Dashing devil 5 bold beg.., p.29
Dashing Devil 5: Bold Beginnings, page 29
“Mhmm,” Hope agreed. Nodding into Mindy’s lap as the darker woman continued to stroke her hair. The angel sounded like she was clinging to whatever fantasy the Mind Powered had shown her.
Silvie floated over with an amused expression and easily lifted the larger woman up before slipping under her arm with one hand underneath the taller woman’s wings and around her waist. “Come on honey-buns, let’s get you washed up. If we take you to bed like this, no one is getting any sleep and it’s late.” Silvie easily floated the listless woman off the ground.
“Um, I may need a moment alone to… to take care of things,” Hope replied as they were on their way to the door.
Laura could only cover her mouth and stifle a snicker as she shook her head at the faint glistening sheen she saw streaking the likely panty-less woman’s pale thigh.
Chapter 30
Boyd woke up in the very enviable position of having five of the world’s most amazing women around and upon him. Tinker had her cheek resting against his chest. And as far as he could tell, her assertion that she only drooled—or, as she explained it, ‘leaked a little’—when she fell asleep sitting up was true.
Not that it would have been a deal breaker. Especially after their respective size adjustments.
Now, his little inventor aligned just right. When she lay with her head on his chest like this, her legs fit perfectly between his so that the softness of her bare thighs nestled on either side of his cock while they slept. Only the fabric of the shorts he had donned and the more comfortable romper she had chosen from her closet separated him from the warmth of her core, which he felt resting on his groin. Her pillowed chest pressed into him just below his ribs and her narrow waist rested against his firm abs.
And that was to say nothing of the others.
When Boyd had first carried Tinker into the room so they could all sleep together, he’d found the rest of his loves already gathered. Silvie and Hope had recently showered, which was unusual for either of them to do before bed, and everyone was wearing their most modest sleepwear. He sensed the wardrobe choice was to ease his little inventor into her new sleeping arrangements and sent each of them his gratitude in response.
It had been a long day with an emotional end for each of them, so they had been quick to curl up on the smart bed. Boyd had laid back with his wings extended and let Tinker settle onto his chest. He’d been surprised by a shift in his loves’ sleeping arrangement. Silvie snuggled in on his left side to rest her head on his shoulder as usual, but Raev spooned her from behind instead of Hope. His angel had claimed the spot behind Silvie since they’d all started sleeping together as a group.
Tonight, Hope settled in behind his gothic love, who claimed her usual spot under his right arm. He sensed some residual anxiety in Hope as she tucked up behind Mindy, but it was mixed with a surprisingly excited little thrill as well. A distinctly sexual little thrill.
Trust, however, did not accompany it.
‘The talk was productive, but there is still much work to be done,’ the Mindy in his head explained as she drew back the curtains that enclosed her space. Mind Mindy had definitely not toned things down tonight; she was wearing a far from modest purple teddy and black panty set. ‘You’ll have a role you play in the next step—one that should be quite fun. But we will talk more about it when that time comes. It won’t be long, though… now that she has a personal reason to want to trust me.’
Boyd trusted his loves’ to settle whatever issues arose amongst them, but would happily assist in whatever way they needed him to—as long as that help was mutually beneficial for both sides. No one would be happy if he was asked to pick a side or felt the need to settle things because they could not.
Everyone knew it, too.
He wondered if this was instinctive, a result of the Devotion, or just because many of them had been around him for much of his life.
Everyone murmured their goodnights as Raev curled her fluffy tails over their tangled legs and Hope brought a wing over to cover the rest of them with her down-like feathers. Boyd curled the outer halves of his leathery wings over both ends, hiding and protecting his little pile of warmth and softness away from the world.
The arrangement was supremely comfortable but would have gotten quite stuffy if Boyd had not picked up the habit of slowly opening and closing his wings just enough to generate a little airflow in his sleep—at least according to his loves. He couldn’t remember consciously doing so. It must be another aspect of his Power, reacting as he slept to ensure no one got too hot or too cool in their little nest.
That didn’t help with the issue that he had getting up long before his loves did. Unlike him, they weren’t used to waking fully rested after only four hours of sleep. And there was no real way to avoid waking them—not when they slept on his wings, as had become the preference. With Tinker on his chest, this only complicated things.
He somehow managed to extract himself—with a few grumbled complaints from the women—but it had only been just over four hours since they’d dozed off, so they promptly fell back asleep. Boyd smirked at the way they’d collapsed into a smaller pile centered around Tink. His little inventor hadn’t stirred when he’d lifted her up and then set her back down in the warm spot he left behind.
After a quick shower and running through his morning essentials, Boyd pulled on a pair of shorts and made his way to the general-purpose room after a quick stop in a room down the hall from Tinker’s lab that they’d outfitted as his personal armory. He wanted to grab a few items. The big demon hadn’t needed anything like an alarm clock since he was eight, so had no trouble making it to the gym well before his trainee showed up.
Boyd was reviewing the changes he’d made to the standard course, removing some but not all of the more advanced obstacles he had worked in for Tinker. His little inventor was getting quite good at zipping around using those bracelets of hers.
Laura arrived in a slightly less cheerful state than she normally did in the morning. “Good morning,” her normal sing-song greeting was muted by a lack of sleep.
She’d arrived in a comfortable-looking sweat pants and tank top set that was only a little tighter than they needed to be, along with a pair of serviceable running shoes, passing his first test. He would have sent her back if she arrived for training in anything showier.
“Good morning,” he replied, making sure the lighting adjustments he’d entered had been made as well. “We’ll get right to it. The first thing we have to do is test your current capabilities, starting with your ability to navigate environments and respond to threats. You are fit, but I need to see if you know how to apply that fitness in a practical setting.”
“Understood.” Laura nodded, glancing at the large room behind him filled with all sorts of fun things to climb over, swing from, crawl under, balance on, leap to, or any other motion their duties were likely to call on a Hero to perform. “I take it this means running an obstacle course?”
“More or less.” Boyd showed her a devilish grin while passing her an adjustable belt that had a pouch filled with vials on it. “At random intervals, you will be attacked by an unknown threat as you complete the course. Each of these vials is filled with Paciferiline you can use to neutralize that threat. Are you familiar with it?”
Laura took the belt and checked the pouch “I’m familiar with it, although I never had cause to use it because it only induces unconsciousness for five to ten minutes in adults. It’s used mostly by Heroes because it can be injected but it also aerosolizes when exposed to oxygen… and you can’t accidentally overdose someone on it. It’s not approved for use on children, but it didn’t cause any long-term negative effects on them in testing.”
“Perfect. Deploy it as you see fit to protect yourself against the threat,” Boyd told her.
Laura gave him a nonplussed look. “You’re this unknown threat, aren’t you?”
“It wouldn’t be an unknown threat if I told you, now would it?” Boyd grinned.
“You know I have to be close to you to use my Power, don’t you?” Laura raised an eyebrow over one pale green eye. “I’ll be close enough that I’m going to get a dose of that aura of yours if I manage to knock you out with this. Are you sure you want to leave yourself unconscious around me after I take another round of that? I barely managed to avoid embarrassing myself last time and I don’t want to cross any lines.”
“If the unknown threat has a Power similar to mine, Paciferiline won’t cause them to lose control over it,” he reassured her. Boyd was not only grateful that she’d thought it through, but also that she brought it up instead of quietly taking advantage of it.
“You should also know that anyone with at least B-ranked regeneration metabolizes Paciferiline much more quickly than you might expect.”
If she got him with a full dose, he would only be unconscious for thirty seconds to a minute. He wasn’t looking to nap on the job.
“Alright then,” Laura fastened the simple belt around her waist and tightened it. “Can I walk the course first or am I running it blind?”
She scanned what she could see of the course from where she was, trying to memorize as much of it as she could in case it was the only look she would get. It was an instinct he was glad she’d displayed, though she would have to learn to hide it better.
“You can walk it.” Boyd shrugged. “I won’t be changing it between your runs, so it will only be a mystery the first round either way.”
“Wait… ‘first’ round?” Laura turned back to look at him. “How many times am I running it?”
“I thought I was clear before.” It was Boyd’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “We’re looking to test your limits; you’ll run it until you can’t. There will also be obstacles you are unable to cross. If you can’t think of a way to pass them, you may go around them. Go as quick as you can, but this is as much a test of your stamina as it is a test of your strength and agility.”
“Run myself to exhaustion?” Laura looked skeptical, shifting her stance to the one he now recognized meant she was going to be stubborn. “The studies I’ve seen say that’s really bad for training.”
“It is,” Boyd confirmed with a nod. “This isn’t training, though. It’s a test. I’ll use it to determine the best course from here out for your personal growth. It’s also meant to see how well you adapt your Power to new circumstances. I’m sure you have thought extensively about how to use it in a medical setting, but very little on how it might help you to scale a twenty-foot wall.”
“Well no, I haven’t… wait, did you say a twenty-foot wall?!” Laura gaped at him. “I have done rock walls at gyms that have them, but I can’t climb a twenty-foot wall unless it has handholds.”
“That sounds like a limit to me, then.” Boyd smirked, adding a little challenge to his voice and eyes to get her in the right mindset. “I guess we’ll find out if it’s one you can push beyond… or not.”
Her pale green eyes narrowed a little—not all the way into a glare, but she met his challenging gaze readily. “I guess we will. But I can transport small amounts of liquid over short distances. It’s not like I can propel myself twenty feet into the air on a jet of water. Maybe I’ll be able to do cool stuff like that after you Enhance me, but I’m not sure this is a limit I can push beyond as I am today.”
Boyd shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve thought of a way I would try to wall climb if I had your Power.”
“Oh? And how is that?” She planted a hand on her hip in a display of agitation. No one liked hearing that others thought they could use your Power better than you could.
“I’ll tell you in three days, if you don’t think of it yourself.” Boyd smirked at her scowl. “For now, if you can’t think of a way to complete an obstacle, I want you to try three times before you walk around it.”
“Three days?” Laura sighed.
“You’ll be starting your morning this way every day until I say otherwise,” Boyd rumbled happily.
The obstacle course wasn't exactly good training—at least not in a physical sense. But it was an excellent way to get her thinking about her Power and the resources she had available differently.
“Once I’m satisfied you’ve learned what you can from this exercise,” he continued, “it will be retired.”
Laura had ‘goal-oriented’ written all over her, so he gave her a clear goal—even if it wasn’t clear how she could reach it.
“What are the rules?” Laura moderately surprised him by asking one of the right questions instead of any of the other stubborn responses she might have used.
“You are only permitted to induce unconsciousness in the unknown threat using Paciferiline. Other than that—and the basic principle of safety first—there are no additional rules,” Boyd explained. “Just keep in mind that an injury is an automatic failure. Any day you get hurt will not be the last day you have to run the course until exhaustion.”
“Sounds simple enough. Which is most important: finishing fast, completing more of the obstacles, or lasting the most rounds?” she asked.
Boyd thought this was another good question, and he had to hide his look of approval behind a cough as she scanned the course and began to stretch, pulling her arms to the side over her chest.
“I can think of situations in the field where any of those possibilities might be the most important,” Boyd kept his reply simple.
“Should I aim for a middle ground?” she asked, frowning.
“Is that what I said?” Boyd flipped her question on its head.
Part of this test was how much she could figure out on her own. That was partly because Heroes had to be able to identify their priorities in complex situations without external guidance, and partly because now wasn’t the best time for him to be picking up a trainee.
“Well… no. I was asking because what you said wasn’t clear.” Laura scowled at him.
Boyd shrugged. “That was intentional. You can rest for no more than five minutes between rounds. Stopping for more than three minutes while running the course disqualifies the round and you must move back to the start. Once you can no longer run the course, you can rest until breakfast. If you last through breakfast, you may rest for a half hour and then enjoy a meal. Either way, Hope will heal you before you eat and then we’ll start you on the training videos.” He chuckled. “I figure it won’t help if you start on those before we get some coffee in you.”
Laura groaned. “Ugh! No one mentioned training videos.” Her shoulders slumped halfway through an over-the-head stretch.
“My understanding is no one ever mentions the training videos. But regardless of what field you wish to apply yourself in, there is always monotonous information that needs to be conveyed before you can hold a position. And training videos remain the best way to convey it.”
Privately, Boyd agreed with her sentiment. He wondered if Silvie would think he was getting soft because he’d mercifully selected the least boring of several options for her. Many editions covered the same material and he had reviewed most of them.
“What’s after the training videos?” Laura asked with a hopeful note in her tone.
“Practical skills training.” Boyd grinned. “I’m sure you’ll find this much more entertaining than the videos. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to pass you around to the others for that, and some of it will be solo training. We will all be busy preparing for the next mission, so I can’t devote one-hundred-percent of my time and energy to your training. And then there is the upcoming gala.”
“I understand.” Laura shrugged a non-committal shoulder that showed him that while she understood, she didn’t like it.
She had made a life-altering decision, after all. It wasn’t surprising that she’d hoped it would be his top priority. If not for the fact that he planned to make some world-altering moves at the gala, he likely would have been giving her that attention—if only to ensure she remained committed to her choice.
Positive reinforcement was a powerful thing, even if he’d had more experience with negative reinforcement, himself.
“After dinner, you and I will play a game for a half hour. We’ll start with chess.” Boyd offered her a carrot. “Tonight, we will just talk about what you’ve learned so far. But normally, we will discuss the readings I would have assigned the night before… and yes, you will be quizzed.”
“While playing?” She scowled. “You strike me as really good at chess.”
“I played a game or two as a teen,” Boyd lied.
He had studied the ancient game in minute detail. He’d almost beat Victory Seeker by the end of his time in the PAC. He wondered how he might fare against Granny. None of the available computer opponents had been able to mimic his mentor's ability to subtly control the board and his loves’ weren’t interested in the game.
“Okay… so get quizzed on the assigned reading while also getting my butt kicked in chess after dinner. Got it.” Laura tried to frown in protest, but her lips quirked up at the sides and gave away it’s forced nature. “Is that going to be an every night thing?”
“Every night except for weekends,” he agreed.
Boyd smirked. One-on-one time seemed to be the motivator he’d hoped it would be. Now, to set the hook and prioritize her the way she wanted him too. “I’ll schedule any dinner dates with the others on the weekend so as not to interrupt your training.”
“That’s good… thanks.” Laura’s smile won out over the forced frown. “I am hoping to get through training as fast as possible, but I do understand that you have responsibilities. Don’t let training me interfere with changing the world, but I’m hoping you’ll get me ready in time to help you with some of those changes.”
“Don’t worry, we’ve got a long fight ahead of us.” The big demon sighed. “I hope to see some major changes in the coming months, but given the nature of our mission, it is going to take years. There is no quick and easy way to change the minds of those with hard-held beliefs.”
