My Husband Thinks I Forgot I Was a Demon novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Stay

The Leader tells him they needn't, and Ji-han is the one who pulls him onto the bed.

Ji-han did not sleep, and neither did the Leader.

They lay on the same lacquered bed in their wedding robes, a hand's width apart, staring at the ceiling.

The jujubes had rolled into the gap between them.

The Leader had put one in his mouth at some point, and now he was chewing it slowly.

"You can have the bed," he said. "I'll take the floor."

"It's your bed."

"It's our bed. That's what the council said."

"The council can lie in it, then."

The Leader laughed, a short, low, surprised sound, and the mattress shook with it.

Ji-han turned his head and looked at him in the candlelight.

The Leader lay on his back with one huge forearm behind his head, and his robe had fallen open at the chest.

He had an old white scar across his left collarbone, and a hair or two of grey above one ear.

Ji-han realized he had been looking at the Leader's mouth for a long time.

"You're staring," the Leader said, without turning.

"I'm a man with no memory. Everything is new."

"Is that so?"

"I'm learning what a husband looks like."

"And?"

Ji-han should have said something clever.

"Big," he said. "Warm. Badly lit."

The Leader turned his head, and his eyes were dark and a little amused.

"I can fix the lighting."

"Don't," Ji-han said.

It came out lower than he meant.

The candle popped.

The Leader went very still, and Ji-han knew he had heard it, the want in his voice.

"Ji-han," the Leader said.

It was the first time he had said Ji-han's name.

Nobody had ever said it like that.

"We don't have to," the Leader said. "I'll hold the council off for a month. A year, if you like."

"A year."

"You've lost a great deal. I won't take another thing from you."

Ji-han stared at him.

Nobody had ever offered him a year.

The Lotus Lord had given him one night to kill a man, and a beating when he took two.

He hadn't known how tired he was of being someone's weapon until a stranger offered to leave him alone.

He also hadn't known how much he did not want to be left alone.

He rolled onto his side, and the jujubes scattered.

"Come here," he said.

The Leader didn't move.

"Come here. I'm not asking for a year."

"You've known me for a day."

"I've known you for a day, and I've thought about your hands for most of it."

The Leader's breath caught.

It was a beautiful sound, and Ji-han wanted more of it.

The Leader came over slowly.

He rolled onto his side, and they lay with their noses a breath apart.

Ji-han put his palm flat on the Leader's chest, over the scar, and felt the heart under it pounding.

"There," Ji-han said. "You're nervous too."

"I'm terrified."

"Good."

Ji-han kissed him.

It was clumsy at first.

Then the Leader's hand came up and cradled the back of Ji-han's skull, and his thumb slid along the braid.

He kissed Ji-han like a man who had waited his whole life for permission.

His mouth was hot and slow and tasted of jujube.

Ji-han bit the Leader's lower lip, hard, to show him he wasn't breakable, and the sound the Leader made went straight to Ji-han's cock.

"That's it," Ji-han said against his mouth. "Do it properly."

"I don't know what properly is."

"Neither do I. Show me."

The Leader rolled him onto his back.

His weight came down over Ji-han, huge and heavy and perfect, and Ji-han spread his knees without being asked.

The Leader hesitated, then settled between his thighs, and Ji-han felt how hard he was through two layers of silk.

Ji-han gasped.

The Leader was thick, and right there, pressed against Ji-han's cock, and the friction arched Ji-han's back off the bed.

"If you stop," Ji-han said, "I'll hurt you."

The Leader rocked his hips, slow and deep, once.

Ji-han's cock throbbed against the Leader's stomach, and he made a noise he would have been ashamed of in any other room.

"Again."

The Leader did it again.

Ji-han wound his legs around the Leader's waist and dragged him down, and the Leader groaned into his neck.

"Ji-han, you feel," the Leader said, and couldn't finish.

"Tell me."

"You feel like everything I'm not supposed to have."

Ji-han dug his nails into the Leader's shoulders.

He ground up against him until the silk was wet between them and his head swam.

The Leader kept saying his name against his throat.

It wasn't enough.

Ji-han slid his hand down between their bellies, found the knot of the Leader's sash, and tugged it open.

The Leader's robe fell apart.

He was naked underneath, and Ji-han got his fingers around the Leader's cock and felt it jump in his fist.

It was heavy and hot and slick at the tip, and Ji-han's hand barely closed around it.

"Gods," the Leader said.

"Mm."

Ji-han stroked him once, slow, from root to head, and the Leader's whole body shook.

"Look at you," Ji-han murmured. "You're so hard for me."

"I've been hard since you walked in."

"You hid it well."

"I wore a very long robe."

Ji-han laughed against his jaw, and the Leader kissed him again, wet and deep.

The Leader's hand pushed under Ji-han's silk.

It slid down his stomach, rough and warm, and wrapped around him.

Ji-han bucked into that palm so hard he almost threw the Leader off.

The Leader's fingers were huge, and they closed all the way around Ji-han's cock with room to spare, and Ji-han whimpered.

"Tell me it's good," the Leader whispered.

"It's good. Your hand's good."

"Again."

"You're good," Ji-han said, and watched the Leader's eyes go dark and wide, as if Ji-han had hit him.

The Leader stroked him faster, in time with Ji-han's own hand, their wrists tangling between their bodies.

Ji-han could feel the Leader's heartbeat in his cock.

He could feel his own in his throat.

He rocked up into the Leader's fist while the Leader rocked into his, and their mouths kept bumping and sliding, too hot to kiss properly.

"Husband," Ji-han said, and he meant it as a joke.

It broke the Leader.

He came with a ragged cry, hot and thick across Ji-han's fingers and stomach, his forehead pressed to Ji-han's.

The sight and the sound of it tipped Ji-han over.

He came in the Leader's hand with his teeth in the Leader's shoulder, shaking from head to heel.

For a while they only breathed.

The Leader was heavy on him, and Ji-han didn't want him to move.

The Leader's heart pounded against his ribs.

"That wasn't a year," the Leader said eventually, hoarse.

"No."

"The council will be pleased."

"The council can go hang."

The Leader huffed a laugh into his neck, and his whole body went loose.

Then he lifted his head, and his brown eyes were bright and shy and nothing like a Leader's.

"Thank you," he said.

Ji-han opened his mouth to say something sharp.

Someone pounded on the door.

"Leader!" a sentry shouted. "The Vice-Leader requests you and your spouse at the Council Hall at once. The matter is the spouse's memory."

The Leader's eyes went to Ji-han's.

The afterglow drained out of Ji-han.

"A memory trial," he said.

"I won't let them," the Leader said.

But his voice was not the voice of a Leader, and they both knew it.

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