“It was not. It was loud and boorish. And I think I might have woken the whole ship.”
Hamish snickered quietly to himself. It couldn’t have been the whole ship. The night watch would’ve already been awake.
“I have spent years trying to stop it.” And yet, Darshan had still roared like a stag calling out in spring. He gave a disgusted grunt. “And it appears I was wrong in my belief that I had gotten it under control.” He eyed Hamish suspiciously. “Anyway, I thought you found it… lacking a certain something?”
“I said it was nice,” he murmured. And it had been. Not the mind-blowing pleasure Darshan managed to evoke when Hamish was the one doing the riding, but it wasn’t as if he would mind repeating the experience. He’d just been surprised to find it wasn’t as fun as the normal way they made love.
“Because nice was entirely my goal there.” There was an acerbic tinge to the words. Surly. Just as he had been when Hamish first voiced his opinion.
“It’s just nae a position I’d choose given the option.” Not that he’d had such a choice in the past. Or the inclination. But Darshan had set the thought in his head and, with the man willing to excuse his lack of experience, trying before forming a proper opinion on the act had seemed fair.
One side of Darshan’s mouth lifted. “It is perfectly all right, mea lux. Really. I can hardly fault you for having a preference.” He absently patted Hamish’s hand, his rings clinking against the sole golden ring sitting there.
Hamish’s gaze dropped to the ring adorning his left hand. Several small orbs of dark garnet and shimmering pearls stared back. Unlike the cheap wooden band that now adorned Darshan’s once bare finger—the one on his right hand that was meant for a wedding band—this piece had belonged to his lover. His… husband.
Darshan had sworn to pick out a piece with a style more appropriate for a wedding band once they were in Minamist, but this served Hamish just as well as any other ring. A quick resize at a jeweller working near the docks had seen it fit Hamish’s finger. The middle left, just as was befitting Tirglasian marriage custom.
They had followed plenty of his land’s customs in their wedding vows, too. They had waited until their last day in Tirglas before seeking out a priest. The ceremony kept brief and simple due to the necessity of not antagonising the man who had agreed to unite them.
The priest had been hesitant at first, protesting with all manner of scripture without alluding to the annexed passages, even as Darshan had loaded the man’s hands with gold. It had taken Darshan stripping off one of his rings as extra payment for the priest to finally cave.
“I simply meant it is a pity you find it lacking,” Darshan continued, dragging Hamish’s attention back from the recent past. “I fear I shall certainly need another fix at some point.”
“Oh, aye? A fix was it?” Well, Darshan had confessed to imagining the scenario since they had first kissed. Likely along with several others that he hadn’t admitted to.
Darshan hummed. There was definitely a note of amusement to the sound. “Not right away, you understand. I might keep it for certain occasions.” He waggled a finger in the air, the sunlight glittering off his rings. “No, actually. I shall need it more than that. Once a month would serve well.”
“Only once?” Hamish found himself fighting to keep the amusement out of his voice. After the past week, it was quite the drop. But whilst it was a far better prospect than his previous arrangement of forced abstinence, he couldn’t see Darshan adhering to his own declaration. Now they were away from the castle’s endless watch on their movements, his husband had turned out to be a near-insatiable man.
“You are quite right. Once is far too long to wait. Twice would be more satisfactory, do you not think so?”
“What I think is I could manage sex more times a month than that.”
“What?” Chuckling, his husband finally turned to give Hamish his full attention. “I do not mean all of it. I fully intend to be available for you to ride whenever you desire.” He cocked his head. “Or does that arrangement not suit you?”
“That’s a relief,” he thickly replied. “Because I think you would’ve found me insisting if you stuck to a bi-monthly schedule.”
“Do not let that stop you,” Darshan said, his voice growing husky. “I would hate to be the only one taking the initiative there.”
Hamish wrapped his arms around Darshan’s shoulders and drew his husband closer. The world seemed to still as they stood there, their arms encircling each other, their bodies warmed by more than mere sunlight.
The strait opened out into a harbour roughly the size of the one that sheltered Mullhind. The ship veered south, heading for a city cringing in a small strip of land that the Udyneans had nibbled off the Tirglasian border centuries ago.
Land. He itched to already be there, to finally plant himself in a kingdom where his mother’s word had no sway. He had been on a number of sailing jaunts with Calder, back before his older sister had even considered having more than one child. But they’d only ever travelled to Tirglasian ports.
This was foreign soil. Udynean soil.
According to Darshan, the port served as the bastion between the empire and Obuzan. The mountains running along the border played a heavy part in keeping the two countries apart, but those stone giants crumbled nearer the shoreline and there had been multiple skirmishes in this one spot.
Not recently, Darshan had made sure of that
