Page 40 of Guiding Desire

“Please.”

“You said you moved here because you found the Grounds to be too nosy, and yet you have your team members here now.”

“Is that the question?”

“I… Yes. I suppose I was wondering why you don’t mind them?”

Senlas stretched, the muscles in his neck and arms moving, catching the light that came in through the dimmed windows.

“They’re family. I don’t mind them.”

“You and Guardian Karmine seem to bicker a lot.”

Senlas stroked lower on Orrey’s back, marking his vertebrae with the tips of his fingers. “Stop with the title. Use everyone’s first names. We bicker because he is the most annoying person I know.”

“I see. Well, I don’t.”

“Hmm. Guess you’re the nice type, the type that can get along with whoever because you’re polite and try to accommodate them.”

Orrey’s eyebrows went up. “That’s what you’re supposed to do. Doesn’t everyone do that?”

Senlas sighed. “It’s more of a regular thing.”

“Iama regular.”

Senlas’s fingers drew circles around Orrey’s spine now. “You’re really not, kitten. I can show you if you want?”

“Show me?”

“Yeah. Channeling. You very nearly did that when you kissed me earlier.”

“It felt like mutual kissing to me, and I asked your permission.”

“Didn’t mean to rile you. You almost did it when we mutually kissed.”

Orrey narrowed his eyes. “Are you asking me to kiss you again?”

“Ah, so you’re admitting you kissed me! Shh, sorry, sorry. Couldn’t resist.” He lifted his hand off Orrey’s back. “I was thinking we could hold hands. I’ll try to talk you through it with the caveat that I’m usually at the receiving end, but they used to pair us up so the Conduits could practice this, back at school. I’ll tell you what the instructors told them.”

Orrey bit his lip.What if I do it and nothing happens? Will I be able to go back to being a protector?

The thought filled Orrey with an uncomfortable ache, one he didn’t want to examine. He reached out, putting his palm against Senlas’s bigger one.

Senlas clasped Orrey’s hand, their fingers interlacing. His darker skin stood out even more like this, the result a beautiful pattern.

“First of all, you want to relax. The goal is to open up, to allow my power in. It should be pretty easy because you’ve been buffering whenever we’ve touched. That might have added to making you so sleepy, but I won’t apologize. Anyway, you relax, focus on your breathing.”

Orrey did, following the steps of the box breathing they’d taught them during his protector training: breathe in and count to four, hold and count to four, exhale and count to four, holding for another four, and repeat.

“Okay. Now you want to focus on my touch. If anything about that isn’t comfortable, tell me what I need to adjust.”

The warmth in Senlas’s skin was easy to focus on. It was a comforting warmth, his palm dry, his touch firm without being painful. Orrey continued breathing, focused until that warmth became everything, until he felt it slowly seep into his own palm.

“Nice. And that’s channeling. I’m probably not qualified to judge you, but in my book, you’re a natural.”

“Huh?” Orrey opened his eyes and looked at their joined hands. He still felt the warmth, but oddly, Senlas’s hand, his entire body, stood out clearer to Orrey, almost as if a subtle highlighter had been used on him.

Or as if it’s only him I can see in the whole wide world,Orrey thought.