The Administration Series (53 page)

Nice idea. Especially the thought of doing it here, in Warrick's own flat. He curved his hand over Warrick's shoulder, rubbing the bruise again with his thumb, his other hand moving without conscious direction to test the strength of the waistband of Warrick's trousers. He had a sudden, delicious image of turning Warrick round, forcing him down on his knees in front of him, of . . . his grip on Warrick's shoulder tightened.

Muscles shifted under his hand. "Plastic duck," Warrick murmured, turning the pancakes with a spatula. They sizzled briefly, and the golden-brown side now uppermost began to steam gently.

"What?"

"I'm not in the mood. Actually, I never am in the mood before breakfast."

"Oh." Toreth took his hands away and stepped back a fraction. It occurred to him that, until now, he'd never seen Warrick before breakfast. "Sorry," he said absently, whilst examining this novel idea.

"No need to apologise. You weren't to know. Unless it's in my security file, of course."

Toreth blinked, temporarily caught out by the reference.

"You must have read it," Warrick continued. "We've both been pretending otherwise, but now that you've turned up, blind drunk, at an address I've never given you, it's become too obvious to ignore."

He stacked the pancakes on a heated dish, covered them with a teatowel, and then started pouring more circles of batter.

"You can tell me you got it from the investigation files, if you like."

Toreth, who had just that second opened his mouth to do precisely that, closed it again.

"Your file doesn't mention anything about your preferred times of day for fucking," he said eventually.

He caught Warrick's smile reflected in the steel backing of the hob. "I know."

"What? How?"

"Because I've read it. I've read yours as well."

"That's illegal," Toreth said reflexively. Extremely illegal.

"Of course it is. That's why I assumed you'd rather not know about it." He turned the pancakes, which proved to be a very slightly darker shade of brown than the first batch. "Damn. Burned them."

They had strayed into one of Warrick's weirdly elliptical conversations, which always made Toreth feel as if he'd been taking some of the more exotic drugs from the pharmacy at work. Why the hell would Warrick tell him he'd been illegally accessing controlled personal files? Toreth could crucify him with it.

"They look fine to me," Toreth said, meaning the pancakes.

"You can have them, then." Warrick stirred the remaining batter in a careful figure of eight as the pancakes cooked.

"What does it say?" Toreth asked, not bothering to specify the subject because non sequiturs were the basic style for this game.

"It's very flattering, actually. They think a lot of you. Tillotson gives out more praise in secret files than he apparently does to your face."

"Oh." Toreth felt pleased, but thought he managed to hide it rather well. "Sounds about right — he's probably worried I'd want a pay rise. What else?"

Warrick flipped the pancakes out of the pan and onto the stack, and poured more. He offered one of the allegedly over-cooked ones to Toreth, who took it, burning his fingers and then his mouth.

"Fucking excellent," he said indistinctly, which it was.

"Thank you." He adjusted the heat of the hob slightly. "I didn't read all of it."

No, he wouldn't have done. There would be summary figures in there for the investigations and interrogations Toreth had carried out, and his success rate and death rate and very probably details of some of his cases. Served Warrick right for looking at it.

"You've been recommended for a grade increase," Warrick added after a moment, lifting the corner of one of the pancakes to check the colour. "But it's been deferred until the end of your current investigation. There is a cross-reference from that deferral to a file I tried to get hold of but couldn't. At least not yet. It's in the Corporate database at Int-Sec, in one of the ultrasecure sections concerning corporate sabotage."

Toreth stared at him.

"I only mention it because it suggested, to me, unfriendly corporate interest in the outcome of whatever you are currently working on. I thought you might like to know."

"What the hell were you doing in my file in the first place?"

"Old business."

It took him a moment to realise what Warrick must mean. "Tanit?"

A second of stillness, then Warrick nodded. "Keeping an eye out for signs of activity on the part of Mr Howes and any of his friends. Investigations begun into you or me, interest in the case files, and so on."

"And?"

"And everything was fine." He flipped the pancakes, studied the result. "Better. I'd let you know at once if it wasn't."

"Even though you didn't tell me you were looking?"

Warrick ignored the question. "I check every month or so. I might make it less frequent from now on."

"Why?"

"Howes has resigned from Psychoprogramming. He has an offer of a corporate contract. Once he's gone, I think we're clear. I thought you'd like to know that."

Even though Warrick had to realise it already, Toreth said, "If you get caught inside Int-Sec systems, you'll be more thoroughly fucked than I can even begin to explain."

"Don't worry, I won't be."

Caught, or fucked? Toreth wouldn't have cared, except that he could be in big trouble himself if Warrick were found out. He was the one who had opened the door to Warrick's explorations in the first place. The Administration's Data Division was very proud of their security and the idea of it being violated tended to send them into hysterics. He filed it under 'things to worry about later'.

Leaving the pancakes, Warrick opened the box on the table and took out a large bag. From it he spilled oranges out over the work surface. Toreth caught one as it rolled towards the floor. He held it up, fascinated by the vibrant colour. Warrick must have bought them when he went out. Of course, this sort of residential area would be littered with shops selling corporate delicacies; the oranges weren't even plastic-wrapped. He scored the skin with his thumbnail and smelled the unfamiliar, bitter scent. To have fruit any fresher, Warrick would need to keep a tree in his living room.

Warrick transferred the latest batch of pancakes to the plate, wiped the pan, and added some more oil. "Do you know how to use a juicer?" he asked.

Toreth, who didn't really believe in food that didn't come out of a packet or ready-presented on a plate, shook his head.

"Then you'll have to do the pancakes. Just pour the batter in and keep an eye on them."

"I'll make a mess."

"Then I'll wipe it up after you." Warrick smiled serenely. "I'm in practise."

Toreth stirred the batter and poured while Warrick sliced oranges in half with one of his wickedly sharp knives, releasing their sweet, sharp smell into the room. Then he took out a juicer that looked to be about the same vintage as the percolator. It had an inverted cup for crushing the oranges, and a long handle. Toreth watched as Warrick worked his way through the oranges, collecting the juice in a clear glass jug.

"Pancakes," Warrick said after a while.

Toreth carefully turned the mildly misshapen pancakes to find them exactly the right shade of golden brown underneath.

"How do you do that?" he asked.

"Cooking is very like programming. It requires a sound understanding of basic principles, the patience not to cut corners, and —" he grinned briefly, "— a great deal of talent."

In a modest mood today. Looking at the jug of juice reminded Toreth of something.

"Where did you get those pills? And, more to the point, what were they?"

"Standard electrolyte replacement and detox, plus something extra from work. Anti-nausea and so on for the sim. A bad sim experience is somewhat like a hangover, so some genius discovered that the drugs are as good for one as for the other."

"I've never felt like that after the sim."

"You're lucky. Most people do at least once or twice. Maybe it'll happen to you eventually."

Toreth drank his coffee and watched the pancakes cooking as Warrick set the table. The shopping box also produced fresh bread, real butter, and pastries.

"They should be done now."

Toreth brought the pancakes over to the table and sat down. Warrick sat opposite and lifted his glass of orange juice. "Your continued good health." Then he yawned, obviously catching himself by surprise.

"Did I keep you awake?"

Warrick helped himself to pancakes and began to butter one carefully. "In a way. The spare bed isn't very comfortable. And I kept getting up to take a look at you, anyway."

Toreth couldn't remember him doing it. "There was no need."

"I had no idea how much you'd drunk, and I thought it would look bad for SimTech if a naked para-investigator were to be discovered dead in the bed of one of its directors," he said mildly. "You were throwing up with monotonous regularity for the first few hours, or I'd have tried to get you sober."

"More drugs from work?"

"No, reminders of a misspent youth. Probably quite out of date, even if you could have kept them down."

"Sorry."

Warrick shook his head. "Stop apologising. Or try to sound as if you mean it. One or the other." He stretched, then winced and tilted his head, rubbing at his neck. "You could give me a massage before you get off to work, if you'd really like to say sorry."

"Oh." Toreth considered the idea while he chewed a mouthful of bread, then shrugged. That would be an easy enough apology. "Okay."

Warrick smiled. "Lovely. But let's finish breakfast first."

Massages didn't play a major role in Toreth's sex life. He usually found them deeply boring, and tending to get in the way of business proper. After the leisurely breakfast, though, he found he didn't mind very much. It fitted the mood of a stolen morning off work. He wondered about Warrick's sister, and her return from Mars, but decided not to bring it up.

Breakfast over, they adjourned to the bedroom, where Warrick surprised Toreth not at all by carefully covering the bed in towels to protect the sheets from the oil. Then he stripped off and lay down. Given Warrick's concern for the sheets, Toreth felt he could use the excuse of not wanting to have to wash his clothes again to justify stripping himself. As it was, no justification was required. Warrick simply watched him undress, smiling slightly.

Toreth was pleased to find the oil wasn't scented, which he hated. Massages were bad enough in themselves, without ending up smelling like a brothel afterwards.

His lack of practice was more than compensated for by a thorough knowledge of anatomy. As usual, Warrick was responsive to his touch, but in a different way from their normal games. Mapping out these new reactions, finding which touches produced sighs or murmurs of appreciation, filled up a reasonable amount of time. It wasn't even unarousing, in a relaxed way. Toreth helped that along, touching himself whenever he had a hand spare. Warrick had been right about the towels — the oil got everywhere.

He kept half an eye on his watch on the bedside table. Eventually Toreth decided that he had apologised adequately for the previous night.

He slapped Warrick on the arse, just hard enough to get his attention.

Warrick rolled onto his side and opened his eyes, focused up at him. "Is that it?"

"Half an hour. That's all you're getting."

"Bored?"

"Yes."

Warrick smiled lazily. "Well, come down here and I'll see what I can do about that."

He lay down, and Warrick pressed up close, slipped a thigh between his, and began to rub against him. Trapped between them, their cocks rubbed together, surrounded by hot, oil-slick skin. After a few seconds Toreth caught the rhythm and began to thrust back.

"I thought you weren't in the mood," he said after a moment.

"Mm. No. I said I wasn't in the mood before breakfast. We had breakfast."

"You always have an answer, don't you?"

"Not always. But often. Now, shut up."

Toreth shut up and tried to remember the last time he'd done anything like this, and couldn't. It made a very pleasant change from their usual more energetic fucking. He kept his eyes open, watching Warrick, his face only centimetres away. His eyes were closed, long lashes fluttering occasionally, and his lips were slightly parted. It made Toreth think about the first time he'd seen Warrick, when he'd noticed his mouth straight away. It
was
beautiful.

"Kiss me," he said, surprising himself.

Without opening his eyes, Warrick leaned forwards and brushed their lips together.

"More," Toreth murmured into the soft mouth.

He felt Warrick's lips curve in a smile against his. Another kiss, still just lips, a teasing touch. He closed his eyes. "More."

This time Warrick's tongue swept lightly across his own, startling him into a moan. "More."

Warrick laughed softly and complied, kissing him thoroughly and deeply. "More," Toreth said indistinctly when there seemed to be a danger of his stopping.

"More."

Eventually the kisses faded out and there was nothing but the slow, steady movement, building pleasure in deepening layers. Beautiful, blissful, but as the minutes stretched slowly past Toreth felt a faint stirring of unease. It was like the sim in a way: timeless, dreamy, and cut out of normal life. Yet not like the sim, because there was no distance, no awareness of another world somewhere else. It felt sickeningly intimate. There was no plan, no protocol, no roles, and no game. There was no safe word, because this didn't need one. Words meant what they said here. All he had to do was say 'stop', and it would.

Without really meaning to, he tried to pull away. Warrick's hand slid down his spine, pressing into the small of his back to keep him in place. The movement made them both moan on the same breath. Warrick drew his breath back in deeply, then pressed his face into Toreth's shoulder. Toreth could feel quick, hot breath against his skin and realised he was breathing faster too. In fact, somehow, he was getting close to the edge, which was ridiculous because they hadn't even done anything yet. How long had they been here?