Page 63 of Xel: Broken Bond

He stopped, staring down at me as he considered the question. And I supposed there were likely a dozen or more factors that I wasn’t aware of feeding into the decision. Perhaps one day he might be willing to explain them all to me. But now was not the time.

“Yeah,” he decided in the end. “It’s just…”

“I’ll be gentle,” I promised him.

He nodded and went to move off my lap… but then he leaned in and kissed me again, a brief, firm press of his lips against mine. Then he slid off me, lying down on his back and shoving the sheets further out of the way.

I slicked my fingers with more lube, then shuffled over so I was in between his legs. I spent a moment stroking his cock, willing him to relax. When I saw his shoulders and hips settle more comfortably on the bed, a shudder ran through me. Stars above, this was… This was like nothing I’d ever experienced, not in all my years of training. I knew how to have sex bent into every conceivable shape, or hanging from a rope, or playing the role of naughty brat, or space pirate, or even pretending to be an animal. But seeing my master learn totrustme was a headier feeling than the most powerful orgasm I’d ever had.

Keeping my gaze on his, I reached between his legs, teasing his entrance for a moment before pushing one gentle finger inside. He gasped – stars above, he wastight– but with the way he spread his legs a little wider, I was reasonably confident it was a gasp of pleasure, rather than pain. I kept going, ready to stop at a moment’s notice if he needed me to, making sure to keep some of my attention on his cock at the same time.

Finally, he reached down and batted at my hand. “I’m ready, I’m ready. Please, fuck, I want you inside me.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. My own erection was throbbing, and I lined myself up eagerly, pressing in slowly. He was more impatient than I was, though, and he kept urging me on, muttering delightful ramblings of praise that made my heart sing, until I was all the way in, his hot, tight passage squeezing me as I tried to… Oh, stars, that felt divine. I tried to catch my breath, tried urgently to control the surging pleasure in my groin. No, I wasnotgoing to fail him. Putting those years of training to good use, I managed to rein in my suddenly wayward libido and settled into a slow rhythm, using my hand to stroke his cock at the same time. I reached under him to squeeze his buttock, since he’d seemed to like that before, and he muttered a curse, then said, “Faster. Please.”

Only a couple of minutes later, he was gasping and bucking against me, his fists gripping the sheets at his sides. “I… You… You can…” he muttered, though I couldn’t make out enough of the command to obey whatever it was he wanted. “You can come when… whenever… after I do,” he managed to say finally, and I felt a rush of relief at the words. I didn’t think I’d ever been this turned on in my life, and training aside, Ineededto come!

Thankfully, he seemed to be right on the edge himself. He muttered a strained, “Oh god… Oh god…” and then he was spurting into my hand, his passage squeezing fiercely around me. I came a second or two later, a groan of relief torn frommy throat as my hips jerked and pleasure swept through me. Once my master’s climax was over and he’d slumped back down onto the bed, I pulled out carefully, knowing he would be extra sensitive now.

Cleaning up after sex had never seemed a particularly interesting task. I had been taught to do it, because a master could certainly not be expected to get up and see to that himself, but it had always seemed nothing more than a duty that was required of me. But now, gazing down at my sated master, his essence splattered over his own belly and the gleam of lube slick between his thighs, I suddenly felt a powerful and completely unexpected sense of protectiveness. And in the last few seconds, cleaning him up had somehow morphed from a mundane duty into an act of worship.

I slid off the bed and wrapped my discarded towel around my waist – more as a courtesy for Vonnie, just in case she happened to be up – and hastened to the bathroom. I cleaned myself up while I was there, then returned to my master with a warm, damp washcloth. He muttered his thanks as I wiped the mess off his skin, then I decided to be just a tiny bit lazy, tossing the washcloth and my towel into a pile, to be tidied up tomorrow.

The sheets had slid most of the way onto the floor, so I gathered them up, but arranged them so they only covered half my master’s body. We were both still warm from our exertions, and it was a balmy night. Then, feeling a touch daring, I slid back into bed beside him. It might have seemed a reasonable assumption that he’d want me to stay, but a good dimari would have asked. I switched off the lamp and tugged gently on my master’s arm, and he came willingly, cushioning his head on my chest, our legs tangled together. And I was very aware of the wild thrumming in my chest, the desire to always be here, to never, ever have to leave him. It had never been this way with my previous-

By the blazing heavens, why didn’t I just stop thinking about that horrible man? There was literallynothinghe’d ever done that was nicer or better or more appealing thanthismaster, so I should just stop comparing everything and forget about him.

I listened to the silence, as I waited for sleep to come. But in comparison to the lonely room at the hotel, I could hear my master’s breathing here, the change in rhythm as he breathed in deeply, then let it out in a huff. And then another sound reached my ears – a soft scratching, followed by a plaintive ‘meew’.

With a grin, I sat up, easing my master onto the bed beside me. “Mr Beans wants to come in,” I explained, though I was fairly sure he’d heard the sound. I got up and cracked the door open, and Mr Beans came trotting in, his tail held indignantly high, then he leapt up onto the bed and snuggled in against my master’s thighs.

I slid back into bed, letting my master curl up against me again. His breathing resumed its slow rhythm… until he broke the silence with a soft, husky declaration. “I got the scars trying to save my sister from a house fire.”

I froze, not sure how to respond. Not sureifI should respond. The announcement seemed oddly sacred, like a hymn that was designed to be heard just the once, resonating from the doors of a temple.

“My parents died when I was twenty,” he went on, without any prompting from me. “They left us a house… My sister was sixteen at the time. We kept living there, and I was trying to finish college, while she was still in school.” He paused and snuggled in closer against my side. I didn’t dare say anything, not wanting to interrupt him and dissuade him from telling the story.

“The fire started downstairs. The fire department said later that it was a faulty battery that we’d left on to charge. There are supposed to be laws about that sort of thing – manufacturingsafety and all that – but Rendol was never all that good at keeping up with the rest of the Alliance. By the time we woke up, the bottom half of the house was on fire.

“I pulled her out of bed and dragged her halfway down the stairs. Wasn’t sure how we were going to get out, but I figured we didn’t have much other option. But then she remembered the cat. We had a cat. A black and white boy that was… He was a terror. Really opinionated. But we loved him, and as far as we could tell, he loved us. And she refused to leave without him. She broke out of my hold and ran back up the stairs to go look for him.

“I would have gone after her, but part of the ceiling collapsed. I was just kind of stuck in the middle of the stairs, with fire in both directions, and…” He took a shuddering breath, and I thought I felt wetness against my shoulder. I wasn’t going to move to find out for certain.

“I’d got halfway through climbing the railing – I figured I could climb up the side to get to her.” His voice cracked halfway through the sentence. “Then the firefighters broke down the door and… Honestly, I don’t remember a whole lot after that. I remember being dragged out of the house by a firefighter, screaming that my sister was still inside. It’s weird, but in my memory, one of the walls collapsedafterthey dragged me outside. But if I was outside, I don’t know how I would have seen that happen. I don’t remember the pain until I woke up in the hospital. I was pretty doped up on drugs, but I remember going to see my sister. She was…” He trailed off and didn’t finish the sentence. The silence was filled by the incongruous sound of Mr Beans purring loudly.

“The cat didn’t survive,” my master said, a minute or two later. “I don’t really know what happened, just that the fire chief came to see me later, and he said the cat didn’t survive. She died two days later.”

I assumed he meant his sister, rather than the cat. By the stars, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I'd been trained in a thousand different ways to bring a man pleasure, but not in a single one to bring himcomfort. But nonetheless, one glaring detail stood out from the story, a detail that should most certainly be attended to. “What was her name?” I asked him.

“Janice,” he whispered into my chest. “Janey. I did everything for her, made sure she had everything she needed. She wanted to be a pilot. To fly space ships to other planets, and explore new regions of the galaxy. She wanted tolive. And then she died, and I’ve just sat here on this one property and pretended the rest of the galaxy doesn’t exist.”

“And now, we’re going to change the future for an entire species,” I reminded him, without thinking the words through before I said them. But on reflection, I thought perhaps it wasn’t a terrible thing to say. “It’s okay to take some time to recover after losing someone important to you. But sooner or later, you want to start living again. And that’s okay too.”

The silence settled, and eventually, Mr Beans stopped purring, succumbing to sleep and kitty-flavoured dreams of chasing butterflies and climbing trees. I wondered if my master had fallen asleep, but his breathing didn’t seem quite even enough for that. Outside, a frog started croaking, soon to be answered by another frog, further away.

“May I ask you something personal?” I asked at length, still certain that my master was not asleep.

"Yeah," came his mumbled reply. “What’s up?”