Chapter 281 - 279: What The Heart Wants.

Chapter 281: Chapter 279: What The Heart Wants.

Loac, to be exact.

And more specifically, the loose, low line of Loac’s shirt, where two buttons have salaciously worked their way loose. He looks a right mess --as do the rest of them, admittedly --but it looks so damn good on him.

And in the embers burning low and with the shadows growing long, the way Loac’s bare, dark skin gleams as he leans back in his chair and licks the foam of his ale off his lips strikes up a pounding ache in the depths of Khobi’s belly.

​Khobi’s noticed him doing that –hanging back in his chair –all night, and now he finally pays for it; teetering too far backwards comically and only just managing to save himself before he goes spilling across the ground.

​" Smooth ," Khobi taunts from across the table, and Loac gives him a petulant look as he rights himself. It’s then that Gandy notices that the seat next to Khobi is suddenly empty.

​"...Struck out, did you?" Gandy commiserates, giving him a sympathetic look and a pat on the arm for good measure.

​"Huh? No?" Khobi raises an eyebrow as he peers down into his mug.

It’s empty again.

"He asked me up to his room."

​Gandy promptly chokes on his drink.

​The legs of Loac’s teetering chair hit the ground with a heavy thunk .

​" And ? What the fuck you sitting here with us for?" Gandy splutters incredulously. It’s honestly a fantastic question, and one that Khobi doesn’t exactly have an answer for.

​Across the table, Loac distractedly spins his mug. It looks like it’s empty, too.

On reflex, Khobi’s hand drifts to his pocket, and when he fishes out what’s left of his hard won gold and counts it out, it looks like he’s got just enough left to buy them all one last round.

And he’s hard pressed to think of anything else he’d rather spend it on.

​One more drink can’t hurt , he decides, pushing his chair out as he staggers to his feet. It’s a lot harder than it was a couple of hours ago.

​He’ll have one more. Then he’ll follow him up.

​The mugs, foaming and full, are just being laid out onto the bar when Loac comes up beside him.

​"I hope one of those is for me," he smirks, giving him a nudge with his shoulder to make sure he takes the hint.

Unblinking, Khobi promptly holds one out to him.

​"What?" Khobi scoffs when Loac doesn’t immediately take it; clearly not having expected an answer in the affirmative, "...You wanted one, right? Don’t worry, it’s that gross sweet stuff you like."

​"If it’s so gross, why you been drinkin’ it all night?" Loac snorts dryly, reaching out to take the proffered drink, and as he does the pads of his fingers skim across the skin of Khobi’s knuckles, igniting little flecks of heat wherever they tread.

Goosebumps flare up the length of Khobi’s arm, and he has to bite back a soft shiver.

​Is it just his imagination, or does his touch linger?

​Why does it feel so good ?

​It shouldn’t.

It can’t.

Khobi doesn’t want it to, but the alcohol coursing through his system is making some things fuzzier and some things sharper, and he no longer has any control over which is which.

​Khobi’s sure that Loac’s about to add something else smart, but just as he opens his mouth to deliver it, someone drunk and stupid staggers into him from behind and before he knows what’s happening, Loac’s pushed right up into his space and they’re chest to chest and nose to nose and there’s nothing but a single breath of air between them.

It’s a miracle neither of them spill a drop.

​"Ah," Loac mumbles aloud, and Khobi can’t help the way his breath catches in his throat as that single syllable brushes light and low against his lips.

And then, when the tip of Loac’s nose nudges into the side of his cheek goosebumps rise up on his arms and down his spine and suddenly he wants to feel it again; this time with Loac’s dark hands in his hair and his mouth hot and aching on his skin.

They’re inside so it’s impossible, but suddenly it feels like a wind picks up; hot and thick like summer, and when Khobi’s chin gets caught in the stuttering updraft of Loac’s breath and he finds him gazing back at him with eyelids sunk low and the blue slivers of his eyes turned to midnight, he finds himself unable to pull away.

​In that moment it’s unfathomable that he could even want that.

​This close that there’s no missing the way his gaze flits away from Khobi’s eyes, and down.

​It’s just for a heartbeat, but it’s there, and the low, tumultuous heat building in Khobi’s blood suddenly flares white hot.

​Inexplicably breathless, he wets his lips. And then, when Loac’s eyes dip again; slower, and more deliberate, the fire within him shifts.

Pliant from a night spent on sweet ale and warm bodies, it burns lower and deeper this time; stoking a caged, primal hunger that Khobi suddenly feels with every fibre of his being.

It coils and knots within him, tightening as Loac’s gaze roves away from his face towards the bare skin of his collar, and that all-too familiar ache --that need, to touch and be touched and devour and be devoured --strikes up in his chest and his gut and between his legs; fiercer and more insistent than it’s ever been.

It wants out.

​No.

​It wants Loac.

​"...Weren’t you going somewhere?" Loac murmurs offhandedly as he reaches for another one of the mugs patiently waiting to be collected and shared.

Khobi had completely forgotten all about them.

As he does so, his thumb idly ghosts across the knuckles of Khobi’s free hand; sitting uselessly on the bar where he’d left it what feels like centuries ago, and with the pang of longing that it sparks, Khobi just barely represses a full body shudder.