by Anthology
“It is,” he acknowledged. “Against Code.”
“But you’re doing it anyway?” she said, rubbing her hand over him harder.
He fought to think while she did it to him.
He had reasons of course. He knew she would know what those were. Still, he decided to say them aloud anyway. Unlike most sessions like this, meaning the infiltrator part of what he was doing here––or trying to do––or telling himself he was doing––he’d been transparent with her, pretty much from the beginning.
“I’m doing this to get into your light,” he said, meeting her gaze from only a few inches away. “To make it harder for you to fight me. You know that, Cass.”
She smiled, shifting closer to him on her knees and wrapping a cuffed arm around his neck. She pressed her face to his, reinforcing her grip on his cock through the material of his pants.
“I know you’re telling yourself that, brother seer,” she murmured in his ear.
He let out a low groan, surprising himself, making her jump.
His arm wrapped around her roughly, yanking her closer. She stopped him long enough to pull the shirt off his shoulders, which he only then realized she’d finished unfastening. He let her do it, and only knelt there, unmoving as she unfastened his belt.
“I could strangle you with this,” she told him, quirking an eyebrow at him again.
“You could try,” he said, amused for some reason.
He let out a heavier sound when she yanked the belt from around him.
“Maybe you should be tied up too?” she said, holding it up briefly.
He took it from her, tossing it behind him. He could feel her pulling on his light, hard enough that a part of him had already forgotten why he’d was supposed to be doing this.
He reached for her shirt, unfastening it with somewhat more skill than he’d managed with his own. He started yanking it off her shoulders a few minutes later then remembered he couldn’t get it off her with the cuffs. More pain coiled out of her light as he started exploring her with his hands. She pulled on him so intensely he groaned again. He grabbed hold of the waistband of her pants to yank her closer to him, then his hand sank into her hair, tugging it gently out of her face before he fisted it in his fingers.
He kissed her. Not on the mouth, not at first.
He took his time. Pulling on her living light with his own, he used his body with it, putting light into his tongue and lips, putting it into his hands as he massaged muscle and skin. He had his other hand inside her shirt now, exploring and lingering, holding the weight of one of her large breasts in one hand even as his thumb curled around her nipple. She let out a deeper gasp when he lowered his head, following his fingers and thumb with his mouth, using so much light that time that she moaned.
Gods, she was hungry. She was really fucking hungry.
He could almost convince himself it was for him.
He used his weight to roll her to her back...then pulled her out away from the wall so she was forced to take her hands off him. He gripped her waist in his hands, holding her there, preventing her from touching him as he explored more of her with his mouth.
Somewhere in that, she broke out in a sweat.
Her pain grew so intense he was having trouble controlling his light.
Then she was asking him, and it got a lot worse.
Fuck me...please, ‘Dor...please...
It took him another few seconds before it hit him that her mind was in his. Instead of alarming him––as it probably should have––it turned him on more. Worse, it made him almost desperate to take the collar off her. But he wasn’t far enough gone to seriously contemplate that.
Instead, he forced himself to slow down.
Pinning her below him with his hands and legs, he leaned down to kiss her mouth.
That was almost awkward at first...but not for very long.
She had a full mouth, softer than hell and he was kissing her harder a few seconds later, feeling his light slip out of his control yet again. He kissed her for a long time...he fell into it. He was already opening to her and he hadn’t thought about it well enough to be calculated about how he was doing it. He opened without his consciously willing it and then he was pulling on her sensually, slowly, unrelentingly, asking her over and over and over.
He felt her try to turn that into something amusing at first...then he felt her fighting him...then she wasn’t doing that either. She let out another groan when he didn’t stop, and then she had her legs wrapped around his lower body.
He had his hands inside her soft pants long enough to feel how wet she was, then he was yanking the pants down her hips too, taking them off her roughly.
He’d stopped bothering to rationalize.
He’d stopped thinking about whether Jon might be watching this...or Maygar.
He’d stopped giving a damn, frankly.
When he finally got his cock in her, both of them groaned.
He still had her pulled away from the wall, pinned under him. He knew she was all right with him, with the size of him, even before he did it again, harder, angling deeper when he felt the pain on her worsen.
She groaned aloud when he extended.
“‘Dori...” she gasped.
He froze when she said his name.
Then he arched into her again, violently that time. So much pain was coming off her that he couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t think about anything but getting her off, fucking her until she came around him....again and again. He wanted her to lose it totally...lose track of herself...of the room...of any of the crap they’d been talking about or looking at for weeks...
He felt her hear him. She flinched, right before that pain spiked, hitting him in the groin area intensely enough that he gasped.
“Fuck...‘Dori....” she moaned.
He had his hand in her hair again, his fingers clenched. He was watching her face now, feeling her light. When she started to open to him he let out a heavier groan, almost losing it right there. He pulled back even as he fought to open with her, to meet her there. Her eyes held what might have been confusion, but he saw the vulnerability there even as it spiked his own pain back into aggression, tightening his hands and fingers on her.
“I wanted you before...” he told her. “I wanted you in Seertown...”
“I know,” she told him.
Her fingers caressed his face. He watched pain flicker across her expression when he angled up into her harder, using light and pain in his cock so she’d feel it through the sharp part that had extended, what seers called hirik. She let out a low moan when he did it again, arching her back. Her eyes closed when he did it again, pain pluming off her light.
“I wanted to hurt that fucker....Baguen...” he told her, gasping.
“I know....I...I could feel it...even then...”
“You didn’t give a shit?”
He saw her bite her tongue. She stared up at him, and for a second he saw anger there, what might have been indecision. He knew she might be toying with him. He also knew that he was sex-drunk––he must be, to be stupid enough to tell her anything she could use against him so easily.
He didn’t care.
He arched into her harder, using more of his weight. Her eyes closed, pain once more tightening the delicate features of her face.
He hadn’t expected her to answer him...well, maybe by giving him shit. Mocking him for admitting something so childish....so irrelevant to who either of them were now. But she did answer him, and he hated himself for wanting to believe her words.
“I wasn’t up to you then, ‘Dori,” she told him, sadness in her voice. “I needed someone like Bags. I really did.”
He also couldn’t help his answer.
“Someone stupid?” he said, his voice harder.
Her dark eyes shifted up, meeting his. He slammed into her, angling up just to watch her eyes flinch, to see the pain ripple the softer lines of that expression.
He didn’t want to see softness from he
r. Not now.
Not even when that softness seemed to bother her as much as it did him.
It just made him want to believe it.
It made him want to believe it so fucking badly.
She let out a low moan when he slammed into her again.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes...someone who wasn’t going to demand much from me.” She bit her lip, looking up at him. “So what?”
He nodded, but felt something in his chest start to hurt anyway, maybe just the look on her face as she stared up at him. He found himself slowing his body...even as another part of him complained. He felt his resistance to that more determined intensity in his light, but ignored it, slowing more, even as he drove into her deeper. That longing completely overpowered the part of him that just wanted to get off, to get this out of his system, to stop obsessing on her.
It made him want to draw things out instead...force her to see him.
He opened his light more.
More than he had with Yarli, especially the last few months they’d been together. More than he had with anyone in the past few years. More than with anyone since Allie...
Cass flinched.
He looked down. He’d shifted most of his weight on top of her as he slid his light into hers, coiling it into her aleimi as he pressed down with his abdomen and chest.
“Fuck you,” she said, her voice openly angry.
It didn’t sound like posturing that time. It didn’t feel like it either.
He knew why she said it. He’d been thinking about Allie.
Maybe worse, or maybe irrelevant, he’d been thinking about fucking Allie.
Either way, he acknowledged her words with a nod.
“I won’t do it again,” he said.
He meant it, but he could tell she didn’t believe him. She glared up at him...at least until he ground into her harder, using most of his light along with his body. He was so open he felt light-headed when she opened in return. A kind of dizziness tilted his light, making him groan louder when he realized she was pulling on him to open more.
He fought not to come...fought it...
Eventually the training won out. He pulled it back under control.
“Cass...” he gasped then. “Cassandra...?” He didn’t know what he wanted to ask until he said it. “Did you ever want me?”
Her pain worsened. He felt her frustration at the chains, even as she glared up at him, arching her body up against his.
“What do you care?” she said.
She was still angry about his fleeting thought of Allie.
Briefly, he felt the child there––from their shared dreams. He felt that sheen of toughness, her “I don’t care” and all the times he’d heard her say it, past and present. He felt the bullshit she fed the boys who used her for sex, coaxing blowjobs off her in parked cars when she desperately needed some kind of affection from them instead. He saw them through her eyes now, saw himself in them from that tilted lens––lying to her and fucking her and then telling all of their friends what an easy mark she was. He felt that cynicism and anger waver, grow porous as she stared up at him from behind it.
His heart opened more.
“I love you,” he told her, gruff.
She winced...violently that time. Then her eyes widened in fear.
He clicked at her softly. “But you know that, too.”
He didn’t think she’d answer him.
That time, she didn’t.
He didn’t wait for very long. Instead he closed his eyes, putting every ounce of his mind and concentration into his light...into what his light could do to hers. It was one thing he had. It was one thing he could do, having as much control over his light as he did.
He could do this.
When he finally let her come, some forty or so minutes later, she let out a drawn out cry that brought a heated plume of satisfaction somewhere deep in his belly.
He didn’t stop but drew it out of her longer...then again...listening to her beg him even as he used his light to control hers. He stayed open through all of that, too, even as he tried to keep it off his face, out of his expression.
He knew she probably saw it anyway.
He knew she could see past him, past the collar...maybe more effectively than he could do it to her, despite all of the years he had over her, his Adhipan training, all of the hours and days and weeks culminating in decades––even centuries––he’d spent honing his skills.
He didn’t let himself think very much about what he was doing.
He didn’t let himself think very much about why.
He didn’t want to, so he just...didn’t.
* * *
He woke on a cold metal floor...jerking in panic when his mind and light told him he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.
He wasn’t alone, he realized.
His naked side and leg pressed into organic metal...but a smaller body curled up against his chest, heating him from the center out to the ends of his limbs. Her cuffed hands folded in front of her in a soft position, making her look even smaller next to him than she already was.
He found himself relaxing, even as he frowned, watching her face smoothed in sleep.
How had he let himself fall asleep in here?
His eyes shifted, focusing on where he knew the camera lived in the organic-paned wall. He had to assume more than just Maygar had gotten an eyeful by now. His mental and physical clocks told him he’d closed his eyes for at least a few hours. When he slid into the higher parts of his aleimi, his living light confirmed the same thing.
It was Christmas, he remembered.
Exhaling, he combed a hand through his hair.
Well, if they had seen, it didn’t matter now. Truthfully, it might not have mattered regardless. There was a good chance Jon thought over their conversation earlier and decided he was obligated to tell Allie and Revik what Balidor had been up to anyway.
Wincing, he started to extricate him from Cass without waking her.
He’d only just taken his arm from around her when the door alarm started bleeping at him, letting him know someone was about to enter.
He froze, staring at that blinking light. It hit him that they had two minutes, tops, before whoever was out there made it through the security protocols.
He looked down at Cass. She had no pants on either...and her shirt was open.
Possessiveness flickered through him, startling him.
He forced that back, too. He shook her shoulder, rolling to one side even as he fumbled around the nearby floor for his pants.
The organic cell was still dark, although he knew that would change when the seal broke on the heavy door. The living metal determined “night” and “day” by cues from the cell’s occupants. It even accounted for late night bathroom breaks and yes, sex or masturbation, by not turning back on before a set time without a manual command.
Most of the manual controls had been taken off-line in here, of course.
“Cass...wake up,” he whispered, louder.
She started to turn over.
Once he felt her awake, he let go of her, climbing to his feet long enough to find and then yank up his pants. He barely had them all the way up when he retrieved his belt and started threading the leather through the loops. He ripped his shirt up off the green-tiled floor next.
He shoved his first arm into a sleeve then paused to hand Cass her pants.
He could see with his night vision that she’d gotten her shirt most of the way fastened, moving groggily yet somehow faster than him. She had the pants most of the way up her thighs now too, which caused his shoulders to relax, even before he’d thought about why.
He stood between her and the door anyway, half-attempting to shield her, when the heavy panel opened for real, igniting the main lights.
Balidor turned.
His shirt still hung open on his shoulders. Given that, and given the fact that whoever it was probably caught them on the surveillance capture already, he didn’t see
much point in acting coy.
Still, it wasn’t who he’d halfway expected by then.
Truthfully, he’d expected Revik to walk through that door.
Maybe with another gun in his hand.
Instead it was Jon, with Maygar entering the space not far behind him.
Jon stopped dead once he’d taken in Balidor’s state of relative undress. He frowned, staring him up and down with an openly shocked look on his face.
So perhaps they hadn’t been monitoring the security cameras after all.
Maygar, perhaps inappropriately, let out a snort of laughter.
Jon frowned harder, clenching his jaw as he glared at Maygar.
Then he seemed to make a deliberate decision not to go there.
“They’re looking for you,” he blurted, facing Balidor.
Balidor noticed that Jon hadn’t let his eyes travel past him to Cass for even an instant. She might not have been in the room at all, from the direction of his gaze.
“Who?” Balidor said, keeping his tone neutrally polite.
“Who the fuck do you think?” Jon said, his anger coming through belatedly. “Allie. Revik. Tarsi. Half the Adhipan. Fucking everyone, ‘Dori. They want to know where you are. You told all of them...and me...you’d be there.”
“Be there?” Balidor stared at him blankly.
He had absolutely no idea what the other man was talking about.
“The party, ‘Dor,” Jon said, his voice still harsh. “The fucking Christmas party. You know it’s morning, right? It’s Christmas morning. They’re all up on the deck with that damned tree they got from the barge...” Jon made a vague wave in Balidor’s direction, still studiously avoiding looking either at Balidor’s bare chest or at Cass, who now leaned against the cell wall, combing her fingers through her dark hair and being uncharacteristically quiet.
Balidor sighed.
“Yeah, all right. Tell them I’m coming.”
“When?” Jon said pointedly. That time, he glared briefly at Cass.
“In a minute,” Balidor said.
“Not now?” Jon said, his voice harder. “With us?”
Hearing the meaning in his words, Balidor clicked at him in even more irritation. It struck him suddenly that he wasn’t feeling particularly apologetic about what he’d done––which might have been strange if he’d been willing to give a damn well enough to rationalize it.
