Severo smirked. “Good.”
“You like being yelled at, don’t you?”
“Maybe.” Severo’s gaze avoided his.
“Wait…you actually do, don’t you?”
“I…I mean…” Severo scratched his chin and gave him a sheepish smile. “Maybe?”
Seri blinked. “A kink?”
“Well…my body really likes it when you, well… So, your face gets this particular look when you tell me not to swear, or order me to do or not to do something. Like, it’s that, combined with the no-nonsense, unyielding tone of your voice. Something about it…turns me on. And it sort of has since the beginning. But I promise I wasn’t trying to do anything inappropriate, especially since the first time I literally had just freed you from my handcuffs. It was just an automatic response that I did my best to ignore.”
Seri stared, thinking back on the times Severo’s face would oddly flush. He had thought maybe it was the man getting mad at him for snapping or ordering him around. Somehow, this sort of made more sense.
Severo…well, really the only time he’d seen the man upset or actually mad at him was that time he hurt himself trying to escape the cuffs and when the man was embarrassed. Severo getting mad at him for Seri snapping really didn’t fit.
Seri snickered. “Well, that explains the blushing.”
“Sorry.” Severo covered his face. “I know you probably find it weird and possibly creepy. Believe me, I was slightly concerned myself when I reacted. And more so because I knew it was inappropriate.”
“I mean…I feel we've moved past what could and could not be inappropriate. Don’t you think? You have been sharing a bed with me for a few months now, keeping my nightmares away, and before that you were secretly staying up all night outside my bedroom. And we…just…” Seri's face heated up again as he hesitated to say out loud what they had done last night.
Which was dumb. He was an adult, but…well…his experience wasn’t vast. So this stuff was…new to him…as long as he ignored all the shit Preston had done to him. None of which he wanted to think about while he was currently lying in bed with Severo.
Severo… What the man had done for him went beyond even his wildest dreams. Severo had been there by his side, helping with everything and anything. So much of which had nothing to do with keeping him safe from Preston. And, really, the man had owed him nothing more than keeping him safe, not that he had even owed him that much.
He could have just brought him here and ignored him. But instead…for the first time in his life, Seri had felt like he had someone to fall back on, someone there to support him when and if he stumbled. And it was dangerous for him to think that…in part as he didn’t know what they were doing together, even now. Yet…there was no denying that the Dweller had made each day a bit more breathable.
Severo hands dropped down, one reaching out to cup Seri’s face. “You know…I didn’t do all that to get…to here.”
Seri smiled and hesitantly rested his cheek fully against the man’s hand. He knew the words had been because he mentioned his nightmares, yet it was also still so relevant to the thoughts running through his head.
“I know. Which is why it did end up here. You haven’t expected or demanded anything from me. Which is a lot for someone like me, who is only used to people making demands and then taking whatever they want.”
“I’d never…”
“I know. So, you like me ordering you about, do you? Well, let me tell you, I’m more than happy to oblige that kink.”
Severo chuckled. “I’m sure you are.” He leaned down, his lips just a breath from Seri’s, when a loud baby wail of doom broke through the room.
Seri giggled. “I think someone is hungry and wet.”
The Dweller gave him a peck on the lips. “I’d say so. I’ll go fight the hungry gummy bear. Rest a bit more before breakfast.”
Seri yawned. “I should get up… I need todraw some blood from you. A urine sample, too. And then, well, I need to start breaking down the formula, and brainstorm on how to negate the side effects.”
“Okay, well, I’ll go get Skya, and pee in a cup. Not in that order. I don’t have much to do this morning, but I do have a meeting with Cyrus late afternoon.”
“Am I…needed for the meeting?” Seri asked hesitantly.
It’s not that he didn’t want to know what was going on with the case…but… Okay, he didn’t want to know unless they were about to tell him they were close to shutting the bastard down. Seri didn’t need all the small progress details. He didn’t care. He just wanted to know how long it would take. Each minuscule update just made him all the more frustrated, because every time it made him realize they weren’t even a tiny bit closer to arresting the asshole.
“You aren’t.”
Skya’s cry went up a few decibels. “Okay, enough talking.” He shooed him off. “Go, go.”
“Going, before she shatters our eardrums.” Severo hopped out of bed and slipped on a pair of pajama pants. The man paused right as he reached the door and looked back. “I may have bribed Skya with cookies last night to get her to sleep.”
