Obie pauses, his eyebrows furrowing. “Yeah?”
“Well, your…” Chester’s throat feels like cotton. He swallows hard and tries again. “Your true form. It has tentacles, right? So you could, um. Use those to tie my wrists down. If you want.”
Chester thinks this just might be the first time he’s ever managed to render Obie speechless. For a long moment, he stares down at Chester with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging slightly agape, the black of his pupils nearly swallowing up the streaks of amber in his irises.
Eventually, Obie seems to come back to himself. His tongue sneaks out to lick his lips. “Are you… still discovering things about yourself?” he asks carefully.
Chester smiles awkwardly. “It’s okay. You can laugh at the fact that it apparently took me twenty-two years to figure out that I’m kind of kinky. I can take it.”
“Chester,” Obie says, “there aren’t enough words in the English language to describe how turned on I am right now. I’m not laughing.” He takes a deep breath, meeting Chester’s eyes. “My true form. It won’t… scare you?”
“Honestly, I…” Chester switches to their telepathic link, wanting Obie to know that he isn’t lying.I’ve been trying to find an excuse to ask you to show it to me again for weeks. I loved it.
A grin jumps onto Obie’s face. “Yeah?”
He looks so genuinely happy about it. Chester’s heart swells. “Yeah.”
“All right,” Obie whispers, and his appearance ripples before Chester’s eyes, shifting into something ethereal, something more than human. Ram horns curve up from just above his ears, bat wings stretch out from his shoulders, tentacles unfurl from the middle of his back?—
All those weeks ago during the blackout, Chester didn’t have thepresence of mind—or the lighting—to notice the smaller details, but now, he drinks them in. He remembers the half-dozen eyes blinking from Obie’s forearms and the mouths dotting his torso, but he wasn’t fully able to appreciate thecolors:the patch of black scales on his left cheek, the puff of white fur on his right shoulder, the smattering of silvery feathers on his hip?—
And Obie’s true form doesn’t scare Chester. Not exactly. But hedoesfeel that same overpowering sense of awe from so many weeks ago, that same dryness in his throat and weakness in his knees at being so close to such unfiltered divinity. “Nostringvadha,” he whispers.
Obie’s lips curve up. “I prefer ‘Obie,’ actually,” he says, and he leans down to kiss Chester again, softer this time. “So you… like being restrained?”
Chester answers through the bond again, sensing that Obie needs concrete reassurance here.Yes. And I promise I’ll tell you if I stop liking it.
“Okay,” Obie murmurs, and two of the tentacles rippling out from his spine glide through the air, coiling around Chester’s wrists and tying him to the table. “Okay, good.”
“Although…” Chester fidgets against the restraints, secretly pleased when they don’t give an inch. “Although Iamsort of curious about how I’m supposed to, ah, get naked like this.”
Obie’s lips twitch. Delicately, he places a hand on Chester’s shoulder, and Chester jumps when his t-shirt disappears. “Pocket dimension. I can pull your clothes out again for you later.” His grin widens. “After I’m finished with you.”
Obie shouldnotbe this good at pushing Chester’s buttons within ten minutes of being given access to them. “That’s—that’s cool,” Chester says weakly, and he squirms his legs. “How about, uh, down here?”
Obie raises his eyebrows innocently, drumming his fingers against Chester’s belt. It vanishes into thin air. “You mean that?”
“Well, like,” Chester says,“almostthat.”
“Hm…” Obie sits back on his heels, snapping his fingers. A sudden chill wraps around Chester’s feet as his sneakers and socks disappear. “That?”
“Obie,”Chester whines, and even he’s surprised by how breathless and needy his voice sounds. “Comeon.”
“Settle down, puppy. We have all the time in the world, and I’m planning on enjoying you slowly.” Obie wraps his fingers around the waistband of Chester’s jeans and, after a split second of hesitation, slips them past the elastic of his boxers, too. “Yes?”
Finally.“Please,” Chester whispers.
His jeans and underwear vanish, leaving him completely bare underneath Obie. Another wave of heat throbs through him as Obie’s gaze travels deliberately down Chester’s body, taking in every inch of him, and Chester bites his lip, trying to force down his knee-jerk embarrassment.
Judging by Obie’s borderline reverent expression, Chester has nothing to be embarrassed about.
Obie’s eyes find Chester’s again. His hand settles on Chester’s hip, his voice winding through Chester’s head.I’ve wanted this for… longer than I care to admit.
Chester’s breath shudders out of him. It’s one thing to get caught up in the heat of the moment and Chester’s impulsive confession and their petty revenge fantasy, but for Obie to definitively say that he trulydoeswant Chester?—
That’s another thing entirely.Same,Chester whispers through the bond.
Obie smiles. Deliberately, his hand slides downward.And you’ll tell me if you want me to stop, right? Or slow down?
