“Yes, sir,” he said, watching me intently as I moved down the bed and between his thighs. I slid one finger into him gently, rubbing back and forth to spread the lube around. He stroked himself lazily, keeping an eye on the movement of my hand, and I felt a little self-conscious all of a sudden. It had been a long while since I’d done this. But it wasn’t the sort of thing I would forget. Right?
I slid a second finger into him and frowned at how tight he was. He made a disquieted noise and flexed his hips a little. His cock was still hard as a rock, but the hand that had been stroking it was now gripping the sheets. I don’t know if it was my imagination, but he seemed… nervous?
“You’ve been trained in how to do this, right?” I asked. Something here wasn’t quite adding up.
“Yes,” he said breathlessly.
“As in, you’ve actually done this before? Or just been told about it?”
He shook his head in a ‘sort of’ kind of motion. “We’re trained with toys. Dildos. Vibrators. Not with a real person.” Seeming to realise that his answer surprised me, he sat a little way up, and I removed my fingers when his movement made our position awkward. “No one is allowed to have sex with a dimari until they’ve bonded with their master. But we still have to know what we’re doing. So we practice with toys.”
I was still not a fan of slaves being forcibly trained in sexual technique. But the news brought with it a wave of unexpected relief. Somehow, I’d been picturing queues of Eumadians lining up to fuck him. Toys were… well, not good, exactly, but certainly better than forcible sex with a bunch of random strangers.
I tried to come up with a suitable question to ask, that would tell me what I wanted to know next. How had Bryce managed to get Kade to tellhim about his past so easily? “How did it feel?” I tried, after a pause. “When you were practicing?”
Kade bit his lip. “Good,” he said, sounding bashful about it. “Really good.” If he’d been human, he would probably have been blushing.
“Uh huh,” I said, feeling my cock throb in response to his obvious enthusiasm. I glanced down at his groin again. “It’s just that you’rereallytight. I don’t want to hurt you.” I’d said it before, but it was worth repeating.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he said, sounding distracted. “I’m just trying not to come too soon. I know you said I could, whenever I’m ready, but I want to wait a bit…”
My brain more or less short-circuited with that little announcement. “Oh. Right. Okay,” I said, like he’d said nothing more interesting than ‘I’m going grocery shopping’. I indicated his groin with my slippery fingers. “Do you want me to…?”
He lay back and spread his legs again.
I went slowly, because despite his assurances, I really didn’t want to hurt him. Two fingers became three, and he seemed to find a calm spot in the centre of his own storm, because he relaxed a few minutes later, his breath slowing, the trembling easing out of his body as I continued to probe his passage.
Then I slicked up my cock with the remaining lube on my fingers and guided my erection to his entrance. “Tell me if this hurts,” I repeated, and he nodded.
I pressed inside, and the constriction of his body around mine made me grit my teeth and close my eyes. “God, you’re tight,” I murmured, stilling my body. I breathed through the urge to come immediately… and suddenly, behind my closed eyelids, I saw the flash of the explosion, the sight of Revier’s lifeless body.
Fuck, no. That was exactly what I was trying to get away from. I snapped my eyes open, running a hand over Kade’s abdomen, a little rougher than I meant to be. I tugged his leg up higher, giving me better access, and slid in a fraction more. “Mmm… Master,” he groaned. And that sent me straight back into the jungle. Kade’s crate. The standoff with the Culrads. Fuck.
No. I didn’t want those memories. Not now. I slid in the rest of the way, ever watchful for any sign that I was hurting him, and thrust once-
Hanes’ arm, lying on the edge of the boulder.
Kent’s face as I told the Culrads to take the cargo.
Kade turning black, like a pool of liquid death, before I’d shot the Culrad in the head.
“Aiden.” Kade’s soft, rumbling voice dragged my attention back to the present. I’d stopped moving, and I got the impression it wasn’t the firsttime he’d said my name. His hand came up to cup the back of my neck, his fingers threading through my hair. “I’m right here,” he murmured into my ear.
I made a whimpering noise that I might have been ashamed of, under any other circumstances. I felt soraw, like gravel rash over my entire body.
“You’re okay,” Kade said, flexing his hips in a way that forced my cock deeper inside his body. I gasped out a moan at the slick, hot sensation. My hips rolled of their own accord, chasing more pleasure. I buried my face in his shoulder, not able to find the strength to face the world, to face him right now. If he would just let me hide for a few moments, just let me pretend that a piece of me hadn’t been ripped out and left back there in the jungle.
But of course, Kade made no demands of me. He held me, and let me move in his body, my tears wetting his shoulder as my moans peppered the warm air between us.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kade
Iunderstood now. Lying beneath my master, feeling his body move inside mine, I finally understood what he wanted from me.
It had taken me over a week to figure it out, but I’d first had the inkling I was onto something when I’d seen my master’s tears at the funeral. I suspected I knew the reason he’d taken me with him, though I’d needed to confirm the purpose of the ceremony before I’d known for certain.
There was a contradiction here, one that I wasn’t sure even he was aware of. What heneededfrom a dimari was someone to protect him. That had been abundantly clear out in the jungle, when the Culrads had tried to kill him three times in one day – four if you counted the explosion before he’d opened my crate.
