第34章 Chapter (1)

Jamil felt painfully transparent as they entered his rooms. If he really tried—if he really wanted—he could find a safe room for Rohan to spend the night in, a room that wasn’t Jamil’s bedroom.

He didn’t want to.

He stared at the bed as Rohan disappeared into the bathroom. With numb, unsteady fingers, he started undressing. He slipped into his sleep pants, shivering as the cool, smooth fabric touched the sensitive skin of his bare thighs and buttocks. He didn’t put on a shirt.

He got into the bed and lay down on his back.

He told himself nothing was going to happen.

Nothing was going to happen.

Rohan wasn’t interested in men that way. He’d made it crystal clear in the past.

Jamil’s fingers touched his lips. They still felt a little swollen and oversensitive. His eyes slipped shut as he remembered Rohan’s lips, his teeth, his tongue inside him.

His face warm, Jamil shook his head. It hadn’t been a real kiss. There had been nothing sexual or romantic about it. It had been pure need, an insatiable, soul-wrenching need to be closer, to be one, that manifested in such a way. Jamil had felt Rohan’s thoughts and Rohan hadn’t been thinking about the softness of Jamil’s lips or the pleasure of kissing him. Closer, tighter, deeper was all Rohan had thought and wanted. The desire to be merged had been so intense it left no place for things like sexuality and sexual desire. It was a desire, just a different one. Scarier. Hungrier. Baser. A craving they could no longer fight after so long apart.

His body was still aching with it, a maddening itch that couldn’t be scratched—or rather, it could be scratched only by one person.

Sighing in frustration, Jamil looked at Mehmer’s portrait.

But even looking at his husband’s dear, familiar features didn’t help. It had been a year and a half since Mehmer died. The pain was no longer fresh, the remnants of his torn bond barely there. He didn’t feel like a married man anymore. He had invited another man into the bed he’d shared with Mehmer and it didn’t feel wrong. He didn’t feel like he was betraying Mehmer in any way. The thought should have been freeing, but all it did was unsettle him. Jamil honestly didn’t trust himself not to do something… unwise now that his guilt was no longer there to stop him.

“Something unwise?” Rohan said with a wry smile, emerging from the bathroom. His dark eyes were glinting with humor. “Even your thoughts are so very proper and princely, Your Highness.”

Jamil looked at him exasperatedly, smiling a little. “Stop eavesdropping on my thoughts.” If it were anyone else, he would have felt mortified and furious. But when he looked into Rohan’s eyes, he felt laid bare—and bizarrely fine with it. Although it had been a year since they’d last seen each other, it felt like nothing had changed, the intimacy between them asforting as it was maddening. Closer, not enough, more.

“Your thoughts are very loud,” Rohan murmured, shrugging his shirt off. “I’ll have to teach you shielding sometime.”

“My shields are perfectly sufficient,” Jamil said, not even attempting to look away from Rohan’s muscular torso, from all that smooth, tanned brown skin and the black tattoos on his left arm, the hard abs, and the trail of dark hair that disappeared into the band of his underwear, which then melted into his pants. Strong fingers started working on Rohan’s fly.

Jamil averted his gaze, his mouth dry.

“You can borrow something to wear from me,” he said.

Rohan shrugged and shook his head, walking toward the bed clad only in a pair of black boxer-briefs. “Unless you mind?”

Jamil shook his head, too, looking anywhere but at him as Rohan slipped between the cool sheets. The lights were still on, but Jamil couldn’t bring himself to turn them off. In the dark, it would be so much easier to let go of inhibitions.

He didn’t trust himself.

“Omer, lights at ten percent,” Jamil said.

The lights dimmed to a soft, yellow glow.

Jamil closed his eyes, his heart beating somewhere in his throat—and in his cock.

All he could hear was Rohan’s breathing. It wasn’t very steady.

Neither was his.

“This is ridiculous,” Rohan said at last, and then rolled on top of him.

It was probably embarrassing how quickly Jamil wrapped his arms and legs around him, pure bliss spreading through his body, bare chest against bare chest, nothing between them but skin. Someone moaned, or maybe both of them did, as they squirmed and shifted until they were so tightly intertwined there wasn’t a hair’s breadth between them.

“Fucking hell,” Rohan said, panting against Jamil’s cheek, their stomachs pressed tightly. It felt unbelievably good and frustratingly not enough.

You feel so good on me.

He felt Rohan shudder above him, grinding his erection against his. “What the fuck is this,” he gritted out, nuzzling against Jamil’s neck before sucking on his telepathic point.

Jamil whined, raking his fingers through Rohan’s short hair, needing him closer, closer, closer.

It still wasn’t enough.

“Want you,” Jamil said breathlessly, tightening his thighs around Rohan’s hips. “Want you inside me.”

Rohan went still on top of him and then lifted his head.

Jamil went still, too, realizing what he’d just said.

He forced his eyes open.

Their gazes met, glassy with bone-deep need. He could feel Rohan’s hesitation, the storm of emotions inside him, each tugging him in a different direction. It wasn’t just rational reasons that were stopping him. He could feel that Rohan felt strange about having sex with a man, but at the same time the thought of being inside Jamil very much appealed to something in him—the same something that wanted Jamil closer, tighter, more.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Rohan said roughly, his expression pinched, his protectiveness pulsing through their bond. “Jamil, you know I’ll have to leave.”

This can’t mean anything.

Jamil swallowed.

“I know.” He pulled Rohan’s head down so their foreheads touched. He smelled so good, his subtle, masculine scent making Jamil’s head spin. A breath in. Breath out. “I’m not some green, innocent boy with my head in the clouds. I’m a grown man. I’m not fragile. It will be just a—just a fuck.”

Rohan laughed, their noses rubbing. “I think it’s the first time I’ve heard you say such a vulgar word, Highness.”

“Stop making fun of me,” Jamil said, rubbing their cheeks together and shivering at the feel of Rohan’s stubble against his smooth skin. “This feels good, too. I know you aren’t attracted to men. We don’t have to have sex if you don’t want to.”

Rohan laughed again, a little bitterly. “Sweetheart, you’re delusional if you think I don’t want to. I haven’t had sex in a year.”

Jamil blinked. “What? Why?”

Sighing, Rohan kissed the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know. It just felt off. I suspect our bond is the reason.” He kissed the other corner of Jamil’s trembling lips. “We have ways to block off or break bonds on Tai’Lehr, but I couldn’t exactly go to mind healers with my problem without telling them about you.”

“So you’re basically just too sexually frustrated to say no,” Jamil said. He should probably be more bothered about the fact that Rohan would just basically use him to relieve tension, but he didn’t mind being used by Rohan at all. He wasn’t sure what it said about him. It was probably pretty pathetic, but at the moment, he didn’t care. Jamil wanted him.

Rohan nuzzled his cheek, breathing in deeply. “I’m normally not attracted to males,” he said, sucking a hickey on Jamil’s jawline. His voice sounded a little slow and slurred, as if he were inebriated. “But you—you’re different. The most beautiful”—a kiss on Jamil’s cheek— “the prettiest”—a kiss on Jamil’s nose—“the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.” Rohan let out a self-deprecating laugh. “Fucking hell, I can’t believe the stuffing out of my mouth. I sound like some love-struck boy who wants to get into his first girlfriend’s panties.” He sighed, brushing their mouths together. Jamil wasn’t sure if Rohan’s lips were trembling or just his own.

“I feel like I could eat you,” Rohan said hoarsely, biting Jamil’s bottom lip. “Lick you from the inside out. Put my cock in your every hole. Dirty up your flawless skin with mye. Fill you up with me until I’m the only thing you can feel.”

Jamil’s face was burning. He couldn’t speak.

“So yeah, it’s pretty safe to say that I’m beyond caring that you don’t have tits and a cunt,” Rohan said with a chuckle.

“Stop being vulgar,” Jamil managed.

Rohan chuckled. “I think you like it when I’m vulgar, Your Highness.” He licked into Jamil’s mouth. “Fuck, your mouth. I could do this for days. Wanna make love to your mouth. Stuff it full of my cock.”

Jamil had never been so embarrassed and aroused in his life. He wasn’t prudish—he’d enjoyed sex very much—but Mehmer had never spoken lewdly to him. He had no idea it was something that would turn him on so much.

“Will you let me?” Rohan murmured, before giving him another deep, greedy kiss. They both were breathless with raw want by the time he ended it with a wet noise. “Will you suck my cock, sweetheart? Will you let me fuck your mouth?”

Jamil shuddered, incredibly aroused by Rohan’s filthy words and the images they provoked in his mind. “Please.” He wasn’t sure what he meant to say. Please don’t? Please don’t stop?

But Rohan seemed to understand what he meant.

Jamil watched dazedly as Rohan pulled his erection out. It was thick and dark, and leaking so profusely that Jamil licked his lips, imagining having to slurp and swallow all of that, so undignified and obscene.

Rohan must have read the hunger in his gaze, because he cursed, closed his eyes for a moment, his jaw clenched as if in pain, and then silently moved up and straddled Jamil’s chest.

Jamil gasped as Rohan grabbed a fistful of his hair and nudged the slippery cock head against his lips. “Open your pretty mouth for me, Your Highness.”

Gods, this shouldn’t have been so arousing. Being reminded of his position, of the utter inappropriateness of this, shouldn’t have made his cock harder. H