“I’m trying to get to know you,” Rin added when he’d been silent for too long. “You aren’t making this any easier for me.”
“Should we play a game?” he suggested, only for his flower to tense up. “Not that kind, I promise. A question for a question.” Kelevra had Rin’s file, and he had a basic understanding of who he was, but it couldn’t hurt to learn more.
Actually, now that it’d been brought to his attention, he realized he wanted to know everything. Everything there was to know about his flower.
“Do you like hurting people?” Rin asked. “My brother…”
It was no great reveal that Sila Varun enjoyed causing pain. Kelevra had pegged that their very first meeting.
“No,” he replied honestly. “It doesn’t make me feel anything one way or the other when I hurt someone. I like the sight of blood, but it can be my own, it doesn’t have to come from another person. I have hurt people before, I’ve killed. But that’s usually when they’ve pushed me past my breaking point and I’ve lost control.”
“You don’t regret afterward,” Rin surmised.
“I don’t feel things like that, Flower.”
“Sometimes,” he licked his lips and glanced up at Kel just as he entered the room, “I wish I didn’t either.”
“What is it exactly?”
“You mean what’s wrong with me?”
Kelevra scowled and settled Rin down on his side of the bed, even going so far as to pull the covers over his half-naked form. He’d given him boxer briefs to change into, thinking that would help settle any lingering nerves and it’d seemed to do the trick.
While his flower had clearly enjoyed their experimenting tonight, it also would have taken a lot out of him. Kel didn’t want him to feel anxious or scared, not of him, and not now, so soon after that comfortable moment in the sauna. For the first time, he truly felt like he was making progress.
Like maybe there was a chance he could convince Rin to accept and want him with the same level of ferocity that he wanted his flower back.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he chided. “You find regulating your emotions difficult, that’s all.”
“On my home world, that’s practically unheard of. I would have been treated terribly if anyone had found out.”
“Is that why you learned to hide it?” Kelevra asked. Eventually, he was going to coax Rin’s true nature out in all its brazen glory, but he didn’t think now was the correct time to say as much, so he kept it to himself. “And Sila?”
“My brother has the opposite problem. I feel too much, he feels too little. Tibera is a planet that values emotions. Our people tend to feel them at a heightened level, which allows them to process them at a rapid rate. It’s why we come off as calm and collected more often than not.”
“Ah, so they fake it too.”
Rin frowned. “I…No. It’s more like they just don’t show it. If you asked what they were feeling, they would tell you without hesitation. But it’s harder to know. It isn’t as simple as it is here or on most other planets, where all you have to do is look closely enough to be able to tell when someone is feeling a certain way. Emotions, especially complex ones, are harder to gauge on Tiberan’s. That’s why we’re taught grounding. It’s a way to focus and calm the mind so we’re able to move through one feeling to the next without overstimulation setting in.”
“You’ve mentioned grounding before,” Kelevra draped an arm over Rin’s hips, keeping close as he sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ve helped you with that? That’s what happens when we have sex?”
“Sometimes,” Rin admitted.
“Was it always like that?” Kelevra didn’t want to, but he forced himself to ask. “Whenever you fucked someone?”
Rin considered. “If you’re asking if you’re the first person I was able to give up control to in the bedroom, then the answer is no. But, if you’re wondering if you’re the only person who’s made me completely and totally let go? Then yes. I’ve never felt this way with anyone else before, Kel.”
“What way?”
“I don’t know,” Rin said. “I can’t put it into words.”
“Try.”
He gave him a look. “This was supposed to be a question for a question, and yet I’m the only one doing the talking. It’s your turn.”
“It wasn’t really a question, but you wanted me to tell you something personal.” Kelevra trailed his gaze across Rin’s face. His cheeks were still rosy from the sauna, his damp hair finger-combed to the side. “I love seeing you here, in my bed. It makes me pleased. I feel like I’ve managed to acquire something difficult to obtain, but I also struggle to put it into words that make sense. Nothing feels suitable. All I know is, this is your place, Flower. This is where you belong.”
“For how long?”
