Chapter 289 - 287: Branded

Chapter 289: Chapter 287: Branded

If he’s still there when Khobi’s done changing, he’s putting him on his ass.

It’ll probably kill him, but it’s the principle of the thing.

​"Huh? Where’d you get that?" Loac frowns, looking up.

​"Binny, probably," Khobi supplies. "If you’re not gonna eat it, give it back."

​Loac obligingly shoves on end in his mouth and tears a chunk out of it.

​Crumbs cascade everywhere and Khobi turns away from him with a long-suffering sigh.

​Gods, it is too early for Loac’s shit.

​It takes him a lot longer than it should to get his buttons undone; his fingers are still a little numb and the alcohol lingering in his system has turned them all to thumbs.

And then, when he finally manages to get the damned thing off, he sees what the poor lighting of the dingy tavern room had hidden from sight.

​Marks.

​And not just any marks.

​Hickies.

​And they’re everywhere.

​"What the fuck."

​Aghast, he whips round to glare at Loac, demanding an explanation, and demanding it now.

​Loac faces down his ire and his shirtless chest with a raised eyebrow, and a vexing mouthful of, "What?"

​"What do you mean what?" Khobi demands hotly, then promptly chokes as he catches sight of his reflection in the mirror and the true extent of the damage becomes readily apparent.

It’s clearly not enough that he can remember the exact path Loac’s mouth took down his body; now he can actually see it, carved into his throat and chest by his lips and his teeth.

There are even a couple even dusting as low as his hipbones, and Khobi distinctly remembers the visceral reaction on his body when Loac had kissed him there.

​No fucking wonder the barkeep had looked at him the way he did!

​"What the fuck do you call this?" he growls, pointing an accusative finger at the mangled mess of his collarbone.

There’s really no mistaking them, or the particularly scandalous brand of mischief they implied.

"Why’d you go leaving so many marks? Fuck."

​Loac just downs another mouthful of bread and shrugs; unrepentant, and not nearly as bothered as Khobi thinks he should be.

Sure, the guy gets up to this sort of shit all the time, but does he seriously have zero shame?

​Apparently not, because Khobi’s certain he just caught him checking him out.

Although caught implies that he’d been covert about it, and there is nothing covert about the way Loac’s gaze traverses the dark trail mottling it’s way down Khobi’s collar; drinking in his handiwork and lingering in particular on the marks that disappear below the band of his pants.

​Khobi recognises that look.

​He’d seen it last night at the bar in the tavern, when the hour had grown late and the fires had burned low.

​Pleased.

Loac wets his lips, and Khobi’s skin inexplicably starts to prickle with static.

​"...You seemed like you were enjoying it."

​(Well. He’s not wrong. But that doesn’t make it an acceptable answer, by any means.)

​"Plus –"

​Khobi does not like that there’s a ’plus’. He likes it even less when Loac sits up and slowly starts prying open the buttons of his shirt, one by one.

​" –You’re one to talk about leaving marks." It’s a little harder to tell with his darker skin, but Khobi doesn’t have to look too closely to see that the mottled dark marks descending from his neck to his collarbone are most decidedly hickies.

And he remembers putting them there; remembers sinking his teeth into the flesh of his throat and feeling him moan against his lips, wanting to taste him all over and hear him keen for him.

​He would’ve done anything to hear more of those sounds.

​Blue eyes lock with his and too late, Khobi realises he’s been staring.

And while Loac’s gaze is as haggard and glazed as his own, Khobi gets the strangest sense that there’s still something dangerous lurking in the darkness beyond; not quite forgotten and not quite gone.

​Another spike of heat hits him, and he hurriedly tears his gaze away and takes a low breath to steady his resolve before he gets carried away.

​(Again.)

​Because last night was a drunken lapse in judgement; nothing but a moment of weakness.

It’s done. He’s back in control --back to his senses --and he’s not going to slip again.

​(Somwhere deep within him, a tether lies in tatters. And that urge; that nagging, insistent itch continues to itch. Not quite forgotten, and not quite gone.)

​Shaking his head to clead it, he turns back to the problem at hand; he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have a single shirt that’s gonna cover these marks well enough to not elicit questions.

​"...Ugh, how am I gonna explain this?" Khobi groans distractedly, yanking on the first thing he finds so Loac quits staring and then downing the rest of his water for good measure.

He also hasn’t buttoned his shirt up again, and Khobi doesn’t know how to get him to without giving away why.

​His friends are gonna ask.

There’s absolutely no way they don’t ask. If he were them he’d ask.

And he seriously doesn’t want to hear what they have to say about it.

​"Just lie?" Loac suggests flatly, wisely deciding to scoot across to the other side of the bed before Khobi shoves him over there with his foot.

Just lie. He says it like it’s seriously that easy.

​Well, he would be the expert, wouldn’t he?

​"...And you’re welcome, by the way," he adds as Khobi automatically heaves back the blankets and clambers inside without a second thought.

Somewhere on the other side of the bed he can hear Loac doing the same.

"For sneakin’ you out," he elaborates, when Khobi gives him an incredulous look.

​Right.

​He did do that.

​It was... nice of him.

It’s a weird thought in that it doesn’t quite fit the image that Khobi has of Loac.

​Had, he supposes, because recently that picture has started to become a confusing patchwork of new images pasted over the old and taking on an entirely different shape that is somehow still Loac.