Page 103 of Setting the Break

He brings his hand up Morgan's back instead and draws him in closer, close enough that Morgan's chest is against his and his breath goes out all at once. He bends his head down to his ear, and the music covers everything.

"Let them look," Bohdi says.

33

INDRIE

The hall is still going when Eskil's hand finds the small of his back.

Indrie is smiling so hard his face aches. His cheeks are sore with it and his eyes are burning and he cannot stop, cannot make his mouth do anything other than this helpless, enormous, ridiculous smile that has been on his face since Bohdi spoke the last words of the rite and Eskil leaned down and kissed him in front of every soul in Valen. People are pressing in from all sides, hands clasping his, voices calling blessings and congratulations. Indrie accepts every one of them with the warmth they deserve because these people came, they stood, they cheered for him, for the foreign healer who arrived on their shores with nothing and is leaving this hall with everything.

Eskil's hand presses firmer, steering him through the crowd with an ease he has had his entire life. Indrie leans into the pressure. His husband's hand. He turns the word over in his mind, husband, and it is a coal in the middle of his chest, warm and impossible and his.

They make it to the corridor. The noise of the hall falls behind them, muffled by stone, and the air is cooler here and Indrie takes a full breath for what feels like the first time in an hour. Eskil's hand slides from his back to his hip, and the shift in grip is subtle and deliberate and possessive, and Indrie's skin lights up under it even through the layers of his clothes.

He looks up at Eskil. Eskil is looking down at him with an expression Indrie has learned to read over a year and still has not found the bottom of. It is focused and intent and hungry and underneath all of that it is tender in a way Eskil would deny under torture, the softness he reserves for Indrie alone, the one he buries so deep that only Indrie ever sees it.

Indrie reaches up and hooks his fingers into the collar of Eskil's shirt and tugs, gently, downward. Eskil comes. He always comes when Indrie pulls. He bends his head and Indrie rises onto his toes and kisses him, right there in the corridor with the hall still loud behind them and the torchlight flickering on the stone. Eskil's hand tightens on his hip and his other hand comes up to cup the side of Indrie's face, his thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone, and the kiss starts soft and does not stay soft. Indrie opens his mouth and Eskil makes a low sound in his throat and deepens it, his tongue sliding against Indrie's, slow and thorough, and Indrie's hands fist in the front of his shirt and his body arches into Eskil's and the corridor is empty but it would not matter if it were not.

They break apart. Indrie is breathing hard. Eskil's pupils are wide and dark, eating the pale ring of his irises, and his hand on Indrie's hip has slid lower, curving around to grip the curve of his ass, fingers digging into the muscle through the fabric, and the possessiveness of it sends a bolt of heat down through Indrie's stomach and into his thighs.

"We should," Indrie starts, and his voice is unsteady and he clears his throat and tries again. "We should go to our chambers."

"We should," Eskil agrees, and does not move.

Indrie laughs, breathless, and pushes at his chest with both hands.

They walk. Eskil's hand returns to the small of his back and stays there, a warm constant pressure, and every few steps his thumb strokes across Indrie's spine through his shirt and Indrie feels each stroke in a place considerably lower. The walk to their chambers is not long. It feels endless. Indrie is acutely aware of Eskil beside him, the heat of his body, the sound of his breathing, the way his stride has shortened to match Indrie's pace instead of making him hurry, and the consideration in that is so deeply Eskil, doing something kind and never naming it, that Indrie's chest aches.

They pass a guard at the turn of the corridor and the man offers a quiet congratulations and Eskil inclines his head and Indrie thanks him, and the whole exchange takes three seconds and it is three seconds too long because Eskil's hand has slid lower again, palming him openly now, and Indrie is going to combust in this hallway.

They reach the door. Indrie's heart is beating so hard he can feel it in his throat. Eskil opens the door and ushers him through and closes it behind them and slides the bolt, and the sound of the bolt falling into the bracket is the loudest thing in the room.

Their chambers. Eskil's chambers, which became theirs by increments, Indrie's comb on the washstand and his herb book on the table and his change of clothes folded in the trunk, and now they are theirs by right, by rite, by the vows still warm in the air between them. The fire is banked and the candles are lit and someone has left a carafe of wine on the table with two cups, and the bed is turned down and scattered with dried winter flowers, and Indrie suspects Morgan and would like to thank him for it later when he is capable of speech.

He turns to face Eskil.

Eskil is standing with his back against the bolted door, arms at his sides, and his eyes are on Indrie with an intensity that makes the air in the room feel thinner. He has not moved to take off his boots or his belt or his shirt. He is waiting.

Indrie's face is warm. It has been warm since the rite and it is getting warmer, the heat climbing up his neck and into his cheeks. He knows what he wants. He has been thinking about it for days, turning it over in his mind the way he turns over a treatment plan, examining it from every angle, working out the approach. The wanting is not new. The willingness to say it out loud is.

"I want to redo our first night together," Indrie says.

Eskil blinks. The intensity on his face shifts into confusion, his brow drawing together. "Redo it?"

"Yes." It costs him something to keep his eyes where they are, and he keeps them there. "On the ship. Our first time. I want to redo it."

Eskil takes a step away from the door. His confusion is genuine, which tells Indrie he has no idea what Indrie is about to say, and the realization that he is about to surprise this man makes his heart kick harder.

"I didn't know anything," Indrie says. The words come out in a rush, tumbling over each other, because if he does not say them fast he will lose his nerve and he is not losing his nerve tonight. "I barely touched you. You did everything. You were so careful with me and so patient and I just lay there and let you and I didn't, I couldn't—" He stops. Breathes. His hands are shaking at his sides. "You gave me everything that night and I gave you nothing back and I have thought about it every day since."

Eskil's face does something complicated. He crosses the rest of the distance between them in two strides and takes Indrie's face in his hands and says, low and firm, "It wasn't like that. You were not some passive thing I happened to. You were⁠—"

"I know." Indrie puts his hands on Eskil's wrists and holds on. "I know that's not how you see it. I know you don't think of it that way. But I want to give you what you gave me." He swallows. His voice wavers and he steadies it and pushes through. "I want to be the one to touch you. I want you to lay on your back and let me have you."

Eskil's hands go very still on his face. His pupils, already wide in the candlelight, dilate further, the black swallowing the pale blue until there is almost no color left, and Indrie watches it happen and feels it in the low pull of his belly. Eskil's breath catches. His chest rises and holds and his fingers tighten in the sheet at his side, not hard, involuntary, and the visible effort it takes him to hold himself still sends a shiver down Indrie's spine.

"Tell me how you want to have me," Eskil says. His voice has dropped low enough that Indrie feels it in his ribs.