Hamish pressed close, wrapping his arms around the man’s bare shoulders. Darshan’s skin was hot, beyond what could’ve been attributed to the warmth in the room. Did magic turn ordinary men into furnaces?
That was a question to ask later. He dropped his head, not to kiss again, but to nuzzle at the spellster’s neck.
A soft moan, almost a squeak, escaped the man’s lips.
Darshan clutched at Hamish, arching his elegant neck in a fashion that allowed greater access to that expanse of olive-brown skin. All sorts of obscene murmurs and hushed groans rumbled through Darshan’s throat.
He smelt good. At first, Hamish had thought the scent came from the man’s clothes or the candles, but it was Darshan himself that emanated a freshness like the winter seas or grass after the rain, mixed with a sweet aroma he couldn’t quite place, likely something from the spellster’s homeland. Had the man bathed between their talk on the abandoned cliffward tower and now?
A flush of guilt washed over Hamish. After the journey down the castle’s secret exit, he’d barely any time to do little more than scrub the essentials. Most of him likely still smelt of dusty tunnel and wet soil.
“Hamish?” Darshan murmured.
He halted his exploration of the man’s neck and shoulders. The way his name had left Darshan’s lips—gravelly with need, but also a little frantic—had his insides doing all sorts of strange flips he hadn’t realised them capable of.
“I meant to ask,” Darshan continued. “Seeing that it has been years for you… How would you like this to go?”
“What?” Hamish straightened. “I thought we’d already agreed on why I came here?” Although, if he didn’t slow down, his visit would be a repeat of yesterday. He stepped back from the man, putting some distance between them to try and cool off.
“Yes, yes.” Darshan waved his hand. “But what position do you prefer? Riding or being ridden?”
Frowning, Hamish settled on the bed. Position? That he’d understood and, truth be told, he had experience with only the one. The rest?
He flopped back, stretching out across the bedding and staring up at the ceiling. “You ask a lot of questions.” Ones they probably should’ve gotten out of the way during their time on the tower fortifications rather than him prattling about various points of interest in their scenic view.
He caught only a few hushed footsteps from the spellster crossing the room before Darshan’s weight shifted the mattress and the man’s concerned face came into sight. “I am rather averse towards hurting you.”
Hamish wriggled, trying to get comfortable. The mattress was a little softer than what he was used to. A good surface to lean on whilst rutting, though. “Isnae it supposed to hurt?” He’d never known a time that hadn’t left him unable to sit properly for a few days afterwards.
Darshan sat back on his heels, his already furrowed brows trying their best to deepen the lines. “Exactly how much experience do you have with sex?”
“None.”
Those hazel eyes bulged, wide and round enough to fill the lenses of his glasses. “None?” Darshan echoed.
“It’s nae that I dinnae ken about sex,” Hamish drawled, quietly dreading the turn this conversation had taken. Why were they even discussing this? “Because I do.” More than he really wanted to know when it came to intimacy between a man and a woman. “I just havenae done it.” As the man must’ve known.
There was a faint twitch of Darshan’s upper lip, the minute narrowing of his eyes and the overall overt drawing of his brow. He looked for all the world like a man trying to decide if Hamish was really that ignorant.
As if he has ever done it. What had the man said up on the tower earlier? That he’d no interest in women?
When the silence had almost become too much for Hamish to take, Darshan spoke.
“You…” he mumbled. “Never…?” He shook his head. “I must have misunderstood you. You really have not had sex? You certainly cannot tell from the way you kiss. But yesterday… In your quarters… The way you pleasured me. We—”
“What does kissing have to do with lying with a woman?” Hamish snapped. Or even what he’d done to please the man for that matter? “We really dinnae have a lot of time, you ken? So, are we rutting or nae? Because if it’s nae happening, then I best be going.”
Hamish went to get off the bed when the spellster’s hand pressed against his chest.
Darshan grew still. Those hazel eyes seemed to bore into Hamish as the spellster hovered over him. “That man in the pub said something similar and you said it earlier, but I am afraid the word was not in my Tirglasian language studies.”
“Aye.” He had forgotten that, even though Darshan had acted under the principle of what Billy said was derogatory, the Udynean hadn’t understood all the words. “It wouldnae have been,” Hamish mumbled, acutely aware there would likely be a number of words Darshan’s tutors wouldn’t have mentioned. He scrubbed at his face, letting his hand slide over his beard and down his neck. “Look, all I need to ken is, if we’re doing this, what do you want me bent over?”
Darshan sat back, his brows raised to their highest. “Nothing. Your current position is more than adequate.”
Hamish scoffed. “You cannae rut like this.” Not face to face. That was a position for wedded couples; husband and wife specifically.
The spellster’s handsome features contorted, those immaculate brows lowering in confusion. His lips parted to silently mimic the word. Then slowly, like clouds parting, clarity came to light in his eyes. “Am I right in thinking that you are referring to sex? But rough sex, specifically? The kind where one slams himself into the other until he is done?”
“Aye?” What other kind of act between two men could there possibly be?
Something flitted across Darshan’s face, too quick to be certain of, but it had the soft air of pity about it. “And that is the extent of your experience?”
“It
