That was his only excuse for the tight, relieved sound he made when Jun’s weight collapsed on top of him, crushing him into the mattress with a sigh.
When Jun finally rolled to his back with a muttered apology, Theo simply followed him and propped his forearms on Jun’s chest with a bright smile.
“See? I told you that you could be gentle.”
The height to which Jun’s eyebrows aspired was rather ambitious, in Theo’s opinion. “You think that was gentle?”
He took Theo’s wrists in his hands, prodded at the rapidly fading marks, and then he brought them to his lips to lay the softest of kisses across his skin. For some reason, those tiny kisses echoed through Theo like siren bells ringing. Jun cut dark, satisfied eyes up at him, and it was truly a wonder that Theo’s heart didn’t break a rib with the force of its pounding.
Jun didn’t whisper, but his voice hovered below conversational tone. It was husky, and sweet, and all the more intimate for the curving dip in volume. “I should never have touched you. I told you, I can’t be gentle. I break things.”
The regret written in two tiny parallel lines between Jun’s brows shot through Theo like twin arrows, stinging his eyes with the threat of ill-timed tears. He sniffed them away and donned a brisk, no-nonsense tone, tapping Jun smartly in the center of his chest. “Well, you can practice with me. I won’t tell anyone. You can still be big and bad and scary, and nobody has to know that you’re gentle with me sometimes. That you can be soft and sweet, too, when you want to be.”
Jun pulled a face at that, full upper lip lifting in a sneer, but his hands closed over Theo’s shoulder blades, petting soft and sweet and, yes, very gently down his back. He ran a careful hand down the pale expanse of Theo’s spine, still speaking low as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “All of this blank, virgin skin. It isn’t safe.”
Tucking his hand under his chin, Theo blew a lock of hair out of his eyes in a habit that Ari had assured him was terribly uncouth. “What makes you say that? Everyone looks this way back home. Regeneration fluid takes care of any scars, and we don’t do all of this lovely decorative ink either. Which I’m beginning to see is a terrible failing for us.”
He slanted a glance up through his lashes as he dipped his head to trace one of the dark lines over Jun’s collarbone with his tongue. It was just as satisfying as he had imagined.
Jun hissed and shifted beneath him but did nothing to stop Theo’s meandering tongue, letting his own hands caress Theo’s back in little circles. “It makes you look expensive. Valuable in a way you don’t want to be around here.”
Theo pushed back up to study his face. Jun was chewing on his plush lower lip as he ran his hands over Theo’s skin with a soft reverence emphasized by the scrape of callouses on his tattooed fingers. He seemed as fascinated by the contrast as Theo was himself. It gave Theo a surge of confidence. “You like it, though, don’t you? That I look so different from you. Like a— What did they call me? Like a Doll.”
Jun’s hands fell away as if Theo had slapped them, eyes wide on Theo’s face. “No. You’re not a Doll. Never say that again.”
The slight tremble in Jun’s jaw drew Theo’s attention. And the thread of fear in his words. “Why not? That’s what your crew keeps saying.”
Jun shook his head once, sharply, and tugged the twisted sheets up until they covered Theo’s hips. “Bad things happen to Dolls, Theo. You’re not a Doll.”
Ari had once likened Theo to a shark, with the way he latched onto things in conversation and refused to let them go until they had been torn to shreds. “What’s a Doll, then?”
Sorrow flickered across Jun’s face, leaving trace elements of sadness behind in the crook of his mouth and the corner of his eye. He sighed so deeply Theo rose and fell with it as though he were riding the crest of a wave. “People. They’re people in a shitty situation. Traded like collectibles between Crews. Like, fucking, objects.”
It was a concept Theo had heard alluded to but never discussed in polite company. One of the horrors that lurked beyond the Verge. It made his skin crawl to ponder it. “But, that’s awful.”
Jun’s hands tightened over Theo’s back as his jaw firmed with resolve, accented by the parallel lines of ink. “Yes, it is. And I’m going to stop it.“
As he made that proclamation, all Jun needed was a cliff face along the moors as he stood facing the wind with a hand to his heart and a dark cape billowing in the wind. Or, at least, Theo’s vivid imagination insisted that he did.
Theo tried not to let his breathless reaction to that mental image color his voice when he whispered, “How?” but objectively failed at the task. He could practically hear Jun’s walls going back up, heavy emotional doors slamming shut with a mental clang.
“You don’t need to worry about that. I told you I’d keep you safe, and I always honor my word.”
Theo played with the tattooed fingers of Jun’s right hand, humming with understanding. “Yes, I’ve seen your dedication to honor. Honor and Valor. Why did you choose those words?”
Jun pulled his hand away and lifted his index finger, rubbed his thumb across the characters. “It’s a reminder.”
Theo waited for further explanation, but it seemed Jun was finished. Theo angled his head inquisitively but Jun avoided his eyes. “A reminder of what, precisely?”
Burying the tattoos under Theo’s curtain of hair with a sigh, Jun continued reluctantly. “A reminder of something I once forgot, but never will again.”
The sudden fierceness in Jun’s voice brought Theo up with a jolt, cutting through the peaceful
