Ashes Of Memory

by Aiden Bates

  “I guess I keep thinking maybe you know what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling,” I said. “That you’re in my head digging around while we talk. Is that weird?”

  His smile slowly faded. He looked down, and then away. “No. Not weird. Makes sense. Esper and all that, I read minds. I get it.”

  “Well, not that—”

  He sighed. “It’s okay, Tam. It’s the reality of it. I should get going, it’s probably an early day tomorrow, I’ve got sessions with Master Nkendi.”

  And there it was—I’d fucked it up without fucking anything. Well done, Tam. “Whoa, whoa,” I said as he took a step back and turned away. “Vance, stop—please, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m not saying that makes me worried. I just… hey, can you please? Just for a second, let me explain.”

  He turned, but all of the ease that had been in his body a moment before was gone. “Tam, you don’t have to explain. It’s not like I’ve never been on a date with someone. I know how people think about espers.”

  I shook my head. “I really didn’t mean it like that, Vance. I just meant—shit, I don’t know what I meant, exactly. I’ve been thinking about kissing you all night and I wasn’t sure if I should make a move, if you were ready, and you didn’t, so I didn’t know if you were in my head and knew but didn’t want to, or if you weren’t and so you didn’t know and just weren’t feeling it yourself, or if—”

  He cut off my rambling by slipping in close and coming up on his toes to press his lips to mine. He tasted like a mix of red wine and sugar, hints of sweat from the day’s heat lingering on his lip, the salt blending with the taste of him as my tongue automatically tried to get into his mouth. He parted for me, let me in just long enough to savor, and then slowly pulled back.

  “Uh... how’s that?” he asked. “Easy. Right?”

  “Easy,” I echoed. “Sure.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Tam... I can read minds. Sometimes I can’t even help it. But I didn’t read yours. I would never intentionally just rummage through a person’s thoughts. Believe me, we all want to. It would make some things a lot easier. If you want to see where this goes, though, you just have to trust that I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “Even if you thought I was lying about something?” I asked.

  “Would you?” he asked, either amused or offended. I couldn’t tell.

  “Well, no,” I said, “I—it was a stupid question. I wouldn’t lie, I don’t need to.”

  “Then, I wouldn’t,” he said. “And I wouldn’t need to.”

  We stood there, close and facing one another, a kind of stand-off.

  “Did I screw this up?” I asked.

  He sighed. “Tam... no. You didn’t. Not yet, anyway.”

  He didn’t seem convinced about staying. And I couldn’t blame him. Humans didn’t move at the speed shifters did. Well, tail-chasers did—sometimes faster. But that wasn’t Vance. He hadn’t known I was a shifter at first. Not until I told him. He still didn’t know who I was in the weyr. He just knew me. Tammerlin. And he didn’t even know what that meant to me yet.

  I held a hand out, and Vance reluctantly took it. My eyes on his, I raised his hand to the side of my head and pressed it against my temple. “You can look,” I told him. “Really. I’ve got nothing to hide. I want you to see.”

  “If you say you mean it, I believe you,” he started, and began to pull his hand away.

  I held it fast. “I know,” I said. “But I want you to see that I’m not worried about your abilities. I want you to know it, not just believe me.”

  He gnawed the idea for a moment, and then sighed. “You know, I don’t have to touch your head to do that.”

  I shrugged, smiling. “I know. I just like the way it feels.”

  He bit his lip again, driving me temporarily out of my senses as I watched it, and then sighed. “You sure?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

  His eyes unfocused. I wasn’t sure if I would know when he did it, what it would feel like, what to look for. But there was a kind of subtle breeze that I felt on my forehead, even though there was no air moving around us. The faint and gentle ring of magic chimed, but so quietly that I had to strain to really feel it. Not like when the other mages I’d been around worked their magic. This was subtle, understated.

  I let my mind wander, thinking about him, about our conversations, about how I felt and what I thought I might feel soon. All of that led me, inevitably, to thinking of other things. What I wanted to do to him. How I wanted to taste him, feel him pressed against me, naked, the sounds of his moans in my ears, the smell of him filling my nose.

  His heart sped up. I wasn’t listening, not on purpose, but I felt it through his fingertips, and then tuned my ears to hear it pounding in his chest. His breathing followed, and his cheeks flushed. The scent of lust billowed up between us, and I breathed it in, letting it excite me.

  Vance took his hand away. The subtle breeze across my forehead abated. “So... you know I saw all of that...”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t have a lot of control when it comes to instincts, that sort of thing. Dragon.”

  “Yeah,” he murmured. “I can see that.”

  “But there was no fear,” I said. “Not the kind you were worried about.”

  “No,” he agreed. “None of that.”

  “I do want you to stay.”

  “I can tell,” he said, a crooked smile slowly creeping into his expression.

  “Do you want to stay?” I asked.

  He exhaled something shaky, and then gave a single nod.

  I inched a little closer. “Do you... want me to do the things you saw?”

  His breath came shakier, and the smell of his arousal became the only thing I could scent. He licked his lips, and gave another smaller nod, his eyes on mine.

  I closed the rest of the distance left between us, and bent my head as I tilted his chin up. My lips grazed his, teasing, enticing, and in response he parted them and let me in. He tasted even sweeter, hormones racing excitedly through his body, and he slipped his arms around my waist as I caught his lower lip with mine.

  Pressed against me like he was, he couldn’t have missed how hard I was. He groaned quietly against my mouth, and I felt a sudden rush of excitement that felt foreign—layered on top of my own like warm water poured over a hot floor. I paused, frowning as the feeling distracted me. It went away almost at once.

  “Sorry,” Vance breathed raggedly against my chin. “Sorry, sorry. I can set something up so that doesn’t—”

  “No,” I said quickly, and kissed him again. “It’s okay. If you’re okay with it, I mean. I don’t mind feeling what you’re feeling.”

  He grimaced. “It’s not as simple as all that,” he said. “Really, I should just take a minute to lock it down. It can get difficult, is all. To, you know... to tell the difference. I don’t want you doing anything just because it was in my head and I couldn’t keep it there.”

  “What, like... like mind control, or...?”

  He shook his head quickly. “Gods, no. No, no. Nothing like that, just, when I get, um... heated... sometimes I kind of lose track of what’s happening in my head, and then it gets into a partner’s, and then they’re feeling things that they don’t really feel and it gets complicated because afterward you can always tell and—”

  “Hush,” I said, putting a finger to his lips before he spun out of control. “Believe me, Vance; anything that might spill out will only help me know what you want, how you want it. And it definitely isn’t going to conflict with what I already want very, very badly. You don’t have to hide from me.”

  “You say that now,” he murmured.

  “Just... let me see you,” I said.

  And I felt his body relax against mine. Felt him give in. Sensed new emotions at the edge of my awareness as he eased himself and let the feeling of my fingers along his spine carry him off. I slipped my hands under his shirt, teased the tips of my fingers up his back a
nd shoulders, and down to the cleft at the top of his ass, just barely accessible above the low-rise briefs he’d apparently worn.

  Every tingle that crossed his skin seemed to echo faintly in my body. It was mesmerizing, so much that I could barely stop touching him. I wanted to explore every part of him, see how it felt, what it made him feel. To drive him past his limits, so that he couldn’t hold back or control himself.

  And somewhere deep down... I didn’t entirely mind the idea that some of those desires might slip out of him, and take me over, and drive me to fulfill his pleasures.

  For the moment, it was enough to have him in my arms, under my hands, making small sounds and shivers. I bent my knees just enough to get my hands under his ass and lifted him up with barely an effort. He let out a delighted, surprised little laugh and hooked his legs around my waist as I hoisted him into place. “Where are we going?”

  “To my lair,” I growled. “Couch is too small for what I have planned.”

  He grinned, and kissed me, and continued to laugh as I carried him to the bed and lowered him gently on it. As soon as he was on his back, I plucked at his shirt and pulled until he raised his arms, then tossed the shirt aside still buttoned. The sight of him, finally, bare even just from the waist up made my cock feel uncomfortably trapped in my jeans. I let out a long, low growl as I sank down and put my lips to his neck, his collarbone, and finally his nipple.

  He gasped, and his hips moved against me as his back arched. A shock of wild pleasure burst out of him, and I knew what it was this time as it coursed into me, washing over my mind like a wave from a stormy ocean. “You like,” I murmured around the hard little nub.

  “Uh huh,” he grunted as I nibbled, testing to see where his limit was, what he loved, what was too far.

  He liked just enough of a bite to barely cross from pleasure to pain, savoring the confused needles of sensation that spread out from the spot, and I lingered there just until the sensation eased enough that he was getting used to it. The other was still fresh, though, and I gave it the same treatment as I drank in the feelings that poured off of him seemingly without reservation.

  Before I thought I was finished, a trickle of the slightest, pleasant frustration leaked out of him, tickling at the front of my mind. He liked it, but he wanted more. He wanted me to move on, do all the things that he’d seen in my thoughts. Craving grew in him, and I followed his urges down his chest, along his stomach, looking for every place that elicited a sudden burst of surprise and pleasure. He was ticklish, every kiss and flick of my tongue in certain spots causing spasms throughout his body, and earning me throaty giggles as he pawed at my shoulders and the back of my head.

  When I got close to the band of his pants, anticipation spiked, and with it came an acute need to be more naked. To feel more of our skin touching. I grinned, and bit at the fabric around the button, jerking it free and down to unzip him, and then buried my face in the strained fabric of his briefs.

  The scent of his musk, just a day’s worth, made me drunk. I breathed him in, gnawing gently at the hard cock beneath, never too long in one place, until the thin cotton was practically wet before I finally gave in to his needs and hooked my fingers down into the bands of his jeans and underwear to pull them down.

  He reached for my hands to stall me. “Wait,” he said. “You’re still...”

  I smiled, and kissed his hands. “Impatient?”

  “A little,” he admitted.

  “We’ll get there,” I promised, and his hands eased so that I could take off the rest of his clothes.

  When I had them down and off him, I stood and looked him over. He stretched his arms out over his head, almost posing for me, but only reluctantly, as if he worried that the display wasn’t attractive.

  If he’d been in my head, he wouldn’t have been so shy. It was everything I could do not to tear my own clothes off and bury myself inside him and never leave.

  I tapped my skull. “You can be in here, if you want. It’s only fair.”

  He looked away, but was smiling. When he looked back, he sat up on his hands, and I felt that gentle breeze against my forehead like before. His chest heaved, and new excitement coursed between us. He spread his knees as if to invite me to fulfill my urge, but when I turned my thoughts to something else, his eyebrows rose, and he lay back slowly before he turned onto his belly and lifted his ass, looking over his shoulder at me, questioning.

  It was smooth, covered with a fine fuzz that was silken as I reached out and ran my fingers over those pert globes. I pulled his hips toward me, urging him back, and got to my knees at the edge of the bed. As he moved with me, his cheeks parted, and his hole came into view.

  I reached between his thighs to get a firm grip on his cock, and held it tight as I used it to pull him just the few inches toward me I needed to bury my face between his cheeks. I pressed my tongue against the quivering ring of muscle there, working it in slow circles while he bit down on the blanket and moaned for me. His muscles shook, his thighs straining with the seeming effort of not being fucked fast enough.

  He tasted of the same sweetness that filled his mouth before, hormone-laden sweat from a day of being around one another and wanting this moment to come, and his hole eased almost the second I pressed into it, like he wanted nothing so much as he wanted me inside.

  And that wasn’t far from the truth. That aching need came off of him as potent as his scent, grasping at my thoughts the same way he grasped at my head when he reached back to beg me silently for more, and deeper. I growled softly, and nipped at his ass cheeks between bouts of teasing his opening with my tongue, until the quality of his thoughts seemed to wobble, and fragment, and become more desperate.

  Flashes came across now. They were brief, and difficult to capture and hold given how distracted I was with working his ass into a frenzy—but they were enticing when they happened. I saw myself between his legs, body slick with sweat as I thrust into him. I saw myself below him as he rode me. I felt his back against a wall as I pinned him in place. I saw myself from below, felt a moment of fullness in my mouth as he devoured me. That image lingered, and recurred, and started to take on deeper interest, even need.

  By the time I let up, and gave him a moment to breathe, it was in my mind constantly. Vance rolled over the moment I let him go, turning on the bed to reach for my jeans and pull at the button.

  I let him; I knew what he wanted, and as much as I wanted to taste more of him, I wasn’t going to deny him to do it. He practically tore at my zipper, and then gave a snort of amusement when my cock sprang free. He looked up at me, lightly critical. “Not even boxers?”

  “Not even,” I agreed, and grinned as his eyes drifted along my cock, examining and taking it in. He sidled closer, and lifted a hand to my balls.

  His fingers were light, warm, and soft. He hefted my nuts slowly, as if weighing them, and gave a low, mocking sort of whistle. “No wonder,” he murmured. “These must get in the way.”

  I rolled my eyes, laughing softly as I watched him handling me. “You get used to it, I suppose.”

  His hand closed around them, just a gesture of curiosity, to see if they would fit. A bolt of nervous anticipation shot through me, up from my groin to my stomach. I swallowed, and tamped the thought that followed down before he saw it.

  Vance frowned, though, and looked up at me. “Hm?”

  I shook my head. “Just sensitive. But in a good way. It’s okay. All yours, have at it.”

  He grinned. “My very own dragon dick. Must be my birthday.”

  Those words caught me, too, sending the same deep thrum of excitement down to my bones so that my knees went a little weak for a moment. But... he wasn’t that deep in my mind. I would know. Wouldn’t I?

  At least this time, he seemed too distracted to notice what was happening in my thoughts. For that matter, so was I as his fingers gripped me and gave a slow, light tug. He watched as my foreskin closed over the tip of my cock, and as it drew back to reveal it again. I
’d noticed, distantly, that he was cut when I unclothed him. But it hadn’t occurred to me to remark on it.

  Vance, though, was suddenly keenly interested.

  “Never seen it before?” I asked.

  He glanced up only for a breath as he continued to stroke me slow, eliciting a dribble of clear precum from my piss slit. “Not like this,” he said. “I’ve only been with two other guys. Human, both of them. Both cut.”

  I grinned down at him. “Well... it works pretty much the same, I think. Except, I’m told it feels better inside.”

  “We’ll see,” he said, and I thought he might just roll over for me right there, but instead he leaned in and closed his lips around the tip of my cock.

  I shuddered, letting out a long, low groan as the heat of him enveloped me. I couldn’t close my eyes, couldn’t stop watching as his eyebrows pinched and peaked, though my vision blurred a little. He gave a quiet whimper of enjoyment that turned into a hum as he took more of me in, his tongue dancing slowly over the sensitive skin there, curling back to tease at my foreskin. His grip tightened a bit, and his other hand cradled my balls lightly, like before. What was more, a feeling of elated, relieved, almost reverent pleasure radiated off him.

  Between that and the feeling of slick, tight warmth gripping me, I could barely breathe. Only watch, and wait, and admire as he serviced me slowly, clearly excited by my enjoyment—but also clearly drunk from the taste and feel of me in his mouth.

  As he started working me slowly, it became harder to keep my eyes opened. I let them close, and shivered each time he swallowed me down. Gradually, he became more insistent, more urgent about it, and his desire to get me off pulsed out of him in time with the rhythm of his bobbing head. Just knowing he wanted it made my knot swell.

  A new kind of interest and surprise came across from his mind as he slowed his rhythm and explored the swelling knot of flesh at the base of my cock. The nerves there, waking up and growing sensitive, sent a different kind of tingle into my balls, wondering if it was time to fire.

  I exhaled a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding and put my fingers on his as he teased the sensitive spot. “You keep doing that, I’m gonna go off.”