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You spent weeks watching the drones patrol. You were sure that there hadn’t been any intrusions in the back yard, and the drones always seemed to hover outside the ‘plausible deniability’ range of their optics, avoiding the side and back yards to patrol for people on the sidewalks.
It was interesting, as though David Most hadn’t counted on someone phoning the FAA to report his drones; the news, certainly, had covered it more than once. He was, after all, still a private citizen, no matter what the contracts provided to him by the US military implied. He could, still, face a class-action lawsuit and felony charges.
A sneaky suggestion by tinfoilhat to buy you some breathing room, it seemed to have done its job. None of the drones swooped at house level anymore, staying the requisite height above residential neighborhoods. They kept to the streets and did not fly over, as instructed, while David fought bureaucracy to get his way once again. You were confident enough in your own security in your back yard that you dared to step out onto the back porch for fresh air and sunshine.
Dorian often grunted in disapproval, but Farya overruled him, noting that a vitamin D deficiency would be detrimental to your health in the long run. Usually, he’d let you through with no more than a low growl of ‘be careful’, but it was reasonable to be afraid.
With the Dateviators gone, the experiment would end, and going outside was tantamount to courting disaster.
But you’d gamed the system in your favor, you felt, and had secured your back porch for at least a few days—until David Most decided that the fine and possible jail time was worth finding the Dateviators. He hadn’t become desperate like that yet—not from what you’d seen. You and Willi had been casing WRKSPCE relentlessly for updates, but as you worked on your relationships with the other Dateables, Phoenicia and Willi had nothing more for you on that front. Even tinfoilhat’s updates were few and far between. He’d mentioned Realization to you, and you’d managed some, but you were still working on your SPECS points to be able to meet the recipes’ high requirements—and some of them were astronomical in their needs.
You’d get there, but it would take time. As the days had turned into weeks, you could feel yourself ratcheting to the breaking point with stress and pressure from the Dateables, now that Realization was on the table. Anxiety mounted, making you wake from more night terrors than usual. Nightmare’s giggles notwithstanding, you did need to be functional in order to finish what you’d started.
So...you decided to relax, just for a little while.
Your last charge of the day was one you held until almost sunset, slipping the Dateviators on as you unlocked the back door. You could hear Dorian in your ear, muttering his same warning of ‘be careful’ as you stepped out onto your back deck. You would, but you had something better in mind than caution right now.
It was time for self-care, and Dorian was going to help; he just didn’t know it yet.
The back deck itself was tidy, if in need of a little maintenance. The paint was peeling, and it could use a redo. You made a mental note to try and get that done once everything with Valdivian was over and done. For now, though, you breathed in the fresh air and looked around.
Should get a landscaper to trim those bushes. Might make the deck look bigger.
A hand resting on the back of your neck made you hum quietly, Dorian’s big palm encompassing your neck and even some of your shoulders. His thumb rubbed gently at the soft hair at your nape, and you shivered.
“Got to admit, every time you step out here, it’s unnerving,” Dorian said, his voice a low, rough counterpoint to the musical birdsong from the tree on the west side of the house. “You take a lot of risks.”
“It’s good for me,” you murmured back, so as not to draw attention to yourself. The last thing you need was the neighbors peeking over your fence. Not that they did, but the thought was there, settling on your shoulders like the weight of Dorian’s hand itself. Quiet, though intrusive. Thrilling, in a way. “The fresh air helps me sleep a little better, and it’s nice to get out here for a little bit of privacy.”
“Privacy?” Dorian said, and you could hear his brow lifting in judgment. “Not a lot of that around here.”
“Moreso than inside,” you countered. You start to tick off on your fingers. “Curt and Rod are on the north side, throwing shade at that new delivery guy again. Wyndolyn is off kid-watching, also on the north side. And Wallace? He’s at the book club meeting with Celia and Florence, talking about Lyric’s newest book.”
“Just you and me, then,” Dorian said, slowly.
“Mhm.” You turned to face him, then, his hand resting where it was, cupping the back of your neck still as you craned your neck up to look at him. “There’s a reason I’ve been fighting so hard for access to the backyard.”
He blinked at you. You swore you could see the gears turning in his head, until the tips of his ears got pink. The flush spread across his cheekbones, and his dark eyes glinted at you from beneath his furrowed brow.
“I wanted you to myself, at least for a bit,” you continued, your hands resting on his hips. Dorian’s throat clicked as he swallowed, even as you tipped your head at him, a small smile playing about your mouth. “Mostly so I can turn my brain off for a little bit. But I need your help.”
His eyes darted from your mouth to your eyes, searching for an answer to the puzzle you’d just put before him.
“I’ll try and help how I can, you know that.”
“Good,” you said, ignoring his spluttered inhale as you dropped smoothly to your knees in front of him. Your hands were swift as you undid the ridiculous catch of his belt, unbuttoning and unzipping his slacks with a speed that you weren’t sure you could replicate again.
You’d had to stunlock Dorian to do it, after all.
“All you have to do is behave like normal.” You hummed the words, pressing a kiss to his bared hip as you untucked his shirt, fishing past the sensible pair of boxers he wore. He swore softly, his hand flexing on the back of your neck, and the pressure there made you hum in satisfaction.
Oddly, he didn’t try to stop you; you glanced up at him through your lashes and saw his eyes focused on you, bright in the cooling air. You hummed again and freed him from his boxers.
Dorian was half-hard from the attention and the brazen display of audacity from you, who’d shut yourself in the house for almost a year prior to your hiring at Valdivian. You’d learned some things about yourself in the meantime, and now you were about to put them to good use.
“Do what you normally do when you’re on guard,” you murmur, thumb pressing against his hip. “I need a little time.”
He gave a gruff noise, but seemed on board with it as you studied him and how best to go about this.
Dorian’s cock wasn’t small by any means; as big as he was, he was proportionate, and that meant that you’d have to navigate that. He was pretty, though, uncut and swelling in your hand, the tip going flush as the foreskin slowly peeled back. You tilted your head to the side, contemplating it, and finally hummed again, opening wide and letting the tip graze your tongue.
Dorian gave a soft groan, twitching in your fingers, and you glanced up at him, eyes following his movements as you slid him deeper. You had to stretch your jaws to accommodate for a moment, but the weight of him against your tongue calmed some of the buzzing in your brain, making the anxiety fizzle out as you took him deeper. He was thick, warm and lovely, the salt of the precum leaking against your tongue enough to bliss you out a bit.
“Hey,” he muttered. “You don’t have to—”
You blinked up at him, your expression as placid as you could get with his cock half in your mouth. Dorian twitched against your tongue, and you squeezed his hip.
It’s all right. You gotta trust me.
It would ruin it to pull back now, just when you’d gotten started, and Dorian subsided after a moment, swallowing hard. His eyes were on you, and you gave a tiny nod, so as not to disturb the fragile balance you were building. He gave a soft grunt in reply, and you continued on, letting him bottom out against the back of your throat. You could take more, and deeper, but that wasn’t the point of this. The point of this—
—was right there, when you felt your brain go a little melty, watching Dorian’s eyes raise to the yard, scoping for threats.
There it was. You needed this. Turn off the brain, turn on the sensation of Dorian resting heavy on your tongue, his heartbeat close against the press of your teeth. Gentle, warming, safe.
Connected.
You adjusted, feeling Dorian shift from foot to foot as he subtly widened his stance to accommodate you. His hand never left the back of your neck, thumb brushing the edge of your ear absently. His eyes roved around, studying the backyard in the lengthening shadows of the setting sun. Shifting closer, you settled in, nuzzling at the hair at the base of his cock. Musky and masculine, but not overwhelming, the underlying tang of brass and wood polish made you swallow a little, causing him to let out a soft groan.
Dorian, to his credit, seemed to have understood the assignment; he didn’t move, didn’t jerk his hips or make a push to fuck your face roughly—though that was a thought for another time. No, here, it was quiet, the bubbling fizz of your anxiety overwhelmed by the scent of him, the breeze in the backyard, and the sound of buzzing insects as day slowly faded to night.
His heartbeat was a steady pulse on your tongue, holding him in your mouth like that, and you felt yours slow to meet his. His thumb traced a line down the cartilage of your ear, dulling the sound of passing cars out front. The hum of drones was non-existent, and everything but the man before you faded out to dullness as you focused on breathing, your eyes watching his face in adoration as you held him close.
Dorian softened, eventually, his gaze dropping to you as though to apologize, only to flush when he saw the corners of your mouth quirk up around him. You could feel him twitch again, and decided that later, you would seek out Trap Dorian to conclude the stream of wants that slipped through your fingers like sand, too blissed out to chase them to completion at the moment.
Day faded, the sunlight hitting the painted planks of the house going pink, then red, and finally a deep orange before the purple of night began to fall. The porch light, automated for nightfall, flickered on and bathed Dorian’s face in warm, sodium arc shadow.
As the cooling breeze blew through the backyard, you tried not to shiver, but Dorian was too good at his job not to notice. Slowly, he tapped at the joint of your jaw, making you blink. In a daze, you pulled back, flexing your jaw back to pliancy as you came back to yourself. Dorian righted himself, slipping his cock back into his boxers and doing up his trousers with little fanfare. For a moment, the only noise was the click of his belt buckle between you.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked, his voice husky in the dark.
“Maybe in a little while,” you said, your voice rough from accommodating his stretch. With a hand in his, you rose, leaning against him as the feeling came back into your thighs and calves, the TV static of pins and needles less of a punishment after such a reward. “Thank you for trusting me.”
The buzz of insects and your quiet breathing was all there was for a moment, Dorian’s arm looped around you, pressing you right against his broad, warm chest. You buried your face against him, breathing in his cologne, the brassy tang reminding you of where you’d just been moments before.
Safe. Connected.
“Thank you for allowing me to trust you,” he said, after a time. You lifted your head at that, meeting his eyes with a smile. Reaching up and cupping his jaw, you encouraged him down so that you could press a kiss to his scruffy cheek.
Dorian’s lips pressed to your forehead right after, and you knew things would be all right.
“Come on, let’s get you inside,” he said, swinging the door open so you could step into the house. “You’ve been exposed out here long enough.”
You allowed Dorian his protectiveness. You were safest in his care, after all.