Stolen Pleasures: version 2 - 4. Chapter 4

The needs of his body woke him.

Jahke grumbled to himself, pulling up the blankets, and snuggling into Sitka’s warmth. His bedmate was sleeping on his side, several pillows wedged under his neck to offset the awkwardness of his massive horns, one arm slung around Jahke’s waist. He remembered the demon grumbling softly to himself about the sleeping position, though he hadn’t actually complained, and had held Jahke tightly until he’d eventually passed out. Jahke remembered a fantasy he’d often had in those soft moments between sleep and really waking, where he’d allowed himself to imagine what life would be like if he could live with a man in the way so many lived with their wives, and just as he was working up the courage to find out if demons had morning wood too, his own body reminded him that it had been a long time since he locked himself inside the second floor bathrooms back in the archives of the museum.

Sitka didn’t wake as he extracted himself carefully from the bed, just rolled onto his back the moment Jahke got up, yawned hugely, and continued into oblivion. Jahke smiled as he watched his companion sleep, and resolved to wake the demon up gently once he’d located a bathroom. He was still dressed, and closed the bedroom door behind him as silently as he could, memorizing the pale scrape in the stone frame that from it’s height must have been made by one of Sitka’s horns.

All the doors along the passage looked the same, but one stood open, and Jahke headed that way. In the doorway he paused, wishing there had been a way to be better prepared, and equally wishing the bathroom door had a sign on it, because what greeted him was not the bathroom.

“Dial’s still broken.” The blood soaked figure said, voice muffled by the fact it was extracting itself from clothes as it spoke. “Go wake the lovebirds, it’s all hands on deck until we can get this mess sorted.” The pile of wet clothing hit the floor with a smack, then promptly vanished, leaving nothing but a dark red smear on the stone. “Oh...” the black, feline figure frowned, “You’re not Shindae.”

“Ummm….” Jahke wished suddenly to be back at his desk, quill in hand, with nothing more complex to worry about than deciding if a piece of broken pottery belonged to a Neolithic burial vase here or a Chalcolithic water vessel there. The demon towered over him, his fur was drenched in the blood of several someone’s, and he had many more fangs than Sitka did.

“You’re the boy Sitka brought back,” the demon growled, sounding less and less happy by the minute. “What are you doing up and out without him?”

“Ummm… bathroom?”

The demon snarled and rolled his eyes.

“Next door.” He jerked his head towards one wall, and Jahke fled.

The bathroom was warm, full of the sounds of rushing water, and Jahke realised after he’d slammed the door in terror, occupied.

“Did your parents not teach you to knock, Jahke?” Tobias stood in front of a square white porcelain sink, regarding him in the mirror, a wash cloth in one hand stained slightly pink. He had a very obvious bite mark on the back of his neck, at which he patted distractedly. “I see you met Kiorl.”

“Did- did- did h-he…?”

“Ha! That’s not my blood, no. The bite is courtesy of my mate Zai, whole shares a few feline appearances with our panther there.” Tobias scowled at his reflection. “Nassau could have at least waited until he’d finished healing me before he woke everyone up though. Dammit.” There was a pause. “Good lords boy, just go!” Tobias flicked a hand towards the toilet and turned away from the mirror. “I won’t look.”

Jahke wanted to protest, but his physical needs outweighed any shame he might have felt, and after a moments unsuccessful fumbling with the complicated wrapping of his loin cloth, simply pushed the whole lot down his narrow hips and dumped it on the floor. He yelped halfway through his ablutions as the material vanished.

“My clothes!”

“The house does the laundry. It will have assumed you were finished with them.”

There was an angry hammering, but it wasn’t on the bathroom door.

“Wha-”

“Shhh. Listening in is the only way you find stuff out around here.” Tobias grinned. “Or don’t you want to know what kind of impression you’ve made upon our major demon?”

Jahke frowned, but finished up, washed his hands, and came to lean against the wall nearest the door alongside the boy who looked human.

“SITKA! Get the fuck out here!”

There was silence, then the unmistakeable sound of hooves, followed by Sitka’s panic.

“Where’s Jahke?”

“Bathroom. Oh, no you don't!” Jahke could well imagine the bigger demon hauling his companion back by the shoulder. “Nassau’s ordered us Upstairs, you too. Sathriel’s left half a perfectly good world in ruins, the clean up is going to take forever!”

“Is he OK?” Sitka very obviously hadn’t heard a word the other demon had said.

“Like I care if Sathriel is- oh, you mean the boy. How the fuck should I know? Looked like a deer in headlights. Get dressed and get to the North Gate.” The dark demon made a sharp noise. “Fine, go kiss your boy goodbye. Be quick!”

Tobias sighed and rolled his eyes.

“I’ll leave you to it. Come find me when you’ve had a shower. I’ll make breakfast.”

Jahke stared at Tobias’s bitten neck as he departed.

“What’s a shower?”

*

Sitka had been a bundle of panic and apologies, and rather than listen to him explain for the third time that Jahke mustn’t leave the house until they got back, he simply shut the demon up with his tongue. After that, Sitka had practically had to tear himself away. Jahke had peeked around the bathroom door as his lover departed, still strapping on the breastplate Jahke had thrown at him the previous day, and seen a brief impression of the other demons as they’d begun to clatter down the stairs. A collection of tall, strong, imposing men at arms, all with various features which marked them as distinctly other than human. It was the fiery demon, Shindae, who turned to rake him with hot eyes just before vanishing from sight.

Left alone in the bathroom, Jahke had stood under a waterfall of deliciously hot, clean water, found some substance which was clearly a substitute for soap, and wondered if Sitka’s scavenging duties could grow to incorporate lavender scented bathing products and eau de cologne. After that, not possessing the skills to tie a loin cloth, Jahke had wound a large towel into a toga, and followed his nose downstairs, wishing he had a hairbrush.

“On top of the first shelf in the den.” Tobias’s clipped tone came just before he stepped into the kitchen.

“Sorry?”

“A hairbrush. Might be a comb too.”

Jahke glanced around the room Tobias had called the den, taking in the selection of furniture that looked halfway between a bordello and a gentleman’s supper club, found the hairbrush, and returned to the kitchen.

“You make a habit of listening in on people’s thoughts?”

“Not especially, but you project rather widely, and I have always liked to let my guard down when the house is empty. There are some things I'd rather not see… again.” Tobias scowled as he spoke, but he was once again moving around the kitchen with deft and precise movements. “So what do you eat for breakfast on your world?”

“I burn really good toast.” Jahke grinned at the memory of the toasting fork and the little grate in the room he’d rented, and felt a wash of relief that he didn’t ever have to go back there again. “I heard chickens last night; does that mean there are eggs?”

Tobias opened a large door which revealed a room full of glowing blue ice and hanging meats.

“There’s even bacon.”

Jahke settled on the stool nearest the stove, and watched Tobias as he cooked. The young man who really looked no older than a boy, scanned him up and down, and furrowed his brow.

“You’ve settled in well. Sitka’s already got you dressed in next to nothing.”

“I don’t appear to have any other clothes.” Jahke countered. “What happened to your neck?”

Tobias flipped an egg deftly with a wooden spatula before he replied.

“Zai and I have other, rather different, proclivities than your Sitka. Oh, he might puncture your neck and suck your blood, but trust me it’s not the same.” Jahke scanned the many faint scars visible on the exposed parts of the boy, and decided to believe him. “Here, eat.”

To his surprise, Tobias joined him on the other side of the bar for breakfast, and Jahke ate with relish. When they’d finished, he held out a hand to collect Tobias’s plate, and the other man smiled at him as he handed it over. Jahke placed the dishes in the sink, and was only slightly surprised when they too, vanished.

“Wha-?”

“Just wait,” Tobias smiled thinly, then rolled his eyes toward a cupboard where there was the distinctive noise of clinking crockery. “Thank you Zinkara.”

“Who?”

“Zinkara Rumah – the house. It cleans up after us all, as you saw upstairs.”

“Are you sure this is Hell?” Jahke couldn’t help but grin. “Between the bathroom, the food, and the sex, I think maybe I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

“One of the people we live with eats humans whilst they’re still alive. Trust me, this is Hell.” Tobias snapped. Before Jahke had even made a move to speak, the empath was reading his emotions. “Oh shit. Jahke… I’m sorry….”

Jahke bolted from the kitchen, ignored the stairs, and walked through the other large doorway in the main foyer. This room was rather better appointed than the den, though it did not have a giant hearth, with long low couches, a mostly empty bookcase, and a small square table on which a chess board and pieces lay with a game in progress. The walls were lined with rich, thick tapestries showing what Jahke assumed were famous demons from history, most with backgrounds of fire and scenes of battle. One held a figure he recognised as the blood soaked demon who had glared at him that morning, and Jahke couldn’t help wondering how old Kiorl actually was. For a small moment, he allowed himself to think about what Tobias had said, and decided he didn’t want to imagine people being eaten, and crossed to the bookcase.

Sitka had been correct that his copy of The Gentleman’s Boy wasn’t the only book in the house, but two of the leather bound tomes Jahke picked up were in languages he didn’t recognise. The third was a slender paperback with a luridly coloured cover showing a very shirtless man with a wolf in the background, and the final one was an old, but perfectly serviceable copy of a cookbook from the Americas, The Settlement: The Way to a Man’s Heart. He smiled, and flicked through the index, looking for something he recognised.

When he heard Tobias approaching, he spoke without turning round.

“Will you make hollandaise sauce some time? If Sitka can bring chickens he can certainly get a salmon from somewhere.” There was a vast expanse of silence, and Jahke turned with the book still held between two fingers. “Tobias?”

“You can read?!” The young man looked completely taken aback, as though this fact was more startling than Jahke’s general appearance in the house where he’d lived for fifty years.

Jahke sneered at him, feeling superior for the first time since he’d arrived in Hell.

“I am an archivist at the National Museum, of course I can read.”

“Oh.” And suddenly the boy on the other side of the room looked just as young as his face suggested. Jahke felt like a jerk for being rude to him. Tobias turned to leave, and Jahke didn’t need to be an empath to realise he’d upset the chef with his unthinking snub.

“Tobias?” Jahke offered him a hopeful smile. “Would you like to… learn?”

*

Sitka stopped in the doorway to the sitting room none of them ever used, and tilted his head to look over Shindae and Zai’s shoulders.

“What are they doing?”

“Shhh...” Zai hushed him with an uncharacteristically soft smile, his yellow eyes shining. “Sitka, I'm going to owe you the biggest damn favour.” The grey furred demon squeezed his shoulder happily. “Leave them to it. Come on, we all need a wash.”

Sitka gave his lover a long, lingering look, wishing he was as fascinating to the young man as whatever was printed on the page of the book Tobias had been tracing with one careful finger, and followed his friends to the bathroom. Shindae’s black armour was already in pieces on the floor, and Zai yanked his tabard off over his head as the fire demon walked into the waterfall. Steam instantly began to fill the room.

“Shut the door, Sitka. You know what happens if the tapestries get damp.” Kiorl spoke as he passed him, his bright blue streaked mohawk plastered to his scalp with viscera and brick dust. “You boys did good work up there today.”

“Is it me, or did Nassau look especially angry?” Shindae wondered aloud as the other’s joined him under the water. The run off was dark and full of filth, and Sitka wasted no time to handing soap sand round to his friends.

“Yeah, he’s pissed alright.” Zai answered. “That was one of his preferred worlds.”

“Fuck knows why,” Kiorl muttered, trying to scrub the middle of his back, “there’s no one there.”

“I think that’s why he likes it.” Zai countered. “Oh, hold still would you?” He smiled as he took another handful of soap sand and began to wash the bits of Kiorl the panther was getting aggravated about. Kiorl purred.

“C’mere Sitka. I’ll do your hair.”

“I can do it.” Sitka grumbled, trying to untangle the mess of his matted hair from his horns. Sometimes he hated being the least senior demon in the house. He grateful at least Inai wasn’t there to make him feel short too, but the naga had stayed on guard duty at the Southern portal.

“Yeah, I know, and I’m right here.” Shindae’s super-warm fingers against his scalp felt nicer than Sitka liked to admit. “Don’t be getting too proud now, your boy might not like it.”

“What were they doing down there anyways?”

“Your boy is teaching Tobias to read.” Zai ducked his head under the strongest stream of water in the shower to remove suds from his fur, and rotated to give the position to someone else as he began to pick dirt from under his claws. The other three stared at him.

“Huh?”

“Why?”

“Why the fuck has he waited so long?” Shindae frowned, his lava eyes narrowed in confusion. “Sitka and Kiorl can read English.” He sighed in a blast of steam. “Bloody stupid of Sathriel to ensure we all spoke the same language but leave out the written stuff.”

“And all the paperwork is in Hell-speak which not even the Gods can fucking read anyway.” Sitka rumbled.

Kiorl chuckled softly, finished washing his hair, and stepped out of the constant stream of water with a broad smile.

“His Majesty can’t read.”

“What?”

“Really?” Sitka almost laughed. The idea of the Devil being unable to read anything as simple as a signpost dented his all powerful aura somewhat. And Kiorl hardly ever told them Palace secrets; Sitka was willing to bet his next meal there were very few in the Inner Circle who knew that their King couldn’t read. But then he turned to Zai with a frown as the yellow eyed demon began to dry his smooth fur with an enormous towel “Why has Tobias never asked us to teach him, Zai?”

Zai scoffed, and Sitka had the feeling the empath was flicking though his emotions like so many playing cards.

“Like he’d ever admit weakness in front of any of you. Don’t you remember how he was when he got here?” Zai took the opportunity to glare at Kiorl, though the major demon appeared not to notice him, “And what you were like to him?”

“Well,” Kiorl had the decency to sound very slightly guilty, “that was before we knew he was the best chef in the Inner Circle.”

The empath snarled at the black panther, but just as Sitka was getting worried the pair of them might actually come to blows, Kiorl flicked his ears back, both twitched their tails, and by the time Shindae emerged from the water with his lava patterns glowing brightly once more, the tension in the room had vanished. Sitka ran his fingers through his thick ringlets and frowned at himself in the mirror.

“Uh oh, he’s thinking about his boy again.”

Sitka flicked his gaze to the reflection of the three other demons behind him, each smirking in rather different ways as he chose a wooden pick from the cup and began to scrape his teeth clean. Zai had an all-knowing sort of expression which Sitka doubted had anything much to do with him being an empath, Shindae looked faintly jealous, and Kiorl appeared as though waiting to be proved correct in his assumption that mating with humans was a bad idea generally and a mistake for Sitka specifically.

“What?” he snapped, running his tongue over his fangs.

“So, what’s his name?” Zai asked in a sing-song voice.

“Don’t you already know?” Sitka doubted the empath would have had any qualms about fishing around in the young man’s mind already. But he smiled. “Jahke.”

“Oh I know that look, you got it bad man.” Zai grinned, and glanced at Shindae. “You both found him? What’s he like?”

“Delicious.” Sitka replied

“Pliable.” Shindae added. “And really rather willing, even without compulsion.”

“He asked about you.”

“Already?” It was Kiorl’s turn to looked surprised, one dark eyebrow raised. “My my….”

Shindae stepped forward and looped an arm around his scavenging partner’s waist, resting his chin on the faun’s shoulder.

“You’d share him?”

Sitka resisted the urge the shrug, lest he concuss his friend with his horns.

“I’d do pretty much anything he wanted.”

“Best look alive then,” Zai beamed, “he’s here.”

The door opened to reveal Jahke, dressed in what appeared to be a toga, wearing an expression of mixed shock, surprise, and lust. Sitka remembered himself in time not to smile too broadly, as though walking in on four naked demons was totally normal for the boy who, a day previously hadn’t known they existed, and extracted himself from Shindae’s embrace.

“Jahke.”

“Tobias said you were in the bathroom.” Jahke eyes had become kind of glazed, and Sitka knew he was trying really hard not to freak out. “I didn’t realise he meant all of you.”

“You remember Shindae?” Behind him, the fire demon waved. “And this is Kiorl.”

“We met.”

“Oh. And this is Zai.”

“Hello there, pretty one.” Sitka was about to glare at his friend, but the other demon was already frowning, a tight expression across his face. “Fine, fine. I was only being friendly,” he muttered, seemingly to himself.

Kiorl laughed.

“Tobias keeping you on a tight leash today, eh?”

“Fuck you.” The empath replied genially. “It was very nice to meet you Jahke.” Zai half bowed as he stepped around the boy and started towards the stairs. “Babe! No fair-”

“I can’t believe he has to ask permission just for looking.” Shindae laughed, but Sitka saw the remaining shock on Jahke’s face, took the boy by the elbow and steered him back towards their room.

“Jahke, you OK? I’m sorry I know the guys can be a bit… much.” Sitka frowned, because he was expecting Jahke to be having a slight breakdown, but instead found the blue eyed boy regarding him critically. He ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Ummm...”

“You’ve had sex with all of them, haven’t you?”

“Eh? You’re no empath,” Sitka went to sit on the edge of his fur covered bed with a frown, “How do you know?”

“I come from a place where the last thing you and I did together would get us thrown in jail.” Sitka was surprised and pleased to find Jahke coming to stand between his knees as he spoke. “One has to get awfully good at reading body language.”

“Oh. I mean, you’re right, I have. Is that a problem?”

Jahke appeared to consider his answer, head on one side.

“No.”

Sitka grinned, and began to slide his hands up Jahke’s calves, squeezing his thigh happily.

“You’re wearing a towel.”

“Yeah… turns out loin cloths are more complicated than I thought.”

“Is that so?” Sitka took the towel in one fist, and sent the fabric across the room with a grin.

It had been a long, difficult, and messy day Upstairs, cleaning up behind Zai and other enforcers who were doing damage control along the edges of Sathriel’s warpath. Sitka was very fond of his job as a scavenger, and there was a reason he owned only one set of armour which was rarely used. Drinking blood was one thing, but the aftermath of fights, brutal murders, and planet-wide chaotic destruction was quite another. He hoped it would be a long time before such tasks had to be repeated, and was rather looking forward to a much more pleasant evening. He ran his hands appreciatively over Jahke’s hips and abdomen, and smiled as the young man’s cock swelled in reaction to his nearness. Jahke blushed an incredibly attractive shade of pink, and Sitka grinned, tracing a bold line along his tumescence with one finger.

“So if sex is so hard to come by on this world you’re from, how much had you experienced before Shindae and I found you?”

“Ummm...” Jahke’s blush spread to his chest, and Sitka reached up to brush a thumb over his nipples. “Ahhh! You’re making it kind of hard to concentrate.”

“Uh huh...” Sitka nuzzled at the boy’s crotch, kissing the taut skin of his lower abdomen with closed lips. “Tell me...”

“Nnghhh! I gave two blow jobs, got given one, and got fucked once,” Jahke blurted, his fingers seeking to balanced himself by wrapping around Sitka’s horns. “Oh please, Sitka!”

“Please what?” Sitka teased, deliberately kissing the boy slower, touching him less as he felt Jahke heartbeat speed up.

“Please touch me again,” Jahke panted.

“And how would you like me to touch you Jahke?” He licked his lips, holding Jahke’s flushed blue gaze, but didn’t touch him.

“Oh gods! Please put my cock in your mouth and make me come!”

Sitka grinned proudly.

“With pleasure.”

He swallowed the boy down in one well practised movement and was rewarded with Jahke’s high pitched moan and the sensation of his fingers gripping tightly at his horns. Sitka hadn’t been aware that would be a turn on for him before, but there was something fantastic in knowing that without the handhold Jahke would have trouble standing. He skimmed his fingers down the back of Jahke’s thighs, encouraging him to step closer, then fumbled in the furs at the edge of the bed for the cork stopped bottle of scented oil he’d left there at some point. He slicked his fingers, parted the pert globes of the boy’s rear with his other hand, and slid a finger into his tight opening.

“Oh fuck!” Jahke half collapsed against him, and Sitka smiled in his head at the reaction his touch had produced. Jahke’s arse was no less fantastic than he’d remembered it, and Sitka was glad his imagination hadn’t gotten the better of him. When he inserted a second finger, the boy practically screamed, and Sitka pulled away from his swollen erection.

“You like that?”

“Ohgodspleasemore! Ahhh!”

The fact that his lover had stopped making coherent sense was a good sign, and Sitka curled his fingers inside the heat of Jahke’s body until the boy practically snarled at him.

“You gonna come for me, Beautiful?”

“Nghhh… ha… Sitka… please….”

Jahke was panting, his skin almost as warm an Shindae’s with the flush of pleasure which coloured him, and Sitka was proud. He hadn’t used a drop of compulsion on the boy, and here was Jahke holding his horns and begging him to touch his body again. Sitka took Jahke’s hardness into his mouth once more, applied pressure to a very specific spot inside him, and made sure to watch the boy’s face when he came. His seed was as sweet as his blood, and Sitka knew his original assumption had been correct: this was something he could never get bored of.