He Took the Heirs' Emblems, Then Became Their King novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Once, for the Paper

James takes charge of Grant in the locked bathroom, learns Skyfold, and wakes to find the morning's Ache Transfer has landed on a very straight-backed heir who refuses to sit.

Grant's pen hit the floor when James turned his wrist.

It was a small move, learned from years of warehouse horseplay.

Grant's grip broke before he understood it.

James rolled him onto his back and held him there with one forearm across his chest.

SYSTEM: Would you like to begin?

"Yes," James said out loud.

"Yes to what?" Grant breathed.

"Yes to you. Not here, though. Your friends are sleeping."

He took Grant by the shirt and pulled him off the bed.

Grant came, which surprised them both.

The bathroom was a narrow white room with a basin, a tub and a lamp.

James shut the door with his heel and turned the key.

He put Grant against the wall.

Grant's back hit the tile, and the pale eyes looked down at him, furious, and then not furious at all.

"This changes nothing," Grant said.

"Okay."

"I came for the paper."

"I know."

"Once," Grant said, and his voice cracked on it. "Once, and then we are even. You do not mention it."

"Once," James agreed, and kissed him.

It was not a polite kiss.

Grant's mouth opened under his at once, hot and angry and starving.

His hands came up, took James by the hair and held on.

James walked him back until the basin hit his hips.

He undid the buttons of that open shirt one at a time while Grant bit his lip.

Then he pushed it off the shoulders and kissed down the long pale throat to the collarbone.

Grant shuddered.

"You are shaking," James said against his skin.

"I am cold."

"You're not cold."

He dropped to his knees on the tile and opened Grant's trousers.

Grant's cock sprang out hard and flushed, already wet at the tip.

James took it in his mouth without ceremony.

"Fuck," said Grant, in a voice nobody in Skyreach had ever heard.

His head went back against the wall.

James worked him slowly, tongue flat along the underside, one hand wrapped around the base.

When Grant's hips began to push, he let them, just enough to make Grant swear.

SYSTEM: Contact established. Sky bloodline: reading.

A thin cold hum ran up James's spine and settled behind his ribs.

He pulled off with a wet sound and stood.

"Turn around."

"Do not give me orders."

"Turn around, Grant."

Grant turned around.

He braced both hands on the basin.

The long line of his back and the tight curve of his ass were so perfect that James laughed once, helplessly.

"What?" Grant snapped over his shoulder.

"Nothing. You're very well organized."

He reached for the bottle of bath oil on the shelf and slicked his fingers.

He worked one into Grant's hole slowly, and Grant's whole body went rigid and then hot and loose around it.

"Another," Grant said.

"Say please."

"Phoenix."

"Almost."

The second finger went in and Grant made a sound against his own forearm.

James opened him, twisting, crooking his fingers until he found the place that made Grant's knees buckle.

"There," Grant gasped. "There. Fuck. Again."

"So polite."

When he couldn't stand another minute of it, James slicked his own cock, lined up, and pushed in.

Grant took it with a long cracked groan.

It was tight and scalding, and James stayed still for two breaths with his forehead against Grant's shoulder blade.

"Move," Grant ordered.

"Make me."

Grant pushed back on him, hard, all the way down, and they both swore.

After that there was no more talking, only the slap of skin and the creak of the basin.

Grant's breath came apart.

James fucked him against the wall, one hand gripping his hip and the other reaching round to wrap his cock.

"You like this," James said into his ear. "You like being told."

"No."

"Liar."

"Harder," Grant said, and the word shook out of him. "Fuck me harder."

James gave it to him.

He pounded into that tight heat until Grant's forehead was pressed to the tile.

The sounds Grant made were broken and pleading and had nothing to do with a timetable.

Then the cold hum behind James's ribs flared.

SYSTEM: Skyfold learned. Congratulations.

The floor went out from under them.

Not the floor, exactly.

Their weight did.

James's feet left the tile, and Grant's knuckles went white on the basin.

The two of them hung a hand's breadth off the ground, joined and weightless and still moving.

"What are you doing?" Grant gasped.

"I think that's you."

"It is not."

"It is a little bit me. Keep going."

Grant came with a shout he bit off against his arm, spilling hot over James's fist and the white tile.

The clench of his body dragged James over with him.

James buried his face in Grant's neck and came deep inside him in long, shuddering pulses.

They sank slowly back to the floor.

Neither of them said a word for a long time.

Then Grant pulled away, put his shirt on inside out, and unlocked the door with a hand that still wasn't steady.

"Once," he said, without turning around.

"Once," said James.

Grant went back to his bed, got under the covers and lay on his back with his eyes open.

On the other side of the room a bedspring creaked, and a freckled hand pulled a blanket higher.

James noticed that, and then he slept hard, because he had done nothing all night but supervise.

He woke at nine to sunlight, birdsong and the smell of tea.

Grant was already dressed, sitting at the common table with a notebook open.

His back was as straight as it had ever been.

White letters rose in James's eyes.

SYSTEM: Good morning! Your Ache Transfer has been delivered to: Grant.

At the table, Grant reached for a chair, bent his knees one careful inch, and stopped.

His face did not change at all.

"I will stand," he said.

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