Quiggs propped his elbows on the table and rested his chin on both fists. He told himself he was conversing but knew he was flirting back. “I bet you were a popular cadet at the sex clinic. You never read a slate for restrictions. You pointed at a cadet and jerked your thumb toward a room. He followed you with his tongue hanging out.”
Miles laughed. “Would you have followed me?”
“Never got a chance to sit on a bench in the clinic. I was married.”
“If you had sat on a bench gripping a slate, I would have picked you right away. I’d have spread your ass cheeks wide open and feasted on your pink hole until you begged to be fucked.”
The frank words brought a blush to Quiggs’s cheeks.
Silas brought their drinks plus a plate of crackers and soft cheese on a round tray. “Give the billy balls a few minutes.” He punched Mile’s shoulder. “The boy’s blushing. Mind your manners.” He hurried back through the swinging doors of the small kitchen behind the bar, and the smell of frying grease wafted out the doors. He had invested in one of Quiggs’s grills.
Quiggs sat inside a disreputable pub, drinking, flirting. Today marked a number of surprising firsts. He stared at the face across from him. Those expressive eyebrows with quirky off-center arches were as memorable as his sexy ass and thighs. The strong jaw and square chin supported a powerful nose and high sharp cheekbones. Stefan was right. Slight imperfections could transform features from borderline ugly into breath-taking beauty. Quiggs’s imperfections transformed him from plain to plainly boring. He’d spent his life around bald academics, baby cadets, and gangly Beau. His marital status distanced him from actives and citizens. What he missed was having a little fun with a beautiful badass like Miles.
Quiggs sighed. “I hate the law.” He drained his cider.
“I’ll drink to that.” Miles drained his ale. His stunning face turned serious. “Let’s talk about motives. Why would someone try to kill you?”
“I’ve no idea why.”
“This was obviously planned. You’ve been watched. Is the First Family involved?”
“Believe me. They want to keep me alive and inventing.”
Quiggs would have rather flirted, but he answered a stream of questions beginning with his marriage and ending with the lottery.
Miles agreed they couldn’t pin the attack on the First Family because they needed Quiggs alive for his combustion engine. Vengeance against Commander Bronn was a motive. Possibly for an order resulting in a loved one’s death or maiming.
Miles stroked his jaw, his inner focus reminding Quiggs what his own face must look like in a fog. Except Miles pulled off the look as seriously mysterious. Quiggs was told he looked struck dumb by a burr shoved up his butt.
Miles finally said, “It’s possible we’re dealing with a group of fanatics who believe your progressive inventions will bring about a second rebellion.”
“You’ve narrowed the list of suspects to half the Ruling Mothers.”
Miles laughed out loud.
Silas arrived with a steaming platter of battered billy balls and a big bowl of red sauce. Quiggs dug in.
His gusto awed Miles. “How can you eat after all the excitement?”
“I’ve the digestive system of a goat.” He wiped a spurt of grease off his chin. When he licked it off his hand, he caught Miles’s hungry look.
“Excuse me.” Miles pushed away abruptly. “I need to set up security.”
It was past noon. Quiggs was supposed to be sleeping with a plug up his ass. Stefan would drain his silver flask and wail how his career was blackened forever. In revenge he’d paint Quiggs up like an aging fem in a pleasure house and dye his nipples red for the ceremony.
Stefan on a rampage was more inventive than Quiggs.
Miles returned with an oversized military tee and pants and a pair of bathhouse sandals. Some unsuspecting soldier in the pool would wear a towel back to his quarters.
Quiggs padded behind the bar to change pants.
When Miles teased him for being ashamed of exposing his tiny “billy balls,” Silas slapped the back of his head with a towel. “Behave!”
Miles rubbed his head. “I know. I know. Off limits.” He looked at Quiggs, serious again. “I spoke to the commander. My orders are to place you under a military guard. Under no circumstances is anyone allowed to approach you, and the guards are authorized to use excessive force. He’s furious at the attack. He’s posted a large reward for any information.” Miles paused. “Anything you’d like me to tell him after I escort you to your quarters? Like an apology for sneaking out?”
Quiggs stepped around the bar. The tee swallowed him, and his pants fell short of his ankles. He had three years to make amends to his owner, but his time was running out with Miles. “I have a question for you. It’s personal.”
Miles motioned for Silas to leave them alone. “Ask.”
“Have you… had sex with the commander?”
Miles glanced down, then regarded Quiggs sheepishly. “Yeah. I’ve spent some time in his cabin. Many soldiers have. Sex is to the Commander what food is to you. He hates going hungry. Makes him irritable. You’ll make the lives of his soldiers much easier if you keep him sated.”
“How was it with him?”
“That’s all I have to say. The rest you’ll learn tonight.”
Despite Silas waving aside the bill, Miles placed credits on the table.
“No charge for you and the commander’s concubine,” Silas argued.
“I insist. Times are tight.”
Quiggs kept his chin up as Miles and six soldiers escorted him back to his penthouse. The guards carried batons and wore heavy weaponry belts, and he recognized one as Mile’s friend from the bakery. He had dreaded questions hurled at him, but with the heralds rounded up for questioning, a deafening silence followed him. Port Memphis hadn’t dealt with an attempted murder in a decade. That the victim was the commander’s unclaimed, unchaperoned virginal concubine promised the best Claiming Ceremony ever witnessed.
Quiggs waited in the hall while Miles and his friend searched the apartment and balcony before allowing him inside. Thankfully, Stefan hadn’t returned.
When Miles lingered inside the penthouse, his friend spoke up at the door, his tone stern. “Being alone with him breaks the rules.”
“You reporting me to the commander?” Miles asked.
His friend stared hard at Miles. “Ten minutes.”
Miles closed the door without locking it, then snooped around the apartment again, intrigued with the luxuries he saw. “Quite a leap in standards from my hammock. Even a kitchen.” He checked the food cabinets. His brows lifted in mock horror.
“My diet for two weeks. Stefan starved me so I wouldn’t shame the commander at the ceremony.”
“Stefan is scarier than any feral.”
Miles revisited the bedroom. Tested the mattress. Folded the screen away from the tub. “Nice. Soldiers soak in public pools in bath houses when on leave.” He sniffed a vial of scented oil, then gave a low whistle of appreciation. “Wouldn’t mind swapping places with you. I’m accustomed to some cheap grease and a rough towel. Sometimes, it’s spit and vine leaves during a break on patrol.” He lifted a fluffy white towel folded over the tub, and a phallic plug fell to the floor and rolled over to Quiggs, standing in the middle of the room.
Miles doubled over laughing.
Quiggs reddened and kicked the plug out of sight under the bed.
Miles wiped his streaming eyes. “Ah, my baby cadet, who knows if I’ll see you again. The borders are dangerous. A soldier like me seizes pleasures when he can. Let me hold you once before the commander claims all your firsts, and the baby cadet I saved stops looking at me like I’m a sinful custard to lap.” He gathered Quiggs into his arms for a hug, careful of his shoulder.
Quiggs held himself stiffly a moment, then melted against Miles. He rested his cheek against the warm hollow of Miles’s throat and splayed his hands across the hard chest. His fingers
ached to explore. To touch… to be touched. Sex with Miles promised fun.
Sex with the commander promised as much fun as untying knotted boot laces.
Quiggs reached a decision and tested the waters. “The commander promised to let me lose my braid when I found a suitable partner.” At Miles’s incredulous stare, he added, “On my honor, I have it in writing!”
Miles dropped his arms and eased back. “I’m sure he’s thinking of a visit to a pleasure house. Losing your braid with a fem would be an understandable transaction. Me… he would kill. Slowly.”
“He promised, and I’ve always always wanted a badass. It’s my favorite fantasy.” He fluttered his lashes at Miles the way Stefan taught him.
Miles’s brows pulled in. “Whatever you’re thinking about us doing together… don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because despite himself, the commander will carry a grudge against the soldier you fuck. No one will volunteer. There’s a pleasure house where the owner is ex-military. His ass is hairy and muscled, and he loves young soldiers. The commander won’t bear him a grudge.”
Quiggs abandoned the fluttering which only made him dizzy and stared up with open longing. “Please, Miles. I like you. Be my first.”
“You’d be my last.”
“But—”
“There is another first I can offer you. A sweet wicked memory the commander will never know was stolen.” Miles’s gaze fixed on Quiggs’s pouting mouth. “I could give you your first taste.”
A blow job? Was there time?
Saliva pooled. Quiggs, perfectly willing, started to kneel when Miles gripped his chin and pulled him back up. “Uh-uh. I mean a filthy, wicked… spit swapping… kiss.”
He choked on his pool of saliva. Kiss like a man and a woman? The offer shocked him to his core
Miles didn’t wait for an answer. His eyes drifted closed, his lips parted. Warm moist breath whispered over Quiggs’s convulsing face as he leaned in for a kiss.
Quiggs blocked the kiss with his palm. “That’s disgusting—we’re men!”
Miles pulled back with a shrug. “Worth a try. I’ve always wondered.”
They jumped apart as the door opened.
“Time’s up, Miles.” A thwack of a baton over a tough palm emphasized the words.
“Goodbye, my sweet baby cadet.” Miles clasped Quiggs’s forearm.
Quiggs squeezed back, unable to stop a wistful note from entering his voice. “Be careful out there.”
“Always am.” Miles memorized his face as if knowing Quiggs would lose his innocent infatuation when they met again. “A word of advice. Use the plug. The commander is furious you left your apartment and were attacked. He’ll come at you hard and fast tonight.”
Chapter Sixteen
Stefan was well into his flask of brandy before he stopped sobbing. He lay on the sofa with a wet cloth over his swollen eyes, giving Quiggs the how could you silent treatment. His red hair tumbled from his turban, and his tunic was inside out. After knocking back the rest of his silver flask, he held it out to Quiggs for another refill.
“Come on, Stefan, yell at me before you explode. You’re holding in enough steam to lift my flying balloon.”
Stefan’s voice came soft and faded. “Almost murdered… under my watch.” He lifted the cloth and glared at Quiggs hovering over him. His faded voice rose with righteous anger. “If you were that hungry, you should have just said so!”
“Whenever I did, you fed me more greens.”
Stefan tossed the wet cloth at him. “Max stormed into Cutty’s bedroom, furious I’d let you escape. He caught us in the middle of our… reunion.”
Quiggs twirled the cloth. “Wedded all these years and still getting it up for each other.”
“Had it not been for Cutty, Max would have added my skull to his kills. He trusted me to watch you. Oh, Quiggs, you climbed over the balconies, you cavorted with soldiers, you were thrown off the rampart!”
“Look at it this way. Someone wants me dead. The element of surprise is gone thanks to you.”
Stefan sniffled. “True. I was thinking of refunding my fee. Now I won’t.”
“I am alive and on my guard. I owe you.”
“True. I should add it to my fee.” Stefan checked his puffy-eyed reflection on the flask Quiggs handed him. “Hideous.”
“You’re always gorgeous. I hope I look like you when I’m sixty.”
The pillow smacked Quiggs’s laughing face.
Quiggs settled back in the tub with a mineral mask on his face and his unbraided hair spread over the edge of the tub. Waterproofed white plasters protected his shoulder and the punctures and scratches on his lower legs and ankles. The heat soaked into his muscles, and the bath salts—a small handful—lulled him into a fantasy of Miles lying on his back with his thighs pulled up, watching Quiggs prep him.
Stefan knelt behind him combing a sudsy cleanser—another of his special formulas—through Quiggs’s hair. It dried in minutes, then was brushed out, leaving a silken sheen without enduring hours of air drying. “Hmmm. That smile. Admit you’re crushing on the sergeant.”
“He’s the one I want as my first.”
“Is he attracted to you?”
“I’m an itch to scratch. He thinks the commander will bear a grudge if he scratches.”
“Not if you show Max how grateful you’d be.”
Stefan washed off the mask and unplugged the tub. “Stand and dry off, but remain in the tub. You won’t like this… but Max ordered an extra bit of prep for tonight.”
Quiggs remembered Miles’s warning. Wary of something inserted, Quiggs stood in the tub with his hands covering his ass as Stefan pulled on a pair of thin gloves before twisting off the lid of a jar holding green paste.
“Why the gloves?” Quiggs asked.
“The paste dissolves body hair. Also, any skin it touches if on longer than ten minutes. So don’t touch.” Stefan scooped up a handful and slapped the green stuff over Quiggs’s exposed testicles.
Quiggs yelped and broke out in goosebumps as Stefan massaged the cold goo into the hairy areas. “What’s in it?”
“The digestive sap harvested from the older vines.”
“Get it away from my cock!”
“Keep still! I’ve handled hundreds of cocks without a mishap.”
Quiggs’s cock remained flaccid while the paste dried.
Stefan timed the application, then rinsed off the paste with the handheld shower spray. The dark wiry pubes, now bleached white, swirled down the drain. He inspected the smooth genitals for stray hairs. “Makes your cock look larger, doesn’t it? The paste leaves you silkier than shaving. Lasts longer too.”
After he stepped out of the tub, Quiggs admired his smooth genitals in front of the vanity mirror. Cadets who’d declared service as future concubines routinely shaved their genitals at the sinks. He turned left and right, enjoying the sight of himself. His balls were certainly tighter after his encounter with Miles.
Stefan bragged in his breathless voice, “Silky balls get more blow jobs.”
“Why bother? You told me the commander never offers blow jobs.”
Stefan winked. “Perhaps competition from the luscious sergeant will goad Max into offering his concubine extra attentions.”
Stefan tied Quiggs’s hair in a simple braid hanging below his knees with the end tied off in a small red bow. He refrained from applying cosmetics, grumbling at the waste of his skills as he followed Max’s updated instructions.
Quiggs balked at wearing the humiliating red corset, pleading exemption because of injuries.
“The shoulder wound isn’t in the way, so quit fussing and take a deep breath.”
When finished, Stefan circled around Quiggs, hunting for any wrinkle in the buttoned down simple white shirt with fitted sleeves. The top buttons opened to reveal the edge of the red corset threaded with black ribbon. The shirt was paired with slim cropped black trousers and red platform sandals with straps crisscrosse
d above the ankles. The plasters cushioned the friction from the straps.
“You’re neither pretty or muscular,” Stefan mused, staring at him. “But when you smile, especially when you’re scheming, you become something special. You haven’t come into your mature bone structure yet.”
“How’s this?” Quiggs managed a strained smile.
“You look like you’ve smelled the governor’s fart and pretended she did not.”
The corset bit off Quiggs’s burst of laughter.
“Shallow breaths,” Stefan reminded him. “Slow graceful motions. No exertion.”
Max covered his hair with a towel and held the ends tightly when Cutty came at him with a pair of scissors. “I don’t need a haircut.” If the tawny hairs with sensory receptors were accidentally snipped, haircuts hurt. It felt like stings traveling up his skull and hitting a wall behind his eyeballs.
Cutty pointed at the stool in front of the vanity table. “Face the mirror and keep the fuck still.” He yanked away the towel, settled it around Max’s hunched shoulders like a cape after he sat, and met Max’s anxious gray eyes in the mirror. “Fucking Defender of the Territory afraid of a haircut.”
A yowl slipped from Max as the tip of a tawny hair over his ear was deliberately snipped. “You’re still angry I burst in on you.”
Cutty sniffed. “We hadn’t finished.”
“Stefan shouldn’t have left my concubine alone!”
“Quiggs pretended to be asleep. He disobeyed your order to stay locked inside the penthouse.”
“He could have fallen to his death off the balcony.”
“Be grateful he escaped and you know someone wants to him dead.”
Watching from the door where he waited for further missives, Sergeant Miller bottled his laughter, maintaining attention until Max ordered him at ease.
Max gripped the arms of the chair, his tawny hairs flattening out of the way as Cutty snipped the sides short.
Cutty lifted a lock off the forehead and snipped, catching the tip of another tawny hair. “Pussy,” Cutty muttered at the curses hurled at him. “Don’t you want to outshine Sergeant Miles when you claim your concubine tonight? People noticed Quiggs ogling his fine ass today.”
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