Chapter Thirty-Seven: A Declaration of Love
Drake's POV

All I wanted was to feel loved again and when I finally got the courage to ask it of someone? I deeply regretted it. When I saw Adam's eyes, that look of pain and heartache that was so often on my face, I wanted to die. Not only for what I had done to Adam, but for what I had done to Tommy. I used him because I was in pain. I hurt the man I loved more than anything and I used my best friend.

No wonder Pharaoh had no interest in me anymore…

I was literally a horrible person and I was a baby. I couldn't deal with my problems so I pulled Tommy in to deal with them for me. I was still letting him deal with what I was too afraid to say because he was off dealing with Adam, a man who could very well hurt him or… Send him to work on the pyramids. Tommy was strong but he was not built for the kind of labor people had to at the build sites. He just wasn't big enough, like I wasn't. Many of the people who were small, like Tommy and I, and sent to work on the pyramids generally died within the first few weeks.

Ra, please do not let Adam take his anger out on Tommy. If anyone deserved it, that person was me. Tommy was only the tool to my grand architectural schemes. Tommy did not deserve Adam's wrath but I doubted the pharaoh would see it that way. What he saw was Tommy, mounted over me, pounding into me like he owned me. I cannot say that if I was in Adam's position, I would have planned the person on the receiving end of the affair.

But it was my fault… This was all my fault and no matter how much Tommy said it wasn't, I knew that it was. Yes, I wanted to be loved and touched and cherished by someone again, but I never should have used my best friend to get that. I never should have hurt My Pharaoh so badly. Granted, I never planned on him walking in on Tommy and I. How was I to know that he would pick the worst time in history to finally come see me?

That was not an excuse for my actions, however. I knew that and I willing to take all of the responsibility for what had happened but Tommy would never allow me to do that. He admitted his love for me not more than forty minutes ago. His confession of love made me feel even worse for what I had done because… making love to me was the world to him, but the entire time he was inside of me, I was thinking about Adam and how he used to touch me. How he used to kiss me and make love to me…

I was so lost in my thoughts, that it almost didn't occur to me to clean myself off and get dressed. Thankfully I motivated myself enough to get up, wipe myself clean of my sex and pull a pair of shorts on before someone knocked on the door. "What?" I asked, assuming it was Tommy but then I wondered why Tommy would be knocking on the door of his own room.

A moment of silence passed so I picked up the dirty blanket off the floor and started folding it up so it could be put into the laundry. The door cracked open and my back was turned to it. "Drake?" Adam whispered and my heart slammed into my ribcage, squeezing into the spaces between my ribs in attempts to get free and fly to Adam.

"My Pharaoh?" I whispered, spinning on my heels to face him but my head was bowed in the most respect I could give the man after what he had walked in on what Tommy and I were doing behind his back… Adam shuffled slowly across the room to where I stood. What I expected was to be slapped for being a whore. For going behind his back to sleep with his other pleasure servant.

What I got was not a slap, nor harsh words. Instead, Adam wrapped his arms tightly around me, pulling me into his chest. At first I believed that he might be trying to suffocate me with his chest, but that really didn't make any sense. Nothing that went through my mind made sense anymore. "Drake… I'm so sorry, I'm sorry…" he whispered, burying his face into my hair and kissing my scalp lightly. "Can you ever forgive me?"

I frowned a little, confused. Why was he sorry when I was the one who had sex with Tommy behind his back? When I used Tommy for my own selfishness. "Beg pardon?" I asked shakily into his chest.

Strong, warm and comforting hands cupped my face and he lifted me up to look him in the eye. "Tommy… Tommy told me that you have been feeling very… unloved?" he whispered, sounding regretful. "That you have been so lonely because I haven't been paying enough attention to you?"

"I…" I looked away from him but he forced me to look back at him, so our eyes met. "I do feel that way…" I whispered, as if it was the last thing I would ever mutter before my life ended. His hold on my cheeks tightened but it didn't hurt in the slightest. It was as if he was desperate to keep me in his grasp. Like he was afraid to let me go because I would crumble to nothing if he let go.

"Drake, honey…That was never my intention… I never meant to hurt you," he whispered, sounding so sweet and truthful that, even if I thought he was lying, I would never be able to truly believe it. His eyes were wide and bright, cracks of fear running through seas of blue truth. He was not lying. His eyes always gave him away.

After I had been inked, and Tommy had spent so much time with me, I asked him if Pharaoh liked me or not. He explained to me how easily it was to read Pharaoh's feelings through his eyes and since that day, I had been paying attention. It only took a few occasions of seeing Pharaoh sad and angry to realize that everything Tommy told me about Pharaoh's emotions and the window through his eyes to those emotions were completely true. He could never lie because his eyes always betrayed him.

"Then why did you only call Tommy to your bed, leaving me alone every night you wanted the company of your boys…?" I whispered after a moment. Most people did not think of thinking about speaking to the Pharaoh the way I had just spoken to him. No one would ever think about questioning his decisions. Well, most people anyway. His advisers were a different story completely, but me? I was only a servant. I had no right to speak to him like that…

His eyes drifted away for only a moment. When he looked back, nothing in his eyes had changed. The truth, the honesty, it was all still there, swimming in his ocean eyes. "I was afraid to hurt you, Drake…" he whispered, his thumbs drawing into my skin again. "I thought that, if I tried to be intimate with you, and trust me, I wanted to so badly… But I was terrified that, if I were to touch you our act would remind you of everything Brad had done to you and I… did not ever want you to feel that I was doing that to you as well." Little tears began forming at the edges of his eyes but they did not fall.

"I would never even consider comparing what we do together to what Bradley forced me to do," I said, putting my smaller hands gently over Adam's. "There's absolute nothing similar…" I felt tears threatening to fall but, like Pharaoh, I kept them back.

"I am so sorry…" he whispered, his head falling in shame. He bowed in front of me, giving me an honor and respect that nobody had ever given me before.

Just at the site of Pharaoh bowing his head as every normally did for him cause the tears to flow. I couldn't hold them back, but they weren't gushing. Just a few tears slipping the seems of my lids. "I was only with Tommy because I thought he was the only one who still wanted me… I just wanted to feel like I was important to someone again…" I whispered, needing to justify my actions in some way.

"Drake, I… I understand if you would rather be with Tommy. I understand that he was there when I wasn't and that he can provide for you what… I failed to provide…" he said, his head still hanging in shame.

At that, I pulled out of his arms so I could stare at all of him in his depressed beauty. He was close to sobbing… "You really don't understand, do you?" I asked, frowning at the king. He just looked confused. Well not only confused, but confusion laying over the rest of his unresolved emotions.

"I beg your pardon?" he whispered, blinking at me.

"I love you, My Pharaoh… I'm in love with you," I whispered and it felt so amazing to finally just tell him how I felt. For so long, since I realized how I felt, I had kept it to myself, kept it bottled up and to just spill it out after so long felt almost better than climaxing in the heat of the moment. "My Pharaoh, it took me some time to realize it, but I gave you everything. I let you take the one thing I had that was still mine and it wasn't because you were the Pharaoh of Egypt. It wasn't because of your title and it wasn't because that is what you expected of me. I gave it to you because I wanted to…"

"Drake…" Pharaoh whispered to me after several long moments of staring at me, one tear rolling down his left cheek. He reached out, again with his hands and he brushed my tears away before he leaned down, pressing his lips to mine in a heated, passionate kiss. Despite the tears falling down my cheeks, I kissed him back with just as much passion but the kiss was too short. Far too short for my tastes, actually… "Baby, I love you too…" he whispered, his fingers running through my hair slowly. "I love you too…"

"Then why didn't you just tell me that?" I asked, new tears flowing down my cheeks, but Adam just kept wiping them away with his thumbs.

"I… was afraid to, especially after everything that happened with Brad and… and Anna… I was afraid that you would reject me because I promised to take care of you and I promised to protect you and…" he paused, looking at me for several long seconds. "I failed you…"

"No, Adam, you didn't," he said. "What Brad did to me was not your fault. It will never be your fault and it won't be anyone's fault but Brad's," I added, taking his hands in mine. " My eyes pierced his. "I didn't talk to you or anyone else about it because I was afraid of what Brad would do to my family…" Images of my sister lying dead in my arms floated up behind my eyes and I wanted to start sobbing, but I refrained from that. This wasn't about Anna or Brad, it was about Adam and I and what our relationship was.

"But… But Drake, if I just paid more attention. If I saw the signs and the pain and the uncomfortableness of being around him… It wouldn't have happened. I could have stopped all of it from happening. I could have protected you but I didn't want to-" I cut him off by pressing my lips to his for a moment.

"Adam, why would you ever have a reason to believe that someone your trusted so much would do something so horrible?" I asked and he wrapped his arms around me again, pulling me to his chest.

I curled up against his larger frame. "I do not blame you for what Brad did to me. I do, however, blame you for not talking to me for such a long amount of time," I whispered and he just pressed his forehead to mine, nodding softly.

"I understand Drake… trust me I do. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? Ra, I am so sorry, Drake…" he muttered into my forehead. "I apologize for everything, Drake… I am so sorry."

"Me too…" I whispered back to him and our lips meshed for the third time only this was far more heated than before. My lips parted in a gasp and he pushed his tongue through the seams, tasting the insides of my mouth.. I moaned just at the taste of Adam's tongue on mine. It had been so long since I tasted him. So long since he had touched me. I was sure I was already growing hard in my shorts and he was only kissing me! "Mmm, Drake…" he whispered, pulling me closer still. "Can you find it in your heart to forgive me? Forgive all of my mistakes?"

"Of course… As long as… as long as you still want me and care about me?" I whispered, holding my breath. I needed to know that he loved me. "As long as I still mean something to you?"

"Drake, you mean the world to me," he whispered, smiling into my skin.

I just stared at him for a while, smiling before I kissed him again. "Then I forgive you," I muttered against his lips and he picked me up in his arms, spinning me around like we were in an old romance movie. "Adam?" I asked, holding onto him tightly. "I missed your touch so much…" I admitted and he set me down, holding me tightly to him again.

A faint blush rushed over Adam's cheeks and he smiled shyly. "I missed yours too, Drake… Yours too," he repeated several times into my skin and I blushed wildly, leaning into his touch again. I didn't want to ever let go of him again. I felt that, if I were to let go, I would never have him touch me again and we would never be together.

We kissed again, this time for minutes of no air but when I was kissing Adam, I didn't feel like I needed to breathe. I was on top of the world and nothing short of Adam leaving me again would bring me down. His arms looped under my knees and he lifted me into his arms, holding me tightly against his chest as we kissed.

Eventually he broke the kiss but he held me just as close. "Will you come back to my room, Drake? Join me, please?" he asked and I just blushed again, nodding and wrapping my arms tightly around his neck, weaving my fingers into his thick, black hair tightly. He smiled and he walked out of Tommy's room, caring me towards his bedroom.