that he was straddling Deven’s lap.
“That was high-handed, undignified, and unbefitting,” Fiora informed him. He shifted a little so that Deven’s cock pressed between the cheeks of his ass, and Deven made a desperate little sound. Fiora shivered. “You don’t deserve this.”
He’d been teasing, mostly, but Deven sobered at once, his smile falling away. “I know,” he said. “I don’t deserve you, you shouldn’t forgive me, and you probably shouldn’t love me, either. But I love you, and you’re not getting rid of me unless you really, really try. You’d probably have to have your mother light me on fire and eat me. Believe me, she’s eager for any excuse.”
Fiora slid his hands down Deven’s chest, tracing the muscles there, and rocked back so that Deven’s cock slid back and forth deliciously. “Don’t talk about my mother right at this instant, if you please,” he said a little breathlessly.
Deven leaned in and finally, finally set his mouth over Fiora’s, his lips firm and hot. Fiora melted into it, moaning into his mouth, and wrapped his arms around Deven’s neck. Oh, he’d wanted this, during his days and nights of fear and sickness and loneliness. He’d wanted this more than anything.
Finally Deven released his mouth and kissed his way down Fiora’s throat.
“I won’t talk about her if you forgive me,” Deven murmured, nibbling at his neck and slipping a hand under Fiora’s thigh, his fingers caressing so close to the right spot…
“Fine,” Fiora gasped. “I will — oh, yes, please — I will magnanimously forgive you. Don’t stop doing that!”
“Not a chance in hell,” Deven said, and swooped in for another kiss.
One fingertip pressed against Fiora’s hole, right where he wanted it. He rocked back, taking it inside him — and heavy footsteps thundered in the bedroom, right before a pounding began on the door.
Deven jerked his hand out from under Fiora, and Fiora froze in horror as the knob rattled — but the door held. He slumped down, his heart pounding. “You locked the door? Oh, thank God, you locked the door.”
“Of course I locked the door,” Deven hissed, barely audible over the knocking. “But you’d better say something before they break it down.”
“Fiora?” said his mother, and then more stridently, “Fiora!”
“I’m here, mother!” Fiora called out. “I’m fine! I’m taking a bath.”
An ominous silence fell. “Where is Mr. Clifton?” And that was his father’s voice, oh, sodding bother. “He is mysteriously absent from your bedside, where he claimed he would remain even if a scourge of demons burst from the fireplace.”
“What are they saying about me?” Deven whispered. Fiora realized his parents had, as they naturally would when speaking to him, switched to their own language. Deven’s name, of course, was unmistakable.
“They’re wondering where you are,” Fiora whispered back, and choked down a laugh at Deven’s look of abject horror.
“Are they really wondering where I am, because they haven’t put two and two together yet, or are they pretending to wonder where I am, so they can get you to lie and give them even more reason to be pissed?”
Fiora leaned in and pressed a quick but searing kiss to Deven’s lips as a reward for that. “You’re already learning how they think. I approve. But your insight doesn’t improve matters, unfortunately.”
“The best defense is a good offense,” Deven muttered. Raising his voice, he said, “Lord Luca, Lady Ana. I’m helping Fiora bathe. And I wouldn’t do that,” he added as the doorknob began rattling again, this time with force. “You’ll probably regret it more than we will if you get that door open right now.”
The silence following that was more than ominous; Fiora could nearly feel the air pressure mounting with the force of his mother’s anger.
“We will see you at luncheon in half an hour,” Fiora’s father said, this time speaking so that Deven could understand him too. “If you are well enough to…bathe, you are well enough to join us at the table. Both of you.”
Two sets of footsteps retreated, and then Fiora heard the bedroom door shut with a bang.
“Oh, bother,” Fiora said weakly. “Half an hour’s barely enough time to dress.”
He reached for the soap, but Deven batted his hand away. “Three minutes is enough time to dress,” Deven said. “That means I get the other twenty-seven.”
Fiora’s arguments — that dressing meant more than merely putting on clothes, and that he had to do something with his hair, and that his parents would make their lives hell if they were late — were all