Page 14 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 13-16
A special form of embarrassment washed through Jun. He touched the door, not sure whether to come or go.
Émeric gestured him forward. “Come here.”
Jun stepped inside. Émeric directed him around the table and to his side. He put his hands on Jun’s hips, looking him over, checking the bite on Jun’s neck, touching the skin near it but not the bite itself. “Caught good and proper, weren’t you, bright one?”
Jun dropped his eyes, his body swaying towards Émeric. This was one of the men who had had him only this morning. He knew very well that he was bare from the waist up while Émeric was fully dressed in suit pants and a sharp blue button-down shirt. It made the difference between Émeric and Collin all the more obvious, but Jun was hardly more covered in his lounge pants and nothing else, not even briefs.
Émeric’s stroked his knuckles against Jun’s cheek. There was a dark danger in his eyes and his touch. Jun leaned into it. He didn’t want to fight Émeric, not like he needed to challenge and struggle with Damian.
Damian made him alive. Émeric made his eyes slide shut and his body feel weak and small. The dark Frenchman made him breathe with his eyes closed. Sometimes. When he didn’t need to say something sharp and brattish, just to prove he could.
“You’re dangerous,” Jun murmured.
Émeric chuckled. “How few notice, yet you always knew.”
Jun smiled.
“Help me set the table.”
Jun followed Émeric’s instruction for placing the plates and cups. As they set out the napkins, Émeric trailed his fingers over Collin’s body, acknowledging him. Collin arched as much as his bondage allowed into the touch, silently begging for more.
“Watch him,” Émeric said. “I’m going to the kitchen.”
Jun nodded. Émeric sailed out the door, all shoulders and sure tread. Jun leaned forward on the table between the place settings until his chest was on the table and gazed at Collin. “Can I touch?”
Collin nodded.
He’d forgotten Collin wasn’t allowed to speak. With his fingers, he trailed lines over Collin’s skin. “You look tired. You sure you’re still up for, you know…” If he couldn’t say it, he had no business doing it. “Are you still sure about being taken?”
Collin smiled, lashes fluttering against his cheek. He had to crane his neck to see Jun. That couldn’t be comfortable. Jun propped himself up on his elbows.
Collin nodded, meeting Jun’s gaze. Jun ran his fingers down Collin’s belly and over his hip, down to his thigh.
“I won’t, if you don’t want it.”
“Want it,” Collin whispered. He was blushing. “I’m just resting. It’s nice…just drifting. Usually there’s so much thinking, but today…” He shrugged inside the ropes holding him.
Their eyes met and Collin smiled a little, seeing whatever he needed to see in Jun’s gaze, because Jun knew. He was there himself.
This was sacred space. This was rest. This was freedom.
Jun leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Collin’s ribs.
Dinner was a delicately seared steak and roasted garlic served with fresh naan and cranberry preserves, with a young leafy salad on the side. No one was in a hurry as they ate. Richard sat on one side of the upper corner of the table by Collin’s head and Émeric on the other, so that they had Collin in front of both of them. Richard was dressed like Émeric. They sat so close together on the corner, that their shoulder and hands brushed often as they fed each other bits of their meal. Damian and Jun sat side by side on the long section. It was a bench. Jun pulled up his feet and leaned against Damian or the table by turn. Damian had dressed in black linen pants and a soft loose sweater. It felt good against Jun’s bare torso. They talked about everything and nothing. It was bliss.
When everyone but Collin was almost finished. Émeric loosened one of Collin’s ankles and one of his wrists and let him roll over on his belly to eat from Richard’s hand like a pet. The rest of them lingered over their non-alcoholic drinks. Émeric and Jun compared places they’d traveled. Even as a Kpop idol with multiple tours behind him, the dark Frenchman had visited more cities and regions. Richard and Damian added their own opinions now and then. They spoke of Émeric’s other partner, Ami, a kannushi in Japan. She was only about four or five hours away from where Yoihei’s family had their farm. Émeric asked after Yoihei’s family in detail, speaking Japanese fluently when he pronounced place names or regional objects.
“Do you speak Japanese?” Jun asked Richard.
Richard shook his head. “I understand some, but I don’t speak it. Spanish and German are my languages.”
“You have some abilities in other tongues,” Émeric said.
Richard shrugged. “Those are the only ones I’ve mastered. My French is poor. I have a little Russian.”
“Your Chinese is native, is it not?” Émeric asked Jun.
Jun nodded, his hand instinctively reaching for his chest. But the jade Buddha wasn’t there, hadn’t been there in a long time. He hadn’t felt the need to carry his most precious objects on his person–not since coming to the Residency. It was safely inside Damian’s personal safe, along with the scraps of Jun’s original birth certificate. They might take him, but Damian would have physical proof that he had existed, that he had belonged, that his mother had loved him.
