Page 41 of Cloverleaf Station

Pleasure and relief melted Kieron’s spine, and he sagged into Elenus’s arms, letting the taller man hold him up as he lost himself to the kiss. There was some sort of lesson here, probably, something pithy that supported the idea of doing good to have good done and so on, but Kieron couldn’t think right now. Even the simplest philosophy was beyond him. All that mattered was being with Elenus, taking what the other man was willing to give, and giving it back as best he could. Affection. Comfort. Love.

Kisses that made every nerve tingle.

“Stop making my kid love you so much,” Elenus murmured as he kissed across Kieron’s neck. “Or no, wait, keep doing that, just don’t do it where I have to see it unless you want me to drag you off and fuck you in the middle of the hallway.”

“No fucking in the hallway,” Kieron said, sounding slightly slurred, but how could he be otherwise? He could barely think well enough to form words. “Un … sanitary.”

“Let’s go back to the bedroom, then.”

“Don’t you … shouldn’t we …”

“Catalina’s going to be busy for hours, we might as well relax.” Elenus nipped the edge of Kieron’s ear. “Unless you’d rather look at datasets instead of letting me suck your cock.”

“Bedroom. Now.”

Being a goal-oriented person had never before been so much of a blessing. Neither of them was in the mood to tease, and it was the work of a moment to mute their implants except to priority messages from Catalina and then focus on each other. Elenus, true to his word, pushed Kieron down onto his back as soon as he was naked. He touched him, stroking him to full hardness with a smirk on his face, then bent over and—

“Mmmfuck,” Kieron whispered, his hands coming down to Elenus’s hair so he could—not grip, just give him something to touch back. It felt better that way, more reciprocal even though this wasn’t a reciprocal act, it wasn’t, he knew that, he knew, but stars, how could it be possible to feel anything so incredible and not be expected to provide something in return?

Elenus pulled back just long enough to say, “You’ve giving me exactly what I want. Now shut up and let me have you.” It was embarrassing to be caught speaking his thoughts out loud, but Kieron was able to let it go. Elenus’s mouth was too warm and wet, his hand too tight to be anything but all-consuming. Kieron breathed, then moaned, and far too quickly, he bit his lip as he began to come, feeling pleasure so good it hurt.

As he fought to catch his breath, Elenus pulled up, already stripping off his shirt. “I need to—can I—”

“Anything.”

“Not smart.”

“You won’t hurt me.”

“I’m gonna try to take that the way I hope you mean it,” Elenus muttered, but whatever uncertainties he might have, they weren’t enough to keep him from taking himself in hand and jerking himself off hard and fast until he came, less than a minute later, across Kieron’s lax abdomen. “Fuck,” he said, staring down at Kieron with a bright gleam in his eyes. “You look … really good.”

“Messy?” Kieron suggested, with a little smile. “You like messy and gross?”

“I like it when I’m the one who made you that way, yeah.” To his credit, Elenus cleaned Kieron up before getting the rest of his clothes off and snuggling up close to him under the blanket. It was cool in the room, but Elenus always seemed to run warm, and Kieron relaxed against him far too easily. They drifted for a while in calm, satisfied silence. It was perfect, blissful.

“Tell me something about you.”

Kieron tensed right back up.

“Anything at all,” Elenus clarified with a sigh. “I’m not talking about revealing your deepest, darkest secrets here. Just tell me something I don’t know. It can be as simple as your favorite color.”

“Mmm.” Well … Kieron could do that much. “I like green.”

“Green. Okay, why?”

“Because I almost never saw it when I was growing up.” Oops, that was a little more personal than he’d been planning to get, but in for a kilometer, in for a parsec. “Most of the plants on Hadrian’s Colony were orange or red. Lichens, clinging to rocks. Algae in the shallower pools. They were all red or orange or sometimes yellow. The landscape was very rocky and sandy. Some places had grass, but it wasn’t green. Some days it felt like everything was red.” He still associated a sound with the color red, the dull ping of sand and pebbles being flung about by the relentless wind.

“There were some green things in the hydroponics lab, but I was never allowed to go in there. There wasn’t even a window to look through, and by the time they were made into food, it was all powdered anyway. I didn’t see green until after I left the colony. On Trakta, actually.”

“With Zakari?” Elenus asked.

“Yeah. He was the first person around my age that I met after … everything.”

“Everything.” Elenus paused, like he was weighing the word. “Mind if I ask you a few questions about that ‘everything’?”

Kieron didn’t reply. He didn’t like to talk about the colony—it almost always led to more curiosity, which was tiresome, or pity, which was offensive. But for some reason he didn’t want to shut Elenus down … not quite.

“How about I make some guesses instead?” Elenus cleared his throat, running a hand through Kieron’s hair as he got started. “Apart from the few ships that escaped with some young children, undoubtedly ferried there by worried parents, there were no efforts to leave. That leads me to think this was some sort of death cult, with an entire colony preferring to be killed rather than submit to oversight.”