But then Toni reached out and placed his hand on Rusty’s shoulder. Dex couldn’t see Toni’s expression fully, but he heard the slight hitch in the Elas’s breathing as his grip on Rusty tightened. The Pyclon’s ears lifted, his tail rising halfway, and he purred, a quiet offer of comfort.
Toni sniffed, patted Rusty’s shoulder twice, then he was walking around the Pyclon and down the hallway, out of sight. Rusty didn’t move until Quin’s door shut. With a heavy sigh, he trudged back to the table and continued clearing it of dirty dishes. Dex exchanged a worried glance with Cya.
“I know I shouldn’t ask, but…” they trailed off, concern tightening the skin between their eyes.
Dex splayed his hands in apology. “It’s not my place to say anything.”
He expected more pushback, but Cya simply dipped their chin in acceptance and turned back to the espresso machine.
Like he had all week, Dex came home to find Cya and Jasmyn in the living room. Jasmyn sat on the couch, crisscross applesauce, as Cya settled on the floor in front of her in a loose coil. They were painting her nails, head bobbing in time to the music blasting from Jas’s headphones.
At Dex’s appearance, they glanced up and smiled almost shyly at him, the gold of their eyes warm and molten. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said as his insides flip-flopped pathetically.
He was going to make a move tonight. When he walked them to the tram stop, he was going to be cool and collected and suave, and he would kiss them. Well, he’d ask first, unless they leaned in or communicated clearly in some other way that they were into it. Then maybe he’d go for it and let the chicks fall where they wanted.
After dinner, while Jasmyn showered, Dex stood beside Cya at the kitchen sink as they filled it with hot water to clean the dishes they’d used to bake cookies earlier that afternoon with his mom.
“Do you use the same soap as the dishwasher?” Cya asked as steam rose from the filling sink.
Only laughing at them a little, he shook his head. “No, there’s special soap under the sink for handwashing dishes.”
He crouched behind them, a hand on the back of their tail. Not so high to count as the curve of their butt, but high enough to be a little suggestive. They inhaled audibly through their nostrils, and their scent thickened with a spicy layer that made Dex grin madly.
With the dish soap in one hand, he stood, letting his other hand drag up the side of their tail, until it came to rest on their hip. They wore a thin tunic today, given the summer heat, and it was entirely strapless, revealing their bronze shoulders and prominent collarbones.
Dex had never noticed shoulders before, not really, but Cya had nice ones. He wanted to shape them with his fingers. Or leave shallow indents in them from his teeth.
Framing their tail with his feet, he stood behind them and leaned in until his chest met their back, tipping the soap over the half-full sink and squeezing some into the water. Cya’s hands gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles straining against their skin, and he tilted his ear so he could more easily track the skip in their heartbeat.
“You gotta use dish soap,” he said as he set the bottle aside and loosened one of their hands from its death grip on the counter. He guided their hand into the hot water and swished it around. “And make it bubbly.”
Their throat clicked. “Bubbles are important?”
“Makes it more fun,” he joked, and they barked a weak laugh.
“Entertainment is essential, I s-suppose.” They stuttered on the last word as he slid wet fingers up their forearm. They’d removed their many arm bangles to do the washing, so he took advantage of all the bare skin.
“Then you take the Scrub Daddy and scrub.” He pressed the pads of several fingers into the delicate skin of their inner elbow.
“Please tell me it’s not actually called a Scrub Daddy?” they asked as they tracked his fingers on their arm with heavy-lidded eyes. “No sponge should ever be that kinky.”
Dex grinned against their ear. “Part of the entertainment, sweetheart.”
Another laugh, this one fuller, and Dex lifted his eyes to meet their gaze in the reflection of the window above the sink. It was cracked open to let the breeze in, and the wind chime hanging beside it clinked its song.
Cya’s eyes were wide, and even in the warped reflection, their cheeks were flushed. He held eye contact as he slid the hand at their waist inwardto span over their flat stomach. Under the fabric of their clothes, he felt the ridges of scales, then he found their belly button and the piercing there.
The Sypent captured their bottom lip between their teeth, the hint of their descending fangs dimpling their skin. But they didn’t stop his exploration, and they didn’t look away.
When his fingertips met a delicate chain under their tunic, it was Dex’s turn to inhale sharply. He traced the metal down to their belly piercing, then he followed it up, up, up to where it split in two directions, forming aYshape. To their nipple piercings, he realized.
Unable to swallow it, he growled, and his dick hardened fully in his gym shorts.
He’d always found their piercings hot, but this jewelry piece was something else entirely. One little pluck to the chain, and it would tug on their nipples. Like they could read exactly where his mind was going, Cya released a sexy little noise in the back of their throat, leaning more heavily against his chest. Dex’s reflection grinned, and it was all teeth.
A wave of heady spice blasted into him, and triumph roared through his veins, feeding the instinctual beast in his chest that wanted to make Cya scream as they came on his fingers or his tongue or his dick. Because he was the reason they smelled like this.Hewas the one to turn them on.
