Rei’s arms buckled and he rolled sideways, Sevastyan’s finger still inside him, blinking and looking up toward Sevastyan’s face, seeking approval.
Sevastyan leaned down and gave it with his lips against Rei’s nose and his fingertips across Rei’s cheeks. “Let’s clean you up.” He pulled out.
Rei moved too quickly to obey. His legs tangled in the sheets. Sevastyan caught him and lifted him from the bed, carrying him toward the bathroom. If he wasn’t careful, Rei was going to shatter himself like a vase. He would scold his precious treasure except there was nothing but obedience in those brown eyes. It was going to take more than an order to pull Rei from the mild subspace he’d slipped into. Until then, he was a danger to himself and smashable items. Sevastyan sat Rei down on the toilet and turned on the heated stream setting in the attached bidet. Then he reached for a wash cloth and ran warm water over it to wipe the rest of Rei down.
Sevastyan
They prepared breakfast standing at the kitchen counter with fresh coffee dripping out in gurgles from the Mr. Coffee coffee pot. Rei poked the pot with his finger and looked at Sevastyan in clear confusion.
“When in Rome, do as the Romans.” Sevastyan grabbed two mugs and filled both of them. He pushed one toward Rei. “Drink slowly. It might be heathen coffee, but it’s coffee.”
Rei shook his head, but he smiled, a bit of amusement filtering into his eyes beneath everything else. He was almost back to baseline, for the first time since they had left the Yadro. Rest and discipline had centered both of them. Coffee and food would bring their brains online. Sevastyan set about warming up leftovers for breakfast. He wouldn’t trust Rei to handle anything more dangerous than a spoon for at least thirty more minutes.
Sevastyan showed Rei the equipment he’d collected when he’d set up the safe house. Once Rei had the computers up and running, he tapped into the online databases he and Sevastyan had collected over the years. Some of what was in the data came from Anton. Sevastyan had a moment of gratefulness that they’d marked each piece of data with how it had been collected and by whom. It might prove to be useful in the future. Sevastyan set himself up on the couch and started preparing cameras for staking out the places where he knew he was most likely to observe Gang Junseo. While he had no intention of informing on the K-Pop idol, he had to go through the motions of following the directors’ orders.
“Do you think he’ll notice he’s cut off?” Rei asked as his fingers flew over the keyboard. He didn’t have to say Anton’s name for Sevastyan to know who he was talking about.
“When’s the last time he logged in?”
Rei was quiet for several minutes. “Two years ago.”
Anton had been checked out for a long time. “For now, copy everything to new servers.”
Rei’s fingers kept moving over his keyboards. “I can introduce a program to slowly corrupt the originals.”
“Give it a week and then do that.” Sevastyan raised his head to watch Rei work. The former K-Pop trainee had learned a significant number of new skills in the years they had been together. If the Merchari knew what else Rei could do besides stand firm in the face of danger, they would execute him and Sevastyan on sight.
Only one person had an idea, but he wouldn’t talk. He adored Rei too much and had his own twisted code.
“Has Lisa made contact in a while?”
Rei shook his head. “No. If Alexi is letting him roam, I though he might have reached out already.”
Sevastyan pulled out one of his phones and fired off a message. Better to know where all the chess pieces were. Alexi knew and approved of Rei having a phone with heavy security controls. Most of his slaves also had modified mobile devices as well. It wasn’t a secret from his mentor.
A moment later he received a text in return. It was a gif of an old woman in a bonnet giving the middle finger.
Sevastyan shook his head. “He’s still alive.”
“He’s texting,” Rei said, looking at his own phone.
“What’s he saying?”
Rei hesitated. “He says to give you the middle finger for him.”
Sevastyan shook his head, smiling. He texted Lisa back.
Lisa wrote back almost at once:
Rei groaned softly and covered his face with one hand.
“What now?” Sevastyan said. He scooted over and looked over Rei’s shoulder.
“He’s shameless,” Rei whispered, sounding half strangled with mortification. “He wants to know if you’ll love him more if he’s ass up in your bed next time.”
Sevastyan chuckled. “Tell him I’m too busy with your ass.”
“Master!” Rei gasped. “I can’t say that!”
