Julian nearly toppled off his stool, and Valac shot him a mischievous smirk. It made him look surprisingly boyish.
Valac devoured his food, but Julian barely managed half of his own. Anxiety kept knotting his stomach, despite the fact that hedidtrust Valac. There was just so much uncertainty right now, and he didn’t function well without a plan.
So, he thought as he pushed his scrambled eggs around, he would come up with a plan. He’d unbox his new clothes and put them away. He didn’t have any money to take a bus, so he’d just ask Valac to teleport him to a store where he could get another prepaid phone. Then they would go to the Rink so he could throw himself into a new training routine. If he was picking up the sword again, he’d need to whip himself back into shape.
But he had to throw his plan out the window when he started unboxing his new things. Sitting on the sofa with Valac, they cut open box after box. It was obvious whose clothing belonged to whom. Valac’s clothes dwarfed his own, and their piles steadily grew. Jeans, workout clothes, every kind of shirt in every fabric and pattern, multiple types of underwear—including some pricey cloth jockstraps that made his face flame—several types of socks, in both black and white.
Another box was filled with sex objects that made Julian want to fling himself from the roof. Handcuffs, ropes, vibrators, dildos, plugs, whips, huge bottles of lube, ball gags, spreader bars, and more. Julian recognized it all right away and sank into the cushion in humiliation.
Valac leaned in, head tilting curiously until he picked up a flesh-colored dildo and said, “Ah.” He tossed it back into the box and pushed the whole thing away with his foot. “We won’t need most of that.”
Julian didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. “We won’t?” he squeaked.
Valac cast him a molten look. “No. I have other methods, should they interest you.”
Julian gulped hard. He was far more interested than he was willing to admit right now. He might expire on the spot.
They kept digging. When he found a brand new laptop and cell phone in sleek white boxes, he sat dumbly on the sofa with both boxes in his lap, too shocked to actually open them.
“What are those?” Valac asked, leaning in to look at the pictures on the boxes.
“A computer and cell phone,” Julian said, touching the fruit logo on the front of the box. “A prettyfancycomputer and cell phone.”
Valac studied his face for a beat, then scooped both boxes out of his lap and set them on his other side, out of Julian’s sight.
“What are you doing?”
“You can look at them later. They seem to stress you out.”
Julian blinked, but some of the anxiety settled at Valac’s words. He was right. There was no need to deal with it right now. The phone was possibly a more immediate issue than the computer, so he could communicate with the rest of the world. But even that could wait a few hours until things felt more stable.
“Yeah, a lot of this has stressed me out,” he admitted, looking at the enormous stack of clothes on the coffee table in front of them.
“What can I do?” Valac asked. “How can I help ease this transition for you?”
Transition.That didn’t seem to fully encapsulate everything that had happened to him in the last twenty-four hours. He settled back on the couch with a sigh, considering his answer.
“Something normal,” he said. “Something fun? It’s a shame Shadrach didn’t send any alcohol here. I could use a cold beer or two.” He sighed. “My old squad and I, we’d sometimes hang out at my house. I was genuinely good friends with some of them, and we liked spending time together outside of work. All of that stopped when Daniel was arrested. They sided with Sloan, and they started bullying him. It created a huge division in the squad, and nothing was the same after that.”
Because the guild frowned upon doing things like drink alcohol, he wondered if the Sentinels avoided alcohol, too. He thought he recalled seeing liquor bottles in the broken drink fridge, but maybe that was just for the demons.
“Wedolive above a bar,” Valac pointed out, and Julian tried not to get hung up on the ‘we’ in that sentence. He leaned back, curling one arm along the back of the couch behind Julian’s shoulders.
“We do,” Julian said slowly, letting his body gravitate closer like it seemed to want. “I doubt they’d just let us go down there and help ourselves, though.”
“Well, if we go by the Rink later, perhaps we could ask.”
“Sure. And I do want to go by the Rink. If I’m going to be a sentinel, I should start training again.” He cast a forlorn look at all the clothes. “In fact, I should probably pick out some of these to wear and go take a shower. I still have some blood in some places.”
Valac’s dark gaze traveled the length of his body. “Yes, you smell strongly of it.”
Embarrassed heat flooded through him. Valac couldsmellhim? How awful. “Oh, uh, sorry.”
Valac’s lips curled into a smile, and he leaned in, dragging his nose up Julian’s neck. “Don’t misunderstand me, little jewel. Your blood smells incredible.”
Julian’s lips parted, desire pooling in his groin so fast it made his head spin. A quiet little whimper left him, and he turned his head, seeking more. Valac delivered with relish, cupping his face and crushing their mouths together. If he thought what they’d done in his dreams was good, it was nothing compared to the real thing. His blood was on fire, his focus narrowed to the slick slide of Valac’s tongue against his own. He kissed Julian like he hungered for him, like he’d been empty for years and finally found what he needed to satisfy him.
It was overwhelming.
