Stashes

Talon let out a whistle. The boy had the best collection of them all. Depth and variety.

~How long has he been collecting?~ “I should have known. He hates his partner after all.”

“Why does everyone have their own rooms? I thought Lily and Eric were married,” Wren asked as they started the cleaning.

“They are,” Talon told her. “But everyone likes their own space. As for Lily’s room, she is hoping to one day make it a nursery.”

“Oh my goodness. She would make a wonderful mother!”

Wren could picture a little Lily or Eric running around the house, or even both.

~Children in the house would liven everything up so much.~ Wren stopped her thought right there.

This was not a life you would want to raise a child in. What if they saw the Beings, or worse, they did not?

The compound was protected, but it was still vulnerable to attack.

“Every one of you would, but Lily looks to be the only one who will have children,” Talon paused before adding, “Unless you do.”

“To raise a child, especially in this environment, is not something that would be easy to do.”

“No, but it could be done.”

“It could, but would you want to?” Wren finally met Talon’s eyes.

“With the right person,” he replied.

Wren looked away and went about cleaning. She did not have anything she could say that would not spark an argument, and she did not want to ruin the ease they had going right now.

“Thank God we will not have to clean up any more of that.”

Talon could not tell her that he had seen a few things he wanted to borrow from Evan himself. That boy had good taste.

“I bet we do. I bet Emerald’s room is the worst.”

“Unlikely.”

“Do you even know her?” Wren asked with a shake of her head.

“Yes. The bubbly, always talking, always grinning, asking a million questions daily, redhead fireball? That girl? Is that the one we are discussing?”

Wren giggled at his description of Emerald. He could not have described the girl any better.

“Then you should also have realized that she would go all out for anything that she does and that means…”

Sure enough, Emerald’s stash made Evan’s look like he had just started.

“Oh my God, the toys!” Talon exclaimed as he looked at the chest-high shelves that ran along her bedroom walls, stuffed with all sorts of toys, outfits, and “accessories.”

He could only shake his head. He’d had no idea.

“What is wrong with these people?”

Wren laughed at his expression.

“It is always the quiet ones you have to worry about. Their secrets run long and deep,” she said.

“Do yours?” Talon asked.

Wren got to work, cleaning up the place. Sooner or later, Talon would stop letting her dodge his questions, but she had learned the hard way the best way not to have a fight was to avoid one at all costs.

Arguments led to verbal assaults, which ended in physical violence and at times…death. She would avoid that for as long as he let her, staying the coward she was.

“Where did this girl find some of these?” Talon asked.

Wren looked up from her thoughts to see Talon holding a string of beads, each one slightly larger than the other, ending with a particularly large one that had her puckering just a bit.

It was not something she would want to have used on her. She watched as Talon pushed a button on the handle.

The toy began to buzz, and Talon flung it from him as if it were a snake that had tried to bite him.

Wren doubled over with laughter until tears streamed down her face. She watched Talon chase after the runaway toy under the bed.

At least she had not put hers on display like the others had done. She had hers neat and orderly and out of their way for cleaning.

Talon stopped in front of one particularly large dildo and could only stare.

“Does she really put that in…” He swallowed hard.

“Some like it big, honey,” Wren said, still recovering from the sight of Talon’s reaction to the beads.

Talon stared at her. She had not even hesitated or blushed when she said that. Did she like it big? And what was up with calling him honey?

“Do you?” Talon had to ask now.

That made Wren blush.

“That is no concern of yours,” she said.

“Now wait just a minute.” He followed her out the door and toward her room, a suspicion starting to grow in his mind.

“Do you have…things like that?”

Wren headed to her room, her head up. “Every girl has a little black bag, sugar, just like every man owns his collection of porn and naughty magazines.”

~Sugar?~ Now she was pushing it.

Talon could only stare as images of her sticking the dildo that he had just seen…

He let out a groan, but not for the reasons that she took it for.

“I should have known.” Talon tried to get that image out of his head. “This is coming from a girl who wears candy-apple-red thongs.”

“Are you still on that?” She was beginning to think the man had a thong fetish.

“They are not candy-apple red, they are seduction crimson, thank you very much.”

Talon let out another groan.

“It is not that big of a deal, sweet,” Wren said, mistaking his groan again.

“Stop calling me pet names like that, people will get the wrong idea,” he growled. “Not unless you plan on giving them a reason to have those ideas.”

“Nope. Just enjoying making you squirm a bit.”

“I do have a proper name, you know. You are welcome to use it.”

“Well, I do too, and I have not heard you use mine either,” Wren retorted. “Use mine and I will use yours. Until then… I might have to think up a few more ‘pet’ names to call you, toots.”

“Don’t you dare,” Talon growled. “For the record, I have used your name.”

“When?”

Talon did what she had been doing to him all afternoon. He avoided her question.

“I cannot believe I have been living with such perverts for so long.”

They stopped before his room.

“What are you doing?” Talon asked.

“I am cleaning your room,” Wren replied, assessing him up and down for a moment.

God, why was her perusal making him heat up?

“Why? Would you like to hide a few things before I go in?”

Talon colored and looked away. “No.”

He opened the door and gestured for Wren to enter. “Unlike the rest of them, I have nothing to hide.”

“You mean you do not have a collection of porn hiding somewhere?” she asked as she walked through the door. “It is neat.”

“Of course, it is neat. Do I look like a messy person?” He gestured to himself.

Wren faced Talon head-on and took her time. She started with the flowing locks, pulled back in a half bun, moved to his golden eyes, sharp and clear with specks of black in them.

She moved her eyes downward, lingering on the curve of his upper lip that rested on his plump lower one before taking in the breadth of his shoulders. The muscles of his arms led to very capable hands.

Her eyes trailed over the defined pecs and trim waistline that met at the tucked-in shirt, before allowing her eyes to take in the hefty package that nestled between his thighs.

She lingered there a second longer than a mere glance before dipping her gaze down his shapely legs to the bare toes of his feet before reversing her gaze and checking him out in reverse. The man was perfectly neat and hot as hell.

“Appearances can be deceiving.”

If she looked at him like that again, he would not be held responsible for his actions.

“There seems to be little to do in here,” Wren said, averting her gaze, feeling the temperature spike and the electricity fire up between them.

“I keep it up.”

“So is that why your downstairs desk is sooo clean?” Wren mentioned the foot-high pile of books that littered every inch of his desk downstairs.

She stepped into the bedroom, and her heart began to beat a bit harder. His room was dark with the curtains closed.

She immediately opened them to let in the light so they could see.

A four-poster, king-sized, canopy bed stood in the middle of the room with two bedside tables flanking it. It was the twin to her own bedroom.

“Nice,” she said. She got busy stripping the sheets off the bed.

His smell was everywhere, and she could not stop the images of him lying in bed, the sheets only covering his lower half, his naked chest exposed for all to see. A hand flung over his eyes as he slept…

“The downstairs desk is for show. My study up here is neat and orderly,” he said. He helped her remove and then replace the sheets.

He had never thought that she would be in his room. He wondered what she would look like lying naked in the middle of his bed, her body flushed from his lovemaking.

Her chest would rise and fall in heavy gasps as she came down from her climax…

They finished his bedroom in record time. Neither of them was able to look at each other until the door had been closed behind them.

“What?” Talon asked as they finished up, noticing Wren’s glances.

“It’s just so neat. Most men do not live like that.”

“When you have lived in some of the places I have, ~honey~,” he said. Two could use pet names. “You either learn to live in filth or become obsessed with living in cleanliness. I chose cleanliness.”

“That is a good thing… And no pet names for me either.”

He grinned. “All is fair…”