Page 98 of Forge the Blade

“Rei has nerves of steel,” Ellisandre growled against Sevastyan’s lips when they finally pulled back for air.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I just know what he feels like, waiting for you to come back. I wanted to kill something watching you walk into that hellhole.”

“You watched?”

“Through a gun scope. The first time, not the second time.”

Sevastyan rested his forehead against theirs. “Why do I feel like you coped by stashing a weapons cache there?”

Ellisandre laughed against his cheek. “There and Seoul. And maybe somewhere else.”

Sevastyan grinned and buried his face against their neck.

Ellisandre jerked him up by the hair on the back of his head, kissed him again, and then dragged him fully into the tiny room. They stripped off his coat. “Tell me you’ve checked everything.”

“Completely, in the airports. Twice. No bugs.”

Ellisandre grinned and pushed him back onto the bed and crawled on top of him. “Tell me everything.”

Sevastyan blinked up at the ceiling, pulling his thoughts together. As he did, the deep, sick feeling returned. He rattled off the details as quickly as possible, trying not to let them feel real.

Ellisandre cursed softly as he finished, still leaning over Sevastyan, hands braced on the bed. “You bought us time. They can’t expect Jun to start paying anything back before they’ve had their release.”

“Some time. Not much time. Not enough for Rei’s plan.”

“Then we find a way to make more time,” Ellisandre said. “We get back to Chicago, we meet with Richard and Damian, and Jun, and we work this out. That gives us a month before you have to deliver the Merchari’s threat, officially.”

Sevastyan’s mouth dried out at the thought. He reached for Ellisandre. He wasn’t going to think about the morning, not if he could help it. “When are you flying back?”

“There are two flights out tomorrow morning. One routes through LAX, the other is direct. You take the direct. It gives us six hours before we need to leave for the airport.”

Six hours.

“Can I just be yours, till we have to leave?”

“Yes. First thing I’m doing is turning this ass red.” They flipped him face down, rear up over their thighs. Sevastyan huffed as the air was half punched out of his lungs. Their hand came down hard on his ass.

“Goddex! Elli! I didn’t do anything!”

“You may be right.” Ellisandre punctuated their words with more open-handed strikes that stung but carried only a tenth of their real strength. “But I’ll feel better about it when your rear is pink.”

His goddex was both absurd and perfect. He wrapped one arm awkwardly around their waist, his other hand bracing himself against the bed. Some twenty slaps later, they stopped leaving palm marks on him and grabbed two handfuls of his ass, kneading it like bread. Sevastyan kicked, laughter bubbling out of his throat. “I have to sit on that in a few hours.”

“You will be thinking of me across the entire Pacific, like I’ve been thinking about you. Let’s wash you. I want to bite and you smell like airports and depression.”

Sevastyan whimpered and cooperated as his goddex started stripping him.

The shower was tiny, like many Japanese hotels not meant for foreign vacationers. Sevastyan went first and Ellisandre watched from the open door of the bathroom with their arms crossed.

Ellisandre

Their boy blushed, water cascading over his long hair. He gathered it up in his hands and started washing. “I was fine.”

“You were in a building that’s rigged to blow.”

“It’s been rigged for years. I’ve rigged parts of it.”