Chapter 21

- Oliver

Claudia's mouth around my cock in the morning was starting to feel like a routine, and I wasn't complaining. Waking up to her cute mindless face bobbing between my legs, her eyes glazed and empty, was hard to beat as far as mornings went, and a nice reminder that what mattered was unchanged.

The morning light slipped through the gap in the curtains and landed across her shoulders, turning her skin gold. One of her large natural breasts had slipped out of her sleep shirt neckline, swaying with each slow bob of her head. I rested a hand in her hair, just feeling the rhythm, and let out a long breath.

Soon enough, the pressure built low in my stomach, and my hips pushed up on their own. Claudia didn't change her pace at all. She just kept going, patient and empty, until I groaned and spilled down her throat.

She raised her head, eyes glazed, and opened her mouth. "Iff eight firty," she gargled. "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!"

I chuckled, and she snapped out of it, this time managing not to gag or cough. She swallowed, blinked a few times, and wiped the corner of her mouth with her wrist.

She sighed. "Still not bored of that one, huh?"

"Never," I said, grinning up at the ceiling. "Beats even the strongest coffee."

She stretched. "Wish I could take it as a compliment, but it doesn't even feel like I'm the one doing it. I just wake up with a sore jaw and a mouth full of jizz." She noticed her tit out and tucked it back into her shirt with a small huff. "Can we... turn it off, for a bit? I'd like to be able to sleep in when I don't have to be anywhere in the morning."

I raised an eyebrow, smirking. "Can't you just decide not to obey?" I asked.

She climbed on top of me. "No, I can't. I can refuse a command from you when you give it, and if I try really hard I can get out of obeying while I'm doing it, but not if I'm mindless at the time, you know?"

I nodded, thoughtful. "Guess we didn't cover all the loopholes when we set it up."

Claudia shrugged, her head finding its usual spot against my collarbone. "It's fine. You own me. You get to decide how it works outside of these rules we made."

Before I could point out her free self would have had something to say about her current attitude, she tilted her face up and poked my chin with her nose. "Don't. I know what you're going to say."

"I know you know," I said, smiling as I kissed the tip of her nose. "Okay. Stop being my zombie alarm clock. For now."

"Thank you." She kissed my collarbone, then settled in with a contented hum, her hair tickling my chin. For a minute neither of us moved. The apartment was quiet except for Chairman Meow scratching at the bedroom door.

Finally, Claudia lifted her head and glanced toward it. "Okay, he's getting loud. Someone's hungry and about to start screaming. Also you're gonna be late if you don't hop in the shower soon."

"Well for once we don't have to fight for the bathroom," I said, "since you're not working today. Feed the cat, and I'll be out in ten minutes."

She flopped onto the mattress with a dramatic groan. "Fine..."

I slid out from under the sheets and crossed the room, catching the curtain's gap of light on my back. I rummaged through the dresser for clean boxers and a t-shirt, then paused at the door. "Heard back from Renee?"

Claudia propped herself up on one elbow and pouted, pulling the sheet over her chest. "Nope. She's been radio silent since our double date."

"Think she's still in town?"

Claudia shrugged under the sheet, grabbing her phone off the nightstand. "Who knows?"

She thumbed the screen and sounds from random videos spilled out of the speaker, some influencer yelling about a protein shake.

"Hey," I said, nodding at the bedroom door where the cat's yowling had gotten louder. "If you don't feed him in the next minute, he's going to start eating the door frame."

She groaned and rolled out of bed, phone still in hand. "Fine, fine. Go shower."

"We still good for that concert on Friday?" I asked, one hand on the bathroom's doorknob.

Claudia walked toward me, phone dangling from her fingers, and rose onto her toes to kiss my cheek. "Wouldn't miss it for the world," She said. "And you, still okay with me spending a night with Felix tonight? Not too late to say no."

I smiled, trying to make it look easy. "Yes, I'm okay with it. You two have fun. I'll pick you up in the morning."

"Thank you," She said, squeezing my hand once before letting go. "Now hurry, you stink like sleep and sex." She grinned, then pulled the door open and let the cat slip past her ankles. "Yes, yes! Mommy's coming," she called after him, her voice dropping into the high, ridiculous singsong she only used on that cat.

I quickly slipped into the bathroom and shut the door before the evil creature could enter. That little asshole had a tendency to follow me in and watch me shower, then yowl at the glass like he wanted to join me. Spoiler alert: he didn't. So no idea why he kept trying. I turned the water on and waited for it to warm up, listening to the muffled thud of a food bowl hitting the kitchen floor, and the yowling finally stopped.

Twenty minutes later, I was getting off the elevator at Lost Time Studio's floor, hair still damp, keycard already in my hand, trying to gather the courage required for another day of working without knowing if our mailbox would have a deal popping up in it or not.

"Good morning, Oliver," Blair said from her desk when I entered. The smile on her face took me by surprise, and for a moment I wondered if I'd walked into the wrong office.

"Morning," I said slowly. "Who died?"

She snorted, standing up and making her way toward the coffee machine. "Nobody died. Check your inbox." She poured two mugs and didn't look back at me. "Collapsed Star sent over the contract draft early this morning."

"No way..." I mumbled.

"Way," Cael said from their desk, spinning around in the chair with a shy grin. "Jonas has already read it twice. He's pretending he's calm, but he's definitely not."

They were wearing a very gender neutral hoodie today, oversized and gray, sleeves pushed up past their elbows, making them look even smaller than usual.

"I mean, it's a damn good deal," Jonas said, finally turning from his monitor. His voice cracked a little on the last word, and he cleared his throat. He too had a dumb smile plastered across his face, the kind he couldn't hide even when he tried.

"Best I've heard of in this industry," Cael added, nodding toward me. They were twiddling their thumbs nervously, their expression strangely serious for someone who'd just announced good news.

I dropped my bag near my desk and turned on my workstation, watching the screen flicker to life. "Okay. Give me a second to read it myself before anyone says another word."

The inbox loaded, and there it was, bolded at the top. My hand hovered over the mouse. I clicked it open and started reading, my eyes racing down the first page. Somewhere behind me, Blair set a mug on my desk without a word, and I realized I'd been holding my breath.

"Fifty fifty before recoup, then only fifteen percent for them?" I said, reading the line again. "That can't be right. Cael, you said it's usually a hundred percent for the publisher until recoup, then the studio is lucky to get thirty." I scrolled down, half expecting a catch buried in the next paragraph. "Why would they give us this much? What's the trick?"

Blair leaned against my desk. "Relax. There's not trick. We've looked. They just think the game has some crazy potential, and they know it's already mostly done."

My eyes landed on her chest, and I realized I was staring. Blair wasn't wearing her usual baggy sweater, just a fitted shirt she'd left mostly unbuttoned, the neckline dipping lower than I'd ever seen it at work. I dragged my eyes back to the screen, heat creeping up my neck. Something about the day felt off, but the contract looked legit. I kept scrolling, and the numbers didn't change. Fifty fifty. Marketing budget. A release window we could actually hit.

"Okay," I said, my voice coming out rougher than I wanted. "This is real, isn't it?"

I looked at Cael, who squeezed their fingers together in their lap and nodded, a little too fast.

"It's real," Blair insisted, her voice softer than usual. "Read the whole thing if you don't believe me. But I'd sign it today if I were you."

"Hey, hold on," I insisted, chuckling. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. A week ago we had no deal, and now they're handing us the moon? Our lawer should look at this first. Somebody who isn't us, and who isn't high on caffeine and hope."

"That's wise," Jonas agreed, mustering a serious expression that didn't quite fit his face. "Better to be safe."

I nodded, already forwarding the email to the lawyer we'd hired back when we incorporated. I added a quick note asking for a turnaround by tomorrow, then hit send before I could second-guess it.

The rest of the day crawled by in a haze of restless energy. Nobody got much work done. Jonas kept refreshing our inbox, Cael looked like a nervous wreck, though that wasn't that unusual, and Blair kept drifting past my desk for no reason, brushing my shoulder each time. I told myself I was imagining it, but the third time her fingers lingered on my neck, I stopped pretending. She didn't even glance at me. She just kept walking toward the printer, hips swaying a lot more than the route required.

When the sun finally dipped behind the neighboring buildings, Jonas stood up and announced he was heading home.

"See you tomorrow," I said, waving without looking up from the contract tab I'd reopened for the fifth time. "Get some rest. Big week."

He nodded and grabbed his bag, and the door clicked shut behind him.

"Oliver?" I heard Cael say, voice small and careful. I turned my chair around. They were standing a few feet away, hands tucked into the hoodie's front pocket, eyes fixed on the floor. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

Blair immediately stood, arms behind her back in a way I'd never seen her stand, chin level, feet together. In less mysterious circumstances I would have called it cute. Right now it just made the hair on my arms stand up. She scooted closer to Cael, shoulder to shoulder, and our poor art assistant winced like they'd been caught doing something wrong.

"In private?" Cael added, glancing sideways at Blair, their cheeks flushed pink.

I frowned. "Sure. Blair? Could you give us a minute?"

She didn't move right away. Her eyes flicked to Cael, then back to me, and her jaw tightened like she was fighting something. "Of course, Oliver," she said at last, the word coming out stiff, and she walked toward the kitchenette. She settled there, filling a teapot with water, her back rigid as a fence post.

"What's wrong with her?" I asked, keeping my voice low. "Is it me or is she acting weird to you too?"

Cael shifted their weight from foot to foot, still staring at the floor. "That's kind of what I wanted to talk about," they said.

"Yes?"

Cael took a breath and finally looked up at me. Then, they chuckled nervously. "Blair told me she has a crush on you."

It took a moment for my brain to catch up with the words. For some reason I had expected something else entirely. The words just didn't seem to match Cael's tone and expression. For a moment they opened and close their mouth like a fish out of water, and then a smile crept across their face. "She, uh, admitted it to me yesterday at lunch."

"That's what you had to tell me?"

Cael nodded too quickly, fingers twisting in the hoodie pocket. "Yeah. I figured you'd want to know."

"Anything else?"

Cael nodded yes, but their mouth was already shaking its way into a different answer. "No. I mean, no, nothing else. Just that." They glanced at the kitchenette, then back at me, and forced a laugh that sounded nothing like them.

"Okay..." I let the silence stretch, watching them squirm. Behind Cael, the kettle clicked on, and Blair stood perfectly still beside it. "I'll... talk to her about it."

"Nice." Cael didn't move. They just stood there, rocking on their heels, like they'd forgotten how to leave a conversation.

"Was there something else?" I asked.

"No," they said, way too fast. "Nope. I'm gonna go. I hope we'll hear from the lawyer soon." They grabbed their bag from the back of their chair and nearly tripped over the strap on the way out. "Bye, Oliver. Bye, Blair!"

The door clicked shut. The kettle began to whistle, and Blair turned around, her hands still clasped behind her back. Her cheeks were pink, and she wouldn't quite meet my eyes.

"Did you hear any of that?" I asked her, raising my voice so it would carry across the room.

"Not really. But knowing Cael I can guess what they said."

I rubbed my face and walked toward her. "Okay, I'm confused, to say the least."

She blushed, something I'd never once seen her do in all the time I'd known her. She bit her lip and finally looked up at me. "I bet," she said, voice dropping. "I'm sorry. Did I make you uncomfortable? I didn't really know how to breach the subject."

"So you thought the best way was to dress like that and brush against me all day?" I asked, a little more sharply than I meant to. "You know I have a girlfriend."

She snorted. "And another one, and a fucktoy, and now your main girlfriend has a new boyfriend," she counted on her fingers, then looked up at me. "Come on. You're not exactly the monogamous type."

I scoffed, crossing my arms. "And what? You want a turn? You've never once showed me any interest before today."

She shrugged, eyes sliding to the floor. "You keep telling us about your mind control sexual antics like it's no big deal. Guess it got me curious. And I've been thinking about it a lot lately, honestly."

I had no idea what to say. Blair's sexuality had never been something I'd given thought to. She'd always been the blunt, sarcastic one, more interested in talking about render budgets and deadlines than anything personal. Before I could think too hard about it, she closed the distance between us, one hand settling flat on my chest. "So?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "Are you interested or not?"

I'm not gonna lie, I felt my cock twitch against my zipper at the touch of her palm, and I had to swallow before answering. "I mean..."

"Jesus, Oliver," she said, a small breathless laugh slipping out. "I've seen how you look at me when you think I'm not paying attention. Every time I bend over the printer, your eyes go straight to my ass. So stop pretending you're confused and just tell me yes or no."

My heart hammered against my ribs. Today really was turning out stranger by the minute. "I'll think about it," I said, easing her hand off my chest. "Non monogamous or not, I need to discuss it with Claudia. We just started opening our relationship. I mean, opening it more.

Blair held my gaze a second longer than necessary, then nodded and stepped back. "Fine. Take your time." She smiled. "No pressure. Seriously. Just wanna let you know I'm happy to explore with you."

"Well, good to know..." I said, still unable to shake the feeling that something was off. "I'll let you know. Go home, Blair. Get some rest. Big week."

"Sure thing," she said, grabbing her bag from beside her desk. She paused at the door and glanced back, still smiling, her posture a little too perfect. "Goodnight, Oliver."

The door clicked shut behind her.

"Oliver?" I muttered to myself, rubbing my temples. For a moment I wondered if I'd accidentally given her a command the day before. Cael and her had been acting a bit distant after coming back from lunch, but I couldn't remember saying anything to either of them that could have made them act like that.

I gathered my things, shut down the workstation, and headed for the elevator, still turning the whole strange day over in my head. By the time the doors slid shut, I'd decided the only person who could help me make sense of it was waiting at home.

Hey there! This was chapter 21 of 4 Billion Toys 2. I'll be posting chapters here regularly, but if you want early access to the next chapters, feel free to support me on Patreon!

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