Red, White & Royal Blue(41)

“Because I—I hoped you wouldn’t. Murder me. I had … suspicions you might want me too,” Henry says. He hisses a little when Alex bites down lightly on the side of his neck. “Or I thought, until I saw you with Nora, and then I was … jealous … and I was drunk and an idiot who got sick of waiting for the answer to present itself.”

“You were jealous,” Alex says. “You want me.”

Henry moves abruptly, heaving Alex off balance with both hands and down into his lap, eyes blazing, and he says in a low and deadly voice Alex has never heard from him before, “Yes, you preening arse, I’ve wanted you long enough that I won’t have you tease me for another fucking second.”

Turns out being on the receiving end of Henry’s royal authority is an extreme fucking turn-on. He thinks, as he’s hauled into a bruising kiss, that he’ll never forgive himself for it. So, like, fuck the moors.

Henry gets a grip on Alex’s hips and pulls him close, so Alex is properly straddling his lap, and he kisses hard now, more like he had in the Red Room, with teeth. It shouldn’t work so perfectly—it makes absolutely no sense—but it does. There’s something about the two of them, the way they ignite at different temperatures, Alex’s frenetic energy and Henry’s aching sureness.

He grinds down into Henry’s lap, grunting as he’s met with Henry already half-hard under him, and Henry’s curse in response is buried in Alex’s mouth. The kisses turn messy, then, urgent and graceless, and Alex gets lost in the drag and slide and press of Henry’s lips, the sweet liquor of it. He pushes his hands into Henry’s hair, and it’s as soft as he always imagined when he would trace the photo of Henry in June’s magazine, lush and thick under his fingers. Henry melts at the touch, wraps his arms around Alex’s waist and holds him there. Alex isn’t going anywhere.

He kisses Henry until it feels like he can’t breathe, until it feels like he’s going to forget both of their names and titles, until they’re only two people tangled up in a dark room making a brilliant, epic, unstoppable mistake.

He manages to get the next two buttons on his shirt undone before Henry grabs it by the tails and pulls it off over his head and makes quick work of his own. Alex tries not to be in awe of the simple agility of his hands, tries not to think about classical piano or how swift and smooth years of polo have trained Henry to be.

“Hang on,” Henry says, and Alex is already groaning in protest, but Henry pulls back and rests his fingertips on Alex’s lips to shush him. “I want—” His voice starts and stops, and he’s looking like he’s resolving not to cringe at himself again. He gathers himself, stroking a finger up to Alex’s cheek before jutting his chin out defiantly. “I want you on the bed.”

Alex goes fully silent and still, looking into Henry’s eyes and the question there: Are you going to stop this now that it’s real?

“Well, come on, Your Highness,” Alex says, shifting his weight to give Henry a last tease before he stands.

“You’re a dick,” Henry says, but he follows, smiling.

Alex climbs onto the bed, sliding back to prop himself up on his elbows by the pillows, watching as Henry kicks off his shoes and regains his bearings. He looks transformed in the lamplight, like a god of debauchery, painted gold with his hair all mussed up and his eyes heavy-lidded. Alex lets himself stare; the whipcord muscle under his skin, lean and long and lithe. The spot right at the dip of his waist below his ribs looks impossibly soft, and Alex might die if he can’t fit his hand into that little curve in the next five seconds.

In an instant of sudden, vivid clarity, he can’t believe he ever thought he was straight.

“Quit stalling,” Alex says, pointedly interrupting the moment.

“Bossy,” Henry says, and he complies.

Henry’s body settles over him with a warm, steady weight, one of his thighs sliding between Alex’s legs and his hands bracing on the pillows, and Alex feels the points of contact like a static shock at his shoulders, his hips, the center of his chest.

One of Henry’s hands slides up his stomach and stops, having encountered the old silver key on the chain resting over his sternum.

“What’s this?”

Alex huffs impatiently. “The key to my mom’s house in Texas,” he says, winding a hand back into Henry’s hair. “I started wearing it when I moved here. I guess I thought it would remind me of where I came from or something—did I or did I not tell you to quit stalling?”

Henry looks up into his eyes, speechless, and Alex tugs him down into another all-consuming kiss, and Henry bears down on him fully, pressing him into the bed. Alex’s other hand finds that dip of Henry’s waist, and he swallows a sound at how devastating it feels under his palm. He’s never been kissed like this, as if the feeling could swallow him up whole, Henry’s body grinding down and covering every inch of his. He moves his mouth from Henry’s to the side of his neck, the spot below his ear, kisses and kisses it, and bares his teeth. Alex knows it’ll probably leave a mark, which is against rule number one of clandestine hookups for political offspring—and probably royals too. He doesn’t care.

He feels Henry find the waistband of his pants, the button, the zipper, the elastic of his underwear, and then everything goes very hazy, very quickly.