Chapter Thirteen
Rian
W aking up curled into someone’s body while being held tight and feeling pressure from every side should’ve probably been weird or even scary. When I opened my eyes and saw Holden, I smiled instead.
“No, not weird,” he rumbled, and I realized I could feel the words with how his body vibrated against mine.
We were shirtless. I couldn’t remember getting home, so he must’ve undressed us.
“I….,” I started, then wondered what words to use. After a few beats, I continued, “It’s not been this bad before. I disassociated pretty badly, I think.”
Holden squeezed me impossibly closer, and I sneaked my arm around him, squeezing back.
“I noticed,” he admitted. “I guess I was trying to reset your nervous system. Pressure helps a lot of people.”
Keeping my face neutral, I asked, “So, you’re saying you were winging it?”
He blinked at me, clearly trying to read if I was pissed off or not. “Uh, yes?”
I cracked and smiled. “Good instincts, it seems.” He laughed at his obvious relief that was tinted with a bit of playful annoyance. “Hey, I wouldn’t have thought of this,” I said, gesturing between us as much as I could in the confined space.
“Let’s get up. I need the bathroom, and I think you need to take stock of how you feel once upright.”
It didn’t surprise me when he pressed a kiss to my forehead before moving the blanket and rolling away to sit. It did, however, make me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside.
He took two steps from me, giving me enough time to ogle his assets, given that he was only wearing boxer briefs, and then turned around. He was frowning.
“What?” I asked, moving to sit.
“I don’t know where your bathroom is,” he said. “I just got us onto the couch and that’s it.”
Grinning, I pointed. “That door over there, another half-bath by the utility closet, but there’s also an ensuite.”
“Of course there is. Okay, be right back.”
I stretched my arms, doing as he’d told me to. There was some stiffness in my shoulders, which I’d always associated with panic attacks.
The part of my brain that had become unable to handle the events was on edge still, but I felt much better and not actively panicky being in my own space with Holden.
Holden, who I assumed, was ready to take charge if I asked him to.
He’d put our phones on the coffee table while undressing us—I didn’t even cringe at the sight of our tuxedos in a pile on the floor nearby—and I grabbed mine.
Of course there was a message from Brodie.
He wanted to come. I haven’t contacted Moses. Do with that information what you will, sweetness.
It was as much of my best friend’s blessing as I could imagine him giving. He wasn’t only saying “go for it,” he was telling me he trusted the submissive I was to Holden’s care.
Without replying to him, I put my phone back on the table.
I left our clothes where they were and walked to the large windows. Night had fallen, and all the lights glittering in the foreground made a lovely contrast with the darkness of the bay.
I heard the toilet flush, the tap ran for a while, and then Holden padded back into the living room.
He came to stand behind me, his warmer body making me sway slightly, as if he was pulling me in.
“That’s one grand view,” he murmured. “Must be awesome in daylight.”
I shrugged. “I like it both ways.”
Holden sounded amused when he said, “Good to know.”
For a second my still sluggish brain was confused, then I felt myself blushing. “Well, only in certain aspects.”
He put his big hands on my shoulders, then ran them down and back up, as if warming me. “Want to tell me more about that?”
I could see his face in the reflection on the glass window if I wanted to, but I looked into the distance instead.
“When it comes to sex, I’m a switch. Always have been. When you look like me, people think you’re a bottom, but that’s never been true.” I stopped his hands and took them in mine, then brought his arms around me and held them against my sternum. “Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy both, but it’s more about who I’m with.”
“And the rest?”
He still stood close enough I could feel his warmth, but we weren’t pressed together completely. I liked that, for some reason.
“When it comes to power dynamics in BDSM, I’ve always been submissive, and I get off on pain. I’ve mostly only ever played with Brodie and some other Tops in our old community here in Seattle. It’s just that Brodie was the only one I could ever truly let go with.”
In my periphery, Holden’s reflection nodded thoughtfully. “Because you’re so close or it was a nonsexual arrangement?”
“The former. The latter… I don’t know how it would’ve been if we’d been compatible in that way. I’ve never had the experience of letting go completely while also being brought off by my Dom.” It was kind of sad, really, given my over a decade of BDSM play.
“That’s kind of… sad, isn’t it?” Holden echoed my brain.
I smiled. “Yes. I suppose. But on the other hand, I don’t know any better. Most of it is because Brodie and I decided early not to muddy the waters, when our relationship outside of kink would never be more than best friends. It was the best decision for both of us and I can’t regret any of it, as much as I know something is lacking from the ideal in my head.”
He squeezed my fingers and we were quiet for a moment.
Then he asked, “How are you feeling? If Brodie was here, would you need a session?”
And that was the question, wasn’t it.
He let me think for a long time. Several minutes later the answer was clear in my head, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to speak it out loud.
Holden, who seemed to be freakishly attuned to me, noticed because of course he did. “What is it?”
Sighing, I went with honesty. It was the pack rule anyway. Besides, I didn’t want to lie or even omit the truth, not from Holden.
“Yes and no.” I let go of his hands and he took a step back to give me room to turn around. “I want the pain, but I also feel I want what Brodie couldn’t give me.”
We weren’t touching anymore, but we might as well have been.
Holden tilted his head just so. “Do you want it with me?”
“Yes.”
“Then we have to agree about a couple of things,” he said, his voice already dropping lower.
I took in a breath that didn’t stutter. Much. “Yes?”
“For one, I’ve taken part in some kink before, but never been in the lifestyle. I know more than I’ve practiced might be the best way to phrase it,” he started. “I don’t know where tonight is going, I’m going to play this by instinct, so it might not be anything like you’ve experienced before.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” I said quickly.
He raised a brow at the interruption, but I could see he was holding back a smile.
“For two, we need to agree that for now, this is a kink arrangement and friendship. We haven’t….” He didn’t know how to continue the sentence, and neither did I.
Instead of trying to come up with something smart to say, I nodded and went with, “I agree.”
If this would turn into something else—which I could see it becoming very easily, given how well we got along and how at peace I was in his presence—it would be down the line. There was no need to jump into an attempt at something romantic when we weren’t there yet by a mile.
Holden nodded. “Well, then. Since we also haven’t talked about what things we might enjoy in kink, I’m going to let you choose; do you want to keep talking until we hash out more of the details, or do you want me to improvise?”
Again, I gave it some thought. “I don’t think we need a long, drawn out conversation at this point. I know I can trust you to stop if I say so and you already read me better than anyone I’ve ever met, so… let’s skip the talk?”
He cupped my cheek and leaned closer. For a moment I thought he was going to kiss me, and my eyelashes fluttered without my consent.
“Tonight, I’m going to hunt you down and fuck you where I catch you. I’ll give you a head start, Rian.” His eyes glowed yellow, and a hint of his elongated canines peeked from between his lips. “Run.”
It took about three seconds for me to understand what he’d said. Then I bolted.
Whomever had drawn up the floor plan had been a genius. There was a way to run a loop around the apartment.
I ran around the corner to the short hallway which led into the two guestrooms. I opened one door, then closed it without going in, and tiptoed to the open one in the other end of the hallway leading into the kitchen.
My heart was pounding like crazy, the exhilaration wiping out everything but fight or flight in the most delicious of ways.
“You have an edge here,” Holden said somewhere in the large living room. “This is your apartment. I haven’t explored it yet.”
I was counting on that. But I also needed to remember that he was a wolf, and his hearing and sense of smell were both more acute than mine. My bedroom door was open, too, so I slipped in and pressed my back against the wall next to the doorframe.
“Ready or not….” Holden’s voice was a dangerous rumble that made me want to giggle in anticipation.
I was hard, harder than I’d been in a long time, and the front of my briefs looked a bit obscene.
“One thing you didn’t count on, honey,” Holden purred in the hallway, “was that you haven’t been here in a while. I can tell you didn’t go into the room you opened and closed.”
My scent. Of course. I licked my lips and moved again. With two—three if you counted the balcony—exits from my bedroom, I could sneak out into the second little hallway connecting to the living room.
Quietly, I regulated my breathing and moved as carefully as possible. He’d lose me in the living room where my scent was the strongest, I hoped.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Holden spoke in a singsong somewhere right behind me in the bedroom.
I heard his steps as he went to peer into the balcony, and dashed across the largest space of my apartment, ending up in the hallway. I peered through and saw him vanish from view in my bedroom.
He was hunting me by scent. Why was that so arousing?
“There’s only so many places where you could hide, honey. Pick wisely. You know what’s going to happen when I find you.”
Yes, he’d fuck me where he caught me. My cock gave a jerk at the thought.
I tiptoed through the kitchen and into my bedroom, then to the balcony doors. I grimaced as I flicked off the latch in the handle. Sometimes when you opened one of the doors, the other one rattled.
Ever so slowly, I pushed the sliding door open and stepped into the chilly night, closing the door behind myself.
And there I was, standing on the balcony, happy for the rug covering the concrete under my feet. The lights weren’t on, but if Holden looked through the windows again, he could see me easily.
There was nowhere to hide.
Because there were no neighbors with a view into my balcony—unless someone in the building next door had binoculars and was feeling particularly nosey—I pushed down my briefs and kicked them to the side. Then I leaned my elbows on the railing as if I was looking over the view.
My eyes were closed. My heart was beating faster than it had in decades. My cock was hard enough to hurt.
All my senses were honed in on the apartment behind me. I didn’t know if the other door had rattled. I couldn’t know if he was looking behind every closed door as he stalked me.
The chill in the air didn’t bother me. For once, there was no breeze coming from the bay. Turning the heaters on would make this nicer for Holden, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t care.
Suddenly, I heard a sound from my bedroom. I knew it was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it through the thick glass.
Then the door slid open, and my whole body trembled violently. For a split second, I contemplated trying to get to the living room door before he could catch me, but then everything in me… surrendered.
“Here you are,” Holden murmured. “Did you give up, or did you just want to get caught?”
I sensed him behind me, stepping close as he slid his hand into my curls and yanked me back.
“Pushing your ass out like the slut you are, huh?” he rumbled out the words as he ground his cock against my ass.
The earlier sound made sense now, I could feel he’d coated himself with lube from my bedside table.
His big hand wrapped around my neck in a way that told me he was well versed in breath play. The realization made something uncurl inside me, a tendril of ease beginning to spread throughout me.
“I thought for sure I’d press you into one of your nice rugs in there, but no, you’re a filthy little brat who wants to be fucked on the balcony for everyone to see.”
When he pulled me back by my throat so he could see my face, his eyes were still glowing. Even in the dark, reflecting the glittering lights from below, I could see the wolf underneath the human skin.
“Please,” I whispered, breathless.
Even without much lived kink experience, Holden was pure Dominant when he growled out, “Push your ass out. Hold onto the railing.”
I did as I was told, and he gave me barely enough space to position myself to his liking while he still held onto me. Then his slick cock pushed between my ass cheeks, unerringly finding my hole. Holden grabbed my hip with his free hand slick with the remnants of lube, then unceremoniously forced his way inside my body. Even with his mindful precautions that were the essence of Holden, the pain was immense.
It was everything I needed to reset myself. I would’ve screamed, but instead, the noise that came out was a breathless wheeze with how he was controlling my oxygen. I hung onto the top bar of the railing for dear life. Holden’s cock seared me from the inside, as he pulled out and rammed in again.
Every thought in my head fractured and floated away, and I was nothing but my fingers curling around the metal, my ass stretched around his thickness, and my own cock slapping against my stomach with every ruthless thrust.
Holden loosened his fingers enough for me to gasp in some air, then he tightened his grip again.
“I wish you didn’t heal so fast and I could see the bruises in the morning,” he ground out, his voice a filthy rumble I would’ve never expected from our straight-laced Sheriff.
I whined, a breathless “uh-uh-uh” in rhythm with his hips snapping against my skin. The hand on my hip was bruising, as if he was digging his fingers in even tighter right before he let go and grabbed my cock.
“Come for me, Rian.”
Everything in me splintered even more. I felt myself climax with a completely overwhelming intensity that, at the same time, was secondary to the sudden quiet in my head.
I could barely register Holden letting go of my throat and pulling out. Then his hot cum splattered against my naked back as if he was branding me. His big hand landed on my skin right after, rubbing in his essence while he rumbled out a growl that was pure satisfaction.
Strong arms scooped me up, and I drifted off, letting him take care of my battered body and my for once quiet mind.