A Suitable Bodyguard, page 27
“Aroused by you?” Zelli guessed, less concerned with his eye color now with Tahlen on top of him. “Well, I am, as you will feel if you keep moving as you are and…” He gasped, then ducked his head under Tahlen’s chin. Tahlen flinched out of the way.
They stared at each other.
“One more thing for us to be careful of, that’s all,” Tahlen said at last, leaning down to press a kiss to one of the horns, which must end in wicked points.
Zelli could not feel Tahlen’s lips there but the gesture warmed him. He fell back down to stare somewhat grumpily at the canopy above the bed. “I cannot even be close to you how I want to. I’m getting used to kisses, and being held by you, and getting to hold you, and now this.”
Tahlen sat back, straddling Zelli without putting much weight on him.
Zelli could hardly stand to meet his eyes. “I keep getting stranger and more inconvenient for you. I’m sorry. At least I don’t have to ride a horse today and can finally be tupped again. It has been a whole night and day since I last remember having you.”
Tahlen gave a long-suffering sigh.
“I was trying to make sure you were well,” Tahlen explained, close to disgruntled. “I didn’t realize how insistent you would be. I should have, knowing you as I do.”
“Was I?” Zelli did not know how to take that, but it was truly the least of the things that Tahlen could have been upset about. “I’m sorry. You wanted to do your best and I was annoying?”
“Not annoying,” Tahlen drew his hands down the length of Zelli’s body as if mesmerized by the bloom and slow fade of different colors, or maybe the feel of Zelli’s markings. “You got on all fours and begged me. You pleaded with me. ‘Please, Tahlen,’ you said, and whined when I tried to go slow. I did not want to be slow. I wanted to be slow for you.”
“I’m persuasive,” Zelli reminded him breathlessly.
“You’re dangerous.” Tahlen regarded Zelli brightly despite his words. He ran his fingertips over Zelli’s stomach, smiling when Zelli surprised them both with a ticklish laugh. “Yellow,” he remarked thoughtfully, “and orange.” He brought his hands up to Zelli’s nipples, his touch lighter than Zelli’s had been. “You didn’t respond much when I touched you here before.”
Zelli did not appreciate Tahlen’s calm study of him when he could not do much more than arch his back to press himself into Tahlen’s hands.
“They get sort of hot,” he explained, or tried to, “when I am like this. Swollen, too, if I touch them too much. I used to worry—ah.” His voice rose as Tahlen plucked on his nipples before pinching them. “Tahlen!” he gasped, pressing Tahlen’s hands back down when Tahlen startled and tried to pull away. “Don’t stop.”
Tahlen had to know what he was doing to him; Zelli’s cock was difficult to miss.
“You used to worry?” Tahlen prompted, sending currents of lightning through Zelli’s chest and creating a heavy, pleasing ache under his caresses.
Zelli left his hands over Tahlen’s and closed his eyes. He moaned softly and considered asking Tahlen to do this to him forever. “It’s too much—not this.” He kept Tahlen’s hands right where they were, and wriggled, as much as he could, when Tahlen responded with a tug. “I used to worry,” he explained reluctantly, eyes firmly shut, “when I knew less about this… and about bodies in general… that the heaviness meant I was going… make milk, or something. Don’t laugh. I was young.”
Tahlen noticeably paused what he was doing, but then returned to it, using the edge of his thumbnail to make Zelli gasp.
“Your body surprises you all the time,” Tahlen offered, voice gone hoarse once again. “And with everything else, it seems a natural worry.”
“You really are beautiful.” Zelli was only complaining a little.
Tahlen took his hands away, then bent down just as Zelli opened his eyes. He began to use his lips and tongue as he had used his fingers.
Zelli made a sound, made a lot of sounds, and dug his hands into Tahlen’s hair. He moaned at the ceiling and wished a mirror existed there so he could watch Tahlen suck one nipple, then the other, soft at first, and then harder when Zelli liked it. He bit, too, not as hard as Zelli would have, but pleased with himself, Zelli could tell. His mouth made Zelli ache, made Zelli think of filling that mouth in whatever way he could, milk or seed or his cock.
His cock was so large it might choke Tahlen. Zelli could pull back, let Tahlen suckle as he was now, and then spill thick down his throat and on his tongue, over his chest. Zelli would decorate his shoulder with his teeth and spill there too. But never on his braid. Not unless Tahlen asked him to.
“Tahlen.” Zelli pulled Tahlen’s hair to urge him to whichever nipple needed his attentions. He blushed for it, but Tahlen didn’t stop. He whined, a mere hint of a sound but enough for Zelli to wonder if Tahlen ached like Zelli did.
“Will you suck me again? I mean, my cock and not only my nipples?” Zelli managed to make that a question at least, though he could not find a please in his heart. One wasn’t needed anyway. The hint of a whine slipped from Tahlen again, then he slid all the way to the floor onto his knees in front of the low bed. He looked up Zelli’s body to meet Zelli’s stare and took a deep breath.
“Oh,” Zelli added breathlessly, “that wasn’t quite an order, was it? I’ll work on it.”
Smiling faintly, Tahlen pulled Zelli toward him by his calves, then curled his hands around Zelli’s cock without hesitation and brought it to his lips. He had to open his mouth wide.
Zelli was transfixed.
He tried clumsily to prop himself up only to need to touch Tahlen a moment later. His hands found Tahlen’s hair again, then Tahlen’s shoulders and the muscles of his back.
Tahlen wanted his mouth filled so much. Zelli fell to the bed again, legs spread as he touched his reddened nipples. Tahlen’s eyes were closed, his lips stretched. He made wet, muffled sounds as he licked and swallowed, then he hauled Zelli closer.
“Can you breathe?” Zelli worried, pushing up whenever Tahlen let him. “Look at me.”
Tahlen’s eyes were slow to open. His lashes were wet. He did not stop his hands or the greedy pulls of his lips and tongue.
“When I am better at this,” Zelli promised roughly, toying with his nipples for Tahlen to see, “I will not let you hold me down. I will… if you want it so much, I’ll give it to you.” What better use for an absurdly large cock than to stuff Tahlen with it? “I’ll fill you and paint you, if you like.”
Tahlen dropped a hand for a moment, down out of sight, probably to touch himself.
Zelli bit his lip hard. “I’ll fill you now.” He couldn’t remember if he had before. The night and day before were a blur of pleasant memories and Tahlen trying to be thorough, perhaps neat. Zelli did not want to be neat. He wanted his spend bursting from Tahlen’s mouth and dripping down his face. He wanted to pull Tahlen down to him to bite his shoulder. He wanted Tahlen to fuck him as he did it.
He said that, shouted it, growled it, he hardly knew which, too busy bending himself in half and scrambling up again to grab Tahlen’s hair and watch his cock pulse and Tahlen swallow. Tahlen swallowed again, then let Zelli’s cock slip from his lips, which were soon covered as well.
Some hit Tahlen’s cheek before he took Zelli’s cock back into his mouth, lovely eyes shut.
Zelli had wrapped Tahlen’s braid around his hand and wrist and pulled on it to rouse Tahlen from his dream and bring him back to Zelli’s bed.
Tahlen climbed back over Zelli to resume mouthing Zelli’s nipples. His face was damp and sticky and burning hot. Zelli shifted up, slightly pained from his recent pleasure but unwilling to stop. Tahlen moved with him, his cock so hard he must have been in some pain as well. He slipped his hands over Zelli’s ribs, then down to his hips to bring them closer.
He stilled.
His hands, curving over Zelli’s ass, stopped, then slid up, toward the small bit of bone and fluff that could only be described as a tail.
Rather like a deer’s tail, Zelli knew, from twisting around to see it in his reflection.
“Tahlen?” Zelli asked after what felt like a very long silence.
Tahlen’s gaze was bright, his version of purple. “Turn over so I can see?”
Zelli wiggled and shifted to get Tahlen to move back a bit, then rolled over onto his stomach. A trace of anxiety made him cold for not even one moment, and then Tahlen exhaled and put his hands back on Zelli’s body. He traced more markings, the trailing dots and curving lines that led from Zelli’s shoulder blades down to the tail which, uncontrolled by Zelli, twitched at the touch. “Pink again,” Tahlen offered, his throat hoarse from taking Zelli’s cock. “Deep pink. Camellia petals. And golden yellow, like sunlight.”
“Tahlen,” Zelli complained, increasingly warm from Tahlen’s rapt attention. “Tup me like this, however you please, but first I must bite you.”
Tahlen leaned down to put his lips against Zelli’s ass, his breath stirring Zelli’s fur, his tail. “I want to fuck you hard, not like we did before.”
“The oil I like is back in the other room,” Zelli answered breathlessly, then pulled down a pillow to bite, since he suspected he was going to need it.
Twenty
Zelli sleepily decided his fae family members were right to trust Tahlen with Zelli’s fae side, and perhaps were also right in bringing all of Zelli’s problems out at once even if he would have preferred a more private setting.
Although, since he didn’t actually know they had done any of that, and perhaps it was all a coincidence, or Zelli’s fae body maturing, or several days spent around someone beautiful who gave Zelli feelings, he decided not to thank them with any offerings yet.
And also, he didn’t want to get out of bed to do it.
He stretched over warm, rumpled bedding, expecting the sore muscles and stinging places. He grinned into the remaining shreds of his pillow and twisted his back just to feel the pleasant pull all through his body.
The only thing that could have stolen his smile in that moment was the glimpse of pale light beginning to creep into the room and the empty space in the bed beside him. But the curtains around the bed were open and Zelli only had to move his head a little to see Tahlen.
Cleaned and dressed, Tahlen was tying off the bottom of his braid when he noticed Zelli watching him. “I don’t actually know if I’m supposed to be on duty,” he explained, as close to sheepish as he would ever be. “I forgot to check before I came here last night.” He must have heard Zelli’s languid sigh. “I would stay, but I ought to see what’s going on, and you should sleep more.”
“I did have a long night,” Zelli chirped back at him, splaying his limbs in a wide stretch, then snagging the pillow Tahlen had used and curling around it. He moved his leg to make sure part of his tail showed.
Tahlen took a long time to remember to blink. He exhaled, then seemed to focus. “You’re teasing me?”
Zelli considered this. “I suppose I am.” It wasn’t his fault that Tahlen’s cock felt so good or that Tahlen seemed fascinated with the tail in particular. Zelli wouldn’t have expected it of Tahlen, but even Tahlen hadn’t expected it of Tahlen.
“…Keep discovering things about myself,” Tahlen had grumbled to himself at some point in the night, one arm slung across his face to hide it, his cock stirring for every brush of Zelli’s teeth over his thigh.
The memory was like stoking a fire and being doused with cold water at the same time. Zelli touched his tongue to one of his teeth, then propped himself up on his elbow to consider the obvious faeness of his body, the colors and the fur, his cock, the horns that he had yet to see.
“Oh,” he said as he realized. “I make people uncomfortable as I normally am. What would they say to this? I’ll have to hide today, possibly tomorrow too.”
Tahlen paused in the act of picking up his cloak off the floor where Zelli had left it and draping it over the chair by the fireplace. “The Lyralinah guards saw your hair and didn’t mind.” They’d seen, or at least heard, a bit more than that, but Zelli kept his mouth shut when faced with Tahlen’s frown. “Everyone here already knows who you are and that you’re fae. That’s why many people originally settled here and stayed here, even if they won’t say so: for the fae and their protection. If it makes those people as uncomfortable as it makes you to know that I have used my weapons and will use them again, then so be it. They’ll be uncomfortable, but they’ll be protected.”
Zelli gave Tahlen a frown in return. “I’m not uncomfortable with it. But weapons and fighting are not all of you. I know they aren’t, and I won’t allow them to ever be.”
Tahlen raised his chin. “I will do what I swore to do, Zelli. You can’t stop that or wish it away.”
Zelli sat up so he could cross his arms. “I can’t help that I don’t like the thought of you hurt, or dying, or dead, and that I can’t hide it. Maybe I should try harder to be more of a Tialttyrin. Maybe I should strive to be more like you.”
“No.”
Zelli reached for a blanket to cover himself. “Yes,” he countered. “I think I should. Grandmother already despairs of my lack of discretion. If I am to be any good in any sort of alliance, I should try to be more like someone from the old houses who knows what duty means. And I should not be thoughtless and say something to land me and someone else in trouble. Or vex you when you are only trying to do what you have sworn to do.”
“No,” Tahlen said again, harder. His tone almost immediately gentled. “You still don’t understand.”
Zelli scoffed while agreeing. “There are many things I don’t understand, such as...”
“I don’t want you to be like me,” Tahlen cut him off harshly. He took a moment before he spoke again. “I’d save you from that, no matter the cost. No.” He didn’t let Zelli interrupt. “You don’t always understand, but you try to. Because you care. Obviously, palpably, about everyone and everything. You can’t be discreet for that reason, but what a gift that will be to… to whoever you choose to love. They will be publicly adored by you in a way few ever are or could even dream of.”
Zelli was barely aware of moving to the edge of the bed. He gathered a blanket around him without taking his gaze from Tahlen, half of the blanket dragging behind him as he crossed the room. He stopped in front of Tahlen, close enough that he had to raise his head to keep eye contact.
Tahlen looked resolute and grim but allowed Zelli to stare without comment. He had put Zelli’s small braid in his hair again. He hadn’t tucked it away as Zelli had.
Zelli felt shaky and dry-mouthed, like he’d had too much drink the night before.
“Is that what you want?” he asked at last.
Tahlen went from grim, to pained, to resolute once again. “I don’t expect anything.”
“You asked to court me knowing I would be sent away to be courted by another.” Zelli rubbed his chest with the hand holding up the blanket. “I wouldn’t have been able to publicly adore you. I would have had to try not to.”
Tahlen swept a glance up to Zelli’s ears or maybe his horns, then met his eyes again. “I expected nothing.”
Zelli shook his head. “But you asked.”
Tahlen turned his head to grimace.
“You don’t have to explain.” Zelli said with some shame. “It’s not your fault I don’t understand.”
Tahlen put his shoulders back. “I don’t expect to hold onto anything, now, or in the future. You were going to leave, and still are. If I wanted to know you, even a little, I had to ask.”
Zelli stared at him, lips parted in amazement.
Tahlen would have had to share Zelli’s attention to some extent, and leave this place and Esrin, at least for a time, yet he’d asked. And that when he had clearly thought Zelli didn’t want him that much, except perhaps in his bed.
He would have, in his words, dealt with, Zelli’s future intended, even after he had thought himself refused. Possibly to help the alliance and keep the people under Tialttyrin rule protected, but mostly to keep Zelli protected. His desires and his feelings, like his body and his life, to be ignored or used or thrown away.
He didn’t even seem sorry.
Zelli felt himself frowning but didn’t try to banish it. Tahlen could have spoken of this before. Zelli had even asked him. In front of this very fireplace, Zelli had asked Tahlen about what he wanted. Wishes Tahlen had not voiced, because even wishes could be taken away. Had been taken away, in the life of Tahlen Vallithi.
Zelli dropped his hand from his chest, leaving the blanket to fall where it would. “This is your home. You told the other guards it was and that you wore our symbols with pride. But you would have left it to make sure I was safe.”
“And happy,” Tahlen added stiffly.
“And happy.” Zelli glared at him for the interruption, for that word, when it was Tahlen’s happiness on his mind. “For my occasional attention? For the chance I might call you Tahly again someday?” He still didn’t understand. “Because you liked that I was eager for you? Because I was kind to you and you admired me?”
Tahlen narrowed his eyes at the far wall. His hands were clenched. He finally turned his head to face Zelli again and said, as though he had to force himself to speak, “Because I love you, Zelli.”
Tahlen kept talking over the sound of Zelli’s strangled gasp. “I’m always confused around you, yet never seem to mind. And I feel different under your attention, which used to bother me, but now it… I told you how it makes me feel. I will give myself for that and have no problems doing so. I’ll do it, gladly, and not even you can persuade me not to no matter how much you gaze up at me.”
Zelli hadn’t earned the life or the love of Tahlen of the Vallithi. Not one soul in the valley had done that, but certainly not Zelli. Tahlen would be miserable for him and fight for him and die for him, yet tell Zelli he expected nothing? That he could not hold Zelli, not for long, but he could please him and protect him for a while?
