Page 24 of Designation: Null

“So, you’renotnormal,” Logan says. “You roll submissives and drop them and that’s your superpower.”

Robert shrugs.

“You’renotlike other Doms.” It sounds accusing. Logan didn’t mean for it to.

“I wouldn’t hurt you, Logan. I swear. I have amazing control over myself. You’ll aways be safe with me.”

Which seems like a total non sequitur. “But when we first met, that’s what happened on the plane, isn’t it? You rolled me and—”

“I was tortured and drugged out of my mind,” he says, sounding defensive. “It wasn’t intentional.” Robert rubs a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I’m defensive and I shouldn’t be. You’re right. I didn’t have very good control over myself on the plane. I—well. It hasn’t been like that again, right?” he asks, sounding worried. “I mean, I can try to do better if it’s a problem. You can always tell me if I’m doing something that doesn’t feel right. Logan, I’m sorry.”

Logan wants to touch him. He raises a hand, then drops it again. “No. I don’t think we’re talking about the same things here. I’m just trying to understand why you’re so different. IhateDominants. I get angry and buzzy feeling. I feel a Dominant approach and my hackles rise. I have so much anger and resentment about being what I am that it’s easy to keep to myself. I don’t want to submit ever, probably because I’m thinking about punching Dominants in the nuts half the time. But I struggle to find that anger when I’m near you. I didn’t understand why. But if dominance is your superpower and you roll people without really meaning to… then maybe that’s why I’m so comfortable with you?”

“Yeah, probably,” he says, seeming a little unhappy with that conclusion, that it’s not Robert as a person that Logan likes, but his ability.

Logan chews his thumb absently as he thinks. “No, actually. I still think it’s you, not your dominance that makes me like you,” Logan says. “I just wondered. Seriously, I enjoy spending time with you and having you as a friend, not just because of your uber dominance.”

“Thanks, Logan. That’s really nice. And I feel the same way about you,” Robert says, with a grin and a wink that Logan’s submissive side translates as a request for him to go to his knees. Or maybe he just wants to.

Ugh.

“Is that why you’re dating a Dominant? Do you roll him, too?”

“Hardly.” Robert blinks. “How did you know I was dating a Dominant?”

“Craig said. When we had lunch.”

“Oh. No, we just liked each other. We had a mission together that went on for a few months and we really only had each other. There was very little to do, not even TV, and eventually we got bored enough to try fooling around with each other. When we got back to civilization we just carried on.”

“But how? If he’s Dominant and you’re Dominant, then how does that work?”

Robert’s expression is somewhere between guarded and curious. “Why are you asking me?”

Logan blushes. “I just want to know.” He shouldn’t have asked. “Sorry. It’s none of my business.”

“Would you be comfortable closing the door?” Robert asks, like Logan is so pathetic and scared of Robert he’s got to leave the door open to protect his virtue.

Logan closes the door. “You wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Fear isn’t rational.”

“Okay, well, you wouldn’t hurt me and I’mnotafraid of you,” Logan says, voice firm.

“I certainly hope not,” he says, radiating sincerity. “I don’t want to.”

This is terrible. Is Robert going to walk on eggshells around him forever now?

“The truth of the matter is that it’s actually pretty easy for me to get my designation needs met. And it isn’t typically with sex. When my partner and I first fooled around, it was because he was having a tough time with the isolation. I was more curious than anything, to see if I could do it. Just submit to him. His dominance style is very sex based, so it was a lot of lying there and letting him do the work, and that was actually a pretty nice change of pace. That might be TMI.” He shrugs, smiles, and looks so adorably embarrassed that Logan smiles back. Although he hates the idea of Robert having sex with his Dominant boyfriend.

Or anyone.

“I don’t think it would have satisfied either of us long term, and I know he’d started seeing a sub right before I was captured. We were sort of gearing up for a talk, I think.”

“Didn’t you mind that he had a sub? If it was sex?”

Robert winces. “Yeah, he was annoyed that Ididn’tmind,” he says, running his hand through his hair. “He wanted me to be jealous, I think. But I’ve never been a particularly jealous person. Besides, he had a cycle and saw submissives during it. It wasn’t like I could have fulfilled that role for him.”

“Do you get jealous at all?”

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