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When Enciodes first began attending classes at the university, Gnosis had a succinct warning for him: “Avoid me as much as possible on the campus. You shouldn’t associate with me. I’m bad for your reputation.”
Enciodes frowned at this, visions of eating lunch together on the green dancing in his head, a fantasy he wasn’t willing to drop quite so easily. “But why? This isn’t Kjerag, there’s no reason for that.” He couldn’t help but want to spend as much time together with Gnosis as possible now that they had finally reunited after three long years apart, and finally broken the ice between them.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” was all Gnosis said. “Don’t forget it. I’d hate to see your social prospects affected by me.”
Within his first two weeks, Enciodes received his explanation: whenever Gnosis would enter a room, several pairs of eyes would glance warily his way, some conversations even pausing in the process; though he always sat on the edge of the lecture room or cafeteria, anyone sitting within a few feet of his selected spot would quickly stand and move elsewhere; the other students avoided his gaze and gave him a wide berth when they passed him in the halls. For all intents and purposes, Gnosis appeared to be a pariah within the university. Nobody save the professors and teachers spoke to him, nobody engaged with him, and all the while, Gnosis himself nary turned a hair.
Enciodes found himself staring at Gnosis from across the room more than once, baffled by this display. Every time he saw Gnosis sitting alone, the great impulse rose within him to cross the floor and sit beside him, but two thoughts stayed him. The first, that knowing Gnosis, he was probably enjoying his solitude; the second, that much as Gnosis had said, to openly associate with him would be of immense social detriment. A large part of Enciodes really did not care about that, but Gnosis clearly did, and to ruin Gnosis’s efforts in warning him in a single fell swoop felt a bit rude.
So all Enciodes could do was watch from afar, rather sadly, wondering just what the reason was. Gnosis was certainly more abrasive than he’d been as a child, but surely he wasn’t treated like this because of his sharp tongue alone. There had to be something more to it. He wasn’t surprised when Gnosis seemed to avoid him on campus, presumably to protect him, leaving Enciodes unable to even ask him for an explanation, or perhaps he wanted Enciodes to hear it from the mouths of others, Enciodes wasn’t sure. All he knew was that Gnosis passed through the corridors and the library like a specter, wholly and physically present yet acknowledged by nobody but him, and silently at that.
It was one of his classmates who took up the task of enlightening him, a girl whom Enciodes suspected of harboring a crush on him, much like several others who were more obvious about their flirting, sidling up to him during a rare lunch break when he was alone and sitting outside on the green, munching pensively on his sandwich, turning over the puzzle of Gnosis over and over in his mind.
“Hi,” she smiled, “mind if I sit with you?”
Enciodes actually would have preferred to remain alone so he could ponder this quandary by his lonesome, but he wasn’t about to say so. “Not at all,” he said smoothly, moving aside on the bench to give her space. In the process, a flicker of motion in his periphery caught his attention, a flash of red and black, and his head turned automatically: there was Gnosis, walking down the path between buildings, cradling an impressive stack of books against his chest as usual, eyes straight ahead and the other students veering away from him to let him through. They were too far away for Gnosis to notice him, probably, not that Gnosis was inclined to acknowledge his presence if he felt Enciodes’s eyes on him.
As he disappeared from sight behind a row of hedges, a pang struck Enciodes’s chest once more. Did Gnosis really live his every day like this…? Did it really not bother him? Was there nothing Enciodes could do? Did Gnosis really expect him to simply look on and do nothing?
The girl beside him shimmied a little closer, her tail flicking against the bench and drawing Enciodes’s attention back towards her. “I’ve noticed you’d been staring at Edelweiss a lot,” she said slyly. “Do you know the story?”
“No, actually,” Enciodes said, instantly recognizing the opportunity. “Would you be so kind as to enlighten me?”
She brightened, clearly having been waiting for this. “Everyone knows the story, I’m surprised you haven’t heard it yet! It happened at the very start of the semester last year. You know Wilson, Jones, Howard, and Brandon? They’re always around, the ones on the football team.”
He nodded. “I’ve seen them.” Some of the most popular boys at the school, the star players and the ones whom many of the other students were always seeking to catch the eye of. They were a slightly raucous bunch, in Enciodes’s opinion, but that seemed to be a common trait of that particular type of man. He’d also noticed that several of the quieter students often avoided their gaggle when they roamed the halls, quick to get out of their way. He didn’t think he’d ever seen them and Gnosis cross paths, though. "They strike me as a, uh, rough sort."
“Oh, sure, everyone knows that. But, anyway, it happened a few months ago,” she continued, “early in the morning, out by the library. Everything was calm, quiet. I was sitting on the bench by the west exit, when all of a sudden, the four of them came shrieking down the hallway, screaming and howling and cursing Edelweiss’s name, and all of them were on fire, all over their shoulders and their hair!” Her eyes went very round and concerned, as if this was meant to terrify him.
But Enciodes didn’t feel terrified. If anything, he felt the exact opposite.
A thick, heady wash of heat bloomed in the pit of his stomach, throbbing up into his chest and down below the belt. Suddenly his throat felt tight, his face hot, his tail prickling and his ears bristling. His heart thudded loudly, hugely in his mouth, and all he could think was, Oh, I would have loved to see that.
What must it have looked like? What must Gnosis have looked like? Had his golden eyes blazed with fire, had his lips thinned in resolve, had his fingers moved firmly and decisively just like they’d had when Gnosis had flicked his Arts unit and knocked out the bandit holding Enciodes in the hut? Had he executed his plan with the same unflinching courage as when they’d incited that stampede, with the same unhesitating determination with which he’d levered himself on the burdenbeast’s back? Visions of the scene danced in Enciodes’s head, only accelerating his racing heartbeat and the insistent pulsing between his legs.
He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat, his mouth parched. He had to pull himself together, quickly, before his classmate suspected anything. “I—I see,” he said, clearing his throat to attempts to regain his composure. “That’s quite the—uh—gruesome tale. I had no idea whatsoever.”
“Isn’t it!” she enthused. “Isn’t it dreadful? The administration caught him not even half an hour later, since he didn't even run. He confessed to the whole thing, from wanting to hurt them to making some sort of flammable mix at home, can you believe it? All just for the sake of revenge? Just because they supposedly were bullying him?"
Enciodes could, easily. And he didn't think there was any 'supposedly' about it.
"And such a cold–blooded monster walks beside us every day! If it weren’t for his perfect marks and genius papers, he would have been expelled and not simply suspended for a month!”
“Really?” he asked, interest unfeigned. “He must be very intelligent, then.” Gnosis was, as always, the smartest person he knew.
The girl frowned. “Academically, sure. But someone actually intelligent would have taken the case to the administration, or found some other way to resolve the situation.”
Enciodes bit his tongue to refrain from defending Gnosis. Even setting aside his own bias, he had serious doubts that the administration would do anything about garden–variety bullying, particularly not against a Kjerag. If anything, Gnosis’s brilliance itself would be all the more reason for them to turn a blind eye: crush his spirit, and they would not have to suffer the humiliation of a Kjerag showing them all up. But one thing this event confirmed: Gnosis’s spirit was not so easily cowed.
Picking up his thermos, Enciodes hid his smile against the rim, a flutter of affection warming the inside of his chest. Oh, Gnosis. Truly, he hadn’t changed at all.
After lunch, Enciodes made a beeline for the library, aware that Gnosis spent most of his lunch breaks there, often eschewing food in favor of reading or studying, much as he had as a child. Sure enough, a little searching and Enciodes spotted his dark head all the way in the back, tucked into a corner nook, tidying the books he’d gathered and clearly preparing to leave for class. He cast Enciodes a slightly surprised glance, but made no comment, only made to brush past him and be on his way—and Enciodes caught Gnosis’s cool wrist, halting the Liberi in his tracks.
Again, Gnosis glanced at him, this time with annoyance, but still said nothing.
Enciodes stared back at him, thoughts churning wildly, all the new information still fresh in his mind, his own strange reaction to it still lingering all too sweetly in his bones, in his core, tantalizing, tempting him for more. The idea of a gamble surfaced in his mind, and in an instant he weighed its pros and cons, its chances of success—and decided to take it. “Come—come to my place tonight,” he said.
Gnosis just looked at him, unimpressed. “Why?”
“I…” He couldn’t blurt out the full truth here and now, not to mention he hadn’t yet fully weighed the possibility of Gnosis sneering at him when he heard it. He could only offer an approximation of it, and the rest he’d decide in the few hours between now and then. “I heard what happened. I want to talk to you more about it. The full story.”
“Then you’ve already heard everything.”
What would flatter Gnosis? “I’d love to hear more about how you did it, in a technical way.”
That was enough to make Gnosis’s brow soften slightly. He was quiet a moment longer, then said, “Alright. I’ll be there after dark.”
As Enciodes exhaled a sigh of relief, he could swear that his heart started beating faster in excitement. Releasing Gnosis’s wrist, he said, “Wonderful. I’ll see you then.”
Gnosis didn’t reply. He simply went on his way, and Enciodes quickly turned around, lest anyone see them talking.
→
That evening, Enciodes paced back and forth in the living room, watching the tea he’d prepared cool.
Would Gnosis actually come? It wasn’t as though people were going to be watching his whereabouts after class, right? Did he remember where Enciodes lived? Of course he did, his memory was the best Enciodes knew. And if he did come as he’d promised… what then? Enciodes swallowed, anticipation and uncertainty fluttering in the pit of his stomach. For once, he did not know how this encounter would go, and he did not know how he wanted it to go, either. All he could do was hope, and try to keep things—and himself—under control.
At the knock on the door, Enciodes jumped, his heart surging in his chest. He wiped his palms on his jacket, took a deep breath, and went to the threshold.
Gnosis stood calmly on the other side, his expression inscrutable as always. “Evening,” he said, handing over a tin of ginger snaps that Enciodes was fond of.
“Evening, thank you. Come in, let me take your coat, come sit down.”
He hung up Gnosis’s coat, and poured the tea as Gnosis sat on the couch. He opened the tin and plated a few, setting them beside the linzer cookies he knew Gnosis liked and fruit and cream sandwiches. Gnosis took his tea with plenty of milk, and Enciodes had warmed it for him before putting it in the jug.
Enciodes sat down beside him almost gingerly, for all that it was an ordinary movement. The space between them felt so very small, their knees and thighs close enough to brush. He could feel Gnosis’s body heat, smell a hint of the crisp outside air on him and his scent, making Enciodes’s heart beat a little faster—as well as the edge of danger, the risk this whole conversation was flirting with.
He knew, with a heavy certainty in his gut, that chances were very good he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from reacting to what Gnosis would tell him. This could very well spell disaster for their budding relationship—moving too fast, too hard, pushing things before they arrived naturally at that point. But the gamble was irresistible, lined by not just the thought that sooner or later, this would come to light, but the delicious thrill of letting Gnosis find out this new secret of his. Let the chips fall where they may.
Gnosis seemed pleased by the offerings, laying down his spoon and biting contentedly into a sandwich. “Not quite a fruit and cheese wrap, but close enough.”
“I haven’t got the right pan to make the wraps,” Enciodes said. “I’ve been looking, though.”
“Check the Yanese market. I got mine there. Don’t get the one with the loop on the end of the handle, the batter sticks to that one.” He picked up a linzer tart and pulled the top off to lick the jam inside, and Kjeragandr, why was he so cute? Would Enciodes’s heart never stop fluttering when he looked at Gnosis?
“I’ll—I’ll keep that in mind,” he mumbled, taking a ginger snap to avoid meeting Gnosis’s eyes. For all of Gnosis’s standoffishness, a gesture like that truly demonstrated that he was at ease with Enciodes—unless he was being intentionally rude, but Enciodes didn’t think so. Whatever the reason, it was adorable, regardless of whether it was ‘proper’ or not, and it took more self-control than he expected to keep himself sitting still. “So, um, about what happened… did you really make that flammable mixture on your own?”
Gnosis rolled his eyes. “There are many household ingredients that are toxic and flammable on their own, much less in combination. It isn’t particularly difficult.” He finished the other half of the cookie, seemingly uninterested in continuing.
“Go on…?”
“You’ve already heard the story.”
“I want to hear it from your mouth.”
Gnosis huffed, swirling his tea around. “There’s nothing to tell. You already know Victoria looks down on Kjerag, and you already know that I like to focus on my research and I made it clear.”
Ah, that was probably the spark; Gnosis had undoubtedly communicated in blunt terms that he wanted to be left alone rather than engaging in social games, and likely had thrown in a few demeaning comments while he was at it. But he said nothing, only nodded.
“After the first incident, I told them there wouldn’t be a second warning. So at the third incident, I doused them in some fluid and lit a flame, and the rest is history.” He took a sip with an air of finality, but if he thought that he could end the story with only that, he was sorely mistaken.
“But how?” Enciodes pressed. “Tell me the details, how did you prepare it, what did you carry it in, how did you get them wet with it, how did it all happen?
He cast Enciodes an askance glance, rubbing the powdered sugar off his fingers. “Why do you want to know all of that?”
“Just curious, I guess.” He tried a smile. “It’s fascinating that you know how to do these things.” That wasn’t a lie.
Gnosis didn’t look like he believed it. “I just… mixed the necessary components and put them in a bottle, then when they cornered me, I splashed them—”
“But how? Weren’t there four of them?”
He made a flicking motion with his wrist. “It was a large bottle. I hit them mostly on the chest; really, I should have aimed for the eyes, but I wasn’t trying to kill them. The fumes and the shock of it was enough to make them stop. They weren’t used to their victims fighting back.”
Enciodes nodded intently, building the picture in his mind. Gnosis, cornered on his own, outnumbered, forced to resort to these drastic measures to be left alone. “And then?”
“I had a lighter in my pocket. It only took a second. I touched the flame to the edge of their clothes, and it caught instantly.”
“Just like that?” He imagined the flick-snap of the lighter in Gnosis’s long fingers, and the bright flash of the flame snarling into a blaze by his hand—bright and dangerous, summoned forth by a single, graceful gesture. Just like the one he’d used to knock out that bandit, the flash of his Arts lighting up the gloom of the hut; so beautiful, so glorious. The inside of his chest felt warm just remembering it.
“Just like that.” Something between a sneer and a haughty smile flickered across Gnosis’s lips. “It was almost too easy. But their screaming was satisfying. The aftermath was annoying—there was a whole investigation and questioning and that took entirely too long, but they never bothered me again after that, exactly as I wanted. I almost wish I had the chance to do it again.”
Again? Oh, if he did it again, Enciodes didn’t think he’d be able to pretend he didn’t know Gnosis. He wouldn’t be able to look away. The image of Gnosis wielding destruction at his fingertips was too alluring. Gnosis, unfazed, unflinching, cold and steady as ice, wreaking chaos and havoc around him; Gnosis, subduing his would-be abusers without a second of hesitation, making them rue the day they decided he was an easy victim; Gnosis, spilling blood without batting an eye—
“…Enciodes?”
Instantly he snapped out of his reverie. “Ah, my apologies,” he mumbled, flicking his tail into his lap in attempts to conceal the bulge in his trousers that he knew was there by the steadily pulsing ache. “Your explanation was so—vivid and informative, I got quite carried away.”
Gnosis’s narrowed eyes said he wasn’t fooled in the slightest. His gaze swept over Enciodes, no detail escaping him, and Enciodes felt the embarrassment suffuse him and burn in his cheeks. This was it, Gnosis would find out now and be disgusted with him. He had to think of an excuse, quickly, quickly, some lie to put him off—something about it was just… an unconscious reaction, after all, they were only nineteen, his mind had just wandered, it wasn’t—wasn’t what Gnosis thought. A tinge of regret for taking this gamble washed through him, but he resolutely pushed it down; if he’d lost, he had to pay up, and the only thing he could do was apologize, really, and hope Gnosis wasn’t too repulsed—
With more curiosity than revulsion, Gnosis asked, “You… think it’s arousing that I burned someone?”
Mutely, Enciodes nodded, folding his hands tightly between his knees. At least Gnosis wasn’t leaving just yet. There still remained hope to salvage this situation, mortifying though it was.
“Why?”
He had no idea. It probably wasn’t the violence itself; it was more Gnosis, wasn’t it? Or was it? He wasn’t sure. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just… a strangely compelling thought.”
Silence fell between them, and out of his periphery, he could see Gnosis still staring at him like he was an equation to be solved, like there was an element in the problem suddenly appearing out of nowhere and throwing everything out of balance, and the heat in Enciodes’s face only intensified. No, in hindsight, maybe this really wasn’t the right way to deepen their relationship, he should have thought further and not followed his impulses—
“Stand up,” Gnosis said, his tone firm, almost displeased, sending a frisson of dread skittering down Enciodes’s spine.
Oh, no, this was it, Gnosis was going to sneer at him or cuff his ear or tell him off or throw the tea in his face and storm out. Apprehension churning in his stomach, Enciodes obeyed, waiting on tenterhooks to see what Gnosis would do.
Gnosis grabbed his collar and slammed him into the nearest wall.
The breath rushed out of Enciodes’s lungs all at once, the impact to the back of his head disorienting—since when had Gnosis been so strong? His fingers were iron at the base of Enciodes’s throat where his heart surged, pounding wildly, instinctively against his clothes with a twist of instinctive fear, panic, and—he looked into Gnosis’s face, and heat exploded in his veins at the small, dark, almost cruel smile on Gnosis’s lips.
He inhaled a tremulous breath, pulse and mind racing, unsure what to say, what to do; his hands went up against the wall, and Gnosis’s other hand pinned his wrists above his head, squeezing the bones hard enough to make them grind together.
Gnosis leaned in, and Enciodes shrank back against the wall with staccato breaths shuddering out past his lips. “You know,” Gnosis murmured conversationally, “that’s not the only thing I’ve done.”
Oh, Kjeragandr. Blood rushed from Enciodes’s head down between his legs, not helped in the slightest by the fact that Gnosis’s gorgeous eyes and plush, pink lips were so close to his own. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, drowning in the sweet, deadly gold of his irises. “No…?” he whispered, not sure if Gnosis was waiting for him to respond.
“No,” Gnosis said. His fingers tightened on Enciodes’s collar, cutting off his respiration slightly and only making Enciodes’s pulse thud faster. “I’ve been in quite a few fights, Enciodes.” He was so close that Enciodes could taste the tea and sugar on his breath. “Victorian hooligans who wanted to teach the Kjerag with the weird name and weird clothes and weird appearance a lesson; bring him to his knees and beg for mercy and admit to Victoria’s superiority, abandon his name and customs and ambitions. You know what I did to them?”
Enciodes’s heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest. “What did you do them?”
“I broke their noses. The nose is very delicate and has a lot of cartilage, and all four of their noses crunched against my knuckles.” Gnosis’s grip on his wrists tightened, and a shudder rushed down his spine. “It was very satisfying. They bled a lot and cursed me as I walked away. One of them tried to touch my necklace, and I gave him a lovely shiner.”
The commoners’ slang sounded so strange, so unexpected falling from Gnosis’s lips. Where had he picked it up? What other words did he know? What else could he teach Enciodes? Swallowing hard, he asked, “Who were they?”
“Neighborhood delinquents who lived in the same building as we did, a few doors down. I had to show them not to look down on Kjerags.”
Affection surged through Enciodes’s veins—despite it all, Gnosis was still Gnosis. He hadn’t changed at all. He remembered everything. “Go—go on,” he rasped. He needed Gnosis to keep talking. He couldn’t stop here. “Tell me more, how—how many more…”
The little smile on Gnosis’s lips widened. “How many more fights I’ve been in?”
Enciodes nodded before he’d even finished speaking.
“More than you think.” He released Enciodes’s collar and flicked his earring. “I had to learn how to protect myself since I was out most of the day. Not so different from Kjerag, really. And quickly, too, otherwise I’d find myself a victim sooner rather than later. I have my Arts, of course, but sometimes I wanted to be more discreet, or Arts units were prohibited from certain places, as much as I always like carrying it, or sometimes Arts just weren’t enough. I learned how to throw a punch, where to strike to make it hurt.” He flicked the earring again, cool fingertips teasing slowly along Enciodes’s ear as his smile got a little bigger. In a lower tone of voice, he added, “I always carry a knife on me, you know. I have for years. It’s in my pocket right now.”
Enciodes swallowed hard, wanting to look down to check it, if he could even see it at all, but was unable to wrench his gaze away from Gnosis’s face. He couldn’t move, utterly entranced, locked in Gnosis’s thrall. All he managed to do was whisper, “Have you ever…?”
“Used it?” Gnosis coiled a lock of Enciodes’s hair around his finger, a girlish gesture starkly at odds with his words but that seemed to make it all the more cute. “Only once so far. Someone was following me for three hours. I went into an alleyway that I know well and…” He released Enciodes’s hair, and squeezed Enciodes’s shoulder, hard enough that Enciodes could feel his hidden strength. “I stabbed him here, and right…” His hand skimmed down Enciodes’s sternum, stopping just where his ribs ended, his finger pressing firmly enough that Enciodes’s racing heartbeat reverberated with the additional pressure. “Here.” All too soon, his hand moved away, though it did nothing to slow Enciodes’s heart. “I caught him by surprise. He buckled so fast. I even had the time to wipe the knife off on the back of his shirt before I left.”
Oh, god, he was so hard in his pants that it hurt. He couldn’t stop his frantic panting, his pulse thudding wildly in his ears, torn between the desire to open his trousers to alleviate the pain and the desire to stay still so as not to break Gnosis’s spell. If Gnosis stopped now, he didn’t know what he’d do.
Gnosis’s knee pushed between his own, his thigh pressing none too gently against Enciodes’s crotch, and Enciodes couldn’t hold back his moan, nor the involuntary arch of his hips against Gnosis’s leg. A sneer that was becoming familiar on Gnosis’s face took shape on his lips as he ground his thigh against Enciodes’s trapped cock. “You look cute all desperate and in pain like that.”
Enciodes heaved for breath, rocking helplessly against Gnosis’s thigh, wanting to be better than to shamelessly hump Gnosis’s leg in his clothes but unable to stop himself: he was just too aroused, too hard, too uncomfortable and it didn’t seem like Gnosis was going to let him go to get his clothes open and he didn’t want to break the moment and would masturbating desperately at Gnosis’s feet be any less shameless? “Gnosis,” he gasped, unsure what he wanted to convey; maybe nothing at all, Gnosis’s name feeling like a prayer in his mouth.
But Gnosis grabbed his chin, angling his head down, and some of the tension in his brow softened as he crushed their lips together. He kissed roughly, his tongue pushing into Enciodes’s mouth and his teeth scraping over Enciodes’s lips, dominant and claiming and it made Enciodes’s legs feel like jelly. He might have whimpered, his eyelashes fluttering against Gnosis’s glasses, wondering dimly if this was inexperience or technique but ultimately deciding it didn’t matter: the only thing that mattered was how hot it was. He thrust frantically against Gnosis’s leg, overcome with the need to come, gasping around Gnosis’s tongue, the pain at once pushing him closer to the edge and yanking him back, and as he teetered, the thought flitted across his mind that maybe Gnosis wouldn’t let him, that maybe Gnosis would make it hurt more before he was allowed to come, and thought pushed him over with a groan.
He broke the kiss with a gasp, head tipping back as wave after wave of blinding pleasure crashed over him, stealing his breath and his mind and blotting out every thought but for how hot it all was, every thought but for the sensation of Gnosis’s body against his, Gnosis’s fingers on his jaw and around his wrists, and Gnosis’s taste in mouth, heady and sweeter and better than anything in the world.
Gnosis released him and stepped back, and without his support, Enciodes sagged heavily against the wall, sweaty and weak at the knees, his tongue too swollen in his mouth and throat too dry and mind too blank to muster up words. Even with his head now clear in the post–orgasmic haze, he could barely process what had happened. Had he really… had they really done that? Had Gnosis really shoved him against the wall and made him come in his clothes while talking about all the people he’d harmed? Kjeragandr, he felt so… dirty, but it also felt so… good, like a whole host of new fetishes had been awoken in him. If it was Gnosis making him dirty, he didn’t think he’d mind.
“Come with me to the pub sometime,” Gnosis said, in an almost disinterested tone, looking not at Enciodes but at the space beside him. “For the low price of a few pints, you can watch me beat someone up. The bathroom probably won’t be too bad to fuck in if it’s early, unless you prefer the alley.”
Enciodes’s heart skipped a beat, and he was sure if he hadn’t just come two minutes prior, he’d be hard again. “S-sure,” he whispered, his voice rough. “I’ll go with you anywhere.” Anywhere, anywhere at all, to the ends of the earth.
The corner of Gnosis’s mouth twitched upward, and he returned to the sofa and picked up his teacup. “I’ll let you go clean up and change.”
As he moved, Enciodes caught sight of the fact that now it was Gnosis with the bulge in his slacks, and excitement and hope surged in his veins again. So it had been mutual, after all. He couldn’t let this opportunity slip by. “What about you?”
Gnosis was quiet, and Enciodes began to fear that he wouldn’t accept reciprocation even though it was what he wanted most, but after a moment he said, “I’ll wait for you in the bedroom.”
Oh, thank goodness. “I won’t be long.”
Gnosis merely removed his jacket and draped it over the arm over the sofa, and Enciodes stumbled his way to the bathroom, excitement thudding beneath his clavicle.