The Administration Series (132 page)

Somehow the brief rest stretched out. After a few minutes, Warrick shifted, his hair tickling Toreth's face.

"What inspired that, then?" Warrick asked.

"Honestly?" Toreth lifted his head and rubbed the side of his nose with the heel of his hand.

After a moment, Warrick nodded.

"Well, I did it with a fuck on, um, Monday night. His idea. He was dead keen. It's not my favourite thing — I've done it before a couple of times."

"And because you didn't enjoy it with him, you thought you'd do it with me?" Warrick sounded curious rather than pissed off. And also a little breathless.

"Yeah, well — " Toreth slid down beside him to take the weight off, careless of the state of the sheets. "I wondered if it would feel the same."

"And?"

"It was a fuck of a lot more fun with you. Weird, huh?"

"Sex very often is. I thought it was . . . very involving." Warrick's hand smoothed absently over Toreth's chest. "Actually, I was concentrating so much on the technique and your reactions that I didn't notice how close I was, which made a very pleasant change. One problem with working in the sim is that, outside the game, I'm always very aware of what's going on."

Toreth propped himself up on his side, feeling warm, well-fucked and generous. "What would you like to do with the rest of the weekend? Anything you fancy. How about a scene tomorrow, since we missed yesterday?"

Warrick smiled, eyes bright. "That sounds like an even better idea than your last one. Do you have anything in mind?"

"Plenty. I've had some incredibly dull meetings lately. But is there anything you'd like?"

"I'm sure I'll love anything you have planned."

Toreth felt enjoyably flattered by the confidence. "Okay. No requests at all?"

After a moment, Warrick glanced across the room towards the cabinet. Toreth shook his head.

"Try again."

"You said anything I fancied." Warrick's voice held an edge of pleading so arousing it almost hurt. "It's been a month."

"It's been three weeks."

Warrick looked away.

Do it anyway, said the part of Toreth's mind that didn't care about long-term nerve damage, or Dillian, or Justice. Do him in the cabinet because it's mind-blowing and he'll beg for it.

It was the part of his mind that seemed to be wired directly into his cock. As its previous brilliant ideas had included fucking Carnac and — long before that and immediately prior to Toreth's hasty transfer to General Criminal — fucking the wife of the head of the Political Crimes section, he had learned to resist some of its suggestions. Probably not enough of them, but still . . .

"Ah, fuck." He took Warrick's oily right wrist in his hand, rubbing his thumb firmly over the pulse point. There were no visible bruises but Warrick's fingers twitched, his arm pulling away. Toreth let him go. "Six weeks. That's the rule. You know why."

"Yes." Warrick closed his eyes for a moment, then said, "Yes, I do know why. Sorry. Use the manacles instead, then. The first pair you bought."

He should have guessed — Warrick's favourite toy after the cabinet. "Don't you ever get bored with them?"

"Never. In fact, it's better every time."

Toreth moved against him, enjoying the slide of thoroughly oiled skin, and kissed Warrick's jaw. "Yeah?"

"Mm. It's a cumulative effect. Every time there's another memory for them to bring back." Warrick settled back, looking at the ceiling, eyes narrowed. "Last time you chained me, I was standing by the wall. The time before that, you made me kneel and ask for them. Over and over. Oh, and before that, it was my hands behind my back, and at the end you fucked my mouth — we hadn't done that for more than a month." He swallowed, and Toreth nipped his throat. "Mmh. That time was . . . "

Silence. "It was what?" Toreth breathed into his ear.

"I'm not sure if you'd want to hear it."

Twined on the bed, soaked in the heat of skin and the smell of sweat and sex, nothing could spoil the moment. "Tell me."

"It was perfect. There was just you and what you wanted from me. I like it when you hurt me — God, so much — but sometimes it's even better if I can get there without it. Purer. I remember I was so lost in it . . . "

Toreth remembered it too: Warrick's wet, open lips and the moan he had made as Toreth pulled back. Toreth had been panting, one hand on the wall for support, still buzzing from his orgasm. Most clearly, he remembered Warrick's eyes, dark, glazed with desire, stunned with the intensity of the encounter.

Then he'd knelt and taken hold of Warrick's cock, and whispered, "Move. Do it." Letting Warrick fuck his hand, struggling in the confines of the chains. Toreth had buried his face in Warrick's neck, holding him close while he sank his teeth into Warrick's shoulder and listened to him gasp and whimper and finally scream.

Coming back to the present, Toreth realised that Warrick lay still, his breathing quiet and distant. Toreth lifted his head and looked down at him. Warrick was frowning thoughtfully.

"Mmh," Warrick said.

"Well?"

"I'm thinking about what I want. I think . . . " Warrick smiled suddenly. "Go home today — don't stay the night. Come back on Sunday, but don't let me know the exact time."

Toreth grinned. He liked the sound of this already. "And when I come round?"

Warrick was breathing quickly now, and his cock twitched once, then again, before it accepted the laws of nature and gave up.

"When you come round, bring the gear."

"What, exactly? The manacles, and what else?"

"The — no. Surprise me."

Because the edge of uncertainty was part of the game. "Okay. And then?"

Warrick said nothing. Toreth ran his thumb over Warrick's lips, then kissed him.

"And then," he repeated, breathing the question into Warrick's ear.

"Ah — make me wait. Make me wait for it."

"How long?"

He expected, As long as you want, but instead Warrick closed his eyes again and said, "As long as you can stand it."

Toreth smiled slowly. He liked a challenge.

On Sunday morning, Warrick risked a foray out for fresh food; it was highly unlikely that Toreth would turn up so early. Then he made a barley broth which would benefit from cooling and reheating to bring out the flavour. Something hot and savoury for later on in the evening, after a hopefully exhausting session.

In the afternoon, he tried to stick to tasks that could easily be interrupted. This meant no intensive coding, not that he could have concentrated on it. It left him, for once, with nothing at all to do. In fact, he spent ten minutes trying to remember the last time that had happened and failed. Not that he was bored — anticipation was taking care of that — but it felt peculiar. In the end he decided to listen to music. He had a ridiculously long list of unlistened-to presents and purchases that had accumulated over the past months.

It
was
nice to have a free afternoon, he thought as he lay on the sofa and closed his eyes. Hopefully not free for too much longer, but enjoyable in itself.

Dinner time came and brought with it the first stirrings of dismay. Was Toreth planning to take 'as long as you can stand it' far too literally? Warrick couldn't call and ask without destroying the setup. On the other hand, it would be just like Toreth to wait until Warrick was convinced he was staying away, then show up.

Or he hoped it was.

Eventually, he had a bowlful of the broth with fresh bread, and put the rest in the fridge.

Midnight. One o'clock. Two.

Finally, Warrick conceded that Toreth wasn't coming, and went to bed, virtually vibrating with sexual tension.

The project estimate on the screen in front of Warrick was for the cold weather training programs, but every time he read the word 'snow', he thought of Toreth on skis, lips reddened by the wind, squinting into the snow-glare. Under all the layers he'd be hot, freshly sweaty from the exercise.

Against that, the estimate stood no chance. With a vividness that matched the sim, Warrick could picture stripping Toreth, peeling back the layers to reach the smooth, salty skin. He'd steam in the cold air — and complain like hell, of course, but that would be in the real world. In his mind, Warrick could have him however he liked. Tasting him, kneeling in front of him in the crunching snow, taking Toreth's cock in his mouth to taste a subtly different saltiness . . .

He shook his head, finally managing to dislodge the image. Changing to another estimate wouldn't help; he'd already tried that. After four days with no word at all from Toreth, everything reminded him of Toreth in general and sex in particular. He shifted in the chair and sternly informed his body that it would simply have to wait. It had had three years to get used to sex with Toreth — shouldn't it have at least little contempt bred by the familiarity?

The answer seemed to be no.

It might, he decided, improve his patience if he had some idea of when the hell he'd see Toreth again.

Toreth's personal comm still wasn't taking Warrick's calls. His home comm was set for messages. Warrick stared thoughtfully at the blank screen. He'd assumed the absence was due to the game they'd started, but it was always possible there was a more sinister explanation. In the past Warrick had missed the warning signs of Toreth's intermittent retreats. If this was one, it would be better to uncover the source of the problem before things got out of hand.

He set the comm to sound only, because his face would certainly give too much away to her sharp eyes.

"General Criminal, Para-investigator Toreth's admin speaking."

"It's Warrick. How are you?"

"Oh
hello
," Sara said cheerfully. "I'm great. Never better, really. I wondered when you'd call."

She certainly didn't sound as if Toreth was in a bad mood. "How's Toreth?"

"Fine. Out of the building on a case. I'm afraid I can't tell you what it is, but we're all on overtime right now which should tell you something, considering how tight they are about authorising it."

She was far too good an admin for him to tell whether or not it was a lie.

"He left a message for you," she added. "He hasn't forgotten, but it'll probably be Sunday now, or maybe next Friday. Does that make sense?"

Damn. Damn, damn, damn. "Did he mention anything at all about tomorrow?"

"You mean your — hang on." There was a long pause. "Sorry, B-C wanted me. Regular Friday, right? He said to let you know he'll be too busy and to say sorry."

Warrick said goodbye, cancelled the connection, kicked a perfectly innocent waste bin across the floor and sat back in his chair, breathing heavily.

Sunday
. Sunday, if he were lucky, Friday if he wasn't. Three whole days at best; a week would probably kill him.

He turned his attention back to the screen and stared at it for a minute without reading a single word. Not possible, he decided, and called up the programme for the sim bookings. What he needed was a nice relaxing hour or so in the sim, buried in someone's trial, where he could forget about Toreth. Trials were always full, but what was the point of being a director if he couldn't kick people out of his own creation?

To his surprise, a trial currently in progress still required volunteers. When he read the protocol, the reason became clear. It was run by Wenzel Aldren, one of the senior physiologists, who always had trouble filling his slots.

This particular test was part of a series investigating the latest sim sickness suppressant systems. Or, in other words, you lay in the sim until Wenzel succeeded in making you feel so sick you had to disconnect. Even the most dedicated volunteers balked at that.

As Warrick reached the sim suite, a young man he recognised but couldn't put a name to stumbled out into the corridor. One of the new students, Warrick thought, and looking distinctly pale.

The student leaned on the door that had closed behind him and stood for a few seconds, breathing deeply. Then he looked up and saw Warrick.