Page 109 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

There wasn’t really anything that Rory didn’t want to know about Max.

Max sketched a charm with his finger, and then Rory watched it come to life as Max infused it with his magic and held out his hand. A moment later, something slick pooled in Max’s hand. It took Rory a moment to understand what he was seeing, and then he looked up into Max’s grinning face.

“Did you figure out how to magic lube?” Rory demanded.

Max’s smile was huge. “I sure did. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to know before, but it occurred to me that surely, some witch who was more interested in sex than I am must have thought of this before, especially given the relative newness of commercial lubricant. If you really wanted to have sex with someone back in the 1600s and you didn’t have any oil to hand, what were you going to do?”

Rory’s grin was almost as big as Max’s. “Convince a Spellsmith to make a lube spell, apparently.”

They both snickered.

“How handy,” Rory said, which made Max snort inelegantly and oh so endearingly.

Rory hadn’t actually meant the pun, but he stood by it.

“Want to go see if magical lube is superior to the store-bought kind?” Max asked.

“I really do.”

Rory had wanted Max to set the pace. Since he’d gone to the trouble of finding the spell and bringing it up, it was clear that this was what he wanted.

“And we don’t need condoms, right?” Max asked.

Shifters and witches didn’t pass on STIs and diseases the way that humans did. They were generally hardier, though not completely immune to human illnesses.

“Not unless we’d prefer them. It’s less messy that way,” Rory said carefully.

He’d gotten the feeling Max wasn’t a fan of any messes related to sex.

Max shrugged. “I didn’t buy any. I kind of feel like a bonding shouldn’t have condoms.”

Rory smiled softly. “A bonding doesn’t even have to have sex, remember. We can make of it what we want—well, within certain parameters.”

Max considered for a moment, and then requested, “Let’s try it like this. Maybe I’ll be picking up a jumbo box of condoms tomorrow.”

Rory grinned. “Sounds good.”

Getting undressed today was hampered by the fact that Max was cupping a handful of lube. He made a face.

“Note to self: only summon lube when you actually need it.”

“You could summon it again,” Rory pointed out. “Or you could let me help.”

Max’s eyes went dark. “Yeah?”

Rory tugged his own shirt off even as he stepped closer. “Well, I do want us to be very equal in this. So if I’ve lost my shirt, you should really lose yours, too.”

At Max’s nod, Rory lifted Max’s shirt over his head and tugged it off, both of them carefully pulling it off his left arm so as to preserve the little puddle of lube.

Rory slid out of his pants next, leaving his underwear on this time, before he moved to Max’s jeans, carefully undoing the button and zipper and then sliding the fabric down his thighs and knees and calves—with maybe a bit more touching than was strictly necessary.

He wound up on his knees in front of Max, who was looking down at him and breathing heavily.

“Lift,” Rory said, tapping on Max’s left leg.

After a moment where he seemed almost dazed, Max lifted his leg, allowing Rory to tug his pants all the way off one leg and then repeat the instructions with the other. The view was very nice from here, and Rory could see Max’s erection tenting the fabric of his briefs.

“Do you like blowjobs?” Rory asked.