Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 17102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 86(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 57(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 17102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 86(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 57(@300wpm)
Afterward, he fell asleep right there, sated and content, with his Master’s taste still on his lips.
He woke up on his side, feeling so very warm and good. It took him a moment to realize that the weight on his waist was Andreas’s arm. The familiar hardness was pressed against his ass, but Andreas seemed content enough to hold him.
Troy hummed, enjoying how much better it was to feel bare skin against his bare skin. “We should do this in bed more often,” he mumbled, entwining his fingers with Andreas’s.
“We should,” Andreas agreed, sucking bruises on his neck.
Troy smiled, turning his head and rubbing his lips against Andreas’s stubbled cheek. Andreas slotted their mouths together and Troy kissed him back greedily, uncaring about morning breath. Fuck, this man.
It was the best morning he’d had in a long time.
***
It wasn’t the last.
Troy wasn’t sure how it had happened, but after that night, he found himself spending most nights in Andreas’s bed. They never really talked about it, but it kept happening again and again. Andreas didn’t seem in a hurry to kick him out of his bed after sex, and Troy felt too lazy to leave when he could just stay there in Andreas’s arms and exchange lazy kisses until they both fell asleep.
Sometimes he awoke in the middle of the night and just soaked it up, the way Andreas’s arms felt around him, solid and warm. He liked it. He liked listening to Andreas’s even breathing. He liked falling asleep to the sound of it. It was like the best lullaby in the world.
Warning bells were starting to ring in the back of his mind, but Troy ignored them, burying his face against Andreas’s chest and letting Andreas’s steady heartbeat lull him back into sleep.
***
Time passed oddly. Sometimes months seemed to pass at the speed of light, and sometimes time seemed to crawl at a snail’s pace. Time tended to drag when Andreas was away from High Hronthar, though lately he took Troy with him on all his trips off-planet, no matter how short the trip was.
Troy loved it. He knew these trips were for business, but they still felt like vacations, especially that time Andreas took him to the paradise planet Neone. After Andreas’s business was concluded, they spent several days just lazing about on the gorgeous beach and having sex all the time.
The sand was annoying, but Troy didn’t mind.
It felt like he was grinning all the time.
***
Troy had been working for Andreas for seven months when the subject came up for the first time.
“What do you think about a merge?” Andreas murmured, breaking the companionable silence that had settled over them after sex.
Troy opened his eyes, though he couldn’t see much, since his face was buried against his Master’s side. He chuckled. “Is that a hypothetical question?”
Andreas went silent, tracing his fingers over Troy’s bare arm idly.
“Do you want it to be?” he said at last.
Wetting his dry lips, Troy pulled back a little to look him in the eyes. “Are you serious?” he whispered.
Andreas’s gaze was steady. “I’m not pressuring you,” he said. “It’s not in our contract. You can—and you should—say no if you don’t want to do it. The risks are not small. I’m a Class 5 telepath, and that means—”
“I want to try,” Troy blurted out, a little embarrassed by his own eagerness but too afraid that Andreas would retract his offer before he could agree. A telepathic merge was the most intimate act their species could engage in. People said that it was more intimate and more pleasant than sex. Troy wasn’t sure he believed it, but he had always been curious about it. The problem was, telepathic merges were allowed to be practiced only by a trained Master. Untrained pleasure servants like him were strictly prohibited from practicing them—for good reason.
A telepathic merge was basically an act of baring your mind to another’s. A high-level telepath with malicious intent could do anything to you during the merge, even make your heart stop. It didn’t help that telepathic merges were known to be highly addictive if there was high mental compatibility. They supposedly felt very, very good.
“Are you sure?” Andreas said, laying his fingers just below Troy’s left ear, where his telepathic point was located. Although his face was mostly impassive, there was hunger in his eyes now, deep and predatory. It was obvious he wanted it badly. It was kind of touching that he still wanted to make sure Troy really wanted it.
Troy nodded. “I’m sure,” he said with a faint smile, his stomach full of butterflies. Fuck, the mere idea of having this man so deep inside him that he could feel him inside his mind was… as scary as it was exhilarating.
Andreas eyed him a moment before shaking his head and taking his hand away. “You aren’t ready yet.”