“Deadly,” I reply. “So I tried out the device like a dumbass, ended up writhing on the floor and moaning…and who comes in but Rhyss? Of course, because he gets notified when anyone goes into his lab.”
I pause.
“Then…then it turns out that every time he touches me, it makes me horny.Beyondhorny. A flick can make me come, I shit you not. And at first we think it might be all touch, like I’m basically a raw nerve and anyone could just tilt me right over the edge?—”
“Which obviously turned out not to be true, unless I suck at this and never knew it,” Orin says.
“Yeah, it’s not you,” I laugh. “It’s just…him. And apparently it isonlyhim, because I can’t get off on my own or with another partner.”
Orin doesn’t reply.
I look at him.
He looks…smug as hell.
“I don’t even want to know what the fuck you’re about to say,” I mutter.
“Too bad,” he says. “I’m going to say it anyway.”
I groan.
“You should fuck him.”
I open my eyes again and stare at Orin. “Are you kidding?”
“No,” he says. “Look, you joke about it all the time, and at first I thought it was just to freak Thalara out…but it’s cool, I get it. He’s hot. Big brain energy plus he clearly works out.”
“That is not helpful,” I snap.
“It is if you think real hard about it while using that janky bullet you keep in your drawer.”
“Did you just admit to snooping in my drawer?”
“I don’t snoop,” he says. “I look for useful tools. Lyn,I’ve used it on you before?—”
“And thank you very much for that, but it isn’t helpful now,” I say. “Like I said…it’s not even the fantasy that does it. I tried that. It’s physical touch.”
“Okay, so it’s physical,” Orin says. “What’s the plan, then? You gonna ask him to help out for science? Rub one out in the name of research?”
I snort. “He would never. Dude is a rule-follower to the extreme.”
“I know,” Orin deadpans. “He’s a brooding, tortured, emotionally unavailable, morally upright space daddy. Horrible.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah…about that. He’s also a dad. Like a real, legitimate dad, with a kid. A kid who isvisitingright now, so I can’t exactly kick his door in and demand he fuck me.”
Orin raises both eyebrows. “Like a dad dad?”
I nod. “Mmhm. With an adorable child and everything.”
“Shit,” Orin says, then grins. “That…actually makes him kind of hotter?”
I throw a pillow at him.
He flinches. “What? Itdoes! Tell me he isn’t a DILF.”
“Even after fucking you as many times as I have, youstillsomehow gross me out.”
“You’re not grossed out,” he says. “You don’t get grossed out. You’re just mad because you actually like him and someone’s finally calling you out on it.”
