Page 64 of Xerxes Ascendant
“Kyle!”
“Yes, dear?”
Akira couldn’t stop laughing long enough to tell him the sauce was concerningly burning everywhere it touched, but thepain was hardly detracting from the enjoyment. To the contrary, when Kyle took his cock between his lips and swallowed him down to the hilt, making delighted noises to show how much he was enjoying himself, Akira had to fight hard to hold on. It may have been his job to manage his own pleasure in favour of his partner’s, but with Kyle...the man made Akira feel like a starry-eyed virgin. How was it possible to feel this happy?
“I love you,” Akira breathed, letting his head fall back onto the pillow. He didn’t expect a reply, and he didn’t get one.
But that was okay. Kyle’s mouth was full.
Lower #1:Got a payrise yesterday.
Lower #2:Yeah, right.
#1:I'm serious! Extra 3CR an hour, and double that on Sundays. In a couple of weeks I should be able to get my baby girl those new shoes for school she's been asking for.
Lower #3:How the stars didyouswing a payrise?
#1:Told the boss that duct maintenance is paying more than concreting. Showed him the job ads and everything.
#2:You don't know anything about ducts, Eddie.
#1:Boss don't know that, though, does he? Threatened to quit if he didn't show a little love to my hourly rate.
#2:Seriously?
#1:Seriously. Wages are going up across the city, Kes. Everyone's competing for staff, what with so many people dying in the Fall and all the urgent repair work going on. Too many jobs, not enough workers: when demand eclipses supply, you got yourselves a wages boom.
#3:Forget ducts. You should have been an economist, Ed.
#2:Hah! If we’re talking about shit wages…
-Overheard on Level D
CHAPTER 18
Kyle
Although Kyle had everything he could ever want in that windowless suite down on Level G, being the sum total of Master Akira Miyasaki safe and in his arms, the day passed frustratingly slowly. Perhaps it was the knowledge that as ordinary as their surroundings were, they were still being held against their will by a ruthless, immoral street gang.
Or maybe it was the trepidation of what awaited them when night finally arrived.
Kyle did his best to keep them both distracted until then, celebrating the end of Akira’s prolonged abstinence by forcing his submissive to climax over and over again, far past the point of comfort. The helpless whimpers it drew from his man’s throat when he realised Kyle wasn’t stopping…the delectable way he writhed beneath him, suffering but unable to move, would have made for a rather unparalleled way to spend the afternoon if it hadn’t been for their involuntary confinement and the dangerous mission ahead.
Even being temporarily reunited with their runepads hadn’t shaken the uneasy feeling that had settled over Kyle. Sinead had flounced into the room, tossed a handful of intimidating comments in their direction in case they’d somehow forgottenwho she was in the last few hours, and gestured for one of her thugs to hand over Kyle and Akira’s rune-powered tablets.
Kyle grabbed his immediately yet Akira remained still, only holding out a protective hand over Kyle’s display to hide the passcode he was eagerly entering. It was an effortless, elegant movement, performed with that casual and exasperated disdain Epsilon pulled off so well, and normally Kyle would have teased him for the instinctive paranoia.
But after his spectacular lack of judgement in handing the leader of the fuckingCarrionhis unlocked and unprotected device, Kyle swallowed that urge down and instead sweetly thanked his boyfriend for his thoughtfulness. It earned him a vaguely suspicious look, and that was somethingKyledidtease him about.
Akira gave him an unimpressed glare in response, but it wasn’t as severe as usual. Last night Kyle had hit him harder and for longer than he would anyone else, knowing Akira’s tolerance for pain and how he loved to be pushed and tested. Akira had come out the other side stronger than ever…and maybe a touch softer, too. Kyle’s heartfelt attentions seemed to have loosened out the uptight bastard in more ways than one.
“Your purpose in returning our runepads to us,” Akira said to Sinead after staring Kyle out and gratifyingly blinking first, “is undoubtedly not one of kindness. Explain.”
Her mouth tightened into a thin slash of a line. She clearly did not like being spoken to so brusquely, and the way her fingers twitched suggested she would have had the Master reprimanded if she hadn’t needed him for her foolhardy endeavour.
“It’s so you’ll keep your little friends off my back,” Sinead responded equally curtly. “I don’t give a shit what you tell them later, but I won’t have anyone get in the way of what you’re aboutto do. House whore or Coterie: my men see anyone around who shouldn’t be, they’ll get a bullet to the head. You understand?”
Oh, Kyle understood. He was already typing out a reply to Indira’s initially irritated but increasingly fretful messages, ones that had been echoed by Mish and Deacon in the last couple of hours as word apparently began to spread of his absence.
