“I’m late for a meeting,” he said curtly. “You don’t have to get up.” Ksar walked toward his wardrobe and pulled out a fresh change of clothes.
Behind him, he heard a small laugh. “Okay, this is surreal.”
Zipping up his pants, Ksar looked in the mirror. He found Seyn watching him dress with a vaguely conflicted look on his face.
“What is surreal?” Ksar said.
Seyn shrugged with one shoulder, his lips twisting into a crooked smile. “I just… This is so freakishly normal and weird at the same time, you know? Watching you dress for work. I mean, it would have been normal if we…” He trailed off, looking away.
Ksar felt a twinge of…something. He knew what Seyn meant. This felt too normal. Domestic.
“If we didn’t get the bond dissolved and got married as expected, this still wouldn’t have been normal,” Ksar said, slipping into a white shirt and buttoning it up. “For one thing, I wouldn’t have sex with you.”
Seyn’s brows furrowed. “Why not?”
Ksar shot him a sharp, curious look. Did he actually sound offended? “If you didn’t find out about the state of our bond and we got married, that would have meant that I would have had to constantly brainwash you to make you believe that we really had a marriage bond.” He met Seyn’s eyes in the mirror, tying his cravat. “It seems I’m not evil enough to stomach fucking someone who can’t think for himself. A pity.”
Seyn actually laughed. “You have no shame.”
“Why would I be ashamed?” Ksar said, his lips twitching despite his best efforts not to show his amusement. “It’s nothing but the truth. Things would have been so much easier if I didn’t have certain misgivings.”
Seyn shook his head with a grin, his eyes lighting up with mirth. “You’re a terrible person and you don’t even bother hiding it.”
Ksar stared at his smiling face before tearing his eyes away and reaching for his Ministry cloak. “There’s no point in pretending to be something I’m not—not with you. I can hardly be as candid with other people.”
He could feel Seyn’s gaze on him as he slipped into his cloak.
There was a new tension in the air that didn’t precisely feel awkward, but it frayed Ksar’s nerves all the same.
He was dressed. He was already very late for his meeting. There was no reason to loiter around like a green boy hoping for a goodbye kiss.
Disgusted with himself and thoroughly sick of his own irrational behavior around Seyn, Ksar headed for the door.
“Ksar.”
He came to a halt, and after a moment, looked back toward the bed. “Yes?”
It seemed Seyn had decided to accept Ksar’s suggestion not to get up yet: he was curled up around Ksar’s pillow, his gaze lazy and a little heavy with sleep. “Will your meeting take long?”
The wave of want that swept through his senses was almost violent in its intensity.
Ksar closed his eyes for a moment, as if that could stop him from saying what he definitely shouldn’t be saying. “It should take an hour at most.”
Licking his lips, Seyn dropped his gaze. “Not that I’ll be waiting for you, but I’m not in a hurry to be anywhere today. That’s all I’m saying.”
Ksar pursed his lips to keep himself from smiling. “If I don’t have any pressing matters that require my attention, I might come back before you leave.” He was well aware how much Seyn hated it when he phrased things like that.
Predictably, Seyn glared at him.
This time Ksar couldn’t suppress his smile.
Seyn’s eyes narrowed before a laugh left his lips. “You’re an asshole.”
“That’s nothing you didn’t know before,” Ksar said.
Seyn gave him a pinched look. “Please stop smiling. It’s freaking me out.”
Ksar laughed.
Seyn blinked a few times, looking bewildered, which made Ksar laugh again.
“Please go away,” Seyn said, groaning and burying his face in the pillow. “Maybe I woke up in an alternate reality. This isn’t happening.”
“Closing one’s eyes and pretending something isn’t real is very childish of you.”
Seyn lifted his head with an exaggerated look of relief on his face. “Thank Heaven. I was starting to think someone possessed you. It’s good to see you’re still my—” He cut himself off, his expression partly disturbed, partly mortified.
Ksar walked back to the bed and hauled him up. “Your what?” he said, genuinely curious about the answer. But if he were honest with himself, it was partly just an excuse to touch Seyn again.
Seyn met his eyes, his expression defiant. “So I got used to you being mine, so what? It doesn’t mean I’m in love with you or something.”
Ksar stared at him, a strange feeling spreading through his chest and settling in his gut. “That thought hadn’t even occurred to me,” he said mildly. “Until now.”
The murderous look Seyn gave him was almost comical.
Ksar laughed, feeling more amused than he’d had in years. He’d always enjoyed getting under Seyn’s skin and making him fume, but this felt different now, somehow. Lighter.