Something Wicked This Way Comes

Chapter 1

The smirk that tugged at Carter's lips did that quite well. He leaned forward so they were nose to nose. "If you can believe it, my intentions were actually innocent."

"Really?" Douxie managed, somehow, to find his voice. Even as Carter's flesh hand crawled not-so-innocently underneath his shirt.

Carter huffed a laugh, his breath ghosting over Douxie's lips. It left the wizard with the very familiar urge to kiss his lover senseless. "I was going to ask you to come back to bed and cuddle with me."

Douxie smiled at that. "Is that offer still on the table?"

Carter hummed, glancing not very subtly at his lips. "If we went back to bed, I think I'd insist on other activities."

"I don't have to guess," Douxie breathed, fire bristling under his skin as Carter's dexterous fingers caressed his bare stomach. "Was last night not enough to satisfy you?"

He laughed, fingers stilling as he smiled at Douxie with something much more fond replacing the dark desire that had begun to pool in his beautiful eyes. "Yes, for the moment it was. But it's a lot more fun if I get something out of it when I flirt with you."

A beat. And then they both descended into laughter, leaning into one another. Douxie pressed another kiss to Carter's temple as he held him. That led into a few more soft kisses down his cheek, jaw, the corner of his mouth. Carter finally pulled him into a proper kiss, both still smiling into it, occasional laughter bubbling between their lips.

They parted slowly, neither eager to let go. Their foreheads pressed together as they held eachother softly, but tightly. Both grinned in the aftermath of a hazy but sweet morning.

Douxie breathed in deeply, letting the mood settle in. Everything was perfect. Well, pretty much perfect. The only thing that could make this better was... well, probably being married already. They'd been engaged for two years, and every time they tried to actually get married, something happened. Troll business, family emergency, some sort of weird magical threat that needed their immediate attention and usually trashed whatever venue they'd barely managed to put together.

Sighing, Douxie wrapped his arms tighter around Carter's waist and pressed another quick kiss to his lips. And he let Carter draw him in for another. And another.

"Bacon's burning," Carter murmured, their mouths still pressed together, his hands burrowed into Douxie's hair.

Douxie was tempted to say, "Let it burn," and take Carter up on his earlier offer. The sudden leap in his chest, that fire under his skin was back and it urged him to tug his soulmate into bed and keep him there with searing kisses and burning touches. But Carter had already backed out of his grip and had turned the fire off.

He scraped the burnt bacon onto a plate and set it aside, probably for the goblins, who also resided in the castle now and would eat almost anything. And Carter had realized first that the little green menaces weren't all that bad when a certain Gumm-Gumm king wasn't making them steal babies and cause chaos.

Douxie watched him as he pulled fresh bacon from the fridge and cracked a couple of eggs into the pan. His gaze and thoughts turned to the ring on Carter's left hand, and what it meant. At least, what it was supposed to mean. A promise to one day marry the man who'd given it to him. A symbol of their love, and their promises to eachother. A particular promise they hadn't been able to follow through on yet.

"You know what I want to do today?" Douxie spoke before he could reconsider his words. Carter glanced at him, mirth and intrigue in his dark brown eyes. The wizard smiled at his love. "I want to marry you."