After six months together, Alexis thought he knew a great deal about his dragon lover.
He was delightfully—and amusedly—surprised to discover something new. Quite new. He rather thought he might be hurt, to know Haven was keeping secrets…but Haven seldom said anything about himself, inordinately modest and humble for a man with so much bloody talent, and he was probably embarrassed. His ordinary translations, and the attention they received, embarrassed him enough.
Alexis glanced up at the clock on the far wall, which said it was going on half past the thirteenth hour. So Haven should be up at any moment, half asleep and perfect for teasing.
Indeed, he had barely glanced back down at the deliciously indecent novel he was reading when the door opened and a sleepy, rumbled Haven wandered in. He yawned, then gave one of the adorable sleepy smiles that Alexis loved, and said, “What are you reading today, Lexi?”
“One of your more interesting translation works,” Alexi said, smirking, and held up the book for Haven to see. “I had no idea you did such work.”
Haven stumbled to a halt, then his dusky cheeks went a deep rose. “Those were buried on the bottom shelf!”
Alexis snickered and set the book aside, then swung his legs down off the desk and rose, moving around the heaps and piles of carefully arranged disorder to take a frozen with mortification Haven into his arms. He kissed Haven softly, tasting tea, which meant Haven must have wandered into the kitchen first before ambling this way. “Good morning, my dear. I did not realize you translated erotic novels.”
“Only for another old friend,” Haven muttered, whiskey eyes not quite meeting Alexis’. “I haven’t done one of those in at least a year. He doesn’t write them very often.”
“A pity,” Alexis replied. “They’re very good.”
The flush on Haven’s cheeks darkened, and he looked up briefly to scowl. “Of all the books in my library, you had to find those?”
Laughing, Alexis dropped another kiss on his mouth, then said, “Of course I did.” He loosened his arms around Haven’s waist, smoothing them up his back, then very slowly back down—and down, until he had a firm grip on Haven’s utterly perfect ass. “They really are quite good.”
“I can certainly see that you like them,” Haven muttered against his mouth, “you incorrigible wretch.”
Alexis nibbled at his lips, his jaw, down his throat until he managed to extract the shivers he so enjoyed, the soft, barely audible moan that meant Haven was his for the taking. And he so very much wanted to take. With excruciating slowness, he traced his way back up the dusky skin, loving the softness of it, the faint scent of them which still clung to it, a hint of Haven’s soft, spicy cologne.
Haven’s mouth, when he reclaimed it, was warm and pliant and the finest thing in existence. More moans spilled into the kiss, headier than the finest brandy. He pulled them closer together, hands still on Haven’s ass, groaning himself at the heat and the contact.
To think he had so very stupidly tried to walk away from this man.
Reluctantly letting go of his delightful grip, he put just enough space between them to begin fumbling with clothes. Luckily, neither of them was wearing much more than was necessary to avoid scarring the servants—of which Haven had remarkably few, though those few were the most fiercely loyal servants Alexis had ever met.
A hasty examination of Haven’s perpetually messy study—and it was always endearing how he vowed to finally sort it, but never actually managed to get that far—revealed the desk chair and the floor as the only viable options and given the ominous sounds the chair had made last time…
Discarding the last of their clothes, gleefully returning to touching and kissing and teasing, he pushed them to the floor before the small fireplace, where a healthy fire kept back the worst of the winter chill. The rug was one of the thick, surprisingly soft ones from Haven’s homeland, all rich, dark jewel tones woven into an intricate, abstract pattern. Spread out upon it, Haven was the most exotic of treasures—perhaps the most exotic of feasts was more apt.
And all his.
Bending, he put his mouth to Haven’s chest, breathing in more of his scent, reveling in the taste of his skin, how sinuously Haven writhed and shivered beneath him, and how in the world had this man been free for him to claim?
“I wish I had thought to bring the oil with me,” he murmured against Haven’s stomach, then worked his way further down, moving with the sort of slowness that he knew would drive Haven crazy, tasting every bit of skin he was able, hands touching what his mouth could not.
He glanced up at a hastily cut off laugh, and saw that Haven’s cheeks were once more flushed. Alexis smirked. “What?” he asked, and finally wrapped a hand around Haven’s cock, causing him to jerk and cry out, twist and angle for more.
“The desk,” Haven finally gasped out. “There is some in the desk.”
Chuckling, Alexis released his hold on Haven’s cock, and replaced hand with mouth, teasing at first, but when Haven slipped into his native language, speaking in rapid, clumsy sentences, he finally relented and took Haven’s cock deep, sucking hard, using his hands to stroke and tease and drive Haven to the point of madness.
When Haven finally broke with a cry, still lost to his native language, wholly incapable of words that Alexis could understand, he focused only on swallowing, on relishing every shudder, every noise. At last Haven seemed well and truly spent, and Alexis slowly withdrew, then reached up to kiss Haven deeply, sharing the taste, the pleasure.
Then he pulled away, leaving Haven to gasp and protest, moving to the desk to find the oil to which Haven had admitted to storing there. He found it easily, and turned to rejoin Haven—and swore as his elbow banged into the heavy candlestick at the corner of Haven’s desk, sending it tumbling to the ground.
Ignoring it for the moment, after ascertaining it was not lit and so they were not about to go down in flames, he returned to his lover and swiftly unstoppered the vial of oil.
Haven spread his legs, and said with a soft huff of laughter, “You are lucky it was the candlestick you knocked over, and not my books.”
“Believe me, my dear, I am well aware of that,” Alexis said with a wink, then pushed into the tight heat of Haven’s body with one finger. “So have you written other indelicate things I should know about, dragon?”
“No,” Haven said, gasping and thrusting when one finger became two, tangling up his languages when it swiftly progressed to three.
Alexis smirked—he loved best that moment when Haven could no longer decide which language to use, or even really tell which one he was speaking. Withdrawing his fingers, he spread Haven’s legs even further apart, settled himself between them and lined up, then pushed in with one hard, sure thrust.
Words spilled over him as hands latched onto him, five languages that may as well be one language and his beautiful, exotic lover the only one fluent.
He would have liked to continue with slow torture, but he had waited long enough and Haven made it so very difficult to move slowly or think or do anything but move and thrust and—
Alexis came with a cry, followed only a moment later by Haven, and collapsed on top of him, uncaring for the moment the mess they must be making of one another. He hoped they had not ruined the rug-the servants would find him and skin him alive.
He rolled off Haven after a few minutes, but stayed close, unable or at least unwilling to leave his lover’s side even to fetch their clothes or call for a bath to be drawn. Time enough for that later, and for now the fire was plenty warm enough.
“Have we anywhere to be today?” Haven asked through a yawn, accent heavier than usual. It often was, when it was the two of them, Haven not as fretful over how he sounded.
“No,” Alexis replied. “Nowhere put our bed.”
“Good,” Haven murmured, and drifted off as easy as that.
Alexis chuckled, and decided he could wait a few more minutes before rousing Haven so they could actually make to their bed.