The Eunuch Who Guards the Crown Prince's Bed novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Hold the Edge
The prince promises silence, orders Seok-woo's hands on the bath edge and takes him in hand until he comes; at dawn Min's steward asks how the tea tastes.
Seok-woo knelt on the wet stone and pressed his forehead to the floor.
"Call the guard, Your Highness," he said. "I won't run."
"Get up."
"The penalty is death for me, and for whoever signed the register."
"I know the penalty. Get up, Seok-woo."
Seok-woo got up.
Hyeon had not moved.
He stood in the steam in his half-wet silk with the lamp behind him, and he did not look afraid.
There was a quiet certainty in his face.
"Who else knows?" Hyeon said.
"No one."
"Someone wrote a false line in a register."
"A clerk who was paid. I don't know his name."
That was true, and Hyeon studied his face.
"I will say nothing," the prince said.
Seok-woo stared at him.
"Not now, not to Bae, not to anyone. And I want nothing for it." His voice was very even. "If you want to walk out that door tonight and leave the palace tomorrow, I will sign the paper that sends you home myself."
"Why?"
"Because every man in this house is paid to watch me." His mouth curled. "And you are the first I've met who is in more danger than I am."
The lamp ticked.
Water dripped from the end of Hyeon's hair onto the stone.
Seok-woo should have gone.
He had a vial in his sleeve, a sister in the kitchens, and forty days.
"I'm not leaving," he said.
"No?"
"Not tonight."
Something moved in Hyeon's face, very small, and was gone.
"Then you will do as I say," said the Crown Prince.
He walked around Seok-woo, unhurried, and stopped at his back.
His breath touched the side of Seok-woo's neck.
"Put your hands on the edge of the basin."
Seok-woo's throat went tight.
"Your Highness..."
"The edge. Both hands. Now."
Seok-woo laid his hands on the stone rim.
It was warm from the water.
Hyeon came up behind him, and the wet silk of his chest pressed against Seok-woo's back, narrow and hot.
His hand slid around Seok-woo's waist and untied the sash with two pulls.
"Don't take it off," Hyeon said when Seok-woo moved. "Hold the stone."
The dark blue robe fell open.
Hyeon's hand stopped on his hip, and Seok-woo heard him breathe in.
"Look at you," Hyeon said, very low.
Seok-woo's cock had hardened the second he was touched, thick and heavy against his belly.
He had never been so ashamed or so glad of anything.
"Please," Seok-woo said, and did not know what he was asking for.
"No one has touched you in a long time." It was not a question.
"No."
"Not since you came to the palace."
"Not since long before that."
"Good."
Hyeon's hand closed around his hard cock.
Seok-woo's whole body jerked.
The prince's palm was dry and hot, gripping him root to tip.
He was slow and sure, his thumb rubbing through the slick bead at the head, and every stroke pulled a groan up from the bottom of Seok-woo's chest.
"Quiet," Hyeon murmured against his ear. "Bae sleeps in the next room."
Seok-woo bit his lip.
He gripped the rim of the basin until his knuckles went white.
Hyeon's other arm held him across the chest, and Seok-woo could feel the prince's heart racing against his back.
He could feel Hyeon's own hard cock too, pressed hot against his ass through the silk.
"You want it too," Seok-woo said, dazed.
"I do."
"Let me..."
"No." Hyeon's hand did not stop. "Hold the edge."
"Your Highness..."
"Say my name."
"I can't."
"Hyeon." He nipped the muscle at the side of Seok-woo's neck. "Say it once."
"Hyeon."
The prince made a small sound against his skin.
"Again."
"Hyeon. Hyeon, I'm going to..."
"I know. Go on. Let me watch you."
He turned Seok-woo sideways in his arm so he could see his face.
Seok-woo hated that, and wanted it.
No one had ever looked at him as if he were worth the trouble.
Hyeon's eyes were black in the lamplight and a flush ran all up his throat.
His hand moved faster.
Seok-woo's breath went ragged, and the heat low in his belly drew tight as a bowstring.
"Good," Hyeon whispered. "Look at me. That's it, Seok-woo. Cum for me."
Seok-woo came hard with the prince's name in his mouth.
It hit so hard he saw white, his hips shoving forward again and again as thick ropes of cum spilled over the prince's fist and onto the stone.
Hyeon milked his cock through every shudder.
He did not let go until the last one had passed and Seok-woo's forehead was resting on his arm on the rim.
Then Hyeon lifted his hand to the lamp and looked at it.
His fingers were shaking.
"Your Highness," Seok-woo said hoarsely. "You haven't..."
"Later." Hyeon's voice was thick. "I want to go on feeling this a little."
He wiped his hand on the towel, then wiped the stone, then stood there.
Seok-woo turned around and fixed his robe with clumsy hands.
Under the grey silk, Hyeon was still plainly wanting, and he made no effort to hide it.
"Nobody has touched me because they wanted to," he said, "in six years."
Seok-woo had no answer to that.
He had come here to hate this man.
"Sleep in the outer room," Hyeon said. "Keep your door open. I will want the tea at the fourth watch."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"In here, you say my name."
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
Seok-woo swallowed. "Yes, Hyeon."
He slept very badly, on a mat across the threshold with the vial against his ribs.
At dawn Bae came to wake him, and the corridor behind Bae was full of grey light.
A thin, polite man stood beside him in the Left Councillor's dark green, carrying a folded paper.
"The Councillor sends his regards," the steward said, with a smile like a drawn line. "He wants to know how the tea tastes."
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