Page 76 of The Light Within

“A what?”

Julien’s forehead crinkled. “A date.”

“Huh? What’s that?” Cinn cocked his head to one side, adopting a blank look.

Julien tipped his head back. “Dieu donne-moi la force,” he muttered.

“I’m serious,” Cinn protested, suppressing bubbles of laughter. “You’re going to have to say it one more time, because I thought you said ‘date’. But that can’t be right.”

Julien pressed his forehead against Cinn’s, continuing to curse under his breath.

“Well?” Cinn asked.

Pulling away from him, Julien’s frustration melted into his wolfish grin, dimples flashing. “Right then. Challenge accepted. If you truly don’t know what a date is, prepare to be educated.”

“In the meantime…” Cinn yanked on the clasp on Julien’s belt. Despite the meandering conversation, his dick hadn’t forgotten Julien had locked him in a small dark room to push him up against a wall.

“Mmm,” Julien hummed. “That would be nice, but I have to go now.”

“You’re joking.” Cinn snatched up Julien’s hand, and pressed it against his tented trousers. “You can’t leave me here like this!”

“I’m afraid I’m too busy. Mind-blowing dates to plan. You’ll have to wait.” Julien squeezed Cinn’s cock, sending more blood rushing south.

“What? Until when?” There was a frantic, desperate edge to Cinn’s tone, and he pawed at Julien’s suspenders. “Paris?Fuck off!”

Julien leaned in to whisper into Cinn’s ears. “Don’t worry,mon amour. You know I’ll make it worth the wait.”

Laughing in a way that bordered on manic, Julien slowly backed out of the cramped space, shutting the door behind him and leaving Cinn alone in the darkness to curse the day he met Julien.

nineteen

Cinn

As much as Cinn hated flying, spending over ten hours in a car wasn’t particularly appealing, either. Thankfully, Maz was the fanciest car he’d been in—not that he’d travelled in many fancy cars—with a luxurious leather interior and motetech enhancements that heated the car in seconds, besides making the suspension ultra smooth.

They hit traffic on the way out of Talwacht. Julien clucked his tongue, then drummed out a tune on the wheel, humming.

“Hey!” Cinn could barely contain his excitement. Julien, singing one of hissilly hip-hop songs?“That’s a song from the Wu-Tang Clan cassette you got me!”

Julien’s fingers immediately ceased their tapping. “No, it isn’t.”

Cinn cackled gleefully. “Don’t lie. I saw you miming the lyrics the other day.”

“Only because your headphones leak so much sound that I can’t help but hear when you’re blasting your music,” Julien shot back.

His defence was futile—Cinn was already taking the cassette out of his bag to pop it into Maz’s sound system.

“Non!” Julien screeched, though a wide smile broke across his face. “Don’t torture me so!” His arm batted out to stop Cinn, but he failed, collapsing into laughter when the opening track came on.

Julien continued to moan for the duration of the album, but Cinn wasn’t fooled. And although it took much more persuasion, Julien eventually relented on his ‘no food in the car’ rule, to allow for Cinn’schocolate-chip cookies he’d now perfected. The version of them with larger chunks, of course.

“Wait,” said Cinn, after six hours. “I just realised I’ve never seen you put fuel in Maz.”

Julien only shook his head and laughed, as if the idea was too outrageous to consider.

“You really don’t need petrol?”

“I do use some. But I only top her up a couple of times a year. The engine is a sophisticated design that converts ambient motes into energy.”

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