Deven and the Dragon - Eliot Grayson Page 0,74

taking Deven to his bed, with Deven not knowing what would happen, was — his brain stopped abruptly.

It was just like Deven taking Fiora to bed under false pretenses, only even worse, because the consequences were so much more grave. Either way, it was a lie, and a critical one.

Fiora cringed, his hands flying back to his face. He could never look at Deven again. He had ruined everything. Deven might love him, but he’d never want to act on it now.

“I’m sorry,” he groaned from behind his hands. Deven’s trespass didn’t even seem so big now, compared to his own. “I’m so sorry. Deven, how can you forgive me?”

A long pause followed, and Fiora’s hopes, so high only a few minutes before, sank down and down and down.

“I can forgive you all too easily, because I love you,” Deven said quietly at last. “I love you so much I’d forgive a lot more than that. And because of the consequences of that bloody curse, I know you love me, too — or you did a week ago. I think the question is whether you have enough love left to forgive me for lying to you.”

Fiora couldn’t speak. His heart was too full, and if he tried to get even a few words out he knew the tears would spill over — and that would be beneath his dignity.

Oh, who was he trying to fool, anyway.

He took his hands away from his face and held out his arms.

Fiora was crushed against Deven’s chest before he could blink, Deven wedged onto the bed beside him and wrapped around him, strong and safe and warm. He petted Fiora’s back, and stroked his hair, and murmured in his ear everything Fiora longed to hear: I love you, I’ll never leave you, please don’t ask me to leave you again, I couldn’t bear it, I’d sit outside the castle and pine and wait to catch a glimpse of you…

Fiora wrapped his arms around Deven’s waist and held on with all his might. He let the words wash over him, taking away the last of the curse, and Fiora’s guilt, and his anger at Deven’s betrayal. Who needed extensive groveling, with Deven kept at arm’s length until he’d earned Fiora’s forgiveness, when he could have this? Fiora had much rather skip directly to the benefits of having an adoring lover, thank you very much.

Deven fell silent after a time, simply holding Fiora close and resting his head on Fiora’s hair.

Could he sleep again? Perhaps. But there was something long and hard poking into Fiora’s side where he rested on Deven’s lap.

Was he sufficiently recovered to do anything about it? Yes, yes he was.

But there was one problem.

“I think I need a bath,” Fiora muttered into Deven’s chest.

Deven inhaled deeply and laughed. Fiora’s head shot up and he glared up at Deven indignantly.

“I didn’t say anything!” Deven protested.

“You smelled me, and then you laughed at me!”

“Would it help if I said I think I need a bath too, and reminded you that your bathtub is more than big enough for both of us?” Deven squeezed him and laughed again when Fiora squirmed in his grasp, trying to get away. The bastard. How dare he? “I’ll go and run one, all right? And come back and carry you to it, if you’d like.”

“I would not like,” Fiora said with a sniff. “Run your own bath, if you must.”

Deven extracted himself and went into the bath, and the water started up a moment later. Fiora laid in bed, trying to convince himself he wanted Deven to shut the door and bathe alone.

It was all moot when Deven strode back out again, flung the covers back, and tossed Fiora over his shoulder.

Fiora argued, and struggled, and made a terrible scene, but at last Deven wrestled him out of his shirt and drawers and plunked him into the tub, starting in on his own clothes immediately. All Fiora’s protests died on his lips as Deven stripped. It was like something out of one of the illustrated erotic works Fiora kept on a shelf in his bedchamber — hidden behind several volumes of a series on the history of agriculture. First the flat stomach, and then the powerful chest and shoulders, as Deven pulled his shirt up and off.

And then — well, everything under Deven’s trousers, as muscled and hard and lickable as the parts above.

Deven climbed in with a splash and picked Fiora up around the waist, settling him so