Lacuna - N.R. Walker Page 0,79

lot of things, but I am sure that you and I will have this opportunity again. We don’t need excuses. We have reasons.” He gently tucked a strand of Tancho’s hair behind his ear. “And my reason is you.”

Tancho’s smile was breathtaking. “And mine is you.”

Crow was lost in the blush on Tancho’s cheeks, his kiss-swollen lips. “You are a thief of breath and reason.”

Tancho kissed him again, slower this time, rising up on Crow’s lap only to grind back down. Crow’s hands stilled Tancho’s hips and he laughed out a groan. “We don’t have time for that.”

“Everything slows down out there when we touch,” Tancho said, doing it again. “Skin to skin.”

“It’s still not enough time for what I want to do to you.”

Tancho’s cheeks flushed and he smiled. “Then you need to promise me when this is over, you will make the time.”

Crow laughed. “Days, weeks, months.” He took Tancho’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. “There will be nothing else but us.”

Tancho took Crow’s hand and kissed his palm, then looked at Crow’s wrist, at his birthmark. “It’s gone!”

Crow turned his wrist to see, and yes, the birthmark was gone! He pulled up his sleeve and there it was near the inside of his elbow. He couldn’t help but laugh. “You made it take flight.”

Tancho looked at his, and his too had moved up his arm. “Is it not the strangest thing?”

“It is.”

“I have to wonder what happens,” Tancho mused, rubbing his birthmark. “Where is it trying to go?”

“I don’t know,” Crow replied. “But if kissing you does this—” He pulled up his sleeve to show his moved-birthmark once more. “—I can only imagine where it will end up when I bed you.”

Tancho made a soft noise in the back of his throat and he pressed his body up against Crow’s again, kissing him and grinding on his lap.

Crow let out a pained laugh and held Tancho still. “My self-control isn’t that good.”

“I can feel how much you want it,” Tancho whispered in Crow’s ear, kissing down his neck.

Crow stood up, unseating Tancho and setting him on his feet. Then Crow had to adjust his now-aching dick. “You’re killing me.”

Tancho’s eyes flashed with hurt and rejection. “Apologies. I thought . . .”

Crow stepped in and cupped his face. His palm on Tancho’s cheek brought time to a crawl again. “You thought correct. I want you. But not now. I want to take my time with you and treat you as you deserve to be treated. If we’re absent any longer, Soko will be in charge of planning strategies for our arrival at Aequi Kentron. And believe me, you don’t want that.”

A smile eventually won on Tancho’s lips. “If Karasu would let him.”

“Or Samiel,” Crow added. “Or Elmwood. But my point is, we should return. As much as I wish it weren’t so.”

Tancho leaned into Crow’s palm and closed his eyes. “Same. I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you. I don’t know if it’s real or if it will last longer than the eclipse . . .”

“If we both feel it, it has to be real, does it not?” Crow murmured. “I’m done fighting it or even trying to understand it. What I feel in my heart for you, little fish, is real.” This time, Crow lifted Tancho’s chin and kissed him, soft and sweet. “Whatever happens from here, whatever we encounter or endure, we do so together.”

Tancho nodded. “Together.”

Crow pulled Tancho in for an embrace. It was perhaps the first embrace they’d shared, and they fit together perfectly. Tancho’s forehead pressed into Crow’s neck and his arms slid around his waist. Crow held him tight and he could feel the thump of Tancho’s heart.

It solidified something inside him. Whatever this was between them was real, and it was worth fighting for. “If we wake up when this is over,” Crow murmured, “and the bond between us is broken, I promise that I’ll turn up at your door and annoy you every day until you agree to see me. Does that sound fair?”

Tancho chuckled into Crow’s neck. “I expect nothing less, my stubborn little blackbird.”

Crow kissed Tancho’s hair with smiling lips. “I am all those things. A blackbird, by name and by nature, and stubborn.” He kissed the top of his head. “And yours.”

They walked back to the library holding hands. It made everything else around them move slower and they got back to the meeting in quicker time, and they dropped hands when they