“I… I’ve never used the back before.”
Was this something Lihen was actually saying in earnest? Or was it nothing more than a hasty fabrication, something blurted out to escape the situation? If he had lied again — this time because he simply couldn’t bring himself to be with someone he had practically raised — Theo wasn’t sure he could bear it.
He gripped Lihen’s waist tightly so he couldn’t pull away. It was the first time he had grabbed bare skin with any real force. The flesh beneath his palms was smooth and hot. If Lihen pushes me away, what do I do? Anticipating a devastation that hadn’t even happened yet made his head feel like it might split open.
But Lihen didn’t run. He stretched both arms out and pulled Theo’s neck into an embrace. The face meeting his at close range wore that distinctively beautiful eye smile of his. He whispered, as warm as always — though with just a slight tremor in his voice.
“So… you have to be gentle.”
Theo tightened his arm around Lihen’s waist. In the space of a few short breaths, their positions reversed. Lihen’s back met the bed, and Theo came down over him. Ash-gray hair spilled across the white sheets.
Theo braced his hands on either side of Lihen’s face to support himself and looked directly into those red eyes. The face that always smiled with easy composure had gone stiff with bewilderment. An expression Lihen had never worn before, not once. It was unfamiliar — and for that reason, all the more appealing. I want him to show me every one of those expressions he keeps hidden. All of them. Even the ones where he cries.
“Lihen, the thing is — everything is a first for me, so I don’t really know what being gentle looks like.”
Theo’s thigh pushed between Lihen’s legs. Cloth-covered thigh rubbed against exposed skin. When he pressed in with his knee, insistently, a response began to come quickly. Lihen couldn’t push Theo away, but couldn’t pull him closer either — he could only grab the bedsheet and clutch it tight. Theo gently took hold of those wrists and guided Lihen’s arms back around his neck.
“So… tell me right away if it hurts.”
“You said everything’s a first. Do you even know what you’re doing?”
Lihen asked, narrowing his eyes. It struck Theo as so absurd he let out a short laugh. Does he still see me as a child?
“Lihen, I’m twenty.”
No need to mention having heard way too much at the tavern.
What he wanted, in his heart, was to drive straight into the deepest part of Lihen all at once. To fill that flat lower belly to the brim and then seal it shut so none of it could spill out — that would feel so good, surely.
But Theo didn’t do that. He couldn’t ruin Lihen’s “first” with nothing more than his own impatience. He intended to hold him gently, just as Lihen had asked.
He traced, one by one, the skin he had wanted so badly to touch. Fingertips sliding down along the nape of his neck made contact with his chest — rising and falling in the faintest tremor of nerves — and moved down across his stomach, then to his waist, then further to his thigh. That body had always looked so firm, and yet the flesh on the inside of his thigh was softer than expected.
When he stroked the skin with slow, kneading movements, Lihen’s leg gave a small jerk. Given that he wasn’t hard yet, it wasn’t from arousal — it seemed he was simply ticklish. Thank goodness he wasn’t the type to leak at the slightest touch. If Lihen had been that kind of easy body, Theo would have tormented himself endlessly wondering how many customers had passed through him, what those customers had done to him. And then he would have tracked down every last one of those men who had handled Lihen roughly and— No. Stop. Don’t go there.
“Lihen…”
He was murmuring the name out of habit when Theo suddenly realized something. The name “Lihen” might not be his real name at all. There was no evidence anywhere that it was.
There was so much he didn’t know about Lihen. Which meant he had to learn more. As far as he could reach.
And already, right now, Theo had learned a great deal. How hot his skin was. How lovely his cheeks looked flushed pink with embarrassment. He’d already known the body hair was sparse and fine, and that two moles sat side by side on his left thigh.
The feel of his lips, the taste of his breath and his tongue, the expression he made and the sounds he let out when he was aroused — those were things he could learn, little by little, from here on.
Theo leaned down and pressed his lips to Lihen’s. When he licked at Lihen’s lips with the tip of his tongue, Lihen exhaled a low breath and slowly opened his mouth. Theo pushed his tongue inside that narrow, wet space. Lihen’s eyes went wide. The expression said: you know how to kiss?
Theo moved his tongue carefully. He had wanted to melt Lihen from head to toe, but for all the boldness with which he’d pressed his lips forward, the kiss itself was clumsy. Unlike Lihen, kissing was also a first for Theo — naturally. Lihen’s eyes, which had gone round with surprise, soon curved into a knowing arc. Back to that composed, unhurried expression of his.
I wanted to see that insufferably confident face crumble with flustered disbelief. To go further than that and make him cry. Wanting to see the weakest parts of the person you love — isn’t that just human nature?
Lihen received Theo’s tongue with practiced ease. He stroked lightly against the roof of Theo’s mouth and moved languidly along the inner membrane of his cheek. The way he kept their lips together and wound his tongue through it all without a trace of breathlessness made his experience unmistakably clear. So different from Theo’s own clumsiness.
Lihen pulled his lips away and smiled with sly ease.
“If I’d known it would come to this… I should have taught you kissing instead of just swordsmanship.”
“Will you really teach me?”
He asked in earnest, even though he knew perfectly well it was a joke. Lihen’s expression flickered — caught off guard. Theo didn’t miss that brief moment of vulnerability.
“Teach me everything.”
Theo’s hand moved downward. He took hold of Lihen’s cock, which was still soft, and wrapped both hands around it — pale in color for someone who’d sold his body — and stroked. This was easier than kissing. Working the shaft and pressing down on the head was something he’d done plenty of on his own.
…While imagining Lihen.
“How to kiss, where to touch to make it feel good… tell me all of it, Lihen.”
Long, thick fingers moved with care over the cock growing slick with pre-cum. A swordsman’s hands, roughened with calluses all along the grain. Hands that had been gripping a sword handle and swinging it until just a few hours ago — those same firm hands were now wrapped around the cock of the man who had raised him like family. Beneath his palms he felt the hot, wet weight of him. Lihen’s cock, already swollen full, pulsed inside Theo’s hands.
“Ngh — hnn…”
Lihen’s smile slowly came undone. He pressed the back of his hand over his mouth and swallowed the moan down. Theo stared down at him without blinking, almost transfixed. A scene that had only ever been permitted in dreams had become a reality he could now reach out and touch. He didn’t even notice his grip tightening.
When he squeezed down hard on the most sensitive part where all sensation gathered, Lihen let out a strangled groan — and at the same moment, cum spilled out in pulses. Theo, his face flushed, licked the cum smeared across his palm. Salty and faintly bitter — but knowing it had come from Lihen made it seem, strangely, almost sweet.
“Wh — why are you eating that…”
Lihen stared at Theo with the expression of someone who had a great deal to say, then seemed to come to some conclusion on his own and swiftly regained his composure. Right, he’s at an age where curiosity runs high… It seemed like that was what Lihen had muttered, but his voice was too small to hear properly.
The remaining cum he spread evenly across his fingers. He intended to use it in place of lubricant. Theo lifted one of Lihen’s legs and rested the ankle on his shoulder, then reached down and traced between the cleft of his rear. His fingertips found the closed entrance. The tight folds were dry. That body — completely unprepared to receive a man — Theo found deeply satisfying. So it really is my first. I was right.
Fingers wet with cum pressed slowly inside. Starting with the index finger, taking his time, making sure not to draw blood. While his hand worked below, his eyes stayed sharp on Lihen’s face. Lihen had his head tipped to the side, both eyes squeezed tightly shut. His face, already fair-skinned, had gone even paler, drained of color.
“Lihen, are you all right?”
Theo asked carefully. Lihen answered without opening his eyes.
“Mm… this much isn’t even painful. I’ve been through far worse.”
Those words sounded less like a response directed at Theo, and more like a quiet whisper Lihen was murmuring to himself — so that he wouldn’t waver.
What would be worse than this? He was curious, but he didn’t ask. On this small bed with just the two of them, there was no room to bring up other customers.
Lihen had clearly experienced every kind of thing except the back. He must have been with people of all sorts of tastes, and among them there would certainly have been those who drew their pleasure from another person’s pain. Like whoever had left all those bite marks across Lihen’s skin, and whoever had pressed a clear mark into his throat without remorse and walked away unbothered.
And some of them, surely, had wanted to pull Lihen into their arms and thrust into him like animals. If someday someone put down enough money and asked to be allowed inside him like that… Lihen might not be able to refuse. Because he was easy, and warm, and couldn’t even turn down Theo’s request — and now here he was with his legs spread like this—
Since when had he developed this awful habit of always jumping to the worst? Theo emptied his head and fixed his gaze on Lihen. When Lihen’s scent drifted to the tip of his nose, his thoughts finally stopped, and reality came back into focus.
Theo took hold of Lihen’s front again and stroked while he patiently, slowly worked him open from behind. He dragged his lips along the line of Lihen’s throat, and added his fingers one by one. Lihen covered his face with both arms and let out small, unsteady breaths. His ears — which he hadn’t managed to hide — had turned red.
