George Tavlakis is a carefree musician living free of all commitments in the heart of eternal Athens. His life changes abruptly when his mother passes away. Her will requires him to keep a slave in his home for a full year or he won’t see a single drachma of his inheritance. He never even had a pet growing up, what does he know about caring for a created race like the Rovania?
Yeraki is tired. Granted, humans created his race. Granted, the Rovania have no rights under the law. But why must humans always be so cruel? And why on earth did the only human who was ever kind to him force this ridiculous arrangement on her son? Yeri has little confidence in his new master’s ability to manage, especially after he sees George’s bachelor pad.
At first glance, the pair has nothing in common, nothing to bond them outside of the legal relationship of master and slave. But music is a sweet mistress, and she has them both... If they can discover each other.
Yeri watched George with a great deal of concern. The man was laughing so hard he was wheezing. With growing alarm, he reached out and touched George without permission. “Master, please breathe.”
George tried. He reached up and pressed his hand over Yeri’s, trapping it. He took a few more deep breaths, looked at Yeri and started to laugh again.
Yeri set the bouzouki aside and did the unthinkable. He climbed into George’s lap, pressed himself against the man and started to purr. It worked. George’s hysterical laughter died away, his arms came around Yeri’s body, his hands dug into Yeri’s fur. Yeri rested his forehead on George’s shoulder, allowed his eyes to close. His sense of smell had returned, creeping up on him almost unnoticed, and George smelled wonderful. Like everything good in the world, everything that made Yeri happy, all rolled into one perfect inhaled package. It made his purr ridiculously easy to evoke, and even if he didn’t like his purr, George did.
George started to stroke him, causing the purr to deepen. Yeri didn’t mind. He liked being stroked. He’d been designed to be stroked. One of his trainers had even said that his fur was good for people to stroke.
“Thank you,” George murmured. “God, you feel good. Is this something you’re trained to do? Become a human security blanket until they can calm down?”
“No, master, never. Yeri should not touch you without permission.” Yeri was too comfortable to care if George beat him, just so long as he didn’t stop stroking.
“You always have permission to touch me if you want,” George told him hoarsely. His large, hot human hands continued to stroke him.
Yeri purred louder in response. Those hands were waking his desire, his lust was a force that was always simmering just under the surface, and his growing love for George made his reaction to the man inevitable. Even though he’d avoided scent-locking himself, he still wanted this man, badly.
