[DCI] Chapter 34 - All In

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We are back in business ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) And with an almost 6k word opening chappy. Let's go!

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I took a sip of warm coffee from my new favorite mug while sitting in front of my PC and scrolling down a bunch of news sources I used to check in the mornings. Literally seconds after I’d learned that you could purchase official merch with graphics and artworks related to my new company—Dungeon Cleaners Inc.—which also coincidentally overlapped with one of the best games, in my opinion, I’d made an instant order for a bunch of small stuff.

The best thing was the fact that the items available in the Dungeon Store weren’t just under the commercial brand created by the developers. As an employee, I could request custom orders, which were otherwise unavailable. Officially, at least, since no one stopped you from distributing the goods further, but that would be a complete waste of Dungeon Dollars.

Therefore, after parting with some spare change—gods, I still wasn’t able to get used to the feeling of spending hundreds of dollars casually—I’d gotten myself a nice, big, black mug with an emerald text resembling the game’s theme. The font read World’s Best Employee.

Quite fitting, I would say.

As for the news, well, there was nothing new in them. It hadn’t been that long since I’d joined this unusual, paranormal company, and started exterminating monsters inside Dungeons threatening the peace of Earth, or this realm, but the blissfully unaware world hadn’t changed in the slightest. Slightly over two weeks wasn’t that much time here.

Though, my current situation had changed completely how I looked at various accident reports and such. I just couldn’t help but wonder if those were real or just cover-ups for failed Dungeon clears, like the one gas leak J had mentioned during our initial interview. There was no way for me to investigate that, honestly, and it would keep my mind going every single time. Perhaps after I got a few more promotions, I would be able to access some more information through my employer.

In any way, the world continued moving forward and I felt even more detached from it than I had been even before getting scouted. My ability to interact with anything outside of my apartment had been vastly reduced so there was no use in thinking about those matters too deeply.

Even if I wanted, I had limited options to interfere. All I could do was to make sure that my job was done, protecting this side of things, and hope that the people in power didn’t fuck it up on theirs, where monsters other than normal humans weren’t really an issue.

At least I thought they weren’t.

What did I know in my little, dimension-locked apartment? Maybe the world was really taken over by lizard people wearing human skin. Nothing would shock me anymore, honestly. I was too deep in this paranormal shit.

And it was so damn exciting.

The noise of the bathroom opening reached my ears and soft plops soon followed as someone headed my way over the wooden floor. I didn’t have to wait long for a pair of tender peaks to press into my back and for two arms to wrap themselves around my neck. Gradually, my t-shirt absorbed the moisture covering the mysterious person’s bosom, quickly starting to cling to my skin.

“You are wet,” I exclaimed without turning my gaze away from the monitor.

A light chuckle answered me.

“You are getting better at noticing.”

I could literally feel the smirk in the playful drakan’s voice. There was not a single word in all existing languages she couldn’t turn into a fucking tease.

And she knew I loved it when she did.

Rolling my eyes, I let my head fall to the back and rest on Aisha’s shoulder, meeting her charming, crimson irises, adorned by ferocious vertical pupils. A gentle, teasing smile curled the corners of her exquisite lips. Leaning down, she pressed them into mine and we exchanged an unhurried kiss.

“No horny, wet ladies in close vicinity of the PC,” I rebuked my frivolous partner after our mouths parted, and stole one more peck from Aisha. “No matter how beautiful.”

She pouted at me adorably. “You are no fun.”

“Rose.”

“Ah! Okay! Okay! Ah! I get it! Stop! Ah! I surrender!”

Aisha immediately took her body off me and jumped away, letting out little whines and yelps as our pink, spherical friend chased her around the apartment.

I chuckled to myself, shaking my head. It hadn’t been long since we’d learned that Rose could perfectly control her Crippling Discharge ability. Thanks to that, she was currently zooming after the naughty, crimson-scaled woman while repeatedly zapping Aisha in the butt by getting in physical contact with her skin and flesh. And, Rose was always eager to listen to anything I would ask her for.

Finished delivering her just punishment, the cute, rosy orb floated in front of my face and hovered there, awaiting her reward. With a big smile, I gave Rose a few little rubs and loving pats, making our friendly Pixie buzz with happiness.

“Who is a good girl? Who is a good girl? You are!” I pet-talked to her a little, which clearly made Rose even more energetic.

Aisha snorted somewhere behind us and I turned around to see her cross her arms under her delicious chest; her body completely naked and still covered in droplets of fresh water right from the shower.

“I need you to summon another Subordinate already because I’m getting vastly outnumbered here.” She smirked at me.

I shrugged my shoulders. “You brought it upon yourself. You know the rules. No uncontained liquids near electronics.”

“So, I can’t have you take me on the desk?” she asked with a sly smile.

I squinted my eyes at her. “That’s playing dirty.”

Aisha laughed at my expression and walked to the drawer to pick up a clean towel. I stood up and followed her, grabbing one more. As she took care of her toned figure, I helped dry her hair. When only the endings were left, she had already been done with her skin and started applying the special oil to her mesmerizing scales. Giving me a coy smile, she let me watch the fascinating process as I took care of the last of her beautiful, scarlet strands.

“On a more serious note, when are you going to do it?” she suddenly asked.

“I assume you aren’t talking about me boning you on the desk.” I smirked at her and Aisha winked back. “Well, it would be wise to first see what we are going to deal with next.”

“Yeah, it would.” My drakan mate nodded. “I can’t wait to see what our next Dungeon is like.”

“Same. It hasn’t even been two full days since we took down the Seed but it felt like weeks after we got back from our date and started gathering all the loot and materials.”

“I hope we didn’t forget anything. It’s closing soon, isn’t it?” Aisha took a peek at my face over her shoulder.

“In a few hours, yeah.” I nodded. “I’m pretty sure we explored it as deep as we could. But, we should get in there one last time.”

“Why?”

“To let Rose bid farewell to her friends or family,” I replied and we both glanced at the floating ball of cuteness.

“Right. That’s a very sweet idea. Let me dress up and we’ll have our last trip.”

Aisha pecked my cheek as I extended my hand, and she left me the vial with the oil before jogging towards the wardrobe we had chosen as fully hers. I stored the extremely valuable substance in a safe place and watched her quickly jump into her favorite sports panties and bra. In just a few moments, she was in front of me, wearing denim shorts and a black t-shirt with some band’s logo, most likely metal, judging by the design.

We shared a nod and walked to the entrance. Rose made happy circles around either of us, often stopping to hang out near the side of my face, just far back enough for her to not obstruct my vision with her pink body. I opened the door and we left my modern apartment together, stepping into an earthen chamber full of luminescent moss taking the colors of a full rainbow.

Almost immediately, we were joined by a few more of the joyful Pixies. Without the monsters that had invaded their home, they could now freely roam around the Shadern as much as they wanted. It was a truly breathtaking sight with these cheerful orbs zooming back and forth inside the hypnotizing cavern.

“This is my favorite place,” Aisha said softly while roaming around with her gaze.

“Because it’s so pretty?” I asked with a grin.

She looked at me with a matching smile. “No, because this is where you made me cum three times in a row after our first date.”

I snorted and shook my head. “You are irredeemable.”

Just as she said, we had spent some time here after our first outing. Due to Aisha’s quite heavy teasing inside the restaurant where my ex worked, I ended up a bit in the mood. Recalling her mentioning having some fun in this beautiful chamber before, I decided to act a bit more on par with the image of an actual drakan mate and brought my lover here to enjoy an intimate moment under the dancing lights. It was a bit unusual having all those Pixies as an audience, but we quickly lost ourselves in our passionate activity, caring for nothing else but each other’s pleasure.

Sighing heavily, I took a look around and located Rose. It was becoming much easier to sense her presence over time. With just a second or two, I could recognize our friend amongst her peers. She danced happily with other Pixies, whose number was slowly increasing. It seemed that she had somehow relayed the news to them and more vibrant spheres kept flooding the chamber to say goodbye.

We watched the show of flashing and floating lights with smiles on our faces. I wasn’t exactly sure how familiar Pixies were with each other. That kind of lore wasn’t present in the game I had played in the past. Even though it was quite extensive, there still were missing parts, most likely ones no one had thought about.

But, it didn’t seem like this was a mournful event. We could easily tell that the others were happy for Rose. I bet she had oversold us to them like a kid talking about their favorite uncle or aunt, often the one who was barely related to the main family but still spoiled the child way more than anyone else. She just gave off similar energy when we looked at her making loops and bouncing around.

After a few minutes, our floating companion sped towards us and we winced momentarily. The entire swarm followed her and almost crashed into us, stopping inches before our faces. It was hard to remember that these entities could literally floor their brakes and come to an immediate halt no matter how fast they were going. They were immaterial, in the end. No mass and all that.

Rose swirled around our heads while her friends bobbed up and down. Exchanging a look with Aisha, we began waving at them while smiling. It felt weird. The good weird, though. Still, the scene resembled the common parting of people whenever they were moving out. I was pretty sure that the rainbowy bunch was telling us to take good care of their friend or even sister.

Soon, the crowd began dispersing and I glanced at Rose. “Finished with your farewells?”

She bobbed up and down in her usual, merry way.

“Great. I have no idea if we will ever be able to come back here so I want you to be sure that you met up with all your friends before leaving. No regrets later,” I added while patting the cute orb.

Rose wiggled and buzzed under my hand, and I understood her intentions clearly. She was telling me not to worry, and that everything was fine. No doubt that she was extremely happy to come and accompany us on our future journeys.

“Let’s take one last stroll through the place, then. Together. Your home is a very pretty—”

I paused when my pocket buzzed. A tad confused since we hadn’t been doing anything worthy of a level-up or some skill-related notification, I pulled it out. But, the vibrations weren’t stopping and I quickly realized that I had an incoming call, as rare as those were.

Reading the caller’s name tag, I smiled to myself and answered it. “Hi, Mom.”

Only after that, I realized that we were still inside the earthen chamber. Meaning, another fucking world. Yet, somehow, the call had not only gone through who knew how many realms to reach me, but even connected after I had accepted it. A woman’s voice clearly announced that there were no problems on the line.

“Lucas. You picked up quite fast. Still unemployed?” she asked.

As rude as it might have sounded, there was no sign of disdain or mockery in her voice. She had said it pretty much neutrally, like anyone would make a casual statement or inquiry during a normal conversation. That was part of the reason why I loved my mom so much. Depending on how I answered, she would either go all supportive and offer help or just move on, trusting that things were well enough and she didn’t have to pry further.

“Actually, not anymore. I got a job about two weeks ago. I work fully from home so no one can say anything about me answering the phone,” I replied in a kind voice too. “Anything you need?”

“That’s great to hear! I knew it wouldn’t take you long to solve that temporary crisis. You are a very handy guy.” I could literally hear her smile through the phone. “I’m calling because we’ll be around and could drop by if you have a free moment in the next five days.”

“Oh. Hmmm…”

“No pressure, of course. Since you got a new job, you might not want to be distracted for a bit,” she added.

I thought about it for a second. We obviously had all the time in the world—or worlds—so the date wasn’t an issue. I didn’t see a reason to decline either. It wasn’t like we hated each other with my parents or anything.

The only thing that came to my mind was the next Dungeon and my new Subordinate. It would certainly be a little awkward to host them with two unknown women present, one of which would most likely not be accustomed to this realm yet and could sound a bit not right in the head.

Exchanging a quick glance with Aisha, I knew she had read my intentions through our connection. To some limited extent, of course. Plus, her sharp hearing had clearly followed our conversation.

“What do you think about right now?” I asked my partner.

“You sure? As I said, we don’t want to incon—”

“Anytime is fine for me,” Aisha answered with a shrug.

“Oh, sorry, that wasn’t directed at you, Mom,” I apologized with a wry smile.

“You got someone over?”

“Just my girlfriend. No need to worry. You wouldn’t be interrupting any visits or meetings,” I explained.

“Ah. You got back together in the end?” Mom asked with a curious tone.

“No. That’s already in the past as I told you. I’ve… met… someone new.”

“Now, that’s a very good reason to drop by! You have to introduce us to the lady! We’ll be at your place in an hour or two if that’s alright,” she said with a note of excitement in her voice.

I shook my head with a smile. “Don’t worry about my work. I’m in between assignments right now so I can spare some time. We’ll be waiting.”

“Perfect! See you soon!”

The call ended and I lowered my phone, taking a look at Aisha. She had a wide grin on her charming lips.

“Behave.” I pointed a finger at her while squinting.

“I get to meet the parents of my beloved mate, of course, I’ll behave, Lucas.” She smirked, placing a hand over her heart. “First impressions matter.”

I snorted, rolling my eyes. “Like a human, not a drakan.”

She pouted immediately, making me chuckle. I had spent enough time around Aisha to figure out her thinking process. If I wasn’t careful and attentive to such details, she would happily jump at any occasion to abuse any potential loopholes to tease me while never technically being in the wrong.

Aisha laughed too and patted me on the shoulder. “Relax. I mean it this time. I’ll do my best to get them to like me. I want them to like me.”

“Trust me, my mom will be all over you.” I smiled at her sincere expression and we went back to our apartment.

Our small love nest wasn’t in any big state of disarray or mess but we tidied it up anyway. I wouldn’t be able to just sit down and wait for the guests to arrive, and it looked like Aisha was the same. We constantly scanned the surroundings to find things to do while checking the time every ten minutes or so.

About an hour later, the doorbell rang. Our eyes met.

“Well. Time to see if the memory-altering wards placed on this room work as well as the ones out in the open,” I said and went to the entrance.

Taking a peek through the spyhole, I confirmed that it truly was my parents standing in the building’s staircase and not some random Woodman coming for revenge. Now that we had installed a new door with such a useful feature, things were much easier and safer. Hopefully, the developer was affected by the magic too, and thought that it had always been like this.

Turning the lock and opening the door, I was greeted by the sight of a man and a woman more or less in their fifties.

My mother was slightly shorter than me and had long auburn hair tied up into a sports-styled ponytail reaching down to her waist. Regardless of her age, she was a person in very good shape and it showed. A bit of her toned navel poked out from under her white crop top while she completed the sporty look with gray joggers and an open chambray shirt on top of it.

She was part of the reason why I was in more than decent shape too. My mom was a fitness trainer and had properly introduced me to the fit lifestyle quite early. Not forced or coerced, introduced. I had grown to like it but she had been fully ready not to pester me if it wouldn’t have looked like my kind of thing.

My father was pretty much an older version of me. The same short black hair and similar fashion sense. He wore some simple jeans, a black t-shirt, and an open army green jacket on top of it. No need to even guess who I had taken after. The slight difference was his beard. I had none while he had a somewhat short, black stubble neatly decorating his manly face.

Like literally everyone in this small family, he was somewhat athletic too. His job was camera operator and photographer. He filmed and shot events and projects professionally, like music videos, clips, public galas, sometimes weddings, and such. Easy to imagine, he was on the move now and then, whenever he had a new contract to work on, most likely also why they were around my place right now.

The story about how I met your mother was quite simple, really.

She had been a fitness trainer and he had been an operator, wanting to stay somewhat in shape. He got her as his personal instructor and things slowly went ahead from that point. They were a good fit.

Heh.

While his work hadn’t changed much after that, Mom’s career path had. She was a true keeper. No matter that he said that he didn’t care or mind it in the slightest, she didn’t want to let other guys get touchy with her so as not to worry him and she switched to coaching mostly women. She still did to this day. Her courses for moms were especially popular. Sometimes, they even worked together during bigger projects where some actors could use a bit of health or diet advice.

“It’s nice to see you again.” I smiled at them and opened my arms, anticipating the incoming hugs.

Mom was the first one to step forward and embraced me softly. “We are glad you could find a moment for us too.”

After she let me go, Dad took her place and we shared a quick hug too, patting each other on the back. “You haven’t changed a bit. I guess that’s a good sign. Your mother was constantly worried about you after they laid you off.”

I chuckled and stepped back, shaking his hand. “You know that I would let you guys know immediately if I got into any more serious trouble. Even if I didn’t get another job for a bit, I had some decent savings to burn through.”

“Right. I always forget that you are like your father’s clone in that regard. You two have backup plans for the backup plans.” My mother shook her head.

They moved inside as I held the door for them and started taking off their shoes. That was when Aisha came into our sight, walking out from behind the bathroom’s wall. I met her gaze and wondered for a moment how she looked to them without her incredible tail and horns.

“Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. King,” she welcomed my parents with a warm smile.

“Oh, hello. You must be the lady Lucas mentioned over the phone.” My mom hastily approached Aisha and stole her hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Jasmine and this is Dominic.”

“I’m Aisha. It’s an honor.”

“Not as much as mine.” Mom smiled back at her. “Thank you for looking after my son.”

Aisha shook her head. “He’s definitely looking more after me than I do after him. I should be thanking you, Mrs. Jasmine, for giving me the opportunity to meet him.”

“Alright, let’s move to the table before you start raining compliments on each other, shall we?” I walked past them with my father, who knew as well as I did that Mom could go for hours with someone as polite as her.

We moved to the kitchen complex and I seated everyone down. It was no fancy lounge or living room but the wide table would have to do, as it usually had. There wasn’t that much free space in my small apartment to slap a big sofa and coffee table somewhere, without cluttering the very middle between my bed and desk.

But, that was something I could actually influence now. Perhaps I should expand my residence a bit again and add a nice spot for such occasions. Not that much was necessary to make it work, just some simple furniture. When it came to Earth currency, I had more than enough.

“Have you eaten already?” I asked before joining them.

“We planned to after this meeting,” Dad replied.

I nodded. “I’ll order something, then. We found an incredible place with Aisha recently. Any requests? They have everything. And I do mean everything.”

“There’s no way that’s true.” Mom snorted.

“Try me.” I smirked at her.

“Fine. I wanted to grab some Thai. I bet your father would end up going after Mexican as usual, extra spicy. How’s that?” She showed a challenging grin.

“I’ll have some sushi if that’s okay,” Aisha added, causing my mom to look at her with raised brows.

“Got it. I could use some tiramisu. I’m not really that hungry.”

As I made my way to the desk, my mother’s eyes were even wider due to the unusual combination of requested dishes. I said nothing and quickly found the best places to order from, picking high-rated restaurants from all around the world that specialized in those foods.

I almost hit the order button after throwing everything into the shopping cart but barely managed to stop myself. I had no idea how I would have explained the sudden, instant delivery of our meals or any other aspects related to it.

Wiping my forehead, I returned to the kitchen. “Should be here in twenty minutes or so.”

“That fast?” Dad seemed quite surprised.

“They are as incredible as Lucas makes it sound.” Aisha smiled at them as I sat down next to her.

“So, what are you doing now?” Mom asked, directing her question at me.

“It’s kind of a… security company. A very high-paying but demanding job, honestly. While the pro is that I don’t really have to move much, the con is exactly the same. I have to be near my PC a lot and watch over some surveillance systems, simply speaking. An assignment can come literally at any minute, any hour, any day,” I explained, somewhat bullshitting my way through.

“Sounds pretty boring to me but sitting in front of a desk was never my thing.” She shrugged. “You on the other hand can spend entire days in front of a computer with no sweat. I still don’t understand how you never get headaches or anything, especially during those massive gaming marathons you did in the past.”

I chuckled wryly. “Might be a generation thing, or because I spent my free time in front of a PC for as long as I can remember. I got used to it, just like training.”

She scoffed and turned to Aisha. “Never mind this abomination. I’m curious how the two of you met.”

We exchanged glances and Aisha smiled at my mother. We had come up with a thing or two in case she drilled us like that.

“It’s actually all thanks to Lucas’ new job,” my drakan girlfriend began. “I was involved in a minor car accident, driving with a friend. He witnessed it through one of the outside cameras surrounding the object of his surveillance on that day. Even though it didn’t concern his company in the slightest, or the owners of the place, he went out of his way to receive permission to secure the footage and reached out to me after his work was done to check if we were okay. It was a really nice thing to do and that recording helped a lot.”

“Yeah. He would definitely do that. It’s a surprise he didn’t react immediately.” Mom nodded with a grin, setting her chin on top of her hands.

“As I said, it’s a very serious job,” I joined in. “Who knew? Maybe it was some elaborate plot to get me off the screen and allow some evildoers to sneak in?”

“You watch too many movies.” Dad snickered.

“Reality is much more stupid than fiction. Trust me.” I laughed too.

In the meanwhile, I tapped the order button on my phone under the table and the doorbell rang. Excusing myself, I went to get the food and placed everyone’s meal in front of them. Mom couldn’t believe that we had really gotten all of it from the same place and her expression as she watched Aisha consume her sushi, me my tiramisu, and Father his ultra-spicy Mexican food was just priceless.

“How old are you, by the way?” she suddenly asked while we were eating.

“Mom.” I gave her the look.

“Thirty-seven,” Aisha replied without an ounce of hesitation.

Mom turned to me with a raised brow. “Would you like to tell me something, young man?”

“What?” I chuckled awkwardly.

“A quite muscular figure, a long and lush ponytail, and almost ten years older than you? Is she a fitness coach too?”

I snorted and shook my head. “Coincidence.”

“Well, at least we know he has good taste.” Dad shot me a wink while taking a sip of soda.

“I’m actually a model.” Aisha decided to continue her answer with another of our stories. “I do like working out, though. In any way, I mostly pose for very specific businesses, ones dealing with both historically accurate and completely made-up weapons and armor. You can say that I managed to successfully combine my passion with my job.”

“Fascinating.” Dad glanced at her curiously. “So like product gallery pictures and promotion materials?”

“Something like that, yeah.” She nodded. “I can show you some of my stuff if you would like.”

“You have it here?” Mom asked.

“Well…” Aisha smiled and turned to me, not sure how to crawl out of the hole she had dug herself.

“She moved in. We now live together,” I answered.

“Wow. That’s fast. Didn’t you two meet like two weeks ago or so?” My mother raised her brows at us.

“Yeah, maybe, but I can assure you that we are quite serious about this already,” I continued, placing my hand over Aisha’s on the table.

“He is right. I know that this might feel abrupt, but… things just clicked,” Aisha added, stroking my skin with her thumb. “I enjoy myself around Lucas greatly. I promise that I have no ulterior motives like his previous partner. If it would be enough to show my sincerity, I am ready to marry him right after receiving your blessings.”

Complete silence fell onto the room as my parents froze with their eyes wide like saucers. Needless to say, even my head snapped to Aisha’s face with an equally shocked expression.

That was not part of the plan. That was not part of any of the plans.

Dad whistled, raising a brow at Mom. “You sure you had no sister?”

I rolled my eyes, trying to tame down the stupid smile trying to force itself on my lips. “Please, there’s no way—”

“I think we should do a DNA test, just in case,” Mom interrupted me with a wide grin and leaned forward over the table to grab our hands. “Of course, we would be incredibly happy to give the two of you our blessings.”

Wiggling my palm from under the pile, I placed both hands on her shoulders and forced my mother to sit back down.

“Let’s slow down a little bit. It is true that I love Aisha deeply, and I think I have a quite solid basis to believe that she reciprocates that feeling in equal sincerity, but shit, I haven’t even proposed properly yet!” I raised my arms into the air. “I don’t even have a ring! It’s been two weeks!”

Mom snickered at me. “I thought you were serious about this?”

“I am!” I replied instantly. “Would you expect one this fast? It took Father two years to get you one! I haven’t even thought about it yet!”

Aisha placed her palm on my shoulder with a brilliant smile. “I don’t need any rings to know how much you care about me. You showed me that plenty of times.”

I caught my mother smirking at us and I groaned. “Still. That’s one of the rare traditions that I actually like to uphold.”

“At least you don’t have to stress yourself over the answer now,” Mom added with a wink at Aisha and stood up. “We’ll leave you two lovebirds to talk it out properly. We have places to be anyway. Thanks a lot for having us, Lucas. I’m really happy to see that you are doing so well. I hope it will only keep getting better.”

Chuckling wryly, I stood up too and lent a hand to Aisha. We escorted my parents to the entrance and shared a few farewell hugs, which now included my drakan fiancé too. I’m fairly sure Mom whispered something to her ear but I didn’t even want to know what. Not like Aisha wouldn’t repeat it for me whenever I asked.

After closing the door and confirming through the spyhole that the Dungeon was back, I sighed heavily.

“Gods… She always makes a mess wherever she goes…”

Aisha laughed next to me and threw her arm over my shoulders. “She’s a sweet woman. Your dad is truly a lucky guy.”

I shook my head and met her gaze. “So, how much of that was just you being a tease?”

She showed a sly smile and grabbed my collar, pulling me in for a deep, passionate kiss.

“Not a single word,” she purred at me after we parted.

Placing my hands on her shapely waist, I spun us around and slammed Aisha’s back into the wall lightly. She managed to let out a moan of surprise before I took over her delicious lips this time, ardently chasing after her tongue. A minute or two of such heated exchange later, we withdrew for some air and chuckled together.

Then, a pink sphere buzzed next to our heads and I realized that we hadn’t seen Rose for the entirety of my parents’ visit.

“Did you hide yourself, girl?” I asked the cheerful orb, and she made some positive loops. “Haha, thanks, but you don’t have to. It’s not like they can see you. There’s nothing to be scared of either. You are part of the family now too.”

She whirred and spun happily before bolting out of our sight. Aisha laughed at our cute companion and glanced back at me.

“Let’s clean things up and get ready to check out your new assignment.” She grinned. “It should be arriving at any time now.”

“Finally, you are speaking my language again.” I smiled back at her and we shared one more kiss.