Page 45 of Xerxes Ascendant
A teenager? Wasn’t his daughter achild?
But...had Akira ever said that, or had Kyle just assumed?
He cleared his throat. “How old is she?”
Akira seated himself primly next to Kyle on the bench, not having the decency to even appear out of breath. He smoothed out the trouser creases over his knees before answering. “Fourteen going on forty.”
Fourteen?Kyle fidgeted uncomfortably. “Akira...you know I’m only nine years older than her?”
Brown eyes found his, steeped in sadness. “And I’m nearly that to you,” his boyfriend reminded him softly. “Does that...concern you?”
The six-year age gap between them had never meant anything. Kyle had wanted his boss from the moment he saw him.
But the one between him and Akira’s kid felt weird, because Kyle still remembered being fourteen. The long hours at the factory earning junior wages for the same work done by his adult peers. Sneaking out with Indira to sip from a stolen bottle of vodka under the light of an emergency hatch. His first blowjob, the sloppy work of some guy he’d met at a party and thought cute.
And then Kyle redid the maths and realised he had no right to make this about him. Because stars have mercy, it meant Akira had become a father atfifteen.
And still made his Mastery within a decade of that. It was fucking impressive, to say the least, but Kyle was used to his man being remarkable.
Something hit his forehead and dribbled down the line of his nose.
Kyle rubbed at his face, squinting up at the ceiling that was unusually dark. He couldn’t even see the emergency hatch lighting. “There’s something...”
“It’s rain,” said Akira.
Kyle’s heart soared. With everything that had happened, he hadn’t even realised they were in the open, but now the sensations came flooding in. The fresh air in his lungs, the boundless but dark and cloud-covered sky above them, the absence of echoes that he was so used to tuning out in their enclosed city. Level B was a surface level all of its own, now, and the destruction that evidenced how it had been sheared off from Upper Xerxes couldn’t dampen the excitement of standing out under the open sky.
Kyle threw his head back and opened his mouth, trying to catch the raindrops on his tongue.
Hearing Akira’s soft laugh brought him more joy than any of the other new experiences. The man looked relaxed, his arms spread across the back of the bench as he watched Kyle with a pleased expression, and his eyes crinkled in affection.
“When it rained on the surface, everyone immediately took cover,” said Akira. The rain began to come down more heavily, gathering the ends of the man’s dark hair into thick locks where the drops collected, hesitated, and then fell. Kyle could watch it for hours. “I am overjoyed to discover your instinct is for the opposite.”
“There’s too much the Uppers take for granted,” Kyle declared, enjoying the pitter-patter sound of the rain hammering down on the metal sheeting nearby. He spread his arms wide to make sure he got as wet as possible. “Imagine cowering indoors when you could be enjoying this!”
Then his pest of a newly-restored boyfriend slid an elegant leg over Kyle’s lap and seated himself astride him.
“You’re stealing all my rain,” Kyle pointed out.
Akira’s responding smile was radiant with a dash of wild, manic energy. “Then hurry up and get me beneath you, Sir.” He ground his hips against Kyle’s, lips parted and pupils blown.
Kyle groaned at the sensation of Akira’s lithe body rubbing urgently against his cock. His little slut had plastered himself against him, moaning wantonly as he dragged himself all over Kyle without a care for who might be watching.
“Akira...”
“I love the way you say my name. It feels like home.” He grabbed Kyle’s hand and forced it roughly between his legs.
Holy fuck was Akira turned on. He was coming at Kyle from all directions, Madonna lyrics included.
Kyle squeezed the hardness that was pressed into his palm, enjoying the choked gasp it invoked. “Later, sweetheart,” he said, and reluctantly let go. “Someone might see us.”
“Someone might see us?” repeated Akira in a low disbelieving growl. “What happened to the man who threatened to bend me over the fence at Central Square and rail me to within an inch of my life?”
Kyle stared at him, realised his mouth was hanging open, and abruptly shut it. “You remember me saying that? You remember me saying that in a training scenefive years ago?”
It was Akira’s turn to flush. “I...it just stuck with me,” he muttered.
Kyle grinned, freeing his hand so he could rest it on the more publicly acceptable place at the man’s waist. “What elsestuckwith you?” he asked, his smile sweet but his tone sly.
