masturbation, short lived though the relief might be.
The Prince discarded his clothes all over his room – Merlin could clean them up, it'd serve him right for disappearing when he was most needed.
He was quick to lie down on his bed, legs spread wantonly as his hand went straight to his erection, grasping it and stroking his fingers along the underside. He moaned softly when his thumb brushed over the tip and massaged his balls with his other hand, calling out Merlin's name in desire.
He threw his head back into the pillow and sighed. It just wasn't ienough/i. He was used to having Merlin and the cheap substitute of his own hands no longer worked for him – they were just too predictable, too familiar. Opening his eyes, to reach automatically for the candle beside his bead, he only half managed to disguise his scream of surprise.
Merlin was standing next to the bed. Completely naked. An annoyingly knowing grin spread across his face, eyebrow crooked. And he was holding the candle.
"iArthur./i" He purred the name, tongue lingering over the last syllable. "How many times do I have to tell you before you listen to me?"
He crawled over the prince, the candle gripped in his right fist, mere centimetres away from Arthur's mouth. Merlin bucked his hips and rubbed their erections together, delighting in Arthur's moans.
"You're such a fucking whore." He finished, and Arthur moaned again.
Merlin sat up, straddling Arthur's hips and stroked the candle, thoughtfully, sensually, and Arthur didn't even try to disguise his iwhimper/i.
Merlin raised his eyes to look at him through his lashes and started speaking, his voice still sinfully lusty, "I never told you, did I? I used to fuck myself. On a candle; like you do."
He chuckled at Arthur's startled gasp and grinned down at him.
"Now, Arthur, I know that we're not all filthy sluts like you, but that doesn't mean I'm totally naïve – or innocent."
Arthur was wracking his brains, trying to come up with a witty – or at least coherent – reply, but the way in which Merlin was caressing the candle was severely hindering his thought process.
"Wh-what?" Well, that was something at least. Even if not particularly impressive.
"You heard me." Damn, how was Merlin managing to sound so calm? "Just like you do it. I used to pretend it was someone else fucking me."
He licked his lips and leaned in close to Arthur, his breath ghosting over the prince's lips, "Does that make you jealous?"
Arthur growled and, with a sudden flex of his hips, he'd flipped them.
If Merlin was even the slightest bit surprised, he didn't show it, just smiled sinfully again as Arthur pinned his hands above his head and he let the candle tumble from his grasp.
"Who was it?" His voice deep and gravely, threatening.
Merlin just smiled wider and blinked up at him, feigning total innocence.
Until Arthur thrust their hips together and ground against him, then he gasped and bit his lip.
"Tell me." His eyes were frighteningly dark and his grip on Merlin's wrists was tight, bruising. He thrust their hips together again and pressed open-mouthed kisses to the soft skin where Merlin's neck and shoulder met, teeth nipping and leaving strong, visible, marks.
"Will… It was Will." Merlin's voice was quiet and breathless, but he still managed to look composed. Reasonably composed. "Does it make you jealous?"
Arthur gave him a dark, filthy, look and used his free hand to reach for the small bottle of oil kept under his pillow. Wordlessly, he smeared it into his fingers and positioned two at Merlin's entrance, he could feel the man's breathing hitch when he felt the cool pressure.
"He was just a peasant." Arthur pressed the fingers inside him, silencing any protests that Merlin was about to retort with.
He thrust them quickly in and out, scissored and crooked them to make Merlin's hips jolt of the bed, make him cry out.
He pressed a third finger inside, roughly, barely giving Merlin any time to register the change before he was moving them again, repeating his movements more forcefully, making him moan louder.
And then the fingers were gone. "He wasn't good enough for you."
Merlin couldn't see what Arthur was doing but longed desperately to have the fingers back.
"iNobody/i is good enough for you. Nobody except a prince."
Arthur thrust smoothly inside him, sheathing himself completely. And Merlin arched up against him, wrists straining against the hand that held them down, he cried out and buried his face into Arthur's shoulder and bit, ihard/i.
Arthur helped him to wrap his legs around his waist and withdrew and thrust experimentally back, satisfied with Merlin's replying moan.
"Fuck, Merlin." He saw Merlin open his mouth to make some witty reply and angled his hips ijust so/i so he brushed against the place that reduced Merlin to nothing more eloquent that a rasped gasp.
"Wanted to do this for so long." And it was true. At first he'd dreamt about Merlin taking him, and while there was very little he liked more than that, his natural nature made it hard for him to be submissive. All of the time, at least. And it was all of those times spent imagining that was making it hard for him to hold onto control here, trying not to make things end early for Merlin.
He gripped the man's cock and worked it in time to his thrusts and when it made Merlin close his eyes in ecstasy he growled.
He pressed their foreheads together and squeezed Merlin's cock. "Open your eyes. I want you to look at me. I want to know that you're here with me and thinking of me, not of ihim/i."
Merlin managed to surprise Arthur, as he so often did, but opening his eyes, looking straight into the prince's, and crying out his name. Arthur felt the warm wetness spill onto his hand as Merlin came and thrust once more inside him before being consumed by his own relief.
Merlin kept looking at him, kept eye contact, while he came; like he was guiding Arthur through it, supporting him.
And then he was collapsing, managing to fall just to the side of Merlin who stroked his hair and held him close and whispered in his ear, "It's always you."