16 Chapter (2)

his telepathic point. A breathless sound left Jamil’s lips, his whole world narrowing to that hand and those black eyes. Warmth seeped into his senses, slowly, too slowly, sensation like no other spreading through his body. He could feel another presence entering him, and everything in him reached out hungrily, trying to pull it deeper, swallow it into him. Someone let out a breathless moan, but Jamil wasn’t sure which of them it was. It felt… it felt terrible and terribly good, the intensity of the connection both scary and perfect all at once. It still wasn’t enough. He wanted more.

“Deeper.”

“That would be… unwise, Your Highness.” Rohan’s mental voice was low and soothing, far warmer than his real one.

“Deeper.”

Rohan obliged, slipping deeper inside him, past the upper layers of his mind, toward his telepathic core. He seemed distracted now—annoyed by something. Thanks to their deep connection, it took Jamil only a moment to realize what was annoying him: his bond to Mehmer, or rather, the remnants of it still twisted around Jamil’s telepathic core.

“That thing is vile.” Rohan reached toward it.

“Don’t.”

“You do realize that it’s limiting your telepathy, right?”

“We both know it’s not the reason you want to remove it.”

A flare of irritation came from the other man, but Rohan could hardly deny it—not when Jamil could feel his thoughts almost as clearly as his own. Rohan’s presence wrapped tighter around him, something vicious and possessive about it. Jamil should have probably been bothered by that—annoyed even—but it was difficult to be annoyed by this inappropriate display of possessiveness when he felt so good, his nerves singing with pleasure. He could only drag Rohan deeper inside him, feeling his answering pleasure as they wrapped tighter and tighter around each other. Heavens... If Jamil thought he was drowning before, he didn’t know a word for this feeling. Pure bliss filled his mind to the brim, every sensation shared between them on every possible level, a connection so absolute that he had trouble telling where he ended and Rohan began. He’d never felt closer to another person. He could feel Rohan’s heart beating, he could feel the pleasure traveling through Rohan’s body almost as vividly as he felt his own.

It felt as good as sex.

That thought made Jamil imagine doing this during sex—and he shivered, imagining their bodies connected as intimately as their minds were right now.

“Stop thinking about sex, sweetheart. It’s weird.”

In any other circumstances, Jamil would have been humiliated. But with their minds so deeply intertwined, it was impossible for any awkwardness between them to exist. They felt almost like one person.

“Not that I blame you,” Rohan told him, his thoughts laced with soft amusement. “I know you can’t help it. I always had sex with women I merged with. It’s natural to mix up mental pleasure with physical one.” It felt like he was smiling. “That said, I would appreciate it if you could stop thinking about my cock. It’s a little weird. I don’t have sex with men.”

“It’s still stroking your ego.” Had they been having this conversation outside of the merge, Jamil would have felt mortified. But such concerns seemed so distant and irrelevant at the moment.

“Of course it is. I told you: you’re very pretty, for a man. It’s very flattering.”

“Stop calling me pretty. I don’t like it.”

A laugh. “Sweetheart, I’m so deep inside you I can feel what you’re really feeling and it isn’t offense.”

“Shut up.”

“You don’t want me to shut up.”

“Get out of my head.”

“You don’t want that, either.”

Jamil focused on what Rohan was feeling and said dryly, “And you think I have the most beautiful mind you’ve ever been in.”

But if he thought that would embarrass Rohan, it seemed he was sorely mistaken.

“You do, but it would be more beautiful without this ugly thing in it,” Rohan said, nudging the remnants of his bond to Mehmer.

“Your possessiveness is as baffling as it is inappropriate.”

“It’s the merge. I’m not responsible for feeling this way.”

“Convenient,” Jamil said.

“It’s the truth. A sessful merge makes people feel a lot closer than they are out of it. Just as you wouldn’t want to have sex with me in real life, once we end the merge, I will stop wanting to rip another man’s bond out of your mind. It’s the merge, not us.”

Jamil had to admit he had a point. Everything was too intense within the merge, every feeling amplified to an extreme. Talking to a near stranger so candidly should have felt strange, but it wasn’t. Being so intimate with a near stranger should have felt ufortable, but it wasn’t. It felt as natural as breathing, and the near stranger no longer felt like a stranger. It felt like he’d known Rohan di’Lehr all his life. It was… a little disconcerting, truth be told, this level of trust between them. This man was a rebel. Rebels were—

“We didn’t kill your husband,” Rohan reminded him.

Jamil breathed out, knowing that he was telling the truth. The last lingering doubts he’d had about it were gone now. Rohan couldn’t lie to him when their minds were so deeply connected. The rebels really hadn’t killed Mehmer.

Someone else had.

Jamil sighed, not really wanting to think or talk about it but well aware that he should. Mehmer’s death was something he had been justing to terms with; talking about it was like scraping at a barely healed wound. He was scared it would start bleeding again—and scared that it wouldn’t. Grief, pain, and loss were emotions that couldn’t be farther from him at the moment; not when he felt so good, with this man’s mind wrapped tightly around his very being, making him feel wonderfully safe.

And it made him feel absolutely terrible. How could he lose himself in the pleasure and the feeling of security given to him by another man when he’d just learned that Mehmer wasn’t a victim of a political conflict? That he had been murdered, possibly murdered by someone Jamil saw every day, someone who walked the streets, free and unpunished, living off the fruits of their crime, while Jamil didn’t even have his husband’s body to say his goodbyes.

He owed it to Mehmer to find that person. Or at least to try.

Jamil forced his eyes open and fought disorientation as his mind struggled to pay attention to anything but the merge. “That enemy you mentioned… it’s the regent of the Fifth Grand Clan, isn’t it?”

Rohan’s eyelids lifted. His fingers were still pressed against Jamil’s telepathic point so the merge didn’t break. It was such a surreal feeling. Although Rohan’s gaze was inscrutable and largely indifferent, his mind was still touching him intimately, possessively, and Jamil could feel that although Rohan felt a little annoyed that he’d guessed the truth, he also felt almost proud that Jamil had. It made Jamil want to preen, which was so ridiculous that he wanted to slap himself.

“Yes,” Rohan said at last. “But I don’t think she has anything to do with your husband’s death. It doesn’t make any sense. She wouldn’t have risked killing a member of another royal house when her son is so close to finally ascending to the throne.”

Jamil was still having trouble believing that Dalatteya was capable of killing at all.

“She isn’t the harmless society lady she pretends to be,” Rohan said, as if reading his thoughts—which he probably was.

Jamil sighed. “The rebels didn’t really kidnap Dalatteya’s nephews, did they?”

“No.”

Although Jamil had been expecting that answer, the implications of it still disturbed him, or would have disturbed him if he were capable of feeling anything but good, safe, right.

“We should probably break the merge,” Jamil said, dropping his gaze. He hoped Rohan couldn’t feel his reluctance.

“We probably should,” Rohan agreed, but his mind wrapped tighter around him, something aggressive and greedy about it, his mental fingers stimulating Jamil’s pleasure centers.

A moan slipped out of Jamil’s mouth. Breathing unsteadily, he glared at Rohan. “Stop that. This is—indecent.”

Rohan’s lips twitched. “Indecent? You’re the most prudish person I’ve ever met, sweetheart.”

“Stop calling me that,” Jamil said, blushing. It was one thing to allow inappropriate endearments when theymunicated telepathically; it waspletely another to let it slide when Rohan used them aloud.

Rohan shrugged. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. A side effect of the merge.”

Jamil eyed him suspiciously—he didn’t look contrite at all—but let it go. “Break the merge,” he said instead.

“You can break it, too, you know,” Rohan said, looking amused, the bastard.

Jamil kind of wanted to punch him to wipe that cocky smile off his face. Asshole.

“Thanks,” Rohan said, his smile widening. “That’s practically a ringing endorsementing from someone so uptight.”

“I’m a prince,” Jamil said, lifting his chin.

Rohan tapped him on the nose with his thumb. “It’s adorable that you think being a prince must be synonymous with being uptight.”

Jamil shot him a withering look, which Rohan just laughed off. The impossible man seemed to find him entertaining.

Supremely annoyed, Jamil stepped back, shaking Rohan’s fingers off. The merge snapped, almost painfully so, leaving him breathless and shaky.

Rohan grimaced, his fingers twitching toward Jamil before he curled them into a fist. “Some warning would have been nice,” he said testily.

Jamil took in a deep breath, trying to adjust to being alone in his head again. It felt incredibly disconcerting. He hated it.

He looked back at Rohan and saw the same sentiment in his eyes. They stared at each other, angry, confused, and hungry, still so hungry for each other.

“It didn’t work, did it?” Jamil said, deflating. He didn’t feel like the merge had helped at all. If anything, the yearning seemed to have be stronger.

Rohan’s dark brows drew close, his expression vaguely irritated. “It was worth a try,” he said. “And it wasn’t for nothing. Now you know I’m telling the truth.”

Jamil nodded, running a trembling hand through his hair. “I will help you. I want to find out who murdered