Chapter 22
LYN
You crawl out of the sex nest for a couple damn hours and suddenly you realize how incredibly fucked you are.
And no, I'm not just fucked in the fun way…although I am absolutely fucked in the fun way. I'm also fucked in the you-got-fucking-wrecked-by-your-supe-last-night way.
And it feels like everybody knows.
It feels that way when Thalara texts me first thing to ask if we can get coffee…then when Orin texts me to ask if I'm okay. It especially feels that way when I walk of shame through Mythara Village in Kaelion Rhyss’s shirt, for fucks sake.
I fucked up.
I have never hesitated to admit when I fucked up.
But it felt so good.
Even given that I'm hardwired to his touch right now, he's good in bed. Great, even. He uses his tendrils like fingers, he talks neuroscience to me (which for me is the dirtiest kind of dirty talk), and those clasper things on his cock…?
I didn't know they had those.
It makes it—it puts a whole new spin on things.
And beyond that…the care. The instructions. The “put your hands here” and “hold still” and “just ride it out, I've got you.”
I'm actually blushing when I get back to my place in the village.
Christ.
I strip off Kaelion’s shirt and throw it on the back of a chair like it’s a live grenade, then I pad over to my desk—bare feet, shorts, bra—and fire up my computer.
I want to look at the data, try to figure out what the hell is going on with me…
see if anything's changed. I pick up the vitals cuff I keep on my desk, then slide it onto my wrist.
Pulse is…elevated from my walk, but normal. Temp too. I give myself a little pinch and my pain response is normal, no orgasms.
My eyes flick toward my bedroom.
The real test is if I'll be able to jerk off…if maybe I just needed the reward of Kaelion's touch to balance out my nervous system and go back to normal.
I narrow my eyes and head resolutely to the bedroom, where I yank my bedside table drawer open and grab my dildo. I practically rip my pants off before flopping into my bed, spreading my legs, and pressing my vibrator directly to my clit—
“Oh fuck,” I curse as arousal rockets through me.
I'm already almost there, so fast it's a little startling. Yes…yes, yes, thank fuck, Kaelion's dick cured me. I race toward orgasm, almost there, almost there…
And it just…stops.
Fuck me.
I let out a loud growl and roll out of bed, then I'm striding into the kitchen and yanking a candy bar out of the cabinet.
Common sense and adulthood be damned, this is a candy-for-breakfast day.
This…it's bad. God, the sex was good, but I can't just go crawling back to him every time I want to come. This isn't sustainable. It isn't reasonable. If I went back now, his daughter would catch me, and his dog rat snake thing hates me, and he's my supervisor and I should be ashamed…
…but the sex.
The sex was so good.
And…I like him?
A knock sounds at the door and I snap my head toward it, half-hoping it's him, knowing it won't be. I try to ignore it, but the knock comes again, so I stalk toward the door and look through the peephole.
Riley and Thalara.
Why the…
…oh shit. Oh shit, we were supposed to get brunch at this tucked away little Jotunbei meadery today.
And I am still not wearing pants.
I race to my room and snatch up a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, tugging them on in a hurry. I'm still frazzled as all hell when I get to the door, flinging it open.
Riley and Thalara look like I just caught them in the middle of something.
I am…way too stressed out to even ask.
“Hey,” I say. “Sorry, I was just…uh, having breakfast.”
Thalara's eyes slide to the right, where my open candy bar is discarded on my desk.
“Candy-for-breakfast day?” she asks.
Riley’s eyes narrow. “Shit. You okay, dude?”
This is the problem with people who know you well: they don’t buy your bullshit, and they don’t let you change the subject.
“Yeah,” I say finally, stepping aside to let them in. “I’m peachy. Come in before the whole village decides to hold a tribunal about my breakfast choices.”
Riley snorts and ducks past me, immediately clocking the oversized button-up drapes over my office chair. Thalara sees it too, and I'm certain she knows exactly who it belongs to when her golden eyes go wide.
“Lyn,” she breathes. “You didn't.”
I sigh and reach out to twist a curl around my fingers. “Whatever do you mean?”
Her hands fly up to cover her mouth. “You slept with him?!”
Riley perks up. “Slept with who?”
I roll my eyes toward him. “You're gonna hate it.”
I can see the mental arithmetic behind his eyes, which narrow and then widen even bigger than Thalara's.
“Rhyss?” he hisses. “Asshole-in-chief…Doctor Dipshit. Him?!”
“The one and only,” I sigh.
“Why?”
I exchange a look with Thalara. “It is…honestly a very stupid story, and very, very long, but it has to do with my translator backfiring and causing me to only have orgasms with him.”
Riley opens his mouth.
Closes it.
“...this is ridiculous.”
“Mmhm.”
Riley drags a hand down his face like he’s physically trying to erase the last thirty seconds from his brain.
“No,” he says. “Nope. I’m calling bullshit. That is not a sentence that exists. That’s not—” He gestures vaguely at my whole body. “Science.”
I flop back against the counter and cross my arms. “It is extremely science. Unfortunately. Trust me, I tried very hard to make it not be.”
We both go silent. Thalara is over on the other side of the counter, chewing on her lip like she has something to say…but doesn’t necessarily want to.
“You have that look,” I mutter.
“What look?” she asks, eyes wide—caught in the act.
“The look where you definitely want to tell me something but you’re afraid it’s either going to sound stupid or terrifying.”
She hums, brow furrowed.
“It’s just—”
She pauses.
“We talked about mate bonding the other day, and that is exactly what this sounds like.”
I roll my eyes. “This isn’t some soulmates bullshit, Tay. I’m sorry, I know you’re just trying to help, but I’m kind of freaking out right now…”
“No, listen to me,” she says, and she’s serious now, putting on her academic voice even though she knows absolutely nothing about science…
which kind of pisses me off, but I know I need to listen because she’s my best friend and— “Lyn, you two are human, so you might not quite get it…but for some species, there is a compulsive mating urge. It’s not like…
being horny, okay? It’s like I will die if this person isn’t inside me right now. ”
Thalara blushes and slaps her hand over her mouth like she didn’t even realize what she was saying—which seems likely, given that I’ve never heard her talk like that. Riley is staring, jaw slack.
And I’m thinking about Kaelion last night…tasting me on his fingers, noticing things that seemed wrong but felt beyond right.
“Guys,” I whisper. “What am I going to do?”
Riley seems to come to his senses a little too late, peering over at me. “What do you mean? You’re going to…I don’t know, you’re going to solve it, then you’re going to stop it, then…pretend it never happened. Right?”
I bite my lip and look at Thalara. She already knows the answer.
“I think I like him,” I breathe.
Thalara gives me a hesitant smile. “I think you do.”
“Gross,” Riley grunts.
I ignore him. My head…my head is spinning. Because yeah, something definitely happened with the device, the orgasm thing was real…but maybe I couldn’t come because I knew what I wanted.
And it wasn’t my fingers. It wasn’t a dildo. It wasn’t Orin’s tongue or his dick.
It was Kaelion fucking Rhyss.