The Guide is Actually a Body-Switching Esper [BL]-Chapter 442: Not Today

When Damien stepped out from the bathroom not long after, clean and refreshed, he found Lane lying on the bed.

Naked.

In a rather... seductive pose.

"Hey," Lane smiled lazily, tilting his head and glancing at Damien from underneath his lashes. "I’ve been waiting for you."

Damien’s cock throbbed, but he averted his eyes and pressed his lips, suppressing the desire welling inside of him. That was hardly the right time for it.

Instead, he walked over to the closet to grab fresh pajamas... The ones that he had worn the previous night were still clean enough to wear, but they were currently folded underneath the pillow. On the bed that Lane was lying on. And Damien didn’t dare to approach it, not until his heartbeat slowed down to normal...

Just because he had chosen to avoid the bed, it didn’t mean that he could escape. Seeing him walk past, Lane’s expression momentarily turned serious. He then slid off the bed, and before Damien could even put his pants on, he approached the man from behind.

"Let’s not waste time like this, hmm?" he murmured, his hot breath tickling Damien’s nape, as his hands slid around his boyfriend’s strong waist. "As much as I like undressing you... It’s already late. We should shorten the foreplay..."

Damien stirred in Lane’s arms. He could feel his boyfriend all over him, pressing against his back, Lane’s lips caressing his neck, Lane’s hands stroking his abdomen and slowly sliding down...

It was hard to resist the man when he was acting like that.

However.

"Lane." Damien put the pajamas down, and grabbed Lane’s hands, locking them in place before they could get any further.

Lane paused for a moment, a shadow passing through his face, but he still muttered in an alluring voice, "Yes?"

"Not today."

No response.

"You’re injured," Damien pointed out.

"Oh, come on!" Lane whined, dropping his head on Damien’s shoulder. "I’m pretty much healed! More than good enough for at least a round or two!"

But Damien was convinced otherwise. He turned around and pushed Lane away at arm’s length, taking a look at the man’s torso.

Just as he had thought, there was still a wound there. Lane’s abdomen and waist had been badly injured during the cave’s collapse, and they still hadn’t been fully healed. Lane had concealed it earlier when lying on the bed, but now that Damien could take a good look at him, he could clearly see it. It was closed, yes, and it was unlikely to reopen again, but still. Judging by how it looked, it had to at least still ache.

Same with Lane’s right arm. And all the fractures that Damien couldn’t see.

How could Damien possibly sleep with Lane like that? No matter who would top whom, it was bound to cause Lane some pain, and wouldn’t be good for his recovery!

That’s why he sternly repeated, "No. Not today. Let’s apply some medicine, and go to sleep. You need rest."

"Ugh, it’s not as bad as it looks, really..." Lane complained, extremely displeased. "Come on, we’re going to be busy for a while now, going on raids, so we won’t have many opportunities..."

"And whose fault is that?" Damien couldn’t help but sigh.

He didn’t mean anything by it, other than the obvious fact that it was Lane who had left those dungeon uncleared because he wanted to go on raids with Damien. It wasn’t an accusation, he wasn’t angry, it wasn’t even that bad, not really - leaving dungeons to be confiscated by the Association wasn’t illegal or anything. It was a financial loss for Lane, since he wouldn’t be able to get anything out of those dungeons (other than the ’fun’ that came from hunting monsters), but at the same time, it benefited the Association, so Damien wasn’t going to criticize him for that. It was just like... indirectly donating to the Association, in a way. It had given everyone more work to do, but overall, Damien considered it more of a positive thing.

However, Lane’s eyes twitched at the comment.

If it were any other day, he would have laughed it off, turning it into a joke. Cheerfully admit that it was his fault, and watch Damien helplessly shake his head, before tackling him and falling onto the bed together.

But they just had the conversation about Ethan, after which Damien stood up and walked away, leaving Lane alone at the table.

And when Lane had tried to seduce him to fix the mood with make-up sex, he had been rejected. Because of his injuries (supposedly), but still.

He didn’t like it.

He didn’t like it at all.

This situation was making him awfully anxious.

And it was absolutely unbearable. Lane wasn’t used to feeling this way.

Especially not out of fear that someone might leave him...

Not that he thought that Damien necessarily would. I mean, to dump him just because of a little attempted murder of someone neither of them liked? Damien had already known for a long time that Lane’s morality was dubious, to put it lightly, and that he had been responsible for the death of... at least a few people.

But, hey, he had known what he was getting into (kind of), so it was too late to regret now! Besides, it was Damien who had chased after Lane, even when Lane had been trying to avoid him, so what right did he have to back out?

He couldn’t back out. Lane wouldn’t allow it.

And it wasn’t like Lane had broken any rules... None of THEIR rules, at the very least. Back when Lane had revealed his true identity to Damien, Damien had given him a few conditions... But the thing that he made Lane promise was that there would be no more possessions. There was not a single mention of an attempted murder, so even if Damien wanted to add such a condition now, the law didn’t work backwards!

Damien simply couldn’t hold it against Lane...

"Lane."

Suddenly snapped out of his thoughts in the middle of his internal rant by the sound of Damien’s voice, Lane almost flinched.

"Yes?" he hesitantly glanced at the man.

"Come here," Damien patted the mattress next to him. "I’ll apply your medicine."

"Oh. Okay." Lane nodded his head, and obediently walked over, plopping right next to Damien. He observed as Damien dipped his fingers in the salve, and started spreading it over Lane’s abdomen...

It was just a regular salve that the Association used, with effects mediocre at best. Lane had much better medicine in his spatial bag. He couldn’t be bothered to say anything, though, and just silently allowed Damien to apply this subpar salve over his mostly healed wounds, as his chest tightened with every brush of Damien’s fingers against his skin...

The truth was, no matter how much he ranted in his mind about how Damien had no right to leave him, he knew that it wasn’t the case. Damien was a free man, and while Lane would be capable of kidnapping him if he really wanted to - he outranked Damien, after all, had a wide range of abilities he could use, and a large organization and Forbidden Zones under his control - that’s not how he wanted things to be...

He wanted Damien to want him, and that was something that couldn’t be forced. If Damien wanted to leave him, there wasn’t much that Lane could actually do to stop him.

But he didn’t want to just watch it happen either. Damien was the first and only person whom Lane had ever even considered dating, and while he had no doubt that he would have still been fine even if they broke up - because why wouldn’t he be? He might have l...iked Damien a little too much for comfort, but it was still just a relationship. It wasn’t all that much different from a long-term, exclusive, very intimate fling combined with cohabitation, now was it? - Damien was too much of a catch for Lane to allow him to slip through his fingers.

He really needed to get that ring. Although a marriage didn’t necessarily guarantee that Damien would never leave him (there was this thing called a ’divorce’, after all), it should provide Lane with a bit more security. If they were married, Damien would surely treat it as a life-long commitment, and would be less likely to give up on Lane...

Even if he were to discover all of Lane’s secrets.

Lane glanced down at Damien’s hands. Damien had finished applying the salve on Lane’s abdomen, back, arm, and legs, wherever Lane had traces of injuries, and was now looking for bandages in his first aid kit...

Until he was interrupted by Lane snatching his hands.

"How are your hands?" he asked, pretending to examine Damien’s skin. It seemed to be healed already, which wasn’t much of a surprise, considering that Damien only had some scratches from digging through the rockfall. But Lane continued to look anyway, while secretly comparing the thickness of their fingers.

He couldn’t exactly check Damien’s ring size without hinting anything any other way, after all, and that would have ruined the surprise!