Chapter 235: Chapter 235: Coward [Win-Win]

Frederik stayed over him for a moment longer, breathing hard, his forehead pressed into the curve of Cecil’s neck as if sheer proximity were the only thing keeping him from tearing the rest of the day apart with his bare hands.

Cecil’s fingers slid slowly into his hair. "For someone reminding me about time, you knotted me and know that it won’t go away for another ten minutes."

Frederik raised his head enough to glare at Cecil. "You asked for it."

"I ask for many things," Cecil said with a wide, smug grin, entirely too pleased with himself for a man currently pinned under the consequences of his own decisions, "and you still indulge me."

"That is not the argument in your favor you think it is."

"It is in every argument that matters."

Frederik stared at him for one long second, as if considering whether irritation could be meaningfully separated from devotion after this many years. It could not. That had always been the problem.

Or the advantage.

With Cecil, the distinction rarely survived close examination.

"You are impossible," Frederik said at last, voice still rough.

"Yes," Cecil answered at once, with the serene confidence of a man who had never once mistaken self-awareness for a reason to improve. "And yet here you are."

Frederik looked down at him properly then and felt the familiar, infuriating shift in his own chest. Cecil was flushed beneath the composed lines of his face, dark hair disordered, silver eyes bright with satisfaction and the remnants of triumph. He had the air of someone who had started a fire in a government-funded building and was pleased by the quality of the flames.

Worse, he looked comfortable.

Triumphant, inconveniently beautiful, and entirely too comfortable for a prince who had just pointed out, with insufferable accuracy, that they were not actually going anywhere for the next ten minutes.

Frederik lowered his head again until his forehead brushed Cecil’s. "You planned that."

Cecil’s smile sharpened. "I adapted quickly."

"That is just a more elegant way of admitting guilt."

"I am an imperial son. Elegance is one of my duties."

Frederik made a quiet sound under his breath, halfway between a laugh and something far less civil. Cecil’s fingers remained buried in his hair, holding him there without apology, warm and possessive against his scalp. The prince looked thoroughly pleased with himself - flushed, sated, and still radiating shameless satisfaction that would have ruined lesser men on sight.

Frederik barely reacted to that, which was in itself a lie. His hand went instead to his comm, because if he looked at Cecil for too long in that state - spread out beneath him, mouth curved with smug delight, clothes destroyed, and absolutely no trace of modesty anywhere in sight - the Academy would lose significantly more than half an hour.

He sent a clipped message to security rescheduling the next event with a delay of half an hour, placing the blame on the director with cold efficiency.

Cecil watched him do it and smiled wider.

"Efficient," he murmured, not sounding remotely innocent. He shifted under Frederik with deliberate laziness, the movement dragging heat through both of them in a way that made the air feel suddenly too thick again. "I do admire how quickly you recover enough to start ruining administrative schedules."

Frederik glanced down at him, expression flat in the way it only became when he was exercising violence against his own self-control. "You are the reason there is a scheduling problem."

"No," Cecil said, sliding one hand from Frederik’s hair to the back of his neck, fingers spreading there like a claim. "The director is the reason. I was simply the far more enjoyable consequence."

That, unfortunately, was true.

Cecil had no shame at all. Not with Frederik. Not in private. Not when he was pleased, possessive, and still half-draped across a chaise like the aftermath of an imperial scandal. His silver eyes glittered with amusement as he looked up at him, beautiful and cold and entirely too satisfied with the fact that Frederik was still above him, still close, still not nearly as indifferent as he pretended to be.

"You can stop glaring at me," Cecil said softly. "It doesn’t make you look less affected."

"It’s meant to preserve your life."

Cecil laughed under his breath and tipped his head back against the cushion, exposing the line of his throat with the reckless confidence of a man who knew exactly what that did to the alpha watching him. "Please. If you were going to punish me for this, you would have done it already."

Frederik’s jaw tightened.

Cecil noticed. Of course he noticed.

Worse, he enjoyed it.

His hand slid slowly down from Frederik’s neck to his chest, palm flattening there for a moment before tracing lower with no urgency whatsoever, as if he had all the time in the world and every intention of making Frederik suffer through each second of it. "You’re the one who keeps pretending we should be reasonable."

"We should."

"And yet here you still are."

Frederik caught his wrist before that wandering hand could become a new problem.

Cecil’s mouth curved, not remotely chastened. "See? Not even a real objection."

"It is absolutely a real objection."

"It’s an objection delivered while you’re still pinning me down."

Frederik stared at him.

Cecil stared back, openly smug, dark hair disordered, lips slightly swollen, all princely composure stripped down into something much more dangerous simply because it was private. He looked like temptation designed by someone with a cruel sense of humor and a personal grudge against Frederik’s discipline.

"I hate how pleased you are with yourself," Frederik said.

"No, you don’t."

"That is an astonishing amount of confidence from someone currently responsible for delaying an imperial visit."

Cecil’s smile turned slow and wicked. "You say that like you mind the reason."

Frederik held his gaze for a long second.

Then he said, with the kind of dry restraint that usually meant he was one provocation away from becoming genuinely dangerous, "I mind the timing."

Cecil’s grin only deepened. "Liar."

"Prince."

"Coward."