Saved by the Rat (Necromancer)

2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Alaric

Robin— damned if I was going to think of him as Mr. Forrest in my own head— sat on the workbench, his pants around his thighs, his surprisingly thick cock erect and glistening with my spit. His eyes were a pure blue that should’ve seemed innocent in his youthful face, but somehow… didn’t.

He’d told me to kneel. Now he waited in carven stillness to see if I’d obey orders. With my hands behind me, no less.

Part of me rebelled at that idea. Most of me. I usually topped and I never knelt. But some unfamiliar element deep in my gut, or maybe my groin, vibrated like a tuning fork hit with exactly the right note.

I can. This time. Just once. To protect my secrets.

After all, the whole reason I’d seduced Robin was to keep him from seeing the runes I’d chalked on the front of that damned cabinet. There was something very unwholesome about that piece of furniture. Unfortunately, I hadn’t had time for any specific tests before I’d heard his footsteps coming my way. I’d barely managed to jump back from the cabinet and meet him in the doorway, to head him off before he saw white chalk on black wood.

Robin had laughed about the sorcerer who’d owned that piece, called magic “smoke and mirrors.” Which was fine, ideal even— the Great Spell was designed to make ordinary humans believe that we sorcerers were a joke, feeble and useless, party entertainment, good for maybe laying Aunt Lucy’s ghost if she started throwing potholders around the kitchen. We were safer when humans didn’t see the huge underwater part of the sorcery iceberg. The Upheavals of the nineties had shown how dangerous life became if humans grew afraid of us.

Odds were, Robin would laugh off my magical attempt to get that cabinet to open, too. But the symbols would attract his attention to the piece and mark me as other , weird , not quite human . I preferred to keep that secret.

So I had a good reason for going to my knees.

A real reason, not just that hum in my body that made my cock hard as steel and my knees want to bend. Bend to this juvenile, short, annoying, superior, pipsqueak of a boss who sat there, bare-ass naked on a workbench, and stared at me until I locked my hands behind me and sank to the floor.

“Well done.” His voice was as light as you’d expect from a guy who couldn’t top a hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet, but he achieved a note of confidence that made me want to hear those words again.

To keep him busy. Nothing else.

Robin slid off the bench, landing lightly on his feet, his slim thighs still trapped in pinstripe chambray and navy cotton. His cock bobbed in front of my face. I leaned forward and took him into my mouth.

Here at least I could take command, suck him as fast or as slow as I chose. I’d control his pleasure, his climax.

Except he set his hands on my head, dug his fingers into my hair, and said, “Let me?”

I froze, my head pinned in his grip. He eased his cockhead out from my lips and said, “I want to fuck your face. Yes or no?”

No! But also, yes.

I liked sucking cock. I didn’t mind the guy in my mouth getting enthusiastic, as long as I was on top and in control. This was different. I’d barely known Robin a week, had no certainty to trust him. There was no reason his hands tugging at my hair should make the blood rush to my groin. His blue eyes on mine should’ve been easy to refuse. I opened my mouth to say no, but what came out was, “Yes.”

“So good.” The warmth of his words caressed me as he set his fat cock against my lips. “Open up for me.”

Last chance to say no. My lips parted.

Robin pushed into my mouth, pausing halfway. “If you need me to stop, unlock your hands and tap my thigh. Now. How much can you take?”

More than you’ve got. I sucked hungrily.

He chuckled under his breath. “Like that, huh? All right.”

With building intensity, Robin drove his cock deeper, then eased back. His hands fisted tighter and tighter on my hair, pinning me in place as he rocked his hips. The first taste of slick precum welled across my tongue. The smell of his groin, of man and musk and clean sweat, filled my nose, and I hollowed my cheeks around him.

“Ah, fuck, yeah. Good job.” Robin thrust faster.

He was close to choking me now, and yet I relished the challenge. My body sang with the fullness of my mouth around him, and the sharp tug of pain in my scalp when I resisted. I felt alive, powerful, eager even as he held me and controlled me. I ignored the trickle of spit down my chin and the growing dampness in my shorts to focus on giving the best damned blow job Robin had ever known.

Our breaths echoed, his fast and shallow through full, parted lips; mine stuttered, gasping around the gagging length of Robin’s dick. He began grunting in rhythm as he fucked my mouth, his cock driving along my tongue and against my palate, bumping the back of my throat and making my eyes water. The taste of him grew stronger and more bitter. I tried to use my tongue and lips, but Robin was driving and I had to relax into letting him use my mouth whatever way he chose.

He pulled my hair sharply, changing the angle, and sank deep enough I couldn’t breathe at all. “Jesus, so good. The mouth on you.” For an instant he stayed there as my throat spasmed around him, then he eased back till just the fat, precum-slicked head sat between my lips.

I inhaled a shaky breath around him and put my tongue to good use.

“I’m so damned close.” He rocked in an inch, then retreated, rocked forward again. “Fuck. So close. If you don’t want my load, tap out now.”

Fuck that. I sucked eagerly.

“Ah. God, yeah.” Robin took up his rhythm again. “Ngh. Hell, all right. Fuck. Fuck. So good. So good!” He drove in and froze as his cock bucked against my palate. “Ah!” He clamped his hands on my head, pinning me, and bitter spunk filled my mouth, the taste reminding me why I never swallowed. Except for Robin. Except for now. I sucked him down, swallowed over and over, let him feel my throat ripple around him. I took his taste eagerly, giving what I so rarely offered, and the moment felt incredibly right. Robin groaned and shuddered as he came for me.

When he was done shaking, he let go of my hair and eased out. I raised my head and was caught in his intent gaze.

Robin stroked the hair back off my forehead. “That was awesome. Are you okay?”

I blinked at him, words escaping me.

“Do you want to come?”

His words brought me back to the aching now, yes, please that throbbed in my groin. That awareness let me rasp, “Hell, yeah.” I licked my dry lips.

“Jerk yourself, then,” Robin told me. “Let me see.”

Whatever else I’d hoped for was lost in the urgent need to come, right the hell now, in any way possible. I fumbled my jeans open, got my cock out of my shorts, and closed my dry hand around my shaft. My vision tunneled, dark around the edges, as I drove my dick through my fist once, twice— relief flashed through me in a firestorm of release. At the last moment, I managed to turn and avoid shooting all over Robin’s slacks. Instead, pulse after pulse of jizz hit the tile floor as I shook and gasped and pumped myself dry.

“Oh fuck.” I shivered. My cock squeezed out one last drip. Unclamping my hand, I sat back on my heels and stared at the mess on the floor. My brain reeled and floated, untethered from my body. I jumped as Robin stroked my hair again, tucking a strand into place.

He chuckled. “You’re so fucking hot.”

I coughed. “You’re not bad yourself.”

Robin took a step to the side and pulled his clothes up, zipping, buttoning. He reached behind him, snagged the leather belt, and slid its length between his fingers with his eyes on me. I remembered that instant when he’d wrapped the leather around my wrists. I didn’t like bondage, never had, but my traitor dick gave a last helpless twitch at that memory.

From the wicked grin that grew on Robin’s face, he noticed and was remembering that same moment, but he threaded his belt back through the loops without commenting. I clenched my sticky hands together because I had an instant’s desire to offer to do that for him. Stand close, wrap the leather around his waist— No.

A quick scan of the room showed me a sink in the back corner. I pushed to my feet, got myself tucked away, my jeans zipped, then went over to wash the spunk off my hands.

“Can I get you anything?” Robin asked.

I was going to say no and rinse my mouth under the tap when I remembered the reason I’d gone through with this seduction in the first place. Not for this buzz along my nerves like nothing I’d felt before, not for the heady pleasure of seeing that light in Robin’s eyes, but for business. Sorcerer’s business. “Would you bring me a water? Or soda?”

“We have both. What would you like?”

My head still spun and I wasn’t capable of any decisions. “Surprise me. I like it all.”

“Right. Give me a minute.” Robin opened the door a crack, checked through it, then let himself out and shut the door behind him.

As soon as he was gone, I grabbed a couple of damp paper towels from the sink and hurried over to the cabinet.

Its aura hadn’t been sweetened by watching our hot sex. Something nasty simmered in there. But if I hadn’t been able to get the doors open with straightforward magic, then at least no one else would find it easy either. I pondered my options as I swiped away my chalk runes with a damp towel.

I’d offer to buy the cabinet, I decided, and if that failed and I couldn’t get the doors open with one more fast spell tonight, I’d have to steal it. Leaving that malevolence smoldering in Robin’s private workshop wasn’t safe.

Magnus Fairborn had been far from a joke, and the only mirrors or smoke around him were sulfur fumes from the demons he’d summoned when his quest for power turned dark. One of which had killed him, to no one’s disappointment, although banishing the demons had wiped out our two local necromancers for a week.

As always, when a sorcerer died, two members of our local council had gone straight to his house before the corpse was cold to remove any books and artifacts that we didn’t want humans to see. We always tried to clear away the evidence of magic before the heirs arrived. Corbin and Naismith had left with a truckload of books and tools and devices that desperately needed burning. And yet, somehow, they’d missed the cabinet.

I’d have called that mistake sloppiness, except I’d worked in the Three Rs for a week now, searching magically in my private moments for traces of Fairborn’s goods, and my seeking spells had noticed nothing in this room till I saw the cabinet with my own eyes.

The dark, hand-carved wenge wood was ideal for holding power, but still… Usually, when a sorcerer died, his magic faded with him. This time, the hiding and lock spells on the cabinet were still going strong. Either they were someone else’s work, or Fairborn had infused a shit-ton of power into them before his death.

Or they were powered by something else. Something that didn’t want to be found. Like the book. The reason I was here.

Because once she’d recovered from exhaustion, Necromancer Sylvanwood had returned to Fairborn’s house to make sure all the demons were truly gone, and she’d found a ghost. Some unfortunate apprentice, dead by supposed accident two decades back, whose tattered, insubstantial, almost-lost form warned about “The book. Kimber’s Death Rites. He hid it. Destroy the book.” Sylvanwood hadn’t been able to get more than those words, over and over, out of the poor specter, and eventually she’d given it mercy and laid the ghost.

But in the week between Fairborn's death and Sylvanwood's recheck, while Fairborn’s home had stood untenanted, his sister had showed up, co-ownership papers in hand, and brought in a company to sell, discard, and donate all the house’s contents. Fairborn’s goods were scattered to the four winds, and the book with them.

Our council meeting had been… in generous terms, vigorous. Loud. Acrimonious. Kimber’s Death Rites was a notorious black magic tome, of which perhaps a dozen copies were supposed to still exist around the world. The knowledge that one had been in our community and then slipped through our fingers was nauseating. The discovery of how far down the dark path Magnus Fairborn had gone also made us all look at each other with distrust. Fairborn hadn’t come to our meetings in a decade, no doubt to hide the growing demon taint in his magic, but he’d once sat around that same mahogany table, talking about how to keep the local community safe and well.

Which of us should be trusted to hunt down a dangerous book of great evil? Who among us might be hiding the same lust for power that had driven Fairborn?

In the end, we’d done the only thing we could do, which was to share the search for the book in logical ways. Since I worked for myself, I could take a week off from my PI business to check out the perennially short-staffed Three Rs store where the dregs of his estate had been donated. Using seeking runes, I’d scoured the stock for magical items. A few bits and pieces in boxes had held a sour residue and I’d stolen a couple for destruction before retaping the cartons, but nothing had glowed dark like the book would. I could’ve quit after four days, reassured, but something had made me stay longer.

Something? Premonition? Or your cock hoping for a chance with “Mr. Forrest?”

I didn’t answer my inner voice, which seemed to be channeling my familiar, Harry.

As if thinking about the rat had conjured him, I heard Harry’s sharp voice from the corner of the workshop. “Smells like you got a bit of fucking done, anyhow. Any actual work accomplished?”

I straightened from wiping off the chalk and gestured at the cabinet with my thumb. “The longer I hang about that thing, the more certain I am the book’s in it. The aura stinks.”

Harry scrunched his pointed nose at the cabinet, whiskers twitching. Then he blinked his beady eyes twice. “Fuck me sideways with a spoon.” He nodded to me. “I looked in this room three times this week. Didn’t once notice that great hulking mess of dark magic. How—” He cut himself short and scurried under the workbench.

Robin came back in with a can of pop in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. He held out the water as he kicked the door shut again behind him. “Here. Are you all right?”

I gave him my best superior stare and a cool tone. “Of course. Why?”

Most men backed down when I treated them to Alaric-the-cold-bastard. Robin got a glitter in his eyes. “Because I fucked your pretty mouth hard, and I hope you’re not regretting it.”

No one had ever called me pretty, in any way. I didn’t like it. Much. I twisted the cap off the bottle and poured cool water down my throat. Which Robin had fucked. Big mistake. I’m distracted as hell. I couldn’t manage to regret seducing him, though. Because it worked, of course. “You weren’t that rough.”

Robin’s eyes darkened and he ran the tip of his tongue around the rim of his pop can.

I ignored the effect on my apparently not-fully-spent dick. “By the way, I’m a fan of old furniture. What will you sell this armoire for?” I waved at the cabinet. “It would fit well in my study.”

“It needs a lot of refinishing.” Robin eyed the piece, his head tilted. “Once that’s complete, maybe eight hundred? Although I’m thinking of keeping that one. It’s unique.”

Damn. “I’d love to learn refinishing,” I lied. “Maybe I could buy that cabinet as is and bring it home, and you could come over to give me lessons .” I gave his crotch a suggestive leer.

Robin shook his head. “Without all the right power tools, you’d spend months working on it. I tried a little sandpaper and whatever that wood is, it’s hard as hell. I have all the equipment here.” Then he broke into a wicked grin, making my stupid dick twitch again. “If you want to learn refinishing, I work here in the evenings after we’re closed. You could come on back, and I could teach you a few things.”

I managed a matching smile. I couldn’t make headway with opening the cabinet if I was working under his supervision, but maybe I could finagle some alone time with that hulk of malevolent furniture. “I’ll take you up on that offer.” I licked my lips to suggest it wasn’t the cabinet I meant. “Are you working tonight?”

“Tonight?” Robin chuckled. “Eager, are we? Sadly, I have to do some shopping and there’s an online chat group I should check in with. Friday?”

“Friday, then.” I didn’t show my relief at having a clear field tonight. I’d break in and take a real shot at the cabinet, unhampered by time and noise limits. I had plenty of tricks I hadn’t tried. If I still failed, I could persuade someone to help me steal it on Thursday.

“We need to get back to work.” Robin tugged his shirt straighter and buttoned his jacket. “I guess tomorrow I can skip the managerial costume and come in jeans. And you might as well call me Robin. Unless you prefer Mr. Forrest? It does have a ring to it.”

I lowered my eyes demurely. “Yes, Mr. Forrest.”

Robin threw his head back and laughed. Watching out of the corner of my eye, I was caught by a powerful desire to grab him and bend him over his workbench. Or perhaps vice versa. The lines had become a bit blurred.

Since this was neither the time nor the place, I followed him out onto the warehouse floor and headed back to help take the hardware off the newly delivered doors. I noted that Robin paused, five paces outside his workshop, then went back and locked the door.

Harry would be fine— there were very few spaces a rat couldn’t get out of, or into— but I wondered what made Robin decide on that lock. I’d opened the door without a problem last time.

There was no way Robin knew what that cabinet was. I’d checked all the employees with my Othersight the first day, and none of them held more than a wisp of magical talent. So what had changed to make him wary? If he doubted my honesty that much, he surely wouldn’t have fucked me.

Or maybe he would. How much of a risk-taker is Robin?

It bothered me that I couldn’t decide. It also bothered me that the idea of him fucking me while restraining me and imagining I was some kind of thief struck me as hot. I’d been mostly vanilla in my sexual tastes until now. After a week of staring at Robin striding around in his suits, and now finding myself on my knees, I was discovering desires I didn’t recognize.

By the time the Three Rs closed its doors at six p.m., I was hot and sweaty and plastered with dust. There was some satisfaction in seeing the stripped oak doors sized, stacked, and labeled, and all the hardware sorted, lubed, and put into bins. We’d already had a remodeler come by and buy ten of the antique hinges right out of my hands, so reuse was already happening. I hadn’t realized this place existed until the Council meeting, but I could imagine volunteering now and then, for a good cause.

Harry was waiting for me under my car in the employee lot. I paused, holding the door open while blocking the view with my legs so he could jump in, then got in after him. He sat on the passenger seat cleaning his whiskers, as I headed for home.

“Any luck checking out the cabinet?” I asked as I pulled up to the first stop sign.

“Nope. It’s an odd one. Got a spell on it, sure enough, that makes me half-forget about it when I turn away. No markings on the outside that I can see, but that nasty, greasy magic taste if I pay attention. I didn’t want to touch the wood.”

“Agreed.” I’d made sure chalk, or paper towel, stayed between my fingers and the surface of the cabinet. “Whatever’s inside, book or not, Fairborn was protecting the contents with a lot of magic. Which means we need to get it open and look.”

“Need to put the whole thing on the flames, if you ask me.” Harry chattered his teeth. “Solve the problem quick and easy.”

“Except then we’ll never know if the Kimber was in there or we still need to look for the book elsewhere. I have to open the compartments before any burning.”

“Fair enough. You got a plan?”

“Depends on what you have for me.”

Harry grinned, baring yellow incisors. “I have the spare back door key, hidden behind a rock. And I have the alarm code. No one looks overhead when they punch those things in. Unless I want ’em to look up, of course.”

“About that.” I rubbed my scraped arm. “You couldn’t find a less dramatic way to get Robin out of that workshop?”

“Not as quick and easy.” Harry would never admit he liked startling people, but he sure did. “And it’s ‘Robin’ now? What happened to ‘Mr. Forrest?’”

“I fucked him.” Or he fucked me, which was none of Harry’s business. “Anyway, he said he wouldn’t be there tonight. We’ll give him a couple of hours to finish closing and leave, and then we’ll head back.”

“You might have a shower first,” Harry suggested. “Look respectable in case the cops stop by.”

“Let’s hope they don’t.” I doubted there was more than one security system. If I had the alarm code, we should be safe. But a shower sounded like heaven anyway.