received.
In many ways, where Tate was Thomson’s right hand, Zain was his left. The level of trust and autonomy that he had been afforded went a long way into feeding the loyalty he displayed towards the agency.
Nevertheless, I was beyond relieved when, a week after Darryl's death, Zain was finally able to move into my house. It also opened the opportunity for us to teach my man what a normal life in the real world felt like. From movie nights, to dining in the city, to theme park rides, and a swim in the ocean, I rediscovered so many things through his virgin eyes. Many such moments gave rise to hilarious situations, but all contributed to me falling in love all over again with him, time after time.
Zain was fundamentally antisocial. We would never have a huge circle of friends or frequent double dates, but that was fine with me. I'd always been a bit of an introvert myself, so activities alone with my man suited me just fine. However, to my surprise, my man showed a particular taste and natural talent for dancing, especially Latin dance. To this day, I still cracked up remembering the first time we had gone to a Latin club.
My man had been so ridiculously sexy in his skintight black T-shirt and those sexy black dress pants that hugged his perfect ass in the most amazing way. We'd taken the dance floor by storm, showing off the sleek moves we’d learned during the salsa dance lessons we had been taking. The number of eyes drooling over us, and more specifically over my beast of a man, had pissed him off to no end.
A woman in particular who had shown, without any subtlety whatsoever, that she tremendously appreciated his appearance and sexy moves, earned his ire. To have him flat out tell her to keep her damn eyes to herself had required all my willpower not to burst out laughing in her face. I had always hated those shameless bitches in clubs who thought it was okay to hit on a man they clearly saw was accompanied. I didn't need to be jealous, ever. My man took care of telling skanks to keep walking—he was already spoken for.
Nevertheless, we did occasionally hang out with Riley and Julia, although Zain considered it as us hanging out with Merax and Letho. For Zain, Riley's Nightmare had become his right hand. Whereas Letho had become a strange mix of a little brother and an attack dog.
Both of my human colleagues had also taken their respective Nightmares home.
Riley and Merax were officially a couple. I still didn't fully understand the dynamic between them. Merax was a bully and a dominant. However, Riley was no pushover. I suspected some interesting exchange of power occurred between them in private. As curious as I felt about them, I respected their right to indulge in their kinks. After all, I had my own, including getting spanked, gently choked, bitten, and some bondage.
Julia's relationship with her Nightmare was quite moving. He was too broken mentally to be left to his own devices. Officially, Julia and her husband—who had no children of their own—had adopted Letho as their son. A genuine affection had developed between the three of them. Letho required a well-established routine to thrive. He needed specific goals for every hour of the day for him to function. Focusing on clear and simple tasks—be they training or relaxation time—kept him from becoming overwhelmed by the chaos that otherwise reigned in his head. His greatest reward was seeing Julia smile.
Although he didn't suffer from autism, his behavior matched many of the symptoms attributed to that condition. As he responded well to the type of treatment used in such cases, we pursued that method. Initially, Julia had believed making Letho play video games would help him vent some of the excessive aggressivity that constantly boiled deep within him. But he had no interest in first person shooters or combat games. Then again, it was a myth that playing video games promoted violence in the real world, just like watching slasher movies didn’t turn people into serial killers. Instead, Letho developed a passion for puzzle and match-3 games, especially those that required the ability to recognize patterns to perform well.
I loved how much the welfare of his Squad mattered to Zain. He had naturally shown it during that battle against Darryl by allowing his team to feed first instead of hogging all that power for himself. That,