This STUNNING shot is of course by @synnevp! (Used with permission)
Exactly As You Are
Went through the wringer with this one! First draft felt so wrong and I couldn’t tell why, but I talked it through with Synne and she gave me a suggestion and it really snapped into place when I rewrote it. Thank you Synne 🥰♥️
ANYWAY, more regency AU! Heavy scent kink warning/enticement on this one
🧣Rated E • 4,150 words • Rolan x Dammon
☀️ “Dammon discovers there may be more to why Lord Towers always seems to demand his presence before he's had a chance to wash up.”
💌 Found on ao3 here! Sfw preview below!
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The pristine golden light has faded tranquil grey by the time he’s ridden up to the Towers estate and handed Duncan off to a stablehand. Dammon walks around back of the house through tall summer grass whispering in the evening breeze and slips in through the servants’ entrance as always. He climbs the creaking steps to Rolan’s bedroom and leans in to give the solid hardwood door a quiet knock. It swings open on the second rap of his knuckles. Rolan’s clawed fingers close around his wrist and pull him in.
“Dammon,” Rolan says. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course,” Dammon says, with his soft and knowing smile. “How could I refuse such an invitation?”
He comes into the grand bed chamber with the same soft sense of awe as always, and with the same touch of self-conscious awareness of his own rough state amidst such finery. Rolan’s tastes are exquisite: the fine king bed with its heaps of pillows in an array of expensive fabrics, the blue and gold brocade chaise and chair by the window, the wallpaper with its metallic accents glinting softly in what remains of the lowering light through the window. And of course the lord’s fine taste in art displayed in several large oil landscapes on the wall opposite the bed. All of it as elegant and refined as Rolan himself.
But Dammon’s practiced eye catches immediately upon the problem: the rod holding the curtains above the tall arched window has fallen in, leaving the fabric hanging at an awkward angle across the light.
“Not quite what I would call an emergency,” he says, amused.
“It seemed a job best suited to you. I certainly was not going to climb on a chair to put it back.”
Dammon gives him a fond smile before going to the window. He stoops down to untie his boots and slip them off. Then he pulls a finely upholstered chair over and steps gingerly up onto it, reaching up for the curtain rod with a prickling kind of awareness for Rolan’s attention on him. He knows exactly why Rolan has summoned him here, and he knows it has little to do with a problem a servant could have resolved in five minutes. The thought warms his belly with a first soft touch of arousal.
He lifts the wrought iron curtain rod and settles it back into its cradle over the window. He spends a moment frowning at it as his mind turns from thoughts of Rolan’s intentions and his own desire, and replaces them with thoughts of a problem he can solve.
“You know, I could lengthen this for you,” he says. He glances down as he steps from the chair back to the floor, then back up at the curtain rod, setting his hands on his hips as he considers. “Bring it by some afternoon and I’ll do it. Have a servant pull it down if you must. Whoever’s crafted it made it too short to settle in the cradle, so it—”
Rolan’s hand closes around his elbow. Dammon glances toward him with a slight surprised lift of his eyebrows. Rolan smiles with teasing affection.
“Ssh,” he says.
His fingertips brush up Dammon’s chest and wrap in the green fabric of his scarf. He draws Dammon in by it until they stand a breath apart, Dammon’s eyes fixed on the piercing yellow of Rolan’s in the gathering gloom of his bed chamber. His lips part around his soft breaths; his pulse quickens.
“I did not call you here for a lesson in metalwork,” Rolan says, his smile spreading.
“Oh?” Dammon murmurs back. His eyelids drop low over his heated gaze. “Then what is it I can do for you, Lord Towers?”
Loss of empathy might well be the most enduring and deep-cutting scar of all, the silent blade of an unseen enemy, tearing at our hearts and stealing more than our strength - Drizzt Do'Urden
