cardan's plaything. It's as intentional as the thumb that whispers over the head of Liem's cock, with so little pressure it may as well have been a breath. ]

Surely you cannot have forgotten.

[Even though he is directly responsible, Liem still has to swallow a frustrated exhale when the spike in Cardan's pulse, the tightening of his grip, the jolt of hot, animal desire all culminate almost immediately in— Stillness. In Cardan's hand halting abruptly, in him pushing himself away from the touch of Liem's mouth to aim an annoyed look down at him. He can feel the tip of that tail twitching against his leg, an irritable flick that he barely notices compared to the affront of absence where heat and friction were just moments before.

He looks up at Cardan, rumpled and impatient and feeling a little thwarted, and he shivers slightly at the brush of warm fingers over his mouth.

When they push inside, he's too shocked to do more than flicker his eyelids, his irises thin, pale rings around pupils blown wide. No partner has ever dared to treat him thus, at least without express invitation. It's hypnotically attractive.

As Cardan presses down against his tongue, it doesn't occur to Liem to refute him—to tip his jaw enough to slice open skin, to let the scent of his immortal blood flavour the air. But he does let out a sharp, wanting little breath as humiliation shivers beneath his skin and pulses straight to his cock. He swallows, and tries his utmost to keep that shiver from turning into a squirm as that whisper of contact brushes over the tip.

There is nothing he can do to meaningfully respond to Cardan in this situation, so he assumes his input isn't important. Still, he gives the barest shake of his head, careful not to disturb the fingers in his mouth.]

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