As they stood in the doorway of the darkened pub below the inn, Merrick felt as if his body were not his own. He saw men standing with men, touching, laughing, murmuring closely together, and it was as if he had stepped into another world. A world where the affection he felt for Cassius was normal and accepted.

He felt somewhat disguised wearing Cassius’s coat and hat to cover his recognizable hair—both his valet’s suggestions to make him feel safer. But even if he did not require those things, it was the safest he’d felt in his own kingdom as well as his own skin, and it was mainly due to the man standing beside him now.

His valet was not only captivating, he was an intriguing man filled with surprises Merrick wished he had a lifetime to unwrap. Instead, they only had one night, and though that alone was a gift, it also weighed him down with melancholy. He imagined Cas coming to this place in the future without him, to meet another man, and it positively singed him from the inside.

The pub was not filled to capacity, most likely due to the storm outside, but Merrick could almost picture the laughter and gaiety that took place other nights. When Cas clasped their hands and they walked to a tucked-away corner at the end of the bar, Merrick almost felt like a regular man enjoying an evening with the person he adored. The very idea of being in this discreet underground dwelling that allowed them to be themselves without care or worry made Merrick feel nearly breathless with gratitude.

“Quite a storm brewing, eh?” the bartender remarked, giving Merrick a brief once-over before Cassius requested a couple of glasses of whiskey and they settled on the wooden stools. The only light reflecting in the dim pub came from the lanterns hanging along the walls, and the music Merrick heard reverberating earlier, from a Victrola in the corner near the small dance floor. It took Merrick several sips of his whiskey to finally feel comfortable enough to remove his hat and settle back in his seat.

“Have you been here often?” Merrick whispered in Cassius’s ear, and the valet shivered.

“A handful of times,” Cassius replied, and Merrick bit back his jealousy, focusing instead on the marvel that such a dwelling existed in the first place.

“This is… I am glad there is such a place for people like us,” Merrick remarked, seeking Cas’s gaze. “The only other establishment I’ve ever known to allow…was a bathhouse in Stonespass.”

“Is that where you—” Cassius let the question hang in the air between them.

Merrick nodded and reached for Cassius’s hand. “Nothing has ever felt like it does when I’m with you.”

He raised Cassius’s hand to his lips and kissed his wrist. Cassius closed his eyes and sighed. “For me as well.”

Merrick leaned forward and rested their foreheads together. “I wish this could be real.”

“It is real,” Cassius replied, placing his hand against Merrick’s chest and then his own. “Inside both of us. So let us pretend it’s real everywhere else for tonight.”

Cassius rose from his stool, motioned with his chin to the corner where two other couples swayed together, and held out his hand. Merrick flushed as he stood and then bowed before his valet, accepting his offer.

They danced in the middle of the floor with their bodies sealed as closely as their lips, and Merrick could feel Cassius’s heartbeat thudding against his own as well as his prick throbbing against his thigh.

Merrick’s lips grazed against Cassius’s jaw, and the idea of touching Cassius so intimately in public made Merrick feel positively drunk on the notion of someday living as freely. And suddenly it came to him—the awareness that even if he was trapped in a life he could not readily choose, it did not mean someone like Cassius had to be. He made a promise to himself to make his place in the monarchy count for something. If he could fight so fervently for a child’s right to belong, he could do the same for people who only longed to love.

After they swayed to a collection of songs, Merrick whispered in Cas’s ear, “Thank you…for this. I shall never forget it.”

By the time they got back to their room, they were struggling to keep their hands at their sides. It was just too freeing to be able to touch and kiss and be themselves. The storm raged outside, they were in a deserted inn that catered to men with their preferences, and nobody would bother them for hours.

Soon after the door was shut and locked behind them, they stripped off their clothes and undergarments. They stood shivering, panting, naked before each other simply because they could without ramifications.

Merrick moved first because he could barely contain his longing. His hand curled over Cassius’s shoulder as he padded the wooden floor in a circle around him, trailing his fingernails across his firm muscles as he went. He wanted to drink in every single sliver of skin his eyes could see, to burn it to memory. From the delicate curve of his collarbones down the trail of dark hair on his abdomen to the silky-smooth prick stretching tall against his groin.

Cassius trembled, his breaths shallow as he stood motionless, allowing Merrick to look his fill. “Please, my prince…my Merrick.”

Merrick trailed his nails over the dimples of his buttocks before his lips found the shell of his ear. “Anything, Cas. I would give you anything.”

Cassius’s breath ghosted out of him as he arched his back, his head sinking to the crook of Merrick’s neck. Cas twisted his mouth, and the way their lips brushed together made Merrick shiver. “I would like to feel your cock inside me.”

Merrick gasped as he gripped Cassius’s hair in his fingers, bent his head back, and crushed their lips together.

“Take me,” Cassius groaned. “Make me yours.”

Merrick’s other hand glided along Cassius’s jaw as he gathered his valet’s face in his hands and slowed his lips, his tongue thrusting deeply inside his mouth in a long, possessive kiss.

“Oil?” he whispered as he grazed his jaw.

“In the bedside drawer,” Cassius replied with a shiver. Merrick nodded, realization again dawning that the inn would be prepared for men who took lovers to their rooms.

“On the bed,” Merrick directed as Cassius’s golden irises turned to liquid honey. “Hands and knees.”

After he retrieved the bottle from the drawer, he turned to see Cassius waiting for him just as he requested, and it was almost more than he could handle. The gorgeous line of his back glistened in the lamplight, and the swell of his firm buttocks sent gooseflesh along Merrick’s skin.

“You are a sight I won’t soon forget.” He traced Cas’s shoulders and then the knobs of his spine before kneeling behind him. Cas whimpered, his thighs trembling as Merrick traced the crease of his buttocks and kissed each cheek. He spread him open and looked his fill before tenderly licking at his pink hole. When he kept his tongue pressed there, Cassius moaned. Merrick’s cock throbbed, and his heart ached at the very notion of being given this privilege—the opportunity to take his time with the man he yearned for most in life.

Reaching for the bottle, he dabbed the oil onto his fingers and dribbled it down Cassius’s crease as the valet gasped and his hole clenched. Merrick groaned as he pushed a finger into the tight, silky heat. “You are so beautiful like this.”

From beneath his parted thighs, he could see Cassius’s stiff prick, the tip purple and leaking a string of seed that clung to the sheets. “Merrick, please. I cannot take much more.”

When he lined up his prick, he wasn’t certain how long he would last inside Cassius. He was so overcome with emotion that he paused to catch his breath, his forehead tipping against the small of Cassius’s back as he took in all the sensations in that moment. His swelling chest, his pattering pulse, his absolute longing to feel connected to Cassius.

When he pushed inside, breaching the tight muscle, a strangled moan tore from Cassius’s throat.

Merrick slid his fingers soothingly through the back of Cassius’s hair as he withdrew his prick, then swiftly thrust back inside, his groin slapping against Cassius’s buttocks. Cassius trembled and moaned, arching his head into Merrick’s hand.

He tightened his grip in Cassius’s dark locks and tugged his head far enough to expose that column of throat he longed to lick all the way up to his plump lips. He was blinded by the desperate need to be closer to him. The need to slip inside his bones and become one with him.

He wrapped his other arm around his heaving chest and pulled him upright so they were skin to skin, his pattering heartbeat against Cas’s spine.

Yes, this was what made Merrick’s world tilt on end—having Cassius close, smelling his skin, feeling his harsh breaths against his arm. He spread his thighs wider to accommodate the new position as he kissed Cassius’s ear, his cheek, his temple. Cassius’s nipples were taut, his skin flushed, his prick stiff and gleaming with pearls of seed.

“Cas, my darling Cas,” Merrick murmured into his throat. “I am yours. I will always be yours. You own my heart.”

Cassius swayed and moaned, his hand reaching up to clasp their fingers together. “And you own mine, my prince.”

Merrick’s eyelids shuttered closed, and he swallowed down the tears that pricked his eyes. He licked at a spot behind Cassius’s ear that made him moan, and his fingers left Cas’s hair to reach for his stiff, pulsating cock. Cassius inhaled sharply as Merrick gripped him tightly in his fist and rolled his hips, delivering a solid pounding from behind.

The valet’s near-silent pleas turned to vocal sobs as he cried out helplessly, his seed spurting over Merrick’s fist and onto the sheets.

Merrick thrust shallowly, attempting to draw out his pleasure as Cassius’s body shuddered in his arms. Then Merrick let go, unraveling completely, spending his load deeply inside him.

They collapsed to the bed, pinned together on the mattress. Cassius’s head was buried in the sheets, with Merrick’s arm still clasped tightly around his torso.

Chest heaving, prick softening, Merrick gently pulled his cock from Cassius’s body, grief quickly setting in. He kissed Cas’s shoulder as his lips trembled. “I cannot imagine never being inside you again.”

Cassius glanced over his shoulder, his gaze softening. “We have all night, my prince.”

And that was exactly what they had. It was hours before dawn.

They napped, fucked again, and nestled tightly together until light filtered through the window.

They were covered in each other’s seed, the room smelled of musk and sex, and Merrick wanted nothing more than to live forever with Cassius in his arms.