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But he could still tell Seth something of the truth. Raider felt like he owed him that. “It … unsettled me.”
“To be restrained?”
Raider focused on the laden camel plodding ahead of them, though he could feel Seth’s eyes on him. “It wasn’t the restraints. It was that … I liked it, having you in that kind of control.”
Eager to shift the tone and focus of the conversation, Raider told him, “I had imagined us doing that actually. Though in my original fantasy, I wasn’t the one tied up.”
“You imagined me …?”
Seth’s shocked tone made Raider look at him, and Seth’s horrified expression made him smile.
“Oh, yes. Then I realized you would never accept something like that, so I imagined it in reverse, like last night. But I didn’t think I could actually do it, not with something I couldn’t easily get out of.”
The usual intensity returned to Seth’s expression. “It scared you. At least at first. You froze.”
Raider skipped past that, not wanting to discuss it. “Then I wanted it. I wanted you to take over, to make me come. And you did.”
Seth frowned, not content with that. He stared at his horse’s ears for a long time before looking aside at Raider.
“I’m still worried,” Seth said, his intense green eyes hunting for something. “About you.”
Raider’s heart twisted up. This was the problem. This was why Raider was riding in the rearguard. It was why he’d come so hard last night and why it had shaken him so much.
I’m going to take care of you, Seth had said as he’d stroked so perfectly inside Raider.
I’m still worried. About you.
Raider liked to be free, untethered. Even the Sudai he had left. He didn’t understand why he found himself yearning for … something … with Seth. Something more.
Seth went on, “We should have talked about something like that before I initiated it. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t do that, Seth, for fuck’s sake. I like how you are—no, I fucking love it. I absolutely don’t want you to change or get cautious with me. I like that I don’t know what you’re going to do. I’m sorry I’m being weird, okay? Don’t change how you are with me.”
“Then you’re going to have to explain to me—”
“For fuck’s sake, it felt good. That is what bothered me, all right? It felt good to—” The truth stuck in Raider’s throat.
“To what, Raider? I don’t understand.”
“To have you take care of me!” Umae danced at Raider’s shout. “It wasn’t the restraint, Seth, it was you—it was you taking care of me like—fuck, I don’t know! What I felt scared me, okay? And I don’t want to fucking talk about it!”
As Umae sidled nervously, Raider busied himself with her, trying to calm her down—and himself. He hadn’t wanted to say all that. He wished, intensely, that he hadn’t. He looked out across the desert, like its vast openness could offer escape.
It was the wind’s fortune, the Sudai would say, that he looked out when he did, and in that direction, toward the distant, cavernous hills.
“Raider—”
He held up a hand to silence Seth as his arcane eye zoomed in on the moving figures.
“What?” Seth demanded, the readiness in his tone saying that he knew they suddenly had other problems.
Raider pointed, and Seth slid his arcane scope from his utility belt. He clicked through its settings as he focused it in the direction of Raider’s finger—where two dozen mounted men were fast approaching.
***
The caravan drew itself into a circle, securing its most vulnerable people and most valuable goods within. Those who would fight formed a protective ring. While the Sudai were not warlike, they were no strangers to violence. Anyone who transported goods across the desert had to know how to defend themselves and their cargo.
A few were even excited by the opportunity. Fahet, the young idiot, grinned as Raider, stripped to his waist to fight, rode by to check the preparations.
