[ It's relentless, the way Liem's mouth on his always makes his breath catch, makes excitement rise in his blood. It doesn't matter if it's the first time or the millionth. He is immediately distracted from his purpose; his fingers slide into Liem's hair, pull him closer still, suddenly ravenous for him. He will never tire of having Liem in his arms, of touching him, of holding him like a treasure he wasn't supposed to find.
How dangerous, that his husband clearly knows this now. How dangerous, that he's willing to use it to his advantage. And Cardan, who has ever been drawn to danger, to sharp things against his tender skin, is more than willing to step into the trap.
Besides, the mirror will be there when he's done kissing Liem to his satisfaction. It's only been a few nights since his return, and his husband has insisted on working through an alarming number of them. Cardan has not nearly sated his month-long need for him, still.
The fact that he has never once successfully sated his need for Liem in the months prior is immaterial, surely. ]
[Satisfaction blooms alongside indulgent pleasure as his lover pulls him closer, forgetting the mirror for the moment to devote himself only to Liem. Whether they are alone or in public, whether they have been apart for weeks or only for minutes, Liem is always, always starved for Cardan’s attention. He wishes always to be on his mind, and better yet, in his arms. He can only be triumphant at his success in diverting Cardan to such delightful effect.
Even though this, too, makes just a hint of anxiety curl in his belly. But that is only the ever-present fear that accompanies all precious things in his life; the more Cardan gives in to Liem’s tender demands, the tighter his embrace is and the more hungry his kisses, the more stubbornly that little fear reminds him of what he has to lose.
So he is all the more indulgent as he claims his kisses, twists around fully to stretch up along the length of Cardan’s body. He may as well enjoy the heat and shape of Cardan against him; he may as well enjoy how greedy for him his husband has become—impossibly even more than before, Liem thinks—since his return.
He will nibble at the tender curve of Cardan’s lip, eager to taste him. Eager to tempt him, too. Surely this is a finer prize than any reflection, no matter how new or how titillating.]
[ As usual, Cardan expects to have his cake and eat it. But then -- how could he possibly give this up, when Liem feels so perfect pressed against him, when the teeth on his lip make him draw in a sharp breath and clutch at his lover a little harder? No, surely he needn't forsake his husband's affection to enjoy the Undersea's gift. Besides, he so loves it when Liem is forward, when desire makes him pursue Cardan with uncharacteristic aggression.
...even if it is just his desire to avoid the mirror.
Cardan has no intention of letting his husband escape from self-awareness, but they needn't worry about that just now. Besides, if Cardan keeps kissing him, Liem will have no opportunity to protest Cardan undressing him right then and there.
One advantage to waking up -- and going to sleep, and sometimes fucking -- in the cavernous darkness of their unlit bedroom is that he has gotten exceptionally good at not needing to see clothing: his own, Liem's. His hands should make quick work of Liem's jacket, his waistcoat, and the buttons of his shirt. The layers are always maddening; he cannot recall ever being so eager to splay his hands over a lover's bare chest before. He cannot be fully patient for it, either: rarely does he get more than three quarters down the row of buttons before sliding greedy hands under the shirt. Every time, it feels like relief; every time, it makes heat coil tight and possessive in his belly. His husband, his lover, held just so in the covetous grasp of Cardan's hands. ]
[At first, it doesn’t occur to Liem to be concerned about the fingers busily undoing the buttons marching down his front, down his waistcoat and then his shirt. How could he worry over such a thing, when the sensation of Cardan’s hands undressing him, peeling off his clothes or sneaking beneath them, always sparks such helpless, eager relief in his chest? When it is always accompanied by an implicit, almost unconscious undercurrent of yes, yes, yes.
Those hands just make him feel so at home. He belongs in Cardan’s clutches; he has no words to explain the way that letting his lover strip him bare and lay claim to him makes him feel, but he knows it soothes some feverish, desperate part of him, and he knows he will never tire of it, no matter how many times he touches him like this.
He wants Cardan to be just as ravenous for him as Liem is for his touch. He hungers for the way his teeth make Cardan’s breath catch and his grip on him tighten. And, perhaps foolishly, he cannot make himself think of anything else just now. He is too busy kissing him, between breaths that hitch and stutter as warm hands move over his skin. Too busy threading his fingers through Cardan’s hair and tugging loose the fastenings at his collar.
It is only when he catches glimpses of them from the corner of his eye that he thinks to worry at all—but he is easily distracted from this thought, stubbornly determined as he is to avoid contemplating the mirror at all.]
[ It's instinct, now, to tilt his face up when Liem's hands gather at his collar -- because he forever wants Liem's bite. Because it never ceases to thrill him to expose his vulnerable throat to his husband, who is kind and patient and fastidious and terrifically dangerous. From under his lashes, he cuts a quick glance to the mirror, which dutifully reflects the two of them, entwined in each other. With his chin tipped upward as it is, he can see the pulse under his jaw flutter in unsubtle invitation. New and fading love bites peek out from beneath his collar, but the twin puncture wounds from the night of his arrival have long disappeared.
He wants them back.
It's an obvious trap, but that has never deterred Liem before. And anyway, would he truly refuse Cardan when his hands are pushing the layers of shirt and jacket and waistcoat off his shoulders? When they slide down his flanks, follow the steep angle of his hipbone to dip greedy fingers inside his trousers? More even than the thrill of Liem's teeth, Cardan has ever craved the thrill of his pleasure.
He looks at Liem, his mouth curving, delighted and insouciant. ]
[Eagerness squirms hot against Liem’s ribs as Cardan bares the length of his throat in easy, indulgent invitation. He feels at once both possessive and besotted, and can no more resist the urge to brush his mouth again over the marks there than he can deny the lazy tide of pleasure spreading beneath his skin in the wake of Cardan’s hands. Tugging silk and polished little buttons undone, he paints his affection deliberately down his lover’s neck.]
Reckless.
[His murmur is wistful as he lets his hands fall, allowing the layers of his clothing to slide from him to pool on the floor. Even when Cardan’s hands slide down his flanks, into his trousers, shivery sensation making Liem gasp against his neck, he resists the urge to give his husband what he has demanded.]
The last marks have scarcely gone.
[As ever, Cardan is the one to wilfully ignore the fact that his own blood is a finite resource. Liem cannot bite him whenever he wishes—much as the thought of it sends another greedy thrill straight down to his cock. He hungers for it, more ravenously even than he does for Cardan’s blood: the exhilaration of claiming Cardan so indulgently for himself; the greed and impatience it inspires in his husband. He wants it incessantly, unquenchably.
It makes him liable to forget to take care—and he cannot afford to forget. Not with Cardan, whom he can never stop wanting at all.]
[ He has to admit to engaging in wishful thinking. Since Cardan's little incident with the fainting, Liem has never allowed himself to ignore his self-imposed limits on sampling Cardan's lifeblood. Expecting him to be less conscientious about it this time has never once worked.
But that doesn't mean Cardan will stop trying, and tonight he is spurned on by a particularly important purpose. He wants Liem to see himself, blood-drunk and helplessly eager -- wants him to see that enchanting, vulnerable need on his own face. Maybe then his husband would understand just what watching him does to Cardan.
Besides, Liem hasn't said no. ]
I've gone a month without, [ he counters, wrapping warm fingers around Liem to stroke, eager for the silken weight of his cock in his grip. He's breathless, still, from the transit of Liem's mouth over the fading bruises on his throat, from the gasp his husband buried against his skin.
His free hand wanders up, greedy fingertips tracing the line of Liem's jaw, sliding into his hair to cradle the back of his head. Cardan wants him to stay right there, so he may wrest with his desire from an intimate distance. ]
[That is, Liem is fairly certain, not how donating blood really works. Obviously going a month without bloodletting doesn’t result in some surplus one could then burn through, no more than Cardan had any such excess when they were first married and he had yet to bite him at all.
And yet. And yet, this logic does nothing to lessen his desire, or to distract him from the seductive slide of Cardan’s warm fingers over his skin.]
How am… am I the one owing in this situation?
[He breathes the query against his husband’s neck, gripping at his shirt as he resists the urge to squirm into the pleasure of his touch. He is the one pressing compulsive, hungry kisses against Cardan’s throat. He is the one with the promise of Cardan’s blood still tempting him treacherously after weeks of only flat-tasting animal’s blood to sate him. If either of them is in arrears, surely it should be his husband, who exacted his promise to sup on no-one else and then left him to his own devices for the entirety of his Undersea trip.
It is entirely like Cardan to spin things this way. Liem nips at the tender skin beneath his jaw, a little punitive in his teased and growing impatience.]
Hah. [ It's more breath than laugh. His eyes slide closed, his thoughts stuttering for a moment under the onslaught of Liem's tender punishment -- and his not so tender nip, which makes Cardan draw in a sharp breath and suppress his own wanting shiver. ]
You have left me with a debt-- [ Their agreement was mutual, after all. ] --which you are... mm, refusing to let me repay.
[ He should be more sore about that, really, but it's difficult when his husband's mouth is so terribly, enchantingly distracting. It's cruel of Liem, he thinks, to deny him his bite when he's already doing so much to remind Cardan of its pleasure. ]
You call me reckless and terrible, [ which he greatly enjoys, don't get him wrong, ] yet have I not taken care, husband? Have I not been dutiful in curating my good health?
[ Of course, he doesn't actually want to argue about this, because he doesn't want to fight with Liem right now. It's why the fingers on Liem's cock remain unrelenting in their indulgent stroking; it's why he's still holding his husband close, unwilling to let him pull away from the temptation of Cardan's hammering pulse. ]
[Liem really should know better by now than to try to debate anything with his husband when Cardan is touching his dick. He cannot keep his thoughts straight in the face of that insistent caress, nor muster any reply to the accusations Cardan levels his way. There are surely reasons why Liem should insist on keeping to his restraint, but they escape him now, and all he is left with is the familiar desire to give his husband what he wants.]
You can talk me into anything, [he complains, breathless as he leans against his lover’s chest. Cool fingers working their way down his buttons slide greedily inside the half-undone shirt, splaying over heated skin.
He would be worried that his weakness for indulging Cardan is so unavoidably obvious, but this, too, is something he wants to give his husband. Even if being indulged at every turn only makes him grow bored, Liem still wants to give him the satisfaction first.
He bites. The rush of it trembles through him, makes him arch against his lover and squirm beneath his grip. Liem swallows back a moan as the sweet pleasure of Cardan’s blood tangles up in the warm solidity of him pressed close, the beguiling comfort of his scent and the demanding caress of his hand.
This time he won’t let himself drink so heedlessly—but still, the bliss of it seduces him, as it always does. Still, he feels himself melt a little in his husband’s embrace, even as the world goes bright and sharp around him—Cardan’s scent even more beguiling, his breaths somehow more musical. He drags his tongue over his lover’s throat, lewdly conciliatory.]
[ Cardan does moan; the familiar sting of Liem's bite arcs through him like lightning, dizzying in its thrill. It throbs all the way down to his cock, which is already straining impatiently against the confines of his trousers. He loves his husband's cool, eager hands; he loves the softness of his mouth in the aftermath of those dangerous fangs. He loves the pleasure that takes Liem over in moments like these, the way his control falters and gives over to need-- It fills Cardan with such terrible, devouring tenderness. He cannot stand it. ]
Only that which you already desire, [ he breathes, distracted fingers sweeping up to pet Liem's hair while he pursues said want. ] I am but the voice of your neglected self-indulgence.
[ And how good that it is a duty he was practically born to perform. To coax this stubborn, determinedly selfless man to selfishness -- what greater calling for a man has known nothing but entitlement all of his life? ]
[Fleetingly, Liem wonders if it is intentional, the way Cardan strokes his hair while arguing that he only talks him into agreeing to things he wants. It’s a broad category: anything that involves Cardan touching him might fit within it. His husband cannot have failed to notice this.
Not that it makes any difference if he has. Either way, Liem feels flushed and sensitive with greed, suddenly impatient for Cardan’s demanding caress and hungry kisses, which is surely just how his husband wanted him. Everything else fades away to irrelevance, leaving him tipping his face up to seek his lover with hungry eyes.]
My self-indulgence is questioning why we are still half-dressed. [With his free hand he tugs at Cardan’s shirt, intent on freeing it from his pants. There is still much too much clothing between Liem and his lover’s body.] And still standing in the middle of the room.
[ Cardan cannot help his soft laugh -- it's relatively rare for Liem to be the impatient one between them, so often does Cardan beat him to the punch. He is pleased with it, and he's pleased with the hurried hands intent on liberating him of his shirt, and he's pleased with all his successes, because-- ]
Because I am almost as stubborn as you are.
[ His palm skitters down to Liem's shoulder -- his other joins it opposite -- and, gently, he turns his husband, once more, to face the mirror. ]
Look.
[ Flushed, dishevelled, and in Cardan's clutches: this is how he wants Liem to see himself. He wants him to see Cardan's hand splayed possessively over his collarbones, long fingers framing his elegant throat. He wants him to see Cardan's throat, with its twin puncture wounds still weeping crimson. Wants Liem to see all the ways in which he is his. How much they have become each other's -- because surely no one could look at the two men in the mirror and not see the possessive hunger animating them both.
Cardan doesn't spend much time looking; after all, he's just seen it, and seeing Liem makes it difficult to focus on seduction -- because all he truly wants is to press him against the nearest surface and menace him with hard kisses until he begs Cardan to be fucked.
Which would run counter to his goals with the mirror, so.
No, he's not looking. He's busy leaning in to run his mouth up the curve of Liem's neck, so he can leave his own bite there, can suck a dark bruise onto pale skin and have Liem see it, for once. His free hand has already insinuated itself back into his husband's trousers, too impatient to wait. ]
[When Cardan peels him away from his body to turn him back toward the mirror, the noise that escapes Liem is nakedly frustrated. Like a dog with a meaty bone, he begrudges being pried away from Cardan’s still-bleeding throat, not to mention from his own mission to expose more of Cardan to his hungry attentions. It is cruel of him to tease like this, dangling indulgence in front of Liem only to snatch it away once he’s had a taste.
Cardan takes such obvious pleasure in driving him mad. How completely Liem adores him.
His eyes find Cardan’s first, meeting his intent stare, dipping longingly down the marked and bloodied line of his throat—spying the blood trailing toward the collar of the shirt he wasn’t quite able to strip from him. His lover looks threateningly delectable and nakedly hungry, so lovely Liem is distracted from his frustration by the heavy pang of desire that thumps against his ribs at the sight of him.
He wants him: his lover, his husband, his prince. He wants him so ceaselessly it threatens to eclipse everything else.
But his gaze flicks reluctantly over to his own dishevelled reflection—strange and almost-familiar, now bloody-lipped and half bare—drawn by the warm slide of Cardan’s palm over his chest, and the accompanying movement of the splayed hand in the mirror. Stillness claims him again for just a moment, uncertainty winding tension round his lungs and up his spine—but Cardan’s mouth is on his throat, and Cardan’s other hand is sliding down his body to find his cock, and these things make his eyes go unfocused and his body arch beneath his touch as breath again stutters out of his lungs.
Startlingly, all at once, he glimpses himself in his reflection: arching back against his lover, panting and heavy-eyed in his embrace, his expression soft with yearning. Mortification grips him as this image crystallizes before his eyes, like one of his most deeply buried fantasies bared to the world and staring him in the face.
He is transfixed, left speechless—and completely unable to tear his eyes away.]
[ It's both surprising and not at all, the way Liem goes stiff in his grasp just before realization seizes him. Cardan, at least, has had time to get used to it -- to the way his husband looks when desire takes him over, the way longing transforms his sharp edges, the way need adorns him like fine jewelry. No portrait could begin to do it justice. It is only fair that Liem be subjected to it too, now; after all, he's been victimizing Cardan with it all this time.
He is, as always, indulgent: leaving one love bite, then another, before he lets his mouth trail up to Liem's ear. His eyes find his husband's in the mirror, warmly amused. ]
Every time. You look like this every time.
[ It has the air of an accusation -- albeit a breathless, enamoured one. His teeth graze along the outside of Liem's ear, gently threatening. ]
How am I supposed to be anything but fiendish about it, Liem?
[ It's impossible, surely. No lover could see him so soft and full of longing and not wish to overwhelm and torment him, to make him squirm with desire. Or, at least, if such people exist, then they are of an entirely different species from Cardan. ]
[Before, Liem had hidden from his reflection; now, he cannot turn his gaze from it. He feels trapped by the undisguised need he is wearing so indulgently, hypnotized by the bliss that Cardan writes effortlessly across his features.
It is impossibly embarrassing; he feels the heated spread of something close to panic climb his throat as Cardan looks at him with that warm, knowing look, pinning him with it like a final verdict. He knows. He must know. Liem is unmasked, so utterly undone in his hands that he’s astounded his thoughts aren’t stamped plain across his reflection’s forehead.
Cardan, I need you. Make me yours.
But it is also frighteningly seductive: The sight of his husband wrapped possessively around him like a dragon with its hoard, caught in the act of putting his hands and his mouth wherever he pleases. His own drugged desire and infatuated submission, painted across flushed skin and trembling through the softened lines of his body. It is the most heartbreaking, impossible thing he has ever seen: his husband, smugly enjoying a treasure that Liem had long thought to be utterly without value.
Every time, his husband says, and Liem stares at him, feeling more vulnerable than he can recall ever being. But because it’s him, because he is locked in the cage of his arms, menaced by his self-satisfied good humour, this seems somehow intimate and erotic instead of terrifying.]
I belong to you, [he murmurs, as though this were the answer to a question Cardan was asking. Not the one he voiced, clearly—but that’s of no concern to Liem as he lifts a hand to slide it tenderly into his lover’s hair.]
Yes, [ Cardan concedes, and the erotic thrill of it rushes through him like hard liquor, hot and heady. It is strange to imagine, thinking back on their wedding and his noncommittal vows, that they would be here -- that he would feel such a surfeit of possessive tenderness for the man in his arms. That he could be capable of such. That Liem would want it from him.
It's a little terrifying. He doesn't know what his husband sees when he looks at him; it certainly doesn't seem to be the cruel, selfish person Cardan himself sees in the mirror. But then, Liem has yet to see him at his worst. Cardan can only hope that when that day comes, it will be far into the future.
As always, he finds it far easier to plan for the present.
The hand in his hair makes him close his eyes. He breathes Liem in, tightening his grasp around him as he strokes his pleasure higher. He can't help it; he wants him, no matter how difficult or dangerous for them both. He wants to savour this: Liem's lithe body pressed against his, the sound of his breathing, the familiar shape of him in Cardan's hand. Desire pangs through him so hard it feels painful, and when he opens his eyes again, his gaze in the mirror is a little obsessive. He lets it prowl over Liem's reflection as he draws his hand down his chest, over bare skin and lithe muscle. His thumb hooks into Liem's trousers -- already precariously draped over his hips -- to pull them down further, to expose more of him to both their eyes. It is always a perverse pleasure to undress him, to dishevel him, to pull apart that carefully crafted self-control to reveal the man underneath. ]
All of you.
[ He is Cardan's. The sober-eyed man whose office Cardan invades each evening may not be, but this Liem he will claim for his own. ]
[One strange, bewitching thing about this mirror is that although Liem has seen Cardan almost every single night during their marriage, and although he can appreciate him easily enough most times when they are in each other’s arms, something about the image of them together like this stirs unexpected tenderness in his chest. Perhaps it is the completeness of it, of being able to see the whole of them despite being almost as close physically to Cardan as he could possibly be. He has often experienced his husband’s greed for him, but never before has he seen him like his.
He only wishes he could kiss him, too. But Liem is forever wishing he could kiss him; this, at least, he is well used to.
Especially when Cardan is touching him like this. Liem feels his own breath grow harsh and restless as Cardan strokes his urgency higher, denying him his wandering thoughts, swallowing him up so his world shrinks to just Cardan’s embrace and the insistent, heated caress of his hands. His muscles twitch, too sensitive, as Cardan’s palm slides down his body to drag his trousers off his hips, revealing more of him to his own wanton, heavy-lidded gaze.]
Cardan—
[More and more, tension claims the languid eagerness with which he’d been draping against his husband. He shifts beneath his touch, hips restless with the climbing demands of his pleasure.]
He wants Liem to watch -- wants him to see the apex of his pleasure, wants him to know what he looks like when he falls apart. His own gaze in the mirror is serious, intent; he has lost the indulgent smugness from before. How could he maintain it, when watching Liem is driving him just as insane? His arm wraps around his husband, tightens, pulling him closer against Cardan's body and the erection trapped beneath the fabric of his trousers. That is torturous, too. When Liem moves his hips, he hisses-- bites back a moan, his hand on Liem's cock stuttering.
But he won't look away, either. Even if it's tempting-- even if the bare crook of Liem's neck beckons to him, seductive. He wants to put his mouth to it, wants to mark it again, wants to claim him in every way he can. But he cannot -- will not -- miss the moment his husband finds release. ]
I want you to see yourself.
[ Overwhelmed, oversensitive -- he wants Liem to see himself at his most taut and desperate, when desire makes poetry of his body, when all of his careful control slips away. ]
[It is hard to do what Cardan asks. Despite Liem’s earnest desire to submit to his demands, he is swamped with the much more physical and immediate demands of sensation, of insistent, unrelenting pleasure. He cares not at all for his reflection when Cardan pulls him tighter against his body, against his own arousal. His heavy eyelids want to flutter and sink closed when the hand stroking him stutters and returns to its urgent rhythm.
But the intensity of Cardan’s gaze traps him. Every time the rising tide of sensation washes over him, making his lashes dip and his eyes go unfocused, the force of that stare brings him back again, forcing his attention back to the mirror—to his own wanton reflection, bare and vulnerable in pleasure-soaked surrender. He sees as well as feels his own eager breaths, sees the helpless desire accompanying each soft, half-denied moan to escape his throat.
He can no more refuse that gaze than he can deny his own climbing, swelling ecstasy. The tender fingers in Cardan’s hair tremble and clutch as Liem bucks into his husband’s grip, his breath harsh in his throat. Even if he sees it from beneath his own lowered lashes, even if he is too enthralled by Cardan’s touch and scent to care for his own naked visage, he sees himself arch back against his husband, urgent and greedy and abandoned, as orgasm takes him. He looks as insatiable and as helpless as he feels—like he might let Cardan take him again and again and still, even then, remain a slave to his own want.
Even caught in the throes of his own pleasure, Liem cannot deny this to be truth.]
[ Cardan is pretty sure that he stops breathing for a while. It becomes unimportant -- not nearly as important as watching desire claim Liem, stroke by stroke and breath by breath, until the entire gorgeous length of his body is straining against it, arching into it, and, oh--
The noise that escapes him is hungry; his own gaze in the mirror turns a little desperate. It takes effort not to squirm against Liem — he’s so pitifully hard and terribly impatient, and his husband is right there, pliant and tender and dripping with eroticism. He drags in a torturously slow breath instead, trying to steady the wild racing of his own heart. It doesn’t work — of course it doesn’t work. Instead, he leans into Liem, over him, to press soft lips to his temple, his hair, the gentle point of his ear. ]
You did so well, [ he breathes, and despite meaning to praise Liem, his tone comes dangerously close to reverence. ] Look at how irresistible you are—
[ Well, Liem should feel it, certainly, in Cardan’s hungry hands skimming up to his hips, his waist, in the erection straining against the fabric of Cardan’s trousers, in the thundering of Cardan’s blood. ]
Turn around, [ Cardan demands, even as his hands direct Liem into the movement. The mirror was delightful, will remain delightful for trysts to come — but he wants to kiss his husband, now, and then he wants to take him to bed. ]
[The aftermath of his orgasm is a fraught time for Liem to be subjected to anything, let alone Cardan’s tender praise and gentle, wandering kisses. He is still aching with the slowly receding swell of his pleasure, still trying to quiet his breath and recall the vestiges of his composure. He has not yet recovered them when his husband leans closer to press warm lips against his temple, to murmur against his ear, so that a soft, wanting noise slips from Liem even as he feels his spent cock throb in alert, oversensitive protest.
He is looking at how irresistible he is—and at how easily Cardan’s tender encouragement deepens the faint, cool flush colouring his pale skin. It seems pitifully obvious to him how helpless he is against his lover’s indulgent doting, and he’s not sure whether Cardan’s apparent, urgent hunger might distract him from it, or draw him in like a shark scenting blood. He doesn’t know how much more of this he could weather.
Thankfully, Cardan’s demand frees him from the further humiliation of spectating his own desperate desire. He turns eagerly into the refuge of his embrace, sliding restless hands beneath Cardan’s lewdly dishevelled shirt, stretching up to kiss him with insatiable impatience. If his climax had at all threatened to satisfy him, Cardan has denied him that tranquility quite stubbornly.]
I need you, [he mutters.] You always make me need you.
[ He runs greedy hands up and then down the length of his husband's body -- his flanks, his back, his hips, his ass. Cardan's groping of him is entirely unabashed; he only wants Liem close, only wants those hands on his skin and that eager mouth on his own. He wants so many things, all at once: to kiss the delicate lilac of Liem's flush as it covers his cheeks; to lift him into his arms and feel his familiar, lithe weight cradled against his own body; to feel him, skin to bare skin--
Well, the last one will have to wait, given how painfully clothed he still is. But he will lift Liem, fielding a happy shiver at his closeness, and he will kiss his face, and then he'll turn from the mirror to convey them to the giant bed.]
Insatiable, [ Cardan says, and isn't sure which one of them he's accusing.
No, that's a lie; the smile that twitches onto his face is a little too sharp and a little too honest. ]
...I wish to have you. I wish to claim you until being mine is the only thing you know.
[Liem takes such shameful, greedy pleasure in the way his husband scoops him up, the way he holds him close and decorates his face with his warm, tender kisses. He should be beyond needing such comforts, and yet he cannot deny the immediate, bone-deep relief Cardan’s affection instills in him every single time. Liem’s chest feels tight with it; he wants nothing more than to let his husband do with him whatever he likes, unendingly, until the day Cardan’s gaze finally turns elsewhere.
At least that day must certainly be far in the future. For now Liem is pierced by his lover’s intent, longing stare, caught in his covetous hands—just where he most wishes to belong. He slides a hand round to cup the back of Cardan’s neck, tender and affectionate and so perfectly filled with his stolen, unearned happiness.]
My fondest wish, [Liem tells him. If only the scant, precious moments when he forgets everything else but Cardan’s closeness could be spun out for eternity. If only reality did not deny him so stubbornly with its demands.
But while they are here, in the private refuge of the chambers they share, there is nothing to deny them their wishes. Cardan can have someone who is only his, someone whose head could never be turned by anyone else, and Liem can belong to somebody who treats him like someone worth cherishing. They can both indulge their own soap bubble fantasies, and never mind when or how they might eventually end.]
[ Cardan huffs out a soft laugh, strangely amazed. Liem's response would be a bit of dramatic flattery, surely, were it not for the startling sincerity with which his husband delivers it. It's overwhelming, to see Liem so soft with affection. It makes the breath catch in Cardan's throat, makes his heart clench tight in his chest. He wishes so fervently for a way to cage these moments, to catch them in a bottle and put them on a shelf somewhere -- but then, what use is joy that has long died?
He ever desires the impossible.
When he lays Liem out on the bed, it is with the care one puts into arranging a rare flower -- heedless of his own greed, which still burns restlessly just under his skin. He throbs with it every time he inhales Liem's scent; each touch from those cool hands leaves him breathless all over. But the months he's spent with his husband had, as it turns out, made him perverse: even though he aches with unfulfilled lust, he does not rip Liem's trousers off him, does not cover him with his body and press him into the sheets with the sheer weight of his desire. Instead, his mouth on Liem's jaw is careful, deliberate. It remains so as it travels down the length of his throat, paints kisses over his collar bones, down his chest. Cardan wants to take his time; he wants to savour him.
And he wants, quite badly, to suck Liem's off. His husband had denied him this the night of his return.
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How dangerous, that his husband clearly knows this now. How dangerous, that he's willing to use it to his advantage. And Cardan, who has ever been drawn to danger, to sharp things against his tender skin, is more than willing to step into the trap.
Besides, the mirror will be there when he's done kissing Liem to his satisfaction. It's only been a few nights since his return, and his husband has insisted on working through an alarming number of them. Cardan has not nearly sated his month-long need for him, still.
The fact that he has never once successfully sated his need for Liem in the months prior is immaterial, surely. ]
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Even though this, too, makes just a hint of anxiety curl in his belly. But that is only the ever-present fear that accompanies all precious things in his life; the more Cardan gives in to Liem’s tender demands, the tighter his embrace is and the more hungry his kisses, the more stubbornly that little fear reminds him of what he has to lose.
So he is all the more indulgent as he claims his kisses, twists around fully to stretch up along the length of Cardan’s body. He may as well enjoy the heat and shape of Cardan against him; he may as well enjoy how greedy for him his husband has become—impossibly even more than before, Liem thinks—since his return.
He will nibble at the tender curve of Cardan’s lip, eager to taste him. Eager to tempt him, too. Surely this is a finer prize than any reflection, no matter how new or how titillating.]
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...even if it is just his desire to avoid the mirror.
Cardan has no intention of letting his husband escape from self-awareness, but they needn't worry about that just now. Besides, if Cardan keeps kissing him, Liem will have no opportunity to protest Cardan undressing him right then and there.
One advantage to waking up -- and going to sleep, and sometimes fucking -- in the cavernous darkness of their unlit bedroom is that he has gotten exceptionally good at not needing to see clothing: his own, Liem's. His hands should make quick work of Liem's jacket, his waistcoat, and the buttons of his shirt. The layers are always maddening; he cannot recall ever being so eager to splay his hands over a lover's bare chest before. He cannot be fully patient for it, either: rarely does he get more than three quarters down the row of buttons before sliding greedy hands under the shirt. Every time, it feels like relief; every time, it makes heat coil tight and possessive in his belly. His husband, his lover, held just so in the covetous grasp of Cardan's hands. ]
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Those hands just make him feel so at home. He belongs in Cardan’s clutches; he has no words to explain the way that letting his lover strip him bare and lay claim to him makes him feel, but he knows it soothes some feverish, desperate part of him, and he knows he will never tire of it, no matter how many times he touches him like this.
He wants Cardan to be just as ravenous for him as Liem is for his touch. He hungers for the way his teeth make Cardan’s breath catch and his grip on him tighten. And, perhaps foolishly, he cannot make himself think of anything else just now. He is too busy kissing him, between breaths that hitch and stutter as warm hands move over his skin. Too busy threading his fingers through Cardan’s hair and tugging loose the fastenings at his collar.
It is only when he catches glimpses of them from the corner of his eye that he thinks to worry at all—but he is easily distracted from this thought, stubbornly determined as he is to avoid contemplating the mirror at all.]
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He wants them back.
It's an obvious trap, but that has never deterred Liem before. And anyway, would he truly refuse Cardan when his hands are pushing the layers of shirt and jacket and waistcoat off his shoulders? When they slide down his flanks, follow the steep angle of his hipbone to dip greedy fingers inside his trousers? More even than the thrill of Liem's teeth, Cardan has ever craved the thrill of his pleasure.
He looks at Liem, his mouth curving, delighted and insouciant. ]
Claim me, husband.
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Reckless.
[His murmur is wistful as he lets his hands fall, allowing the layers of his clothing to slide from him to pool on the floor. Even when Cardan’s hands slide down his flanks, into his trousers, shivery sensation making Liem gasp against his neck, he resists the urge to give his husband what he has demanded.]
The last marks have scarcely gone.
[As ever, Cardan is the one to wilfully ignore the fact that his own blood is a finite resource. Liem cannot bite him whenever he wishes—much as the thought of it sends another greedy thrill straight down to his cock. He hungers for it, more ravenously even than he does for Cardan’s blood: the exhilaration of claiming Cardan so indulgently for himself; the greed and impatience it inspires in his husband. He wants it incessantly, unquenchably.
It makes him liable to forget to take care—and he cannot afford to forget. Not with Cardan, whom he can never stop wanting at all.]
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But that doesn't mean Cardan will stop trying, and tonight he is spurned on by a particularly important purpose. He wants Liem to see himself, blood-drunk and helplessly eager -- wants him to see that enchanting, vulnerable need on his own face. Maybe then his husband would understand just what watching him does to Cardan.
Besides, Liem hasn't said no. ]
I've gone a month without, [ he counters, wrapping warm fingers around Liem to stroke, eager for the silken weight of his cock in his grip. He's breathless, still, from the transit of Liem's mouth over the fading bruises on his throat, from the gasp his husband buried against his skin.
His free hand wanders up, greedy fingertips tracing the line of Liem's jaw, sliding into his hair to cradle the back of his head. Cardan wants him to stay right there, so he may wrest with his desire from an intimate distance. ]
If anything, you're still in arrears.
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And yet. And yet, this logic does nothing to lessen his desire, or to distract him from the seductive slide of Cardan’s warm fingers over his skin.]
How am… am I the one owing in this situation?
[He breathes the query against his husband’s neck, gripping at his shirt as he resists the urge to squirm into the pleasure of his touch. He is the one pressing compulsive, hungry kisses against Cardan’s throat. He is the one with the promise of Cardan’s blood still tempting him treacherously after weeks of only flat-tasting animal’s blood to sate him. If either of them is in arrears, surely it should be his husband, who exacted his promise to sup on no-one else and then left him to his own devices for the entirety of his Undersea trip.
It is entirely like Cardan to spin things this way. Liem nips at the tender skin beneath his jaw, a little punitive in his teased and growing impatience.]
You terrible man.
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You have left me with a debt-- [ Their agreement was mutual, after all. ] --which you are... mm, refusing to let me repay.
[ He should be more sore about that, really, but it's difficult when his husband's mouth is so terribly, enchantingly distracting. It's cruel of Liem, he thinks, to deny him his bite when he's already doing so much to remind Cardan of its pleasure. ]
You call me reckless and terrible, [ which he greatly enjoys, don't get him wrong, ] yet have I not taken care, husband? Have I not been dutiful in curating my good health?
[ Of course, he doesn't actually want to argue about this, because he doesn't want to fight with Liem right now. It's why the fingers on Liem's cock remain unrelenting in their indulgent stroking; it's why he's still holding his husband close, unwilling to let him pull away from the temptation of Cardan's hammering pulse. ]
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You can talk me into anything, [he complains, breathless as he leans against his lover’s chest. Cool fingers working their way down his buttons slide greedily inside the half-undone shirt, splaying over heated skin.
He would be worried that his weakness for indulging Cardan is so unavoidably obvious, but this, too, is something he wants to give his husband. Even if being indulged at every turn only makes him grow bored, Liem still wants to give him the satisfaction first.
He bites. The rush of it trembles through him, makes him arch against his lover and squirm beneath his grip. Liem swallows back a moan as the sweet pleasure of Cardan’s blood tangles up in the warm solidity of him pressed close, the beguiling comfort of his scent and the demanding caress of his hand.
This time he won’t let himself drink so heedlessly—but still, the bliss of it seduces him, as it always does. Still, he feels himself melt a little in his husband’s embrace, even as the world goes bright and sharp around him—Cardan’s scent even more beguiling, his breaths somehow more musical. He drags his tongue over his lover’s throat, lewdly conciliatory.]
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Only that which you already desire, [ he breathes, distracted fingers sweeping up to pet Liem's hair while he pursues said want. ] I am but the voice of your neglected self-indulgence.
[ And how good that it is a duty he was practically born to perform. To coax this stubborn, determinedly selfless man to selfishness -- what greater calling for a man has known nothing but entitlement all of his life? ]
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Not that it makes any difference if he has. Either way, Liem feels flushed and sensitive with greed, suddenly impatient for Cardan’s demanding caress and hungry kisses, which is surely just how his husband wanted him. Everything else fades away to irrelevance, leaving him tipping his face up to seek his lover with hungry eyes.]
My self-indulgence is questioning why we are still half-dressed. [With his free hand he tugs at Cardan’s shirt, intent on freeing it from his pants. There is still much too much clothing between Liem and his lover’s body.] And still standing in the middle of the room.
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Because I am almost as stubborn as you are.
[ His palm skitters down to Liem's shoulder -- his other joins it opposite -- and, gently, he turns his husband, once more, to face the mirror. ]
Look.
[ Flushed, dishevelled, and in Cardan's clutches: this is how he wants Liem to see himself. He wants him to see Cardan's hand splayed possessively over his collarbones, long fingers framing his elegant throat. He wants him to see Cardan's throat, with its twin puncture wounds still weeping crimson. Wants Liem to see all the ways in which he is his. How much they have become each other's -- because surely no one could look at the two men in the mirror and not see the possessive hunger animating them both.
Cardan doesn't spend much time looking; after all, he's just seen it, and seeing Liem makes it difficult to focus on seduction -- because all he truly wants is to press him against the nearest surface and menace him with hard kisses until he begs Cardan to be fucked.
Which would run counter to his goals with the mirror, so.
No, he's not looking. He's busy leaning in to run his mouth up the curve of Liem's neck, so he can leave his own bite there, can suck a dark bruise onto pale skin and have Liem see it, for once. His free hand has already insinuated itself back into his husband's trousers, too impatient to wait. ]
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Cardan takes such obvious pleasure in driving him mad. How completely Liem adores him.
His eyes find Cardan’s first, meeting his intent stare, dipping longingly down the marked and bloodied line of his throat—spying the blood trailing toward the collar of the shirt he wasn’t quite able to strip from him. His lover looks threateningly delectable and nakedly hungry, so lovely Liem is distracted from his frustration by the heavy pang of desire that thumps against his ribs at the sight of him.
He wants him: his lover, his husband, his prince. He wants him so ceaselessly it threatens to eclipse everything else.
But his gaze flicks reluctantly over to his own dishevelled reflection—strange and almost-familiar, now bloody-lipped and half bare—drawn by the warm slide of Cardan’s palm over his chest, and the accompanying movement of the splayed hand in the mirror. Stillness claims him again for just a moment, uncertainty winding tension round his lungs and up his spine—but Cardan’s mouth is on his throat, and Cardan’s other hand is sliding down his body to find his cock, and these things make his eyes go unfocused and his body arch beneath his touch as breath again stutters out of his lungs.
Startlingly, all at once, he glimpses himself in his reflection: arching back against his lover, panting and heavy-eyed in his embrace, his expression soft with yearning. Mortification grips him as this image crystallizes before his eyes, like one of his most deeply buried fantasies bared to the world and staring him in the face.
He is transfixed, left speechless—and completely unable to tear his eyes away.]
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He is, as always, indulgent: leaving one love bite, then another, before he lets his mouth trail up to Liem's ear. His eyes find his husband's in the mirror, warmly amused. ]
Every time. You look like this every time.
[ It has the air of an accusation -- albeit a breathless, enamoured one. His teeth graze along the outside of Liem's ear, gently threatening. ]
How am I supposed to be anything but fiendish about it, Liem?
[ It's impossible, surely. No lover could see him so soft and full of longing and not wish to overwhelm and torment him, to make him squirm with desire. Or, at least, if such people exist, then they are of an entirely different species from Cardan. ]
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It is impossibly embarrassing; he feels the heated spread of something close to panic climb his throat as Cardan looks at him with that warm, knowing look, pinning him with it like a final verdict. He knows. He must know. Liem is unmasked, so utterly undone in his hands that he’s astounded his thoughts aren’t stamped plain across his reflection’s forehead.
Cardan, I need you. Make me yours.
But it is also frighteningly seductive: The sight of his husband wrapped possessively around him like a dragon with its hoard, caught in the act of putting his hands and his mouth wherever he pleases. His own drugged desire and infatuated submission, painted across flushed skin and trembling through the softened lines of his body. It is the most heartbreaking, impossible thing he has ever seen: his husband, smugly enjoying a treasure that Liem had long thought to be utterly without value.
Every time, his husband says, and Liem stares at him, feeling more vulnerable than he can recall ever being. But because it’s him, because he is locked in the cage of his arms, menaced by his self-satisfied good humour, this seems somehow intimate and erotic instead of terrifying.]
I belong to you, [he murmurs, as though this were the answer to a question Cardan was asking. Not the one he voiced, clearly—but that’s of no concern to Liem as he lifts a hand to slide it tenderly into his lover’s hair.]
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It's a little terrifying. He doesn't know what his husband sees when he looks at him; it certainly doesn't seem to be the cruel, selfish person Cardan himself sees in the mirror. But then, Liem has yet to see him at his worst. Cardan can only hope that when that day comes, it will be far into the future.
As always, he finds it far easier to plan for the present.
The hand in his hair makes him close his eyes. He breathes Liem in, tightening his grasp around him as he strokes his pleasure higher. He can't help it; he wants him, no matter how difficult or dangerous for them both. He wants to savour this: Liem's lithe body pressed against his, the sound of his breathing, the familiar shape of him in Cardan's hand. Desire pangs through him so hard it feels painful, and when he opens his eyes again, his gaze in the mirror is a little obsessive. He lets it prowl over Liem's reflection as he draws his hand down his chest, over bare skin and lithe muscle. His thumb hooks into Liem's trousers -- already precariously draped over his hips -- to pull them down further, to expose more of him to both their eyes. It is always a perverse pleasure to undress him, to dishevel him, to pull apart that carefully crafted self-control to reveal the man underneath. ]
All of you.
[ He is Cardan's. The sober-eyed man whose office Cardan invades each evening may not be, but this Liem he will claim for his own. ]
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He only wishes he could kiss him, too. But Liem is forever wishing he could kiss him; this, at least, he is well used to.
Especially when Cardan is touching him like this. Liem feels his own breath grow harsh and restless as Cardan strokes his urgency higher, denying him his wandering thoughts, swallowing him up so his world shrinks to just Cardan’s embrace and the insistent, heated caress of his hands. His muscles twitch, too sensitive, as Cardan’s palm slides down his body to drag his trousers off his hips, revealing more of him to his own wanton, heavy-lidded gaze.]
Cardan—
[More and more, tension claims the languid eagerness with which he’d been draping against his husband. He shifts beneath his touch, hips restless with the climbing demands of his pleasure.]
Hah… Yes…
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He wants Liem to watch -- wants him to see the apex of his pleasure, wants him to know what he looks like when he falls apart. His own gaze in the mirror is serious, intent; he has lost the indulgent smugness from before. How could he maintain it, when watching Liem is driving him just as insane? His arm wraps around his husband, tightens, pulling him closer against Cardan's body and the erection trapped beneath the fabric of his trousers. That is torturous, too. When Liem moves his hips, he hisses-- bites back a moan, his hand on Liem's cock stuttering.
But he won't look away, either. Even if it's tempting-- even if the bare crook of Liem's neck beckons to him, seductive. He wants to put his mouth to it, wants to mark it again, wants to claim him in every way he can. But he cannot -- will not -- miss the moment his husband finds release. ]
I want you to see yourself.
[ Overwhelmed, oversensitive -- he wants Liem to see himself at his most taut and desperate, when desire makes poetry of his body, when all of his careful control slips away. ]
You can do that for me, can't you? Liem.
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But the intensity of Cardan’s gaze traps him. Every time the rising tide of sensation washes over him, making his lashes dip and his eyes go unfocused, the force of that stare brings him back again, forcing his attention back to the mirror—to his own wanton reflection, bare and vulnerable in pleasure-soaked surrender. He sees as well as feels his own eager breaths, sees the helpless desire accompanying each soft, half-denied moan to escape his throat.
He can no more refuse that gaze than he can deny his own climbing, swelling ecstasy. The tender fingers in Cardan’s hair tremble and clutch as Liem bucks into his husband’s grip, his breath harsh in his throat. Even if he sees it from beneath his own lowered lashes, even if he is too enthralled by Cardan’s touch and scent to care for his own naked visage, he sees himself arch back against his husband, urgent and greedy and abandoned, as orgasm takes him. He looks as insatiable and as helpless as he feels—like he might let Cardan take him again and again and still, even then, remain a slave to his own want.
Even caught in the throes of his own pleasure, Liem cannot deny this to be truth.]
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The noise that escapes him is hungry; his own gaze in the mirror turns a little desperate. It takes effort not to squirm against Liem — he’s so pitifully hard and terribly impatient, and his husband is right there, pliant and tender and dripping with eroticism. He drags in a torturously slow breath instead, trying to steady the wild racing of his own heart. It doesn’t work — of course it doesn’t work. Instead, he leans into Liem, over him, to press soft lips to his temple, his hair, the gentle point of his ear. ]
You did so well, [ he breathes, and despite meaning to praise Liem, his tone comes dangerously close to reverence. ] Look at how irresistible you are—
[ Well, Liem should feel it, certainly, in Cardan’s hungry hands skimming up to his hips, his waist, in the erection straining against the fabric of Cardan’s trousers, in the thundering of Cardan’s blood. ]
Turn around, [ Cardan demands, even as his hands direct Liem into the movement. The mirror was delightful, will remain delightful for trysts to come — but he wants to kiss his husband, now, and then he wants to take him to bed. ]
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He is looking at how irresistible he is—and at how easily Cardan’s tender encouragement deepens the faint, cool flush colouring his pale skin. It seems pitifully obvious to him how helpless he is against his lover’s indulgent doting, and he’s not sure whether Cardan’s apparent, urgent hunger might distract him from it, or draw him in like a shark scenting blood. He doesn’t know how much more of this he could weather.
Thankfully, Cardan’s demand frees him from the further humiliation of spectating his own desperate desire. He turns eagerly into the refuge of his embrace, sliding restless hands beneath Cardan’s lewdly dishevelled shirt, stretching up to kiss him with insatiable impatience. If his climax had at all threatened to satisfy him, Cardan has denied him that tranquility quite stubbornly.]
I need you, [he mutters.] You always make me need you.
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Not nearly as terribly as I need you, husband.
[ He runs greedy hands up and then down the length of his husband's body -- his flanks, his back, his hips, his ass. Cardan's groping of him is entirely unabashed; he only wants Liem close, only wants those hands on his skin and that eager mouth on his own. He wants so many things, all at once: to kiss the delicate lilac of Liem's flush as it covers his cheeks; to lift him into his arms and feel his familiar, lithe weight cradled against his own body; to feel him, skin to bare skin--
Well, the last one will have to wait, given how painfully clothed he still is. But he will lift Liem, fielding a happy shiver at his closeness, and he will kiss his face, and then he'll turn from the mirror to convey them to the giant bed.]
Insatiable, [ Cardan says, and isn't sure which one of them he's accusing.
No, that's a lie; the smile that twitches onto his face is a little too sharp and a little too honest. ]
...I wish to have you. I wish to claim you until being mine is the only thing you know.
[ A hideous little thing to want. And yet. ]
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At least that day must certainly be far in the future. For now Liem is pierced by his lover’s intent, longing stare, caught in his covetous hands—just where he most wishes to belong. He slides a hand round to cup the back of Cardan’s neck, tender and affectionate and so perfectly filled with his stolen, unearned happiness.]
My fondest wish, [Liem tells him. If only the scant, precious moments when he forgets everything else but Cardan’s closeness could be spun out for eternity. If only reality did not deny him so stubbornly with its demands.
But while they are here, in the private refuge of the chambers they share, there is nothing to deny them their wishes. Cardan can have someone who is only his, someone whose head could never be turned by anyone else, and Liem can belong to somebody who treats him like someone worth cherishing. They can both indulge their own soap bubble fantasies, and never mind when or how they might eventually end.]
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He ever desires the impossible.
When he lays Liem out on the bed, it is with the care one puts into arranging a rare flower -- heedless of his own greed, which still burns restlessly just under his skin. He throbs with it every time he inhales Liem's scent; each touch from those cool hands leaves him breathless all over. But the months he's spent with his husband had, as it turns out, made him perverse: even though he aches with unfulfilled lust, he does not rip Liem's trousers off him, does not cover him with his body and press him into the sheets with the sheer weight of his desire. Instead, his mouth on Liem's jaw is careful, deliberate. It remains so as it travels down the length of his throat, paints kisses over his collar bones, down his chest. Cardan wants to take his time; he wants to savour him.
And he wants, quite badly, to suck Liem's off. His husband had denied him this the night of his return.
Cardan will not be denied it now. ]
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