Drow weren't allowed to be vulnerable. It was an invitation to the cruel, or people who thought you might be cruel and needed to strike first, or just people feeling impotent and trying to hurt someone below them. Which is why it appealed to Bel: knowing he was safe to be affectionate, or sleep in the arms of a lover.

He was having complicated but pleasant feelings about seeing the house. It wasn't just about anticipation regarding sex (thought this was the first time in a long while he had the sense of knowing someone well before asking them to his bed). It was mostly Barcus's house, but he'd been adding things for himself, enough that it was starting to feel like his home as well.

"Satchel will probably wake up as soon as she hears the door open," Bel noted, with the exasperated affection of someone who has been claimed by a cat. (Satchel nominally might be Barcus's cat, but she seemed to have decided Bel was an acceptable backup humanoid.)