"Sit down," Katia said. "And don't talk. Or look at me."

Vella opened her mouth, but at the threatening glare Katia shot her, closed it with a click of teeth.

She sat.

Katia knelt in front of her, shuffling forward on her knees to close the gap, eyes locked on Vella’s stiffening cock. 

She wasn’t sure how to describe the expression on her face – even in the best of situations, with how carefully guarded Katia kept herself, deciphering more than a general idea of her mood was a formidable task.

But right now?

With that kind of look on her face?

Well. 

‘Infatuated’ seemed the tamest way to describe it. 

Then again, maybe that was Vella’s cock thinking. With how fast it had sprung up – leaving Vella half-dizzy from the reallocation of blood – it certainly held the lion’s share of her cognitive abilities. 

In the back of her mind, she held a brief, sympathetic council for guys everywhere, a newfound empathy – she’d had moments in her life where she’d let lust make decisions she wouldn’t have otherwise, but at least she hadn’t literally had the blood pulled away from her brain. It was … pretty crazy how little she seemed able to form coherent thoughts, right now.

“Make room,” Katia said, tapping on the insides of Vella’s legs. “And lean back. Might as well make this comfortable.”

Vella did as instructed. She leaned back, using her arms to support herself, her legs spread out in a ‘V’. Katia finished scooting herself forward: her legs going over Vella’s, sitting in the gap she’d made. And exposing herself, very clearly. The proximity burned Vella’s skin: both where their skin met, and where not, two scant feet of space not nearly enough buffer for the heat radiating from their bodies.

And, more than that, the closeness of her lower body, legs spread open, on display … not that they’d be doing anything like that, but the sight was severely compromising to the tiny part of Vella’s brain that could still think.

She couldn’t believe this was happening.

They stared at each other, both of them red-faced and nearly panting, even though nothing had happened yet.

Yet being the operative word. And that was what made Vella dizzy.

Katia cleared her throat.

Finally reached out a hand. Hesitant and questing – the assuredness so particular to Katia nowhere to be seen. 

And at the anticipation, her cock twitched. Which, in turn, made Katia's hand snap back in surprise. 

Vella laughed, unable to help herself. She couldn’t explain why – and even though she shouldn’t have. Just, something about the situation. The strangeness, the unfamiliarity, the low-boiling heat in the air making it hard to breathe. Giving everything a surreal haze to it, like an erotic dream.

Katia glared at her in response, daring her to say something.

She wisely didn't. 

"I'm not nervous," Katia accused, in perhaps the most brazen lie Vella had ever seen. So fucking cute. "And didn't I say not to look at me?"

Vella didn’t look away, because there was no way in hell she was missing even a second of this, of the way Katia was acting. But Katia didn’t insist. Just … part of whatever act Vella only half understood. If it was even an act. Vella wasn’t sure.

Katia’s attention turned back to her cock. Determined – like she was rallying herself for some dangerous, insurmountable task – the hand quested out. And this time, made hesitant contact: just her pointer finger. 

It was colder than Vella had expected, which made her cock twitch – again. And so Katia jumped – again.

Vella laughed; she couldn't help it.

"Keep control of it, will you?" Katia demanded. "And stop laughing at me. I will stop."

Vella sobered up. "Sorry. It was, um, cold."

"Hmph." She narrowed her eyes in an attempt to cow Vella, which almost certainly would’ve worked in any other situation, but with how Katia was acting right now? No success. Vella grinned at her.

Katia sniffed and looked back down, apparently deciding ignoring her the best path forward.

Vella was okay with that

Cute as Katia was being, she needed … relief.

Katia steeled herself, then, as if with the logic if she did it quickly enough, she wouldn’t have the opportunity to startle, wrapped her hand around Vella's cock.

At the pressure, the insanely relieving pressure, a low, unwilling groan escaped Vella’s lips. Katia’s attention shot up in surprise – as apparently embarrassed at the sound as Vella herself was.

They stared at each other.

Vella wondered if her eyes were always this blue.

"I-I'm not really sure how to do this," Katia said after a second, breaking their awkward staring competition. "So, um, I guess you can let me know what's working."

Vella squirmed her hips, making her own temporary friction with Katia’s hand. "Up and down," she said, hearing the whine, the frustration in her voice. "Don't think there's much to it. P-Please. You're kind of being a tease, just holding it."

Katia finally pumped down with her hand, then up.

It was … hard to describe. 

The concoction of emotions flooding her brain. The pleasure, the unreality of the situation: of which there were so many parts. That she had a cock, most prevalently, but also that her drop dead gorgeous teammate had somehow ended up with her hand wrapped around it. That it was happening in the Tower of all places.

The stress of the day – the constant unintentional tease that was following around a naked Katia – the fantasies, always cut off prematurely. 

Katia’s hand, sliding up and down her cock, firm – the awkward unfamiliarity of the motion somehow making things even hotter, even better. This was the first time Katia had done something like this. And Vella, too. 

"Does it … feel good?" Katia asked. Meeting her eyes, this time, despite the fluster. Sharing in the moment.

"Is the noise,” Vella panted out, “not making it obvious?" 

Katia stilled her pumping, agonizingly, and to Vella's squirming despair. Quirked an eyebrow at her.

"I have something very delicate in my hand, if you've forgotten. I'm not sure now's the time for that snark of yours."

Some of her confidence had returned, apparently. 

Vella laughed – and this time, Katia didn’t take offense. Instead, the briefest of smiles appeared on her lips. Only to be wiped away, haughty seriousness plastered back on. A mask, Vella finally recognized.

Her heart fluttered, not out of arousal. Something … else.

Which was seriously bad. She needed not to conflate this, any of this, with real feelings. Even if some genuine lust existed, Katia hadn't shown any interest in Vella herself. 

Had she?

No, of course she hadn't. 

Don't even go down that road.

The diversion came quickly. Katia started pumping, her point made, and something about the way she stroked down in that particular moment burst pleasure through her. Entirely by instinct, Vella bucked her hips into Katia's hand, seeking purchase – entwined as they were, Katia’s legs over Vella’s, it jostled them both.

"S-Sorry," Vella gasped out when Katia squeaked in surprise. "That was -- wow."

"It's fine," Katia stuttered. "Um. What did I do? You liked it?"

“Just keep going.” Something was building, a hotness in her stomach, and lower. “Faster, please? Fuck. Go faster.”

“I can use two hands?” A second hand joined the first, not waiting for an answer. Katia picked up her tempo, added a twist to her wrists in the movement, a sideways pressure with each stroke. “G-Gods knows there’s room for it.”

She pumped like that for close to a minute – the pressure and heat building, hot panting the only sound filling the air.

“You’re way too good at this,” Vella gasped out.

“You better not be implying anything,” Katia said. “L-Like you said, there’s not much to it.”

Building. To such a burning intensity.

“And, um,” Katia said, though Vella didn’t quite parse the words – the feeling in her stomach, her cock, starting to become mind-erasing. “Tell me when I should point it away. For … you know.”

It was so much.

She couldn't even think.

Katia's elegant fingers wrapped around her cock … even the sight made her dizzy. Combined with the physical pleasure? Both hands, pumping down, crimson-faced Katia and her earnest fervency?

The heat kept building and building. Vella didn’t understand how it kept going. 

But she welcomed it. She was so, so, so relieved the torture was over. The past thirty six hours of suffering through Katia's perfection: the sway of her hips, the permanent flush and sweat from their constant fighting. 

Finally, indulgence. Overwhelming indulgence. 

She gave into it completely. 

Something tightened in her stomach, curling her entire body forward.

She thrust her hips out and let go.

It was, and she meant this literally, the most mind blowing orgasm she'd ever had.

Wave after wave -- the utterly novel, totally visceral experience of sticky hot ropes bursting from her cock, in twitching pulses, each one more intense than the last.

"Oh my gods," she could hear vaguely in the background, Vella completely lost to the sensation. “You –”

It took close to a minute before she came back to her senses. She was lying on her back, not sure how she'd ended up that way. Some hot liquid was on her stomach … it seemed she'd caught herself in the crossfire. She was too spent to care.

A face popped into her vision. A familiar one … and it was … covered in something. Something white-clearish.

Oh no.

"You did not just do that to me, Vella."

 

---

 

Vella felt genuinely terrible for the mishap, and Katia milked it for everything she was worth.

(Like she had milked Vella herself.)

To simplify the terms of agreed-upon-reparations, suffice it to say Vella’s hands would be sore for the next few weeks; Katia was, apparently, fond of massages: back and feet both. Which, really, wasn’t all that much of a punishment, not in Vella’s eyes. So, a win-win.

(So, so worth it.)

Stopping in the middle of a floor to do, um, something like that with each other hadn’t been the smartest idea they’d ever had, but both of them had been entirely caught up in the moment. And they’d gone unpunished in perhaps one of the only times the Tower would ever choose to show mercy – though characterizing the Tower as merciful felt unwise just by principle.

Katia had expressed her disapproval, regardless that things had worked out. She’d had choice words for ‘sidetracking her at such an inopportune time’, as if the whole diversion had been initiated by Vella (not that she contradicted her; she was still in the dog house), and ‘imagine if this hadn’t been the first Cascade; do you think things would have gone so smoothly? In the future, safe rooms only.’

(The casual ‘in the future’, the implication of more to follow … made her head spin.)

And to add the cherry to the top?

Vella had leveled up.

So there Vella sat, Katia’s feet in her lap (she tried not to think about their proximity to her dick; even recently relieved, it had been quick to re-prime itself), thinking over the two new skills she’d received.

With how much dread she’d had for what they might be, it had come as a huge relief that they were only weird and mildly perverted, instead of straight up degenerate.

The first was the better by far:

 

{Reciprocal Bond}: Grants target Bonded status with user. Bonded status amplifies experience gain for so long as Bond remains unbroken. Bond is renewed when Bonded users indulge in sexual acts, and broken when separated by a large distance or when twenty four hours has elapsed without indulgence. When broken, Bond cannot be recast on the same target for 168 hours. Strength of bond grows over time.

 

A lot to work through. 

She’d shared it with Katia, wanting someone to talk it over with. Vella really didn’t understand how in the world she’d lucked into a partner like her … skilled, knowledgeable, gorgeous, funny (if in a dry, unsuspecting way). And generous, moraled … even before all of the shenanigans, and though abrasive, she’d been so quick to team up with Vella – it hadn’t even been a question on her part. Like her offered protection had been assumed.

“Amplified experience gain …” Katia said, shaking her head. “Truly, I’ve never heard of anything like it. Even if the effect isn’t potent, that’s an ability to die for.” A short pause, a frown crossing her face. “And I mean that. I would … avoid sharing the details, if I were you. There’s certainly those who would take advantage.”

Vella had seen someone from district fourteen get stabbed for the mystery contents of a brown paper bag. So yeah. She knew. For something that amplified how fast you could progress through the Tower? There’d be people willing to do terrible things. That could be said about anything, but especially this.

“I won’t, don’t worry.”

Maybe at one point, the stipulation ‘bond is broken when twenty-four hours pass without indulgence’ would have stumbled her (and it still wasn’t the easiest thing to digest), but seeing how Katia’s … ‘taking care of her’ … might become a staple in the future, she didn’t think it would be that big of a problem.

“Really,” Katia said, “it comes down to the efficacy of the bond. And the rate it grows in strength.”

“What do you think the ‘large distance’ is? How far?”

“It would only be a guess.”

“Yours is better than mine.”

“Likely not. The Tower gives you at least some intuition. What do you feel is a ‘large distance’?”

“Is it really that arbitrary?”

Katia quirked an eyebrow at her.

“Of course it is,” Vella said. “Hm.” She thought about it. When she thought ‘large distance’, what popped into her head? Specifically accounting for an ability, so it’d have to be something semi-reasonable; Katia and her could hardly be glued at the hips. “I guess … roughly district-width?”

Katia pursed her lips. “That’s more generous than I’d have given. But if that’s what you feel, it’s likely correct.”

“And we can’t really risk testing it …” Vella said.

“Unfortunately not. A full week cooldown is brutal.” Katia squirmed her feet in Vella’s lap. “Forgetting something?”

“Ah, sorry.” She’d been lost in thought, had stopped massaging. She picked the task back up. “And the second skill? Your, um, thoughts?”

Considering what she and Katia had done together, Vella really shouldn’t have blushed, but she did. It was just … this next one was so …

Intimate. In like, a romantic way.

 

{Invigorating Kiss}: Provides short term, powerful health and mana regeneration effects.

 

She was a priestess, after all. A healing skill had been all but guaranteed in her first couple of levels. 

“With how trivial these floors are, it’s not something you’ll need to use,” Katia said.

And did she sound … disappointed at that?

No, Vella was imagining things. She’d always had an active imagination when it came to seeing things that weren’t there. Had always led to … disaster. Like Tori. Wouldn’t be doing that again. 

See, Katia had the right idea about this whole situation. Vella needed to emulate her. Strict pragmatism: focus on the Tower. Maybe they’d have to do some, uh, intimate things along the way, but it was purely out of necessity. And while some lust existed between them, because even Vella couldn’t remain unaware to that, it was just a natural response to being stressed, naked, and crammed in a dark place together, forced by circumstance to be partners. 

No warm-and-fuzzy feelings involved. 

Vella was just … mixing things up. 

Like she always did.