Chapter 14
LYN
I can now say very confidently that I am unable to orgasm without, specifically, the touch of Kaelion Rhyss.
Fuck.
Double, triple fuck.
Orin and I lay in bed propped up on the pillows, me in a t-shirt and underwear, him in sweats. We pass a joint laced with some alien shit back and forth, but even that isn’t enough to help me wind down.
I still need to come. Haven’t come.
And I won’t come until I either fix my brain or give in and breach every ethical boundary in galactic history.
“Okay, so…you gonna explain to me what’s going on or are we just getting high?” Orin asks, looking at me sidelong. “Do you want me to go?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Yes…maybe.”
“I can leave the weed if that’s what this is about.”
I sigh, letting my head drop back to stare at the ceiling. “I think I really fucked myself up,” I mutter.
He hums. “Yeah, that’s…usually the point.”
I flick him in the ribs, and it reminds me of Kaelion doing the same thing to me and nearly giving me an orgasm.
Oh…oh to be flicked by Kaelion fucking Rhyss.
“I’m serious,” I say. “Something’s wrong with me.”
He studies me. “Wrong how?”
I hesitate, then hold my hand out for the joint again and take a long drag. It’s smoother than the stuff back home, a little sweet, too. Merati drugs, maybe. I don’t know.
“Okay,” I say. “You remember last week when Thalara met me at the clinic? Lab accident.”
“Yeah, scared the hell out of all of us.”
“I appreciate your confidence in me.”
“Apparently the lack of it wasn’t misplaced.”
I pass the joint back to him. “Touché. Anyway…the accident was funny at first—because my pain translator turned out to cause arousal. Like, intense arousal. Orgasm. On the lab floor.”
He snorts, a puff of smoke coming out and making him cough.
“Are you fucking serious?”
“Deadly,” I reply. “So I tried out the device like a dumbass, ended up writhing on the floor and moaning…and who comes in but Rhyss? Of course, because he gets notified when anyone goes into his lab.”
I pause.
“Then…then it turns out that every time he touches me, it makes me horny. Beyond horny. A flick can make me come, I shit you not. And at first we think it might be all touch, like I’m basically a raw nerve and anyone could just tilt me right over the edge—”
“Which obviously turned out not to be true, unless I suck at this and never knew it,” Orin says.
“Yeah, it’s not you,” I laugh. “It’s just…him. And apparently it is only him, because I can’t get off on my own or with another partner.”
Orin doesn’t reply.
I look at him.
He looks…smug as hell.
“I don’t even want to know what the fuck you’re about to say,” I mutter.
“Too bad,” he says. “I’m going to say it anyway.”
I groan.
“You should fuck him.”
I open my eyes again and stare at Orin. “Are you kidding?”
“No,” he says. “Look, you joke about it all the time, and at first I thought it was just to freak Thalara out…but it’s cool, I get it. He’s hot. Big brain energy plus he clearly works out.”
“That is not helpful,” I snap.
“It is if you think real hard about it while using that janky bullet you keep in your drawer.”
“Did you just admit to snooping in my drawer?”
“I don’t snoop,” he says. “I look for useful tools. Lyn, I’ve used it on you before—”
“And thank you very much for that, but it isn’t helpful now,” I say. “Like I said…it’s not even the fantasy that does it. I tried that. It’s physical touch.”
“Okay, so it’s physical,” Orin says. “What’s the plan, then? You gonna ask him to help out for science? Rub one out in the name of research?”
I snort. “He would never. Dude is a rule-follower to the extreme.”
“I know,” Orin deadpans. “He’s a brooding, tortured, emotionally unavailable, morally upright space daddy. Horrible.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah…about that. He’s also a dad. Like a real, legitimate dad, with a kid. A kid who is visiting right now, so I can’t exactly kick his door in and demand he fuck me.”
Orin raises both eyebrows. “Like a dad dad?”
I nod. “Mmhm. With an adorable child and everything.”
“Shit,” Orin says, then grins. “That…actually makes him kind of hotter?”
I throw a pillow at him.
He flinches. “What? It does! Tell me he isn’t a DILF.”
“Even after fucking you as many times as I have, you still somehow gross me out.”
“You’re not grossed out,” he says. “You don’t get grossed out. You’re just mad because you actually like him and someone’s finally calling you out on it.”
“Fine,” I say. “I’m grossed out by feelings and not by sex. Whatever.”
“The question is why?”
I frown. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m actually asking.”
“Okay,” I say, looking up at the ceiling.
“Let’s pose a hypothetical where we sleep together.
That’s bad enough, right? It means that he can’t be trusted to approve projects, funding, so on…
it means that he can no longer be impartial when it comes to anything regarding me working in his lab.
We would have to keep it secret, and even then, I wouldn’t know if I could trust that he’s making choices because of the work, or because of me. ”
I pause.
“And if we wanted to start a relationship? It gets worse. Then maybe the university has to get involved…I might have to move to a different lab, even though all my work has been here. And he is the best. I’m not going to find another bio-tech engineer who can do what he does.
It’s not realistic. Not even really in the realm of possibility. ”
Orin is quiet for a moment, then he exhales and passes me the joint again before stretching his arms behind his head.
“I think you need this more than I do,” he says.
I take a drag. “Yeah…I think so too.”
“Not for the reasons you think.”
I look at him.
“Lyn, this isn’t just in the realm of possibility at this point. It’s the only possibility.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re already planning around it,” he says.
“Otherwise you wouldn’t have thought about all the what if’s like you have.
You’ve considered your options…and it’s not just because of the orgasm thing either.
You want to talk to him about it. You want to be in his bed.
I mean—tell me you didn’t think about calling him before you called me. ”
I scoff. “Orin, it’s not like that.”
“I’m not offended,” he says. “This thing between us? We’re friends, it’s cool. I’m not hurt. But I also am well aware there’s more to this than you’re letting on.”
“You’re drawing a hell of a lot of conclusions.”
“Because I know you.”
“And what if the feelings are because of the translator too?” I ask. “What if it’s all the translator and it’s going to fade and then…what if I fuck up my whole life all for an artificial attraction?”
“I think that’s the risk people take for love, right?” he shrugs. “Artificial or not.”
I scowl. “I’m not in love with him.”
“Not yet.”
I peer over at him, narrowing my eyes. “You know you’re very wise for a fuckboy.”
“I try.”
We lapse into silence again. The joint is nearly gone, burned down to its last few embers. I stub it out in an empty glass on the side table and let my head fall back again, staring at the ceiling like it might rearrange my neurons into something resembling order.
“Do you think it’ll fade?” I ask quietly. “The effect?”
Orin tilts his head toward me, thoughtful. “You said it’s neurological, right? Some kind of feedback loop?”
“Yeah. We think the translator rerouted certain signals—pain got refiled under arousal. But then…it got localized. Or personalized. And now it only seems to work when he touches me.”
“And you’re sure it’s not psychological?”
“I was sure,” I mutter. “Now I’m not. Now I’m spiraling. Now I’m questioning every single time I’ve ever been attracted to anyone. What if this whole thing has always been chemical and I just didn’t know it?”
Orin snorts. “Lyn, all attraction is chemical. That doesn’t make it less real.”
I glance over at him. “You’re being way too emotionally competent for a guy who once tried to start a threesome in a public bathroom.”
“That was culturally sanctioned,” he says. “It was during Lumentide. I was showing respect for Merati culture.”
We both laugh, and it feels good. Light. Needed.
I curl onto my side, facing him. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“You don’t have to,” he says. “Just…don’t lie to yourself about what you want.”
I nod slowly.
Then: “Do you want to sleep here?”
“I thought I already was.”
“Not like that,” I clarify. “Like actually sleep. No trying anything.”
He smirks. “I don’t make moves on emotionally vulnerable scientists. I have standards.”
I roll my eyes. “You have kinks.”
“Those are my standards.”
We laugh again. He reaches out and tugs the blanket higher over both of us, then flops back and closes his eyes like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
And even though I’m glad he’s here, even though I’m grateful for his friendship and his jokes and his stupid, instinctive wisdom…this isn’t what I want.
I want Kaelion Rhyss.
I want him here.
And I have no idea when that’s going to stop.