by R. Cooper
“Oh,” Mattin said.
“You didn’t. But then you responded so well when Arden tried a more direct approach—”
Mattin opened his mouth to stop Mil right there. None of that had been direct. Except, Mil had said more direct, and by that he must have meant something more direct than whatever they had done before.
Which included Mattin being fed fruit from the king’s own hand.
Mattin hid his face behind his hands. “Oh. Oh no.”
“And then,” Mil was pointed, “you offered to show him how to woo. I don’t think you know what you do to us.”
“I offered,” Mattin began stiffly from behind his hands, “to tell you how to woo someone else.”
“A beat-of-four,” Arden agreed, only to betray him. “And you did it so very reluctantly.”
Mattin huffed.
“Now, Sass, you had your own victories.” Mil patted Mattin’s knee, which only made Mattin huff again. “Jola’s party, for example.”
“Where I made a fool of myself?” Mattin removed one hand from his face to hiss at Mil.
“Where you dressed like you did,” Arden said, heated and heavy, and Mattin dropped his hands in surprise. “And were surrounded by friends and admirers, and Jola had forbidden us to approach you, so all we could do was watch you draw others.”
Mattin swallowed. “Do you…” he did not want to ask, but, “do you two not realize I am plain?”
Arden raised his eyebrows, then lowered them into a displeased frown. “My sister ordered us to stay away from you and to let you have your fun with those your own age if you wanted. All while you looked like that. She wanted to remind us that we were not the only ones to want you. That Canamorra, that Wulfa, that king, was a danger, and the others nearer your age and circle are the safer choice. You seemed at ease, as though you were having fun. You were beautiful. And you would not look at us.”
“We at least got to rescue you,” Mil decided with no small amount of satisfaction in his voice, “and take you home.”
At the wine-hazy memory, Mattin reached up to his throat, then curled his fingers over his hair.
“Were you uncomfortable sleeping with those clasps in?” Arden’s gaze was hot. “May I be of service once again?”
Mattin’s gaze flew to Mil even as he turned his head to offer his braids to Arden’s hands. “I am not drunk.” He didn’t know why he said it and tried to clarify his own thinking. “You are a king, Arden.”
“A handsome, heroic one, I hear.” Arden’s weight shifted the bed and the bedding, so Mattin moved with it, curling onto his knees without taking his eyes from Mil. Mil, for his part, did not seem inclined to look away either.
“How dare he?” Mil agreed with Mattin’s unspoken comment. “He doesn’t understand how it is for the rest of us.”
“No, he does not.” Mattin sniffed haughtily, or would have, if Arden’s fingertips had not brushed his ear and made him shiver. Mil drew in a breath. There was little else for Mattin to do but shiver again and again at each careful tickle and become very warm in the face. He had been going to say something else, but could not recall what it was.
Arden was thorough. When his glittering handful had been set aside, he tugged lightly on the end of one of the braids. “Should I attend to your hair too, Master Arlylian?”
Mattin could only imagine the state of his braids after the cellars and then falling asleep here. He thought that no one had ever asked to attend to his hair, except to help him fix it when asked. Then he thought that he did not know what he might do once Arden’s hands were on him. But he’d already told them he loved them. What more embarrassing thing could he do?
“If you like,” he answered, far too late.
Mil’s eyes seemed to glint in the firelight. “It’ll calm him down,” he said as if revealing a secret.
“Oh?” Mattin responded, as if he could think at all as his braids were unbound and Arden arranged the loose hair to fall over his shoulders. “And you?” Mattin wondered thickly, because Mil had not looked away.
“I’m many things, but I wouldn’t say calm.” Mil reached out to take a small handful of Mattin’s hair and let it slide through his fingers. “You’re both quite good to me.”
Arden chuffed a laugh at that before sweeping the curtain of hair back and rebraiding it. He was not quick, as if he was out of practice, but the braid felt slightly more complex than Mattin had expected from him.
“This is…” Mattin began tentatively, watching Mil, but then found he could not ask. “I would like to be good to you,” he said instead, then clapped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry.”
Arden laughed again, a small but warm sound as he tied off the end of Mattin’s braid. “Why would you be sorry? You are in our bed.” He leaned closer to speak against the shell of Mattin’s ear. “Where we put you.”
“It is a very large bed, as Mil promised it was,” Mattin answered through his revealing little tremble. Then, with a jolt, he straightened his spine and threw one hand back to grab and hold onto some part of Arden’s shirt, though he did not turn around. He watched Mil. One had to watch Mil and not Arden for the plain truth in these things. Mil was easier to read. But they had said it. “You love me?”
Mil’s eyes crinkled. “You do wrap yourself up in layers, don’t you? Good armor has nothing on you.”
Armor reminded Mattin of his cloak and the gash in it, so he shoved that thought away. He held out his other hand to Mil to show him. Mattin had cleaned up but some of the red ink remained. “This is love, Mattin, you fool. That’s what I wrote on the list I made myself. I did not allow myself to think of it. It did not seem…. It could not be real.”
“Well, we thought about it.” Mil took the offered hand and kissed it, and grinned at Mattin’s quiet gasp. “I’d tease him for his infatuation with our Keeper, and—"
Arden coughed. “I’m not the one who kept remarking on his figure.”
Mil snorted. “No, you just stared until I caught you staring.” He looked back at Mattin after giving his husband a heated but fond look, and then turned Mattin’s hand over to kiss his palm. “So we both admired you,” he carried on easily. “There’s no crime in it.”
“A bit embarrassing, at our ages, with so much else on our minds.” Arden was no longer speaking close to Mattin’s ear, but was still a solid presence at his back. “But there it was. There you were. Our weekly visitor. Then every few days. Then at our table.” That was almost a purr.
“Only one place better to find you,” Mil remarked, seeming to enjoy Mattin’s stunned silence. “Though, of course, if you’re not wanting that, just sitting down to share our meals with you is pleasure enough.”
Mattin stared at the pair of them, torn between a thrill of pleasure and a flush of embarrassment. “Are you seducing me?”
“No—yes,” Arden answered thoughtfully. “Into staying in our bed, at least. It’s been a long night and we are not at our best. We can do a proper job of it later, if you’d like.”
“I really do wonder how the palace youth go about this these days,” Mil remarked, placing another kiss to the inside of Mattin’s wrist and grinning when Mattin exhaled shortly.
“We all know each other,” Mattin explained, voice shakier than it should have been. He clutched Arden’s shirt tighter while Mil dragged the tips of Mattin’s fingers against his lips and teased Mattin’s thumb with his tongue. “There’s no need for anything…” Mattin couldn’t remember what he had been going to say. “Complicated,” he finished at last, breathless. “Though it must be… must be different when it’s someone else, like the guards and the assistants. They flirt a lot before they—ah.” Arden pressed closer to his back. Mattin slid his hand down to what might have been Arden’s hip. “Some have a regular outguard that visits them, whenever they return. What… what am I saying?”
“Did you have one?” Arden asked, a murmur into Mattin’s hair. “A regular outguard to tup in the library?”
“That is not yo
ur business,” Mattin informed him, struggling to even say that when Arden’s lips grazed his ear. “But no. Of—ah, of course not. And they would have been tupping me. I much prefer that.”
Mil nodded seriously as if this was important information.
Arden wrapped his arms around Mattin and pressed a kiss, soft, to the side of Mattin’s neck. “Anything else you prefer? Wait—why ‘of course not?’”
“How many times must I tell you I am pl—” Mattin’s voice rose when the kiss became wetter, when there were teeth nipping in tender places. “Plain,” Mattin tried again, in disbelief that he was being tasted by the two of them at once. “The spark… the sparkles are to make me feel prettier.”
“You’re a smart one, Sass, but some things I don’t think you understand.” Mil’s voice rumbled up Mattin’s arm. His gaze was on Arden and it was smug. “Imagine them all, the sorry souls.”
“Who?” Mattin asked blankly, with Arden toying with the loosely tied fabric at his waist. Mattin pushed his thumb farther into Mil’s waiting mouth, then hiccoughed at his presumption, although Mil simply closed his lips around it before slowly sliding it free.
“The people flirting with you, only to have it go unnoticed,” Arden explained over Mattin’s much faster and louder breathing. He did not sound amused though he should have been if Mattin had been that oblivious. “I suspect your peers learned to be more to the point with you.” The tied fabric of Mattin’s belt went slack. Mattin’s pants would have fallen if he hadn’t been sitting on his knees. Arden made a small, pleased sound, but did not press the issue until Mattin found one of Arden’s hands and pulled it to his hip. Arden obligingly dipped his fingers beneath the fabric, then splayed his hand wide over Mattin’s bare skin. His other hand followed the first, settling at Mattin’s ribs in a way that hinted at his thoughts. His words did as well. “Tell us more about these outguards tupping you in the library.”
Mattin had not known Arden to growl like Mil, but the sound was strangely thrilling. He tipped his head to the side to hopefully feel it again along his throat with more of Arden’s kisses. He had often thought it would be very nice to be lifted off his feet and pressed to the stacks and fucked. But he huffed at the question. “How many assistants did you take against the shelves?”
Then he nearly moaned at the thought. They would be so good at it, the two of them.
“Oh, we’re after Master Keepers now,” Arden revealed, gruff enough to make Mil proud, and hitched Mattin up onto his lap. Mattin had to spread his legs to straddle one of the thighs Mil dreamed about. He also squeaked in surprise, but he squirmed back against Arden’s chest in the next moment, perhaps for the fire in Mil’s eyes as he watched. Arden likely had to twist himself uncomfortably to hold Mattin thus while mouthing at his neck, but he did not seem inclined to stop. “One Master Keeper, in particular.” Arden held a hand firmly to Mattin’s hip to keep Mattin still and pressed his forehead to the back of Mattin’s head. “And tonight we nearly lost him.”
Mattin stopped breathing, then pulled in a long, unsteady breath far too many moments later. He shut his eyes, but opened them at the sound of Mil’s voice grown soft.
“Then to find out, had that happened, that he wouldn’t have known what a gem he is.”
Mattin could not reply in anything above a whisper. “That was mean. I wasn’t ready.”
He didn’t know that anyone could be. He did not want them to grieve, or to think of how close he must have come. The assassin’s knife had slashed his cloak, and that only because Mattin had turned at just that moment to joke with his guards.
He put a hand over Arden’s on his hip, then grasped Arden’s fingers nervously as though they were his own. Mil would not let him look away, or maybe it was Mattin who could not.
The tangle of feeling in his chest included grief alongside the love. Mattin had ignored that with the rest. Armor, Mil had named it, as though he understood.
“You choose me anyway?” Mattin asked, quiet. “Despite the risk of this?”
“The question is, do you choose us anyway?” Mil put Mattin’s hand against his cheek. Mattin curled a hand into his beard and scratched, curious. Mil bent his head to follow the touches.
Mattin had sorted too many feelings for one night and one day. He tore his gaze from Mil to stare at the fire and thought of another question, far easier to answer. “Things I prefer,” he began, dropping a word at a time. Mil oiled his beard well; it was quite soft. “I don’t know. I’ve never been asked in such a way. Although, everything has always been very polite.”
“Proper,” Mil grunted, not unkindly.
Mattin turned back toward him without thought. Whatever he said, now or later, Mil and Arden would listen and remember. They had chosen him knowing the risk to their hearts. They loved him. He considered this and then continued despite the heat in his face. “That you don’t finish inside me.” He sighed. “Well, in my mouth is fine if you warn me. And not in my hair.”
“Well, fuck me.” Mil must not have expected that sort of answer. “That all?”
“I’m happy to wash your hair for you,” Arden offered.
Mattin shifted back to be more solidly pressed to Arden. Then Arden’s suggestion took over his thinking for several moments. He stared at Mil, wide-eyed and possibly feverish.
“He means it,” Mil explained. “He likes to know we’re all right, you see. Even if he never tupped you, he’d take pleasure in the little acts.”
“Oh.” Mattin gripped Arden’s hand tighter, then let go. “I suppose. If we have time to wash my hair, afterward.” Arden resumed the kisses down the side of Mattin’s neck, over skin already sensitized. “An outguard in the library would not have been able to do that.”
“They would if you had ever invited them back to your room.” Arden inched his hands lower, testing or teasing.
Many assistants shared living quarters, but Mattin did not bother to explain that. “I never brought anyone to my room,” he realized it and worried over it in the same breath. He looked at Mil. “I’ve never had anyone watch before. Never had two lovers at once….”
“Are you doing that now?” Mil asked before Mattin could reach for his braid to anxiously pull at it.
It stopped Mattin, then made him frown at Mil in question.
Mil raised his eyebrows, apparently offended. “Did you think we were going to pin you to the bed and take turns without so much as a please and thank you?”
“Would you?” Mattin immediately wondered in return. He wet his lips. “If not now, then at some point?” His heart was racing. “I think I would also prefer to do something wild—but not too much. Please and thank you.”
Arden’s surprised, snorting laugh against Mattin’s neck was warm. Mil seemed taken aback, but only briefly, and then he was rising to his knees and beckoning Mattin to him, so Mattin went. He fell clumsily forward until Mil drew him up. Then Mil kissed him, a hand at his face, the other splayed over Mattin’s ribs.
Mattin flailed his hands before setting them on Mil’s shoulders, his legs weakened, his body humming. He couldn’t—didn’t—know how to respond to something so hungry, except to complain softly when Mil eased back and then to tilt forward to ask for more.
“Stubble,” Mil observed, perhaps to Arden, while stroking Mattin’s cheek. Mattin hated to think of his unkempt appearance, but barely got a chance to fret over it, for then Mil was kissing him again, a fierce, breathless kiss that had Mattin curling and uncurling his fingers like a cat.
The bed shifted behind him before Arden’s large hands swept beneath Mattin’s shirt to lift it and bare Mattin’s skin. Mattin tried to think, he truly did, to at least do more than moan for Mil’s kisses or shiver for the press of Arden’s hands. He didn’t know if he wanted to remove his clothing; Mil was a mountain and Mattin was so soft in comparison. To undress, Mattin would also have to take his hands from Mil, which he did not want to do, although he had hardly dared to touch Mil beyond his shoulders.
In th
e end, Arden did not push the matter, and that is what made Mattin decide to release Mil long enough to tear his vest and his shirt away before burying his face in Mil’s throat.
“Ah,” whispered Mil, quite tenderly, while Arden’s fingertips traced the length of Mattin’s spine down to where his pants had dipped low. Arden toyed with Mattin’s braid, tugging it gently to bring Mattin’s head up, and then offering a kiss, first at Mattin’s cheek and then at his mouth when Mattin twisted around to ask for it.
The kiss was slow and careful, and it was a lie; all of Arden’s strength was kept from him, and his hunger only hinted at. Mattin would not even have known it was there if he had not tasted Mil’s. He pulled away to huff against Arden’s jaw and the coarser hair of Arden’s beard before offering his mouth again.
This was better. Arden dropped his hands to Mattin’s waist and made a guttural sound in his throat when Mattin’s lips parted. His hold on Mattin was near to bruising. Mattin should have worried. Instead, he arched in Arden’s hands and was dizzy and hot with how pleased he was. He turned to catch his breath and found Mil’s mouth again, and this time, he kissed it, panting embarrassing sounds and climbing onto Mil’s lap while Arden pressed kisses to his nape and his shoulder. Arden’s thumbs pressed into the small of Mattin’s back. The waist of Mattin’s pants dropped farther. Then Mil fitted his hands to Mattin’s thighs and that was all Mattin thought about for some time.
When Mattin finally could think again, and then only a little, he was flushed and aroused and struggling for breath against Mil’s shoulder. His pants had been most of the way removed, although they were still trapped beneath him. Mil tipped Mattin’s head up to study his face.
Mil was flushed too, his eyes dark in the firelight. Whatever he saw made him grin like the wolf in his name.
Mattin didn’t even realize that Arden had moved away from him until he was suddenly flat on his back with Mil kneeling above him, pulling Mattin’s pants from his ankles. Mattin made a noise more of surprise than complaint, though he frowned at Mil for still being dressed. Before Mattin could vocally object to this, or pause to worry over his own nudity, Mil tugged his shirt over his head and tossed it to the side.
