Ingenious #1

Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

M ax picked up the slates his rookie archer had swept off the desk a minute ago. Private Benson thought lying back on the desk with his pants off and his knees pulled up to reveal his prepped hole was the sure cure for Max’s foul temper. Benson was cute, but he wasn’t Quiggs.

No one appealed to him like Quiggs.

No feelings? Max was miserable with pent feelings. Feelings were dull blades scraping away the flesh of a man foolish enough to let down his guard. Feelings never bled a man out. They shaved him down to a whisper of himself.

Max sat at his desk and dropped his head to his hands, utterly, absolutely miserable.

Before the day ended, Quiggs would visit a pleasure house and understand why Max had not dissented the vote to keep reciprocation mandatory to legalize wedlock. Quiggs was young, infatuated with any sex not involving his hand. Once he lost his virginity, he’d understand Max hadn’t betrayed him.

Max’s fingertips throbbed at the thought of Quiggs with another man, adding wild jealousy to his list of misery. The door opened, and his prissy receptionist stuck in his head. “Sir, you have a visitor with an urgent personal problem for your attention.”

“Tell him I’m not interested in fucking him either!”

“Why not?” asked a strained voice in the doorway.

“Quiggs?” Max lifted his head. The throbbing vanished from his fingertips and dropped to his cock. He scooted closer to the desk to hide his lap.

“We need to talk.” Quiggs closed the door. His dark brown hair was longer and showing reddish glints, the floppy part so damn cute.

Max drank him in. “You’re gaining weight.”

Quiggs pulled a face. “I ate raw goat meat and food pouches scavenged off dead bodies. I consumed wriggling larvae. Be forewarned, I’ll never diet again. You’ll have to tolerate my soft belly after we’re wed.”

“I wasn’t criticizing your weight. You wear it well. Doesn’t matter what I think since we can’t wed.” He braced himself for hurt tears and ragged pleas.

Instead, Quiggs slapped his palms on the desk. He leaned in nose to nose, his voice as flinty as his eyes. “Why didn’t you speak out before the Assembly voted? You knew how they’d vote, yet you didn’t postpone it. What changed your mind about us?”

“Before the session opened, it was brought to my attention by Dean Cagney, Professor Hines, and oh, yes, by every concerned parent with an eligible deb or son that I should keep my distance and give you time to experience wholesome sex with a friendly ass and with a real cock instead of my misshapen appendage.”

Quiggs’s eyes glittered. “What a sack of shit. You made it wonderful for me. We were never an owner and his concubine. You saw me, and I saw the real you. We both agreed the rules endangered our people, and we’re changing those rules. Add up the days, and sex is a mere fraction of our lives. Wedlock should be about two men spending a happy life together while they build a better world for all.”

Max hated arguing with Quiggs. Always so damn rational. He preferred a real fight decided by strength and weapons. “Visit a pleasure house tonight. Finish this conversation tomorrow. You’ll thank me. Dismissed.” He picked up a slate and pretended to read. Giving Quiggs room to argue was handing him an axe while your hands were tied behind your back and your head was on a chopping block.

“We’re not done talking!” Quiggs tore the slate from Max’s hands and bounced it off the back wall. The disrespect would have gotten a soldier tossed out the window. “You have this stubborn notion your feral blood prevents submission, yet Beau offered me his unconditional love. He’s half-blooded, meaning he overcame twice the resistance holding you back.”

“Did you fuck him?”

“No!” Quiggs pulled back, affronted.

“Trust me. Beau would certainly have let you try in the beginning. A newly transitioned male can submit. Later, it would have been physically impossible for him.”

“Like no stretch to his channel?” Quiggs rested his elbows on the desk. Intrigued by learning something new, he wiggled his butt like a baby goat.

“More like a painful spasm of the sphincter. A mature feral can’t tolerate penetration. I’d instinctively display and slash your throat if you attempted it.”

Quiggs scrunched up his face thinking. “How do you know you can’t tolerate penetration unless, oh, you tried?”

His face heated at Quiggs’s crooked smile. “Yes. I’ve inserted plugs. The fullness burned. My sensory hairs fired off shocks. Blind instinct took over. My claws shredded the sheets, the mattress, the pillows.”

“Did your channel tear? Because tearing earns husbands a medical dispensation.”

“No. Just painful spasms. My hairs gave me a headache for days at the insult.”

Quiggs’s voice softened. “Every cadet hates the fullness his first time. Then he adjusts. I certainly adjusted for you. The intimacy is incredible when you have feelings for your partner.” His gaze held Max’s in expectation he’d admit having them.

Max let the silence stretch. His feral reflexes overrode human feelings. If Quiggs penetrated him, Max would slash and kill and weep bitterly afterward.

Quiggs’s gaze wavered, disappointed. He hitched a hip on the side of the desk and folded his arms. “All it takes is once after we’re wed. What about using shackles and chains?”

“The sex must appear consensual. We have twenty-four hours for an exam. If you unchain me, I will not have calmed down for there to be anything left recognizable of you for the doctor to examine.”

Quiggs shrugged. “I’ll drug you to your hairline. I’ll be really quick and gentle.”

Max snorted. “Really quick? That I believe.”

Quiggs kicked his heels against the desk. He stopped and nodded to himself, then looked at Max. “I’ll sedate you until you count three heads on my neck. Shackles will provide extra security. Two sets of plug preps should loosen you. You won’t remember anything.” He stroked the ridge in his pants, voice rasping out, “I’m hard just thinking of prepping you. No problem from me hammering home a load when you’re opened.”

Max clenched his buttocks at the plan. “Find a good man. Fuck him. You’ll understand once isn’t enough. It’s like an addiction. Then you can forget me and move on.”

Quiggs walked to the window. He stood deep in thought a few minutes, rocking back and forth on his heels. Not a typical brain fog, rather a wrestling within himself. When he turned around, his green eyes regarded Max with perfect clarity. “If you care for me, your human side will overpower your feral blood and submit to me without shackles and drugs. You might even enjoy it.”

“Think it’s easy to fight my feral instincts? You’ll get yourself mauled.”

“Do you have feelings for me?”

“You know I do,” Max said softly .

Quiggs crowed with delight. He rubbed his hands together. “Commander Max Bronn, I formally challenge you to prove which is stronger—human nature or feral blood. Academic Champion against the Athletic Champion!”

What was Quiggs scheming? “A formal challenge is physical. Three rounds decide the winner. We use no weapons but our strength.”

“I understand the code. The challenged party goes first. Then it’s my turn.”

“You won’t be left standing to take a turn. This isn’t a battle of words. I’ll flatten you.”

“Give me your best shot. No holding back.” Quiggs removed his jacket and vest. He danced on the balls of his feet, jabbing, lunging.

Max rolled up his sleeves, remaining seated. “What’s the purpose of this challenge?”

“I win, we wed. You win, I walk away.”

“You think I won’t knock the wind out of you?”

“Yep. Your feelings won’t let you hit me.”

“Perhaps I’ll knock the wind out of you another way.” Max pushed his chair back and patted his lap. “A kiss. Whoever breaks it off first loses.”

Quiggs’s arms fell to his sides. He sucked his cheeks in.

“An acceptable physical weapon,” Max drawled. “Refusal to engage loses your challenge.”

“Heh. A strong mind defeats natural disinclination. I can do this.” Quiggs hopped on, grinding roughly to curtail Max’s enthusiasm. He wet his lips, lifted his chin, prepared to engage.

Max took control, whisking him sideways with Quiggs’s head falling back into the crook of his arm. Max tipped his chin up. He caught the instinctive flinch before Quiggs disguised it with a cough. “Not so easy, is it?”

Quiggs squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in as if he were about to hold his head underwater longer than Max.

Max stared down, saddened he must win the challenge for Quiggs’ s sake. What a journey they’d had their brief months together. His baby cadet had grown up. Fat had melted from the cheeks. The jaw was harder. The long nose suited him. The curls—well, the curls were just so damn cute.

Max nuzzled his clean-shaven jaw. Quiggs smelled like a groom, not a fragrant concubine. Like minty soap, crisp starch, polished leather.

Max wanted to dirty those clean smells with his seed. Until now, kissing Quiggs was like having brandy administered drop by stingy drop, the glowing warmth elusive. Max finally held the bottle.

“I’m ready. Do it.” Quiggs wrapped an arm behind Max’s neck, determined to lock himself in place so he couldn’t break away.

At the light press of Max’s lips to his, Quiggs held himself stiff as a cadet under review. Max slowly settled into the kiss, moving his head slightly side to side. From the frantic pulse in his throat, any moment now, Quiggs would bolt off his lap and heave in a waste bin. Max moaned and licked, urging Quiggs to open. The lush mouth parted in tiny increments as if he anticipated a spoonful of hot mustard slathered on his tongue.

Quiggs’s little whimper as Max’s tongue lazily circled the tip of his shattered Max’s control. Weeks of desperate need funneled into a deep, wet, filthy, consuming kiss. He debauched Quiggs’s mouth, the act as incredibly intimate as sex. He could crest by grinding against Quiggs’s ass. He lifted him atop the desk, pressing him backward without breaking the kiss. He reached beneath to grip Quiggs’s ass—his stone still ass.

Max pulled back panting, afraid Quiggs had focused to the point he’d suffocated. He found Quiggs green eyes wide open, confused, the pupils blown. His puffy lips were sloppy with drool. “Breathe, dammit!”

Quiggs sucked a ragged breath. “You broke the kiss first.” He offered his widest, brightest, wettest smile at Max’s huff of disbelief.

“I thought you were dead.”

“Doesn’t matter. I win the first round. ”

“The battle’s not over.”

Quiggs wiped a sleeve over his mouth. “I don’t hate kissing you. It’s… strange. Can’t understand why you enjoy it.” He traced Max’s ear. A tawny hair curled around his finger. “My turn.”

“You’re not sticking your finger up my ass to test—”

Max roared from the vicious yank. He fell back on the chair and rubbed the spot where Quiggs had snatched the hair from its root. The pain encircled his skull and drilled his teeth.

Quiggs sat upright, holding the limp hair, now fading white. Another was already pushing through the inflamed follicle.

“What the fuck, Quiggs!”

“Look at your hands. No claws displayed. No sensory hairs rallying in defense either. As I suspected, your body loves me no matter what I do, even though your mind thinks penetration is impossible. I win both rounds. You’re mine.”

Max held up his hands and wriggled his fingers. So steady he could thread a needle. Then he realized the risk Quiggs had taken, and a fine tremor seized them. He reached in a drawer for his flask of brandy and downed half the contents. Long swallows stinging his eyes and scorching a path to his stomach. “Never do that again,” he growled between gritted teeth.

“I had no idea it would hurt you so bad.” Quiggs stood, fumbling inside his pocket for a small jar of cream. “Hold still. Works wonders.” He dabbed the injured follicle, and the other sensory hairs flattened out of the way. “Don’t be scared,” he cooed. They patted his fingers tentatively, sending tiny warm currents. “See, Max, the little sweethearts love me.”

Max groaned, slouching back in his chair as the cream numbed the ache. “You had me figured out before you stepped through the door.”

“It depended on if you admitted having feelings for me.” Quiggs swallowed nervously. “You never actually said the words. You just agreed when I asked.”

“I’ve battled a den of ferals for you. Hacked miles of vines for you. Licked every inch of you. Risked a rebellion for you. I’ve shown you how I feel.”

“I’m not embarrassed to say I love you, Max. A few lovely, feely words from you when we recite our wedding vows would be nice.”

Max had prepared a special wedding vow three weeks ago while sitting beside Quiggs’s hospital bed watching him sleep. “Your love is a golden vessel of warm honey, and I’ve a lonely heart wide open to receive it.”

Quiggs whistled. “Oh, fuck. That’s good. I wrote a bad limerick.”

Max slipped on his jacket. “I want Professor Hines for the exam tomorrow. If I’m only doing this once, I want the best expert on assholes.”

“Aw, Max, once? What about special occasions like anniversaries, birthdays? Days when my inventions work?”

“No promises. Still want to wed me?”

Quiggs wrapped his arms around Max’s waist and gazed up at him through his lashes. “I’ll figure something out.”