Chapter 12 #2
He tilted his head. “Yes. It would be better if all bagua followed the Raiken system. Some do not. Lissir’s house won’t, but his father sent him and his brother anyway, hoping to open a new future for the entire house.
In Anga, they do it differently still, but they are far away.
And the Koa Esher hold with the old ways.
” He made a disgusted, hissing noise. “The very old ways.”
“Oh, the cola ash people Fellisse mentioned? What’s their deal?”
Inkiri switched from one of my feet to the other. “Not for you to worry about, sweet thing. Just relax.” He grinned at me. “I didn’t know humans change color in the water. You look like a billet bean in the cooking pot.”
I wasn’t sure whether that was supposed to be some sort of insult, so to be on the safe side, I tried to give him a withering look.
With a pang, I remembered Cat had said my withering looks only made me appear badly constipated.
In order to get over that involuntary memory, I tried pulling my foot free, but Inkiri wouldn’t let me.
I groaned. “Fine. You can keep my foot if you tell me why you all hate the cola ash people so much.”
“Koa Esher. Everyone dislikes them because they chose a…questionable way to keep what magic they had in their house’s bloodline intact.”
What Vergis had said fell into place. “You mean the cola ash are those inbred mages Vergis mentioned.”
Inkiri inclined his head. “In essence.”
“Wait, is a house, like, a family?” If so, that was really unfortunate for the cola ash folks. Very Hills Have Eyes and all that.
Inkiri shook his head, and the way the moisture clung to his ibex horns made me stare. They looked almost bedazzled. Pretty. I ached to touch them.
“Houses are bigger than human families, usually. I’m not sure what would fit it best in your world, but there are staff and alliances through matings, artisans who swear loyalty. Houses can grow very big.”
The whole thing sounded way more intricate than I’d expected.
I had no idea how it was working out for them, but then, I wouldn’t necessarily go around and advertise democracy since that could also fail pretty badly.
On top of which, I really hated politics.
It seemed more depressing than anything else until someone remembered the guillotine in the basement, and that didn’t happen nearly often enough.
My eyes went back to Inkiri’s horns, and we sat there in silence while the magpies cawed their evening song outside.
In the end, I decided to just go for it, and asked, “Can I touch them?”
“Touch what?”
“Your horns.” I pointed.
Inkiri smiled. Then he pulled me toward him and shifted so I ended up sitting across his lap. “You can touch them all you want, sweet thing. But in exchange, I would like to practice kissing you some more.”
Well, okay. He had succeeded in luring me into the bath just so he could have his wicked way with me.
I had committed to letting him—in my own head, at least—but using him in any way, be it for food or for safety, felt more complicated now that I knew he was…
such a person. Not just some abstract blue monster I could fantasize about.
That made everything a lot more complicated than I’d thought it would.
I was too scared and too much of a wuss to contemplate how to handle these complications though, how to uncomplicate them. Which was why I smiled and nodded and gave him my best damsel doe eyes.
He cupped my neck and pressed his lips to mine.
The roughness of his tongue made me shiver—an involuntary reaction, same as the involuntary reaction happening under the water’s surface.
Inkiri took the additional access I gave him when my mouth opened on a contented sigh that made me sound desperate for more.
While I reveled in how our tongues played against each other, Inkiri reached for my right hand and guided it up to his horn. I had no idea how much he could feel, but I was careful just in case as I explored the ridges perpendicular to its length.
Inkiri made sonorous noises deep in his chest that had to be pleasure. When he shifted from kissing to zeroing in on my neck again, I could tell exactly what he wanted.
With my other hand, I reached between his legs to find his large cock erect and ready.
“Rory, precious Rory,” he mumbled against my neck. “Sadir. My sweet human mate.”
It was the soft, near breakable yet certain quality of his voice that made me stop and push him back. He didn’t need much pushing at all though. He stopped and gazed down at me, expectant. Waiting. Willing to wait if it was what I wanted.
For no good reason I could see, my grandmother’s voice rose to the surface of my memories. “Love is a rope tied between two poles,” she’d told me, even before I had any idea at all what that really meant. Not that I knew what it meant now.
“I think I like you,” I said. Whispered. I blushed. “Like, a lot.”
He clicked. “I treasure that as I treasure all of you, now and forever after.”
My heart thundered and my breath hitched. This, right here in the bathtub, was another moment the likes of which normally only happened in movies.
I looked up at him. “I don’t… I really think I want to try. Being with you? Only if you don’t call me a millet bean ever again.”
He laughed, and I felt it vibrate from his body to mine. “A billet bean, sweet thing. You might think differently when I feed you the candy they’re used for, but you have my word.” He licked my neck.
I cleared my throat and nodded. “Okay, fine.” I took a deep breath. “In that case, uhm I would like to propose. A thing. Which I would like to propose to you. Now.”
“I understand what propose means.” Inkiri was still preoccupied with lavishing attention on my neck.
“No, jeez. I knew that. I mean, like, you remember how I said I haven’t ever…you know. Had sex. Before! Because I’m counting last night as bidding bon voyage to my virginity, but then, you know, how I said no penetration? And you went, ‘oh, but I would have liked your little cock’?”
None of my rambling stopped him from licking my throat with that glorious, rough tongue of his. “I did not call your cock little then, because I hadn’t even seen it.”
“Can you stop focusing on the size of my cock already?”
“Sweet thing, you said it’s normal-sized, and I believe you.”
I rolled my eyes, but the things he was doing with his tongue really were distracting.
“I just want your big monster cock inside me, okay? Because I think I’d like that. Whenever I… When I’ve thought about that, I always, uhm, imagined taking it, you know?”
“You imagined taking my cock inside you?”
“Really any cock,” I said, turning millet bean red.
“Ah. You want many lovers after all.”
“No! Darn it. My point here is, I like receiving. Well, I think I do. And maybe I would like to try it with you? I definitely want to try it with you. But I never have, and—”
He kissed me on the mouth, effectively shutting me up. When I was moaning against his lips, he pulled back.
“You’re scared? About being opened up?”
For the sake of fudge, did he have to say it like that? If those millet beans were crimson, they weren’t red enough to compare to my shade of embarrassment right then. I felt my Adam’s apple bob, and all I could do was nod.
Inkiri acknowledged that with a low click. “I know to be gentle when opening a partner up, sweet thing. You don’t have to be worried. Pleasure will outweigh the discomfort of newness, if bagua and humans are anything alike at all.”
I nodded and cleared my throat. “We…uh. We’re agreed. I mean, on where it goes?”
He tilted his head back and forth. “You mean, where inside you I put my cock?” I splashed and yelped when he reached between my legs. “I’ll put it right here.” He located my hole on the first try, circling it with a finger.
I nodded. “Yeah. Yes, there.”
He smiled at me, and instead of taking his hand away, he continued to circle that spot between my cheeks. “I’m happy. I was scared my lack of boobs would leave you wanting.”
I didn’t know if this was the most embarrassing bathroom sex anyone had ever set out to have, but it had to be up there. Like, in the top five. At a minimum. And the embarrassment was completely of my own making, so I only had myself to blame.
I raised my chin and faced him. “For your information, I’m gay.
Very gay. I took theater even though I suck at it, badly, but I was good at painting the background.
Whatever. I just said the thing about the boobs because I didn’t—I mean.
I thought you would ravish me. Uh. No, I mean.
Like, I was maybe a little afraid of you?
So I lied. I think maybe I like the ravishing.
Consensual ravishing, you know? Just in case you ever want to. Ravish me. Consensually.”
Way to go, Rory. Way. To. Go.
Inkiri clicked, undeterred by my awkwardness.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to do to you, sweet thing.
Nothing you don’t want. But you need to relax, hmm?
You can’t take a cock if you aren’t relaxed.
” That made me anything but relaxed. Hard, it made me hard.
And Inkiri, with his hand still between my legs, noticed.
“Very nice, sweet thing, but I need you to move.”
“O-okay?” I let him guide me until I was facing him, my knees on either side of his hips, my hands on his shoulders.
“Good.”
Like this, I was all open to him, and he started taking advantage of that right away by running his hands up and down my back, then settling them on my butt cheeks. He squeezed and kneaded, and all through it, he watched my face.
“You…are you sure you’ve never done this? With a human?”