We Share One Heart Demon and One Bed novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Skin to Skin

The cure is dual cultivation, every night, so the first night is clumsy, furious and very hot; at dawn Jinghan's master summons him home.

The gate warden's lodge had one room, one stove and one very wide bed.

Jinghan looked at the bed for a long moment.

Luo had carried him the last hundred steps, because Jinghan's legs had stopped working around the fortieth.

Luo set him down on the quilt as carefully as a man putting down a full cup.

Then he stood in the middle of the floor, arms hanging motionless at his sides.

The pain in Jinghan's chest had dropped to a hard, steady burn, and it was still rising.

"Tea," said a dry voice at the door.

A short, sturdy woman in gray robes put a tray on the table and looked at neither of them.

"Su Ning," Luo said. "My steward."

"The kettle's hot, the bath is drawn, and the walls are stone," she said. "Nobody in the camps will hear a thing."

She was gone before Jinghan could think of a reply.

He took off his outer robe, because someone had to start.

The ribbon came off easily.

The sash did not, because his fingers were shaking.

Luo watched him fumble with it, and the muscle in his jaw jumped.

"I'm not good at this," Luo said. "I've never been soft with anyone. I'll be too rough."

"You are not allowed to be careful," Jinghan said. "If you're careful, I'll think about it."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want you to stop standing there."

Luo laughed, short and surprised, and the tension went out of his shoulders.

He crossed the room in three strides and knelt on the quilt in front of Jinghan.

He was so big that even kneeling, his eyes were level with Jinghan's.

"Tell me what to do," he said.

"I don't know what to do either. Nobody has touched me in years."

"Then we'll do it badly."

"Together," Jinghan said, and his heart, which was also Luo's heart, gave a hard double beat.

Luo pulled off his black robe.

Jinghan had seen those forearms in nineteen duels, with the iron bracers on them and the long muscle running up toward the elbow.

He had never seen the rest.

Luo's chest was a broad plate of tan skin and old scars, and the red lotus burned over his heart.

Jinghan's own lotus burned in the same place, and when he pulled off his inner shirt the two lights leaned toward each other.

Luo put his hand over the lotus on Jinghan's chest.

This time there was no robe in the way.

Jinghan made a sound he would deny to the end of his life.

"Was that bad?" Luo asked.

"No." Jinghan's voice was ragged. "Do it again."

Luo's palm slid up his breastbone and across to the left side, slowly.

Jinghan's nipple went tight under it, and he hissed.

Luo went still.

"That was not bad either," Jinghan said.

"Show me what else isn't bad."

Jinghan took his wrist and guided the hand down.

Over his ribs, across his stomach, to the ties of his trousers.

He had always thought of himself as a calm man.

Now he was breathing like he had run up a mountain.

"Here," he said. "Please."

He had never said that word to Luo.

Luo's whole body answered it.

He pulled the ties open and slid his hand inside.

His palm closed around Jinghan's cock, hot and rough, and Jinghan nearly came off the bed.

"Fang Jinghan," Luo said, hoarse. "You're so hard."

"You're a rival, not a poet."

"I've been told I have an excellent hand."

"By who?"

"Myself," Luo said, and Jinghan laughed into his shoulder, and then Jinghan was kissing him.

Neither of them could have said who moved first.

It was clumsy, all mouth and teeth, Luo's nose against Jinghan's cheek and Jinghan's hand tangled in Luo's braid.

Then Luo tilted his head, and Jinghan's lips opened under his, and everything went slow and wet and deep.

Luo tasted like tea and smoke.

The red light flared between their chests, and the pain drained out of Jinghan's body in one long, glad rush.

The demon was quieting.

Jinghan did not care about the demon.

He cared that Luo's thumb was rubbing small, hard circles over the head of his cock.

Luo had worked out in four strokes exactly how Jinghan liked it.

"Take yours out," Jinghan said against his mouth. "Let me feel you."

Luo fumbled his trousers open with his free hand.

His cock sprang out thick and flushed, heavier than Jinghan had imagined.

Jinghan wrapped his fingers around it, and Luo let out a low, ragged groan.

They stroked each other with their foreheads pressed together.

Luo's breath was on Jinghan's lips and Jinghan's was on his.

Jinghan could feel Luo's pulse in his palm and also in his own chest.

It was the same pulse.

Every time Jinghan squeezed, the pleasure came back to him doubled.

"Jinghan," Luo said. It was the first time he had used the name. "I'm going to..."

"Not yet."

"You can't order me..."

"I can," Jinghan said, and he tightened his grip, and Luo bucked into his fist with a curse.

Jinghan dragged his thumb across the slit, kissed Luo's throat, and bit gently where the pulse beat.

Luo came with a shout, hot across Jinghan's wrist and stomach.

The red lotus flared white.

That did it for Jinghan.

He came so hard his vision blurred, with Luo's hand still moving on him.

His cry went into Luo's mouth, and Luo's arm was tight around his back.

They lay in the wet quilt with their hearts pounding the same count.

When Jinghan could think again, he looked down at his chest.

The lotus had grown a second ring of petals.

On Luo's chest the same one burned, and neither of them was in pain.

"Is that it?" Luo said, dazed. "Is that all it takes?"

"I think that was only the first night."

"Good," Luo said, and the satisfaction in it made Jinghan laugh until his ribs hurt.

They washed each other with the warden's warm water, awkward and silent.

Then Luo pulled the quilt over them both, and Jinghan lay against the heat of him and fell asleep before he could be embarrassed.

He woke at dawn to pounding on the door.

"Master!" It was Tang Yu, his youngest disciple, voice cracking with panic. "Master, open up! Master Pei sent a bird!"

Jinghan sat up.

Luo's arm was still around his waist, and Luo's bare chest was warm against his back.

"Read it," Jinghan said.

A paper slid under the door.

It said, in his teacher's gentle brush, Return to Cloudpeak at once. Bring the demon's head.

Jinghan was still holding it when Tang Yu's voice came again, shaking.

"And Master, the fish in the Gate pool. They're all floating."

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