Page 24 of Hellfire & Bowties
“Can Beasty come?” Oren peeked out of Luc’s closet. He’d demanded time to change because one, Luc had torn his zipper, and two, he hadn’t been given enough time to put together an outfit before evacuation, so he wanted a do-over.
Luc was all too happy to watch him shimmy his pert little butt into another pair of skintight jeans after pulling on his own leather pants and nothing else. Oren finished with a peach-colored shirt, a cream sweater vest, and a cream-and-peach bowtie.
He looked like spun sugar, and Luc was pretty sure he was slowly but surely losing his mind.
“Sure, he can come,” Luc said, knowing he’d just be pouted into giving in anyway. “But if he singes a single paper, it’s your fault.”
“As if you’d know if any papers were singed in that disaster of an office.” Oren scoffed, pulling out a long strip of pale peach fabric and walking to Beast. “It’s recycling, isn’t it, my bestest boy?”
Luc watched him lean down and drape the fabric around Beast's neck, tying it into an ornate bow before straightening up and stepping back to admire his work.
“So cute…” He clapped and turned to Luc, holding his hands out in a universal ta-dah gesture. “We match now!”
“I can see that,” Luc said, torn between staring at the human in bewilderment and just melting at how incredibly silly and cute he was.
Beast, for his part, hiccuped a tiny spark and singed the corner of the bow.
“I think he loves it,” Oren said, clipping a leash around Beast’s neck. “Ready!”
Luc walked up to him, towering over his small form, looking down at him as he brought his hand up and ran the backs of his fingers over Oren’s cheek.
“You’re something else, hon.”
Oren smiled, a little bewildered but pleased. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should,” Luc said, leading them out of the room.
The trek to his office was the slowest in his life because Beast wanted to sniff everything, and Oren looked determined to just let him get away with anything. He patted him between the horns, and the hellbeast had the gall to slither up closer, scratching against Oren’s legs. Luc had zero idea what spell Oren had put him under, but he was eating out of the palm of his hand.
They found their way to Luc’s office eventually, fighting through the mess to Luc’s desk.
Luc sank into his chair with a groan of relief, and Oren hopped up onto the corner of his desk, swinging his legs back and forth.
“This place is a tragedy. You know that, right?” Oren asked, and Luc nodded. He supposed he should do something about it. He supposed he should start working too, but looking at Oren perched so prettily, there wasn’t anything else on his mind.
“Yeah,” Luc said, reaching out to wrap his fingers around Oren’s ankle, pulling his leg toward him. He slipped his claw beneath the cuff of his jeans and ran it over his skin. “But… I’m usually not disturbed in my office.”
“Interesting.” Oren perked up.
Luc laughed and eyed him up and down, tugging him closer to the edge of the desk just as the phone rang. He cursed under his breath and picked it up, hoping he could get rid of them quickly.
Of course that didn’t happen.
He ended up on the phone for forty minutes, putting out fires, literally. Seemed Tana’s outburst had rocked quite a few circles and they were in need of some damage control.
Oren got bored after a while, hopping off the desk and wandering around the room. Luc tracked him hungrily as the droning in his ear continued, wishing he could trade places with Beast, who was cuddling up to Oren at every opportunity.
He watched as Oren bent down to pick up a stray sheet of paper, his jeans stretching over the globes of his ass. His perfectly round, perky, firm…
Luc growled into the phone, startling the caller briefly. As they got back on track, listing off more items of business Luc wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to, he watched Oren walk toward one of the overstuffed shelves next. He was fanning himself with the paper and using his other hand to tug on his bowtie. He loosened it and reached for the button of his shirt, popping it open and pulling the collar away from his neck. His collarbones were exposed, skin delicious and pink, flushed and shiny with a light sweat. Probably smelling divine…
Luc felt his claws dent the flimsy plastic of the phone in his hand.
Oren reached down again, running a gentle hand over Beast, his long, thin fingers massaging and petting Beast’s patchy skin. Luc scowled at Beast as he got a full rubdown while Luc was getting nothing but blue balls and a headache. The voice on the other end of the phone was just white noise now.
He’d officially snapped.
“Just… handle it, okay?” Luc hissed.
