Page 63 of Nemesis Mine
And there it was, out in the open.
Fall for you.
Another piece slipping into place, like the never-ending swoop in his stomach. The truth of Maximillian’s feelings laid bare. Cyrus’s own still felt unwieldly and unfamiliar, frightening in their vulnerability.
But less so, now that Maximillian had voiced his own. A huge step to take, but not a terrifying cliff edge.
Cyrus swallowed. “Maximillian,” he started, then stopped. Memory nudged him—a moment of pleasure, another word rolling from his tongue. He amended: “Max.”
Max opened his eyes. His chest tightened at the honest emotion there.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Cyrus said softly. Those words carried more sincerity than anything he’d ever said, but as he voiced them, he realised that another amendment was needed. “Icouldn’tdo that. Not to you.”
Maximillian’s shoulders slumped with the drain of the last vestige of doubt. He breathed out. Cyrus breathed with him, exhaling the weight he’d carried for the past two weeks, the dregs of rage and resentment and hot, stinging hurt.
Into the silence, Max ventured, “So if I didn’t mean anything I said to the journalist, and you didn’t leave because you were playing me all along, then...”
Then this wasn’t a game at all. This wasn’t part of any ploy, champion or wrongdoer. It was something that had built between them in the quiet moments. Something honest, and completely unexpected, and true.
That knowledge felt terrifying, too enormous to comprehend. Cyrus wasn’t sure what to do with it. The fight was over, but they were both left shell-shocked in its wake. He wanted the playfulness back, the very thing which had drawn him so unexpectedly to Max in the first place.
Cyrus hummed under his breath, deadpan when he spoke. “Suppose I might have to apologise to the sprites. I’ve been mean to them the last two weeks, pretending they were you.”
“You’re always mean to them.”
“Meaner than usual.”
“And you never apologise.”
“Sorry,” said Cyrus, just to be contrary. “Anyway, they weren’t around when I got back—”
“That’s because I’d just visited. I don’t think they like me.” Cyrus squinted at him, thrown, but Max only shrugged. “Really. I saw one earlier. It beheaded one of your pansies and threw it at me. I think it was a threat.”
Interesting. Perhaps the sprites had the potential to be moulded into a malevolent army after all. “Well, you probably scared them if you turned up at my lair earlier like you did in town.” He deepened his voice, angling an elbow towards Max’s ribs. “Face me, Earthshaker.”
“Shut up,” Max groused, but he was laughing. “I’ll have you know I took lessons on voice projection under the Federation. Got to make sure you wrongdoers are quivering in your boots, after all.”
“Yeah? Well, I took a workshop on how to mock posturing champions at the Guild,” Cyrus returned. “I excelled, as I do in most things.”
Max eyed him, rueful. “I suppose we’re both the villain in each other’s story.”
“Yeah. I suppose we are.”
They glanced at each other in the flickering light of the fire. There was so much running through Cyrus’s mind, so much he felt barely equipped to handle. All he could do, for now, was focus on the immediate: Max, here on his couch, turning towards him.
Max leaned in. Cyrus turned his head. The champion kissed him, tentative at first, a brush of warm lips and thescratch of his beard. It turned into something deeper when Cyrus’s hand came up to tangle fingers into salt-swept coppery hair.
Max gave a soft sigh against his lips. “This is what I wanted to do, that morning,” he murmured. “I was imagining it as I came upstairs. Kept thinking of how you looked, in my bed.”
Cyrus shivered. Two weeks was hardly anything in a lifetime, and yet it still felt like a terrible waste of time, if he could have been enjoying this. In lieu of an answer he kissed Max again, and again, tasting his lips and jaw and throat. His body felt simultaneously on edge with a prickling heat and floaty with pleasure. What Max did to him.
They stilled, face-to-face. Their breath was quiet and off-kilter, soft against the backdrop of crackling flames. He had Max, here under his hands, and he did not want to lose him.
“I can’t promise it’ll be easy,” Cyrus whispered against Max’s lips. The intimacy of it was almost unbearable and yet it felt like the only way he could get the words out. Whispering secrets against Max’s mouth, like a confessional of old. “With me. I’m not used to any of this.”
“I know,” Max murmured. “For what it’s worth, I can’t promise it’ll be easy with me either. I’ve never—there’s never been anyone I actually cared about. Not like this.”
Cyrus withdrew to look at him properly. The honesty in Max’s voice made his chest tighten.
