The flush deepened. Robin wanted to make a leather-bound book of his belief and hand it to Edwin, make him read it over and over until Edwin could look in a mirror and see something of what Robin saw.
“I’ll have to shape up and pull my weight as well,” Robin added. “Get the foresight under control.” He glanced at the scab on his hand. “I wonder how this oath of yours defines truthful report. I could always try giving the Assembly exhaustive details of some visions and simply leaving others out—that worked for the truth-spell. And especially if I’m to learn to steer it—”
“Robin,” Edwin cut in. “Robin, I don’t care about the bloody foresight.”
Robin stared at him. Edwin dropped his hands from Robin’s chest and his colour deepened further. “I mean to say—I do care, but—even if you never had another vision, I’d still want you on my side.” Edwin looked so earnest, so determined to have Robin believe in his own worth. Every last drop of the anger that Robin had been hoarding against Edwin, for his behaviour at Penhallick, vanished like blood in a cradle.
He grinned. “I’m also a fair hand in a fistfight, it’s true.”
“Robin—”
“I know what you meant.” Robin leaned closer and dropped a single careful kiss on Edwin’s mouth. Edwin made a half-conscious noise of complaint, when Robin pulled away, that was nearly as potent as the blue nerve-magic. “Of course I’m on your side. You complicated my life,” Robin said warmly. “You woke me up. You’re incredibly brave. You’re not kind, but you care, deeply. And I think you know how much I want you, in whatever way I can have you.”
Edwin reached towards Robin’s face and stopped, fingers curling back on themselves. He had the expression of someone who’d hit a stone in their path and was rolling up their sleeves to move it so that the journey could continue.
“I owe you an apology. At Penhallick, I was so afraid, I didn’t—I couldn’t bring myself to take the next step, even when you were standing there telling me how much it meant to you. To want this. To want . . .”
“You,” said Robin. Every time it was easier. It was carving its own groove in his mouth. “I want you.”
Edwin closed his eyes. “You could still hurt me,” he said. “But I do think you’d somehow manage to tear your own arm off before you did it on purpose.” His tone walked a tightrope between disapproval and wonder. “And I’m sick to death of being afraid, and I want you. Enough to risk it. More than enough. You make me feel like something—extraordinary.”
The things Robin wanted to say thickened in his throat. He put his hands to Edwin’s jawline and felt a patch of roughness there where Edwin’s morning shave had been less than impeccable; small wonder, given he’d probably had to do it with Walter watching. Edwin swallowed before opening his eyes, and his gaze was naked, somehow, far more naked than a simple disrobing. His hair was a forest of shadows touched with candlelit gold.
Of course I’m on your side, Robin thought numbly. I’m yours.
“I want to touch you,” he said. “I want to take off everything you’re wearing and—just touch you.”
Edwin swallowed again. His eyes tightened and Robin thought about the way Edwin had acted when they’d been intimate before now; the way he’d been generous with his actions, with bestowing pleasure, but kept his own pleasure in reserve. Or rushed it to completion before it could be properly observed. The care, the hunger, the drawing-back, the fear—how hadn’t Robin seen it? You could still hurt me. Edwin, who’d learned to hide the things he wanted so completely that he almost didn’t let himself want them at all.
Edwin said, “You can. Touch me.”
Robin undressed him: waistcoat, necktie, shirt, undershirt. He bent his head to kiss the slope of each shoulder as it was bared to the light, and felt the fine shivers. He rubbed his thumb up and down the gentle undulation of rib cage. He was careful. He wanted to be worthy of the way Edwin was lowering himself into trust like water on the verge of over-hot.
“Stop stopping,” said Edwin, with a waspish edge. He claimed Robin’s mouth and there was a scrape of teeth to the kiss. Robin grinned and returned it with one that was softer and hotter, punishingly gentle. When Edwin pulled away he was breathing hard; he took a few steps back, raked Robin with his eyes, and said, “Your turn.”
Robin hastened to comply. He winced through the discomfort of freeing oneself from one’s trousers and drawers when both blood and cock had been stirred into impatient excitement, gave himself a surreptitious stroke, kicked away the last stitch of clothing, and turned to face Edwin.