Page 92 of Silk & Sand
Locking both his arms around Raider, Seth leaned into him as the shudders passed for them both. They sat there for a long while, both of them a mess, both of them content with that for the moment.
Eventually, Seth spoke quietly against the back of Raider’s neck. “I worry sometimes,” he said, his hand starting to rub Raider’s chest, “when you want it to hurt.”
Raider sighed. He’d known this would come up.
“I need you to talk to me about it,” Seth said gently.
“I know.”
Seth didn’t rush him. He waited patiently, hands gently stroking as Raider worked through what he needed to say.
Raider stared out into the morning light, glad he didn’t have to look at Seth as he said, “It makes everything else go away for a moment. I try to focus on good things, but other stuff … it’s still there. Even when I pretend it’s not. It’s like … it’s right here.”
Raider pressed his fingertips below his sternum. Seth’s fingers met his there.
“Sometimes,” Raider explained as he let his hand drop from the spot, leaving Seth’s there, “I want all of that to be forced away.”
Raider felt Seth’s chest expand against his back as he took a deep, thoughtful breath. Seth’s hand smoothed its way across Raider’s pectorals again.
“And you need pain for that?”
“Intensity. And the pain … it’s good pain. It’s pleasure-pain, and I know it will end with release.”
Seth thought about that for a while then asked, “So it’s something you’ve done before?”
“A little. Not much. It’s different with you.”
Seth tensed, clearly not liking that. “Why?”
“Because I trust you, Seth. I feel safe with you. I feel safe doing that with you.”
“Oh, fuck,” Seth murmured and let his forehead fall to Raider’s shoulder.
That was plainly not the answer he’d expected, but it was the absolute truth, and it was the reason Raider couldn’t look at him right now, why he hadn’t looked at him once since he’d woken.
Because they would reach Aqarat this afternoon, and Raider didn’t know what that would mean.
Because he was fucking terrified that when Seth’s attention shifted to his hunt, whatever this was between them would become like a mirage, some distant thing in the desert, no longer real.
CHAPTER 30
LIKE OASES, DESERT cities always looked a bit surreal upon approach. All that green, such a concentration of life and activity in place of the bleak but beautiful quietude.
Seth suspected that an underground spring had fed the city in its earliest days—because why the hell else would it be here?—but its current agriculture was achieved by means of an aqueduct that carried water from a river somewhere to the north.
The greenery of date palms and fields, likely barley and sesame, dazzled in the distance, sprawling north of the city. Approaching from the arid west, Seth and Raider walked past none of that green, instead following a dusty track made by goats and camels that went out daily to forage amid the desert scrub.
They had passed many such animals and their keepers over the final hours as they approached Aqarat’s mudbrick wall. High above, wind towers jutted from rooftops, their clever design drawing fresh air in one side, sending it down to cool interiors that would otherwise grow stifling hot in such close quarters, then venting heat out the other side. In the distance, the bulbous turquoise roofs of the palace rose above the rest.
Aqarat, ruled by Prince Rahim, marked the western edge of the Golden Empire, sometimes called simply the Gold, a vast territory controlled by Empress Zarina. She had ruled since her father’s assassination at the hands of his brother ten years ago. Ensconced in the famously magnificent sea-city of Kastari, the empress could have little interest in this remote outpost, but coming from the barren, lonely Kesh, Aqarat looked like an absolute metropolis. And that was even with Seth and Raider entering through the livestock gate instead of the trade gate to the east, where a major road conducted merchant traffic.
“The bazaar is on the other side of the city,” Raider informed Seth. “Food?”
“Gods, yes.”
Raider smiled slightly. “I thought you seemed hungry.”
“It’s late afternoon, and we haven’t eaten since this morning. Yes, I’m fucking hungry. But what do you mean I seemed hungry?”