Rion kneeling beside my bed, looking up with those dark eyes. Waiting for instruction. Ready to please. His warrior's hands, so skilled with weapons, learning entirely different uses...
But something about the fantasy felt wrong. Forced.
I frowned, trying to adjust the scene in my mind.Maybe he would take charge instead? He was the militant, after all—trained for command, accustomed to seizing initiative in dangerous situations. Perhaps he would be the one giving orders, using his superior physical strength to...
The image shifted. Rion standing over me, dominant and commanding. Those scarred hands gripping my wrists, holding me down while he took what he wanted. His voice, rough with authority, telling me to submit, to yield, to?—
No.
I sat up abruptly, breathing hard. The fantasy crumbled like poorly mixed mortar. Something about it felt fundamentally wrong, like trying to wear clothes cut for someone else's body. Rion as the dominant partner? The image made my skin crawl with wrongness, not arousal.
But why? He was everything the texts said a dominant should be—strong, experienced, disciplined. If anyone should be taking the lead in our partnership, it should be the trained warrior, not the bookish scholar who'd never even been bonded before.
I lay back down, staring at the ceiling as moonlight shifted across the carved beams. Maybe I was overthinking this. Maybe my academic fascination with power dynamics was coloring my expectations. After all, what did I really know about dominance beyond what I'd read in ancient texts?
But even as I tried to rationalize it, I couldn't shake the certainty that had settled in my chest. When Iimagined Rion in positions of submission—kneeling, yielding, looking to me for guidance—my body responded with immediate, undeniable hunger. When I tried to picture him dominating me, everything went cold and wrong.
I closed my eyes and let the first fantasy return, refining it this time. Rion entering my quarters with that same nervous energy I'd glimpsed during introductions. The careful way he'd spoken, as if weighing each word. The relief in his expression when I'd smoothed over his social stumble.
What if that wasn't just nervousness about cross-Order protocol? What if it was something deeper—a fundamental uncertainty about his role, his nature, his needs?
In my mind, I saw him standing at the foot of my bed, still fully clothed but somehow vulnerable. Not the confident warrior everyone expected him to be, but someone lost, searching, hungry for the kind of guidance only I could provide.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," he would say, voice rough with honesty.
And I would rise from the bed, naked and unashamed, moving toward him with the certainty that had been building in my chest for years. "You don't need to know," I would tell him. "You just need to trust me."
My hand found my cock again, gripping firmly as the fantasy deepened. I imagined reaching for the clasp of his robes, moving slowly enough to give himtime to object. But he wouldn't object. He would stand perfectly still, eyes fixed on my face, waiting to see what I would ask of him.
The silk would fall away, revealing skin marked by battle but somehow still innocent. I would trace those scars with gentle fingers, learning the stories they told while he trembled under my touch. And when I finally commanded him to kneel...
"Please," I gasped aloud, stroking myself faster. In my fantasy, Rion sank to his knees without hesitation, looking up at me with such trust, such desperate gratitude for finally being given clear direction. His mouth would part slightly, breath coming quick and shallow as he waited for my next command.
The orgasm hit me like lightning, pleasure tearing through my body with an intensity that left me shaking. I cried out—not loudly, but with enough force that I was grateful for the thick stone walls of the scholars' quarters. Hot seed spilled across my chest and stomach, marking me with the evidence of desires I was only beginning to understand.
I lay there afterward, breathing hard in the silver moonlight, skin cooling as sweat evaporated in the night air. The fantasy had felt so real, so right, that for a moment I could almost smell the cedar and leather scent that had clung to Rion's ceremonial robes.
Seven days. Seven days until I would see him again, until we would be bound together for twenty-eight nights of shared quarters, shared meals, shared... everything. Seven days to prepare myself for whatever was going to happen between us.
I reached for the washcloth beside my basin, cleaning myself with slow, careful movements. My body felt looser now, satisfied in a way that went beyond physical release. The certainty that had been building in my chest all day crystallized into something unshakeable.
I didn't know what the militant Orders expected from this bonding. I didn't know what Rion himself thought he wanted or needed. But I knew what I'd seen in his eyes during those brief moments of introduction—a hunger for guidance that matched my own hunger to provide it.
The texts could say whatever they wanted about traditional roles and prescribed dynamics. When the time came, I would trust my instincts over ancient protocol. I would give Rion exactly what he needed, whether he knew how to ask for it or not.
But what if he fought me on it? The thought sent a chill through my post-climax contentment. What if his militant training was so deeply ingrained that he couldn't accept guidance from a scholar, even when his body craved it? I'd seen what happened to bonds built on false foundations—the slow suffocation as partners forced themselves into wrong roles, the gradual erosion of connection until only duty remained. Twenty-eight days of pretending, both of us playing parts that didn't fit, until the bond became a prison instead of a sanctuary.
Worse still—what if Rion tried to be what he thought I expected? The strong, commanding militant taking charge of the soft, submissive scholar. Theimage made my stomach clench with dread. I could already see how it would unfold: his awkward attempts at dominance, my growing frustration and withdrawal, both of us trapped in a performance that satisfied neither. We would complete the bond because duty demanded it, but leave it hollow and bitter, another failed partnership to add to his record.
The militant Orders measured success by completion, not connection. They would call such a bond successful as long as we severed cleanly at the end. But I would know the truth—that we'd wasted twenty-eight days destroying something that could have been extraordinary, all because we were too afraid to trust what our bodies were trying to tell us.
I rose from the bed and moved to the window, looking out over the temple complex where he was presumably sleeping in the militant quarters. Did he lie awake as I did, wondering what the next week would bring? Did he replay our meeting in his mind, searching for clues about what kind of partner I might be?
Perhaps I would have to earn his attention, his interest, his eventual surrender. The challenge of it sent fresh heat spiraling through me, though I was too spent to act on it.
I returned to my bed and pulled the sheet back over my cooling skin. This time, when I closed my eyes, sleep came easily. I dreamed of kneeling figures and whispered commands, of trust freely given and pleasure carefully earned.
I dreamed of his eyes looking up at me with the kind of devotion that could remake a man's entire understanding of himself.
