Page 81 of Guiding Desire
“Anyway, you’re not boring. Being with you excites me.” He grinned down at Orrey. “Having you come that hard and getting to taste you, that was exciting.”
“I…you mean that? I’ll try to be better.”
“I should encourage that, especially if it means I get to have you like this more. But kitten, you just try being yourself, you follow my words?”
Orrey nodded.
“That’s my Conduit. Are you okay to go to sleep now? I think you need the rest more than I realized.”
Orrey nodded again, feeling the weight of the day. Of the days.
Senlas dropped back, smoothed the blankets around Orrey, then shuffled around until he was on his side.
Only when he moaned a little did Orrey realize he’d taken out that scary-looking butt plug, which he dropped on the floor, going by the sound.
“With you next to me and that in my ass, I’d be up half the night with an erection,” he said casually before pulling his arms tight around Orrey. “Lights off.”
The room turned dark, windows going opaque, and Orrey was asleep before he could think another thought.
20
SENLAS
Capital punishment provides society with little gain but much ethical burden. Yet, those willing to commit capital offenses, by that very act, ostracized themselves from society. Therefore, to make that voluntary separation permanent and all citizens safer, work details outside the walls will be established in lieu of capital punishment. Thereby, the offender can repay the very society they hurt in some small measure without running the risk of further endangering anyone inside our cities.
However, we recognize that those punishments cannot apply to offenses committed against Guardians and Conduits or perpetrated by them.
(Handbook for Judiciary Agents by the Judiciary AIs.)
Whetheritwasbeingwithout the rest of the team or what they had overheard Senlas didn’t know, but his sleep was lighter. As such, he woke a couple of times during the night, each time whenever Orrey tossed and mumbled in his sleep as if his dreams had turned to nightmares and were haunting him.
Usually, Conduits if they were lucky enough to get imprinted upon, were said to be too exhausted from channeling for the first few weeks to stay up long or go out. Senlas had a sense that more than anything else, it was the Guardians’ way of capitalizing on their Conduit’s time.
Even so, if Orrey wasn’t exhausted enough to find deep sleep, and if he was having nightmares in Senlas’s bed, it was difficult not to view that as a personal failure on Senlas’s part.
Combined with the bombing and with whatever Alesa was planning, it turned Senlas’s mood sour.
That stupid A-classer has the Agri Team. What does a Hound-fucking success chaser like him want with Col? Alesa can’t be in short supply of Conduits happy and willing to spend time with him, and Col never liked him.
Senlas mulled all that over as morning came, turning the transparent wall a shimmery gray to prepare the room’s inhabitants for waking.
Eventually, Orrey stirred, but not as if from a dream. He nuzzled against Senlas’s chest, and that alone made Senlas wonder what it would take to coax the Conduit into his bed on a more permanent basis.
The general advice was to make sure a Conduit could still sleep alone some of the time, especially when they were prone to buffering like Orrey clearly was, but Senlas had all faith that Orrey’s strength was well-matched to his own, that Orrey was truly the Conduit who completed Senlas’s powers.
“Good morning, kitten,” Senlas said when Orrey stretched, his body seeming so much firmer now than it had last night.
Orrey’s initial surprise smoothed out, and he gave Senlas a shy little smile, the kind of thing that would make anyone weak in the knees.
“Good morning,” Orrey said. “I fell asleep here.”
“I wouldn’t have let you fall asleep anywhere else.”
“Hmm.” Orrey rolled away from Senlas, but it was fine. He kept touching, the hum of his buffering soothing. “What is that? You have something like that in the living space too.”
Senlas followed Orrey’s eyes to the narrow shelves he’d mounted on the wall across from the bed, above an old-fashioned black chest of drawers.
“Oh. Watch.” SenlasMovedthe black polyhedrons on the shelves, all different materials, some mismatched shapes the lithomancers had discarded during training, others neatly printed. HeLiftedfirst a few of them, and when he saw he had Orrey’s attention, heLiftedthe whole lot andFloatedthem above the bed, above their heads. “I fall asleep easier after doing that for a while, especially when I’ve had an exhausting day. Telekinesis demands a lot of concentration to do it properly, but moving these is simple. It’s relaxing.”
