He really, really wants to do this. That much he’s sure about.
He closes his eyes, grounds himself with his fingertips on the cool surface of his desk, the feathery little edges of papers there. His mind flashes to Henry, the smooth lines of his suit, the way his breath brushed Alex’s cheek when he kissed him. His stomach does some embarrassing acrobatics he plans to never tell anyone about, ever.
Henry, the prince. Henry, the boy in the garden. Henry, the boy in his bed.
He doesn’t, he reminds himself, even have feelings for the guy. Really.
There’s a knock on the door. Alex checks his phone: 10:54.
He opens the door.
Alex stands there and exhales slowly, eyes on Henry. He’s not sure he’s ever let himself just look.
Henry is tall and gorgeous, half royalty, half movie star, red wine lingering on his lips. He’s left his jacket and tie behind, and the sleeves of his shirt are pushed up to his elbows. He looks nervous around the corners of his eyes, but he smiles at Alex with one side of his pink mouth and says, “Sorry I’m early.”
Alex bites his lip. “Find your way here okay?”
“There was a very helpful Secret Service agent,” Henry says. “I think her name was Amy?”
Alex smiles fully now. “Get in here.”
Henry’s grin takes over his entire face, not his photograph grin, but one that is crinkly and unguarded and infectious. He hooks his fingertips behind Alex’s elbow, and Alex follows his lead, bare feet nudging between Henry’s dress shoes. Henry’s breath ghosts over Alex’s lips, their noses brushing, and when he finally connects, he’s smiling into it.
Henry shuts and locks the door behind them, sliding one hand up the nape of Alex’s neck, cradling it. There’s something different about the way he’s kissing now—it’s measured, deliberate. Soft. Alex isn’t sure why, or what to do with it.
He settles for pulling Henry in by the sway of his waist, pressing their bodies flush. He kisses back, but lets himself be kissed however Henry wants to kiss him, which right now is exactly how he would have expected Prince Charming to kiss in the first place: sweet and deep and like they’re standing at sunrise in the fucking moors. He can practically feel the wind in his hair. It’s ridiculous.
Henry breaks off and says, “How do you want to do this?”
And Alex remembers, suddenly, this is not a sunrise-in-the-moors type of situation. He grabs Henry by his loosened collar, pushes a little, and says, “Get on the couch.”
Henry’s breath hitches and he complies. Alex moves to stand over him, looking down at that soft pink mouth. He feels himself standing at a very tall, very dangerous precipice, with no intention of backing away. Henry looks up at him, expectant, hungry.
“You’ve been dodging me for weeks,” Alex says, widening his stance so his knees bracket Henry’s. He leans down and braces one hand against the back of the couch, the other grazing over the vulnerable dip of Henry’s throat. “You went out with a girl.”
“I’m gay,” Henry tells him flatly. One of his broad palms flattens over Alex’s hip, and Alex inhales sharply, either at the touch or at hearing Henry finally say it out loud. “Not something wise to pursue as a member of the royal family. And I wasn’t sure you weren’t going to murder me for kissing you.”
“Then why’d you do it?” Alex asks him. He leans into Henry’s neck, dragging his lips over the sensitive skin just behind his ear. He thinks Henry might be holding his breath.
“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.