I didn't like Ryeth shutting me out. I felt... empty. They same way I'd felt when he'd disappeared after the fight until he reappeared this morning. Which was ridiculous.

It wasn't normal to have someone literally existing in your head. Talking was one thing, but what I experienced with Ryeth was very, very different. He'd said he'd basically always be with me, and yet somehow, he managed to shut me out.

I was being absolutely ridiculous.

Why was the house so damn quiet? I'd counted on the kids to fill the emptiness in my mind with their chatter. But they were doing school with Kit. Of course. The one time I actually needed them for something, that's when they weren't around.

I flopped on my bed, contemplating another nap. Sleep would let me forget the sudden silence. But I'd already taken a nap today, and sleep was the furthest thing from my mind. What had I done in my spare time before Ryeth? These days, all I seemed to do was mope.

I twisted on to my back, the familiar popcorn pattern of the ceiling frustratingly normal above me. But the context of my earlier conversation with Ryeth, when he had said I needed to get used to having him around, came back to me, and my hand drifted down under my pants. 

If this was going to be one of my few, unguarded opportunities, I would be foolish not to take it.

My cock was rising to the occasion, and I wrapped my fingers around its hardening length, speeding up the process. I couldn't imagine not jerking off every day, but I also couldn't imagine jerking off with Ryeth in my head. Maybe I could get him to do this pull back thing at least once a day? I mean, it would be weird because he'd know exactly what I was doing, but... that was better than him experiencing it with me, right?

Though maybe I'd be doing the guy a service. He'd been trapped for who knew how long—if anyone needed a little release, it was him. 

Damn, I couldn't even imagine that. And he was still trapped in ice. Talk about a boner killer. If it were me, I was pretty sure the first thing I'd do as soon as I got free was jerk one out.

Thinking of Ryeth bound and trapped was doing nothing for my libido, so I pushed those thoughts aside and tried to call some of my favorite fantasies to mind, but my mind was having a hard time focusing. My body responded to my touch, but the mental images were doing nothing. I'd only just fix the image of one ass or cock or face in my mind before it would whisk away as if smoke, impossible to catch. 

Damnit. This was making me more frustrated than before—the opposite of what I was going for. I gave up, my hand limp on my erection, my chest heaving with unreleased tension. An image of a man slowly came to me: shoulder-length brown hair, bright blue eyes, muscular, nearly hairless. Unlike the other images, this one stayed. I imagined kissing the man, which was unusual for one of my fantasies, but I was desperate for whatever would keep me in the moment. The kiss was slow, soft, sensuous, and my hand moved in rhythm with our lips. But then the man bit my lip, hard, and I flipped him around and bent him over, dropping to my knees to twirl my tongue around his hole, my swollen lip burning against the valley of his cheeks.

I wanted to spin him around again, to see if he liked it, to see if this was working for him as well as it was for me. Which was ridiculous. This was my fantasy, of course he was enjoying it. I barely noticed my hand's pressure, so lost in the mental play. 

I pulled him up turned him around anyway, and he wrapped his legs around my hips, my cock pressing against his hole as he kissed me. I dropped one hand to guide my length into him, and then pumped slowly, savoring the tightness, losing myself in the dance of our lips. But when his teeth grazed my sore lip, I pushed him back and started fucking into him with abandon, the world oddly silent, but the arch of his pleasure evident. 

A stray thought nearly made me lose the dream: I wondered what Ryeth looked like. 

The beautiful man beneath me raised his head. "I am Ryeth."

The shock could have stopped everything—it didn't. The orgasm that had been building in me cracked through my body like a bolt of lightning, painful, glorious, beyond anything I had ever experienced before. 

I lay on my bed, exhausted, wary, and more satisfied than I'd ever been in my life. Fuck. What had I just done?

You seemed to be having difficulty, Ryeth said. I'm glad I could offer assistance.

"Yeah." I couldn't mindspeak to him right now. I was too raw. "Assistance." 

Are you satisfied?

I nearly snorted, but would he take that as an insult? "Yes, I'm... satisfied." As if that was a sufficient word for what had just happened. I was mortified. Terrified. And very, very satisfied.

Good. Let me know if you need my assistance again.

Was he... offering to be my mental booty call? Could he hear my thoughts right now? My mind was racing, but I couldn't think things through, not with him listening in. I sprung from bed and pulled my boxers back on. "I'll let you know."

Right now, I had to do something to busy my thoughts, something to deaden my mind. I booted up my game system and logged into the bloodiest, most difficult game I owned and thought about anything except how blue Ryeth's eyes had been.