Chapter 19
SMITH
When I woke up the next morning to the sound of my alarm, everything hurt. I was naked and bruised, sticky with cum and sweat, with a headache the size of a small city. I groaned, reaching for the nightstand, only to remember my phone was somewhere on the floor, still in the pocket of my pants.
“Don’t move,” Riggs grunted against the back of my neck before untangling his arms from around me and climbing out of bed.
There was a loud thump followed by a muttered curse and a rustle of clothes, and then my alarm went quiet.
He set the phone down on the nightstand and crawled back into bed and tugged me into his arms again.
“I can’t go to work today,” I mumbled into the pillow. “I don’t want to go to work today.”
Riggs hummed, brushing his nose across the back of my neck and toward my ear. He licked my neck, a place he’d sucked last night and most certainly left a bruise.
“I don’t have any appointments until noon,” he said. “Stay as long as you want.”
I rolled onto my back and stretched, slowly blinking my eyes open. “I need to email my boss.”
He handed me my phone before rolling onto his back beside me and stretching out.
At some point in the night, his shoulder-length hair had come loose from its tie, and the dark waves fanned out across the bed, tickling my ear.
I caught a whiff of his shampoo in my nose while I emailed my boss, then rolled over the top of him to drop my phone back onto the nightstand.
Beneath me, Riggs’s cock was long and hard, and without thinking about it at all, I ground down against him and groaned.
“Surprised you’d risk it,” he murmured, gently setting his hands on my waist. He didn’t stop me, and he didn’t force me. He steadied me as I worked myself on top of him, notching his erection between my ass cheeks and bearing down.
“It doesn’t feel like a risk,” I admitted.
I pressed my fingertips against his bare stomach, looking down and studying the dark shadows of his tattoos and the curled line of his happy trail. I traced my fingernail along the waistband of his sweats, rocking back on him once more before forcing myself to stop.
Riggs hummed, encouraging me to move.
“You can use it however you want, baby. I don’t mind.”
My eyes rolled back and I moaned, flinging myself off of him and covering my eyes with both hands. Riggs chuckled and shifted onto his side, gently pulling my hands away from my face.
“Don’t be embarrassed about the things you want,” he said.
“Aren’t two people in a relationship supposed to want the same things?”
Riggs licked his lips, cocked his head to the side. “I thought we both wanted you to feel good.”
“I want you to feel good too,” I protested.
He reached down and rubbed his cock, hips lifting off the bed. “You make me feel good whether I’m hard or not. It felt good in your mouth last night, and it wasn’t hard then.”
I let out a long breath, nodding my understanding. “Would you hate if this took me awhile to get used to?”
“No,” he whispered, leaning down and kissing the corner of my mouth. “I wouldn’t hate to see you trying to understand me.”
I angled my head just enough to kiss him back.
“You understand me already,” I whispered. “At least, it felt like it last night.”
Last night, when he’d hurt me and denied me and then overworked my cock until I was desperate for him to stop and told him as much.
Last night when he’d known I wanted to find that line and push against it until he was sure enough he could drag me past it.
Last night, when I collapsed in his arms, most certainly nothing more than a pile of rubble, something in desperate need of care and restoration.
“I’m starting to.” He smiled against my lips. “And that’s why I’m going to leave you in bed and come back with some coffee.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
Riggs hesitated, then left.
I listened to the soft pad of his footsteps until they were drowned out by the sound of the sink turning on, the coffee carafe being filled. Reaching for my phone, I found a reply email from my boss confirming my absence, and a series of text messages from Lincoln.
Lincoln
Feeny misses you.
He was very worried after you left on Tuesday.
Now he’s worried that you’re not answering my messages.
He hopes you’re with Riggs.
He also hopes you tell your brothers about him soon so I don’t have to keep the secret.
He suggests I put you on Friend Finder so when you don’t answer me I don’t have to panic worrying you’ve been kidnapped.
I mean, he doesn’t want to worry. I’m fine.
But seriously.
Sighing, I sent him a Friend Finder invite and a text.
I was with Riggs. Am with Riggs. I am okay.
I know I was not myself on Tuesday, but I’m good.
I know what it’s like to not feel right about your life.
As long as you’re being safe while you try to make sense of it.
I am.
I reached up and pressed my fingers against what was definitely a hickey on the side of my neck and groaned. There was no way whatever it was would clear up before dinner tomorrow night, and I’d go from having to explain a tattoo to needing to explain a tattoo and a hickey.
“Fuck,” I cursed, setting my phone back on the nightstand and staring up at the ceiling.
I listened to the sound of Riggs moving around the kitchen, humming a song under his breath, and then the gentle pat of his footsteps as he returned to the bedroom. He had two mugs of coffee in his hand, and he sat down on the edge of the bed and passed one of them to me.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
I nodded. “Just checking in with a friend who was worried I’d gone missing.”
He made a thoughtful noise and nodded. “Does this friend know about me?”
“He does. He just didn’t know I was with you last night.”
“Does he know…the sort of relationship we’re developing?” he asked next.
I liked Riggs framing it that way, seeing this thing between us as something in flux made more sense than the hard and defined lines of a relationship like Marshall and Silas.
“In vague terms. He’s also kinky. And in love with my brother.” At the confession, Riggs scrunched his face up and I laughed, sliding up the headboard so I could drink the coffee without spilling it all over my chest. “I know, but they’re perfect together, and we don’t…”
I trailed off, the mistruth sharp in my throat.
“We don’t…?”
“Lincoln and I…we’re just friends,” I explained.
Riggs lifted his coffee and took a sip, eyeing me over the rim. “That sounds like there’s a but.”
“We’ve slept together. But it was just so I could try it. It wasn’t because we were attracted to each other.”
“And this is your brother’s boyfriend?” Riggs asked.
“He wasn’t dating Hunter when it happened,” I said quickly, realizing how bad it sounded. “But Lincoln, he…we…he’s very affectionate. Even now that we’re only friends.”
Riggs sucked in a breath like he was bracing for the answer to the question he was about to ask. “Is that code for something?”
“No.” I set the coffee on the nightstand and grabbed his hands, warm palms against his cool fingers. “We snuggle. He’s very tactile, and he makes out with his other friends, but not with me. We kiss, like, on the mouth but no tongue.”
I clenched my molars together to stop myself from saying anything else. Every word out of my mouth made my relationship with Lincoln sound worse than it was.
“And you’re just friends with him?”
“Just friends.”
Riggs shifted his coffee from one hand to the other and rubbed at the back of his neck. His hair was still loose and it looked so soft in the dim light of his bedroom.
“I hope I can meet him soon,” he said. “Since you’ve already met Damon.”
“You can meet him whenever you want,” I blurted. “Just not Friday.”
He arched a brow, and I covered the hickey with my hand.
“I have dinner with my brothers on Friday. Every Friday. It’s tradition.”
“Just not Friday,” he repeated. “Duly noted.”
A nervous silence settled between us, and I grabbed my coffee, needing something to do with my hands. Riggs didn’t seem bothered at all by the quiet, perfectly content to study me with dark and watchful eyes.
“If you’re agreeable to it, I’d like to finish this coffee and get you into a shower so I can re-up the arnica on your bruises,” he finally said. “And I can’t have lunch with you today, but I don’t want you to leave without making plans to see you again.”
“Saturday,” I blurted.
“I work until ten.”
“After.”
His mouth quirked up in the corner. “Did you have any special requests? Anything in mind?”
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and my voice cracked when I asked, “How long until my tattoo is healed?”
Riggs held his hand out and I dropped mine into it, shivering as he rotated my arm to inspect the tattoo.
“Next week probably,” he said, “but it’ll be sensitive still, so maybe next weekend.”
I cracked my knuckles, remembering how skillfully he’d made knots around my fingers our first night together. Even then, I’d known he was capable of so much more than he’d showed me.
“I’ll have requests then,” I said, cheeks burning at the admission. “Maybe just a late dinner. A movie.”
“Very normal.”
“Very.”
“What kind of movies do you like, Smith?” Riggs asked, taking another slow swallow of his coffee. “What do you like to eat?”
“I like old movies, but…” Marshall liked old movies. “I like anything.”
“Narrow it down,” he said softly, but the command in it was clear.
I ignored the way pressure built between my legs in response to his tone, setting the coffee mug down on my lap and wracking my brain to come up with an answer.
“Anything based on a true story,” I answered.
“Got it.” Riggs nodded, chewing on his lower lip. “And food?”
“I like everything.” At the look Riggs gave me, I tucked my chin toward my chest and laughed. “It’s honestly true, but I really like Thai, and I love a good burger.”
“Okay.”
“What about you?” I asked.
He exhaled a breath that expanded his cheeks and stared hard at his coffee like the answer was at the bottom of his mug. “It’s been a long time since anyone has asked me that.”
“Good thing I’m here.”
He flicked a glance up at me. “Isn’t it.”
I waited for him to answer, much like he’d waited for me. The quiet was still there between us, a soft and easy thing that didn’t scare me in the slightest.
“I haven’t had Thai in a while,” he said softly, swallowing hard. “And I really love horror films.” Riggs licked his lips and squinted. “I’ve been on autopilot for a few years. Since…since right before I opened the shop.”
“I’m sure it’s hard work.”
I remembered how much work it had been for Marshall to branch out on his own and start his own firm. Architecture was a lot different from tattooing, but the drive was clearly there in both of them.
“I love a good pasta,” he said as a follow up. “Or, like, sauce. I think I just like good sauce.”
“That makes it pretty easy.”
He tucked his hair behind his ear and nodded, clearing his throat.
“Yeah. This is,” he said. “Now, are you ready for that shower?”