Chapter 6: The First Time

Luo had fixed the bed with rope and a very guilty expression.

"It'll hold," he said, tugging the post. "I tested it."

"How?"

"I hung from it."

"Naked?"

"I'm a thorough man."

Jinghan was already laughing when Luo turned around, and then he stopped, because Luo had lit every candle in the room.

There were forty of them, along the sills and the shelves, and the lodge glowed.

"I wanted to see you," Luo said awkwardly. "This time. All of you."

Jinghan's throat closed.

People had looked at him all his life, for his sword, his face, his sect's name.

Nobody had ever lit a room to look at him.

"Then look," he said.

He untied his sash and let his robes fall, and stood in the gold light with the lotus burning on his chest.

Luo took his time.

His eyes went over Jinghan's shoulders, his ribs, his flat stomach, the mole at his collarbone, the line of his hips.

The cock rising between them.

"You're beautiful," Luo said, so simply that it sounded like an accusation.

"You're a menace."

"I mean it."

"I know. I can feel it." Jinghan tapped his breastbone. "You're loud."

Luo grinned and began to unfasten his own robe, and Jinghan watched every inch of tan skin come out of the black.

The scars.

The heavy, steady chest.

The hard line of muscle down his belly.

Then the cock Jinghan had had in his mouth, thick and dark, curving upward and already wet.

Jinghan sat on the edge of the bed and reached out.

"Come here," he said.

Luo lay down beside him, and Jinghan kissed him slowly, for a long time, until the tension went out of him.

Jinghan's hands learned the width of Luo's back.

"There's something I should tell you," Jinghan said into his mouth.

"Mm?"

"Of the nineteen duels, I lost three on purpose."

Luo pulled back.

"Which three?"

"The ninth, the thirteenth and the sixteenth."

"You told me the ninth was a draw."

"It was, after I stopped trying."

"Why?"

"Because you smiled when you won," Jinghan said. "I wanted to see what it looked like when it was real."

Luo's face did something Jinghan had no word for.

He rolled Jinghan onto his back and settled over him, braced on both forearms, his braid spilling over Jinghan's shoulder and his eyes shining.

"I've wanted to kiss you for ten years," Luo said. "Every one of them. I never thought you'd lose."

"I didn't lose."

Keep reading free with an account. Start We Share One Heart Demon and One Bed from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.