Chapter 18 Seth #2
And then he was no longer fit for thinking about anything. Or for speaking words that made any sense at all. He was pure tension, a tight pressure that kept building higher and higher and higher until it broke and Seth shattered.
“Ungh!”
And then there were teeth in his neck again, but Riley wasn’t drinking Seth’s blood. He was shivering, his big body pressing Seth down into the mattress as he just…held Seth’s throat in his jaws as he came.
It was proprietary. Possessive. Animalistic.
Seth’s eyes shut once more, and he let himself fall away.
Seth woke again to find Riley staring down at him, his brow furrowed in concern. His eyes were a deep, dark brown. “It knocked you out.”
Seth licked dry lips. His brain was mush. Too many sex endorphins had turned it into soup. “My orgasm?”
“My stupid voice.”
Seth stretched in the bed, wiggling to work out the soreness in his lower back. The movement brushed his chest up against Riley’s. They were both still naked. That was both wonderful and way too tempting. “I think you need to be nicer to each other. Don’t call him stupid.”
Riley made a noise of disgust. “It’s very smug right now.”
“He,” Seth corrected. “He’s a part of you, Riley.”
“A very smug part of me.”
Seth tried to push the mushy soup of his brain into action. And of course the first thing it went for was guilt. “Was it— Was I wrong, letting him touch me like that? Should I have stopped it?”
He and Riley hadn’t discussed fidelity at all, much less the finer nuances of fidelity when there was a vampire alter ego involved.
But Riley was already shaking his head. “No. You’re its—” He swore, correcting himself. “His mate too. It—he would probably riot if you held yourself back for my sake. It wouldn’t be pretty.”
Riley scanned Seth’s face with his usual intensity. He had his hands planted on the mattress on either side of Seth’s head. Nothing felt sticky, so he’d probably cleaned them up again while Seth had been dozing. How thoughtful.
“Was it good?”
Seth coughed at the question, although he probably should have been expecting it. “You’re both, um, very…sensual creatures.”
Riley’s frown morphed into a delighted smile. “It was good. You liked it.”
Embarrassment made Seth scowl. “Why are you proud of that?” Hadn’t Riley been pissed just two seconds ago? Did Seth’s glorious orgasms make that much of a difference to his split-personality-induced jealousy?
“Dunno.” Riley nuzzled his nose against Seth’s hair, breathing in deeply. “I just like making you feel good, I guess.”
“Well, mission fucking accomplished.” Seth fought for enough space to reach for his phone, checking the time. “We need to get the dough.”
Riley kept on nuzzling. “Let’s stay in bed.”
“You can’t keep me hostage in your bed, sexing me up until I agree to be your mate.”
Riley lifted his head, and his immediate, guileless blink told Seth he’d been right on the money with that one.
He pushed gently at Riley’s chest. “Up you go.”
Even if Seth was tempted to let Riley continue with his evil plan, it was the middle of the day, and Seth wouldn’t be able to look the moms in the eye if he and Riley disappeared completely for a sex sabbatical. Deflowering their son was bad enough, and somehow Seth had managed to do that twice.
With a beleaguered sigh, Riley rolled to the side. “But you’ll sleep here tonight?”
“I’ll consider it.”
He would—technically—but Seth was also not above trying to convince Riley to let him leave.
Seth had a life to live. And he wasn’t creating distance between them anymore, was he?
Definitely not physically, as their multiple, mutual orgasms attested to.
So maybe it was time for this house to let Seth go.
After he finished his rolls, of course.
Seth eyed the pile of clothes on the floor with distaste. He’d already slept in those things. “Do you have any sweats you could lend me?”
“Yeah.” Riley padded over to his dresser, still completely nude. God, he was handsome. And that was a good butt. A really good butt. He’d need to keep that butt to himself, or Seth was going to be agreeing to a monthlong kidnapping just to stay and ogle it.
Riley came back with gray sweats and a black T-shirt. Seth accepted them eagerly. Clothes would be good—a fabric barrier to his own horny thoughts.
Speaking of. Seth cast a sideways glance at Riley’s bobbing erection. “Does that thing ever go down?”
Riley shrugged. “You look good in my bed.”
Well, then. Seth cleared his throat and stood, getting dressed as quickly as his shaky legs would allow. Apparently he needed to get back to running to improve his endurance if he was going to keep up with his young, supernatural lover.
Or let him turn you.
Nope. No. Nuh-uh. Seth was not giving that any brain space. He was still trying to come to terms with the destined lovers portion of the mate thing—he didn’t have any room for the one-day-becoming-a-vampire part.
What if turning into a vampire ruined his palate? He’d have to switch from pastries to blood sausages.
He and Riley made their way to the kitchen, and Seth was grateful for the lack of vampire moms in attendance. He needed to get his wits about him before attempting any semblance of chill after what had just happened. Twice.
Hadn’t Seth started this day off determined to cling to normalcy? Since when had his normal routine included getting ravaged by impossibly beautiful monster-men?
Seth punched the air out of his dough, then floured the counter and started rolling it out. Baking. Baking was normal.
But if Riley had been hovering before, he was now completely incorrigible. He kept wrapping his arms around Seth’s waist as Seth mixed the filling, or pressing kisses to Seth’s neck, shoulders, and ears as he cut the rolls to size.
Seth came this close to giving in and abandoning the orange rolls in favor of more debauchery. Instead, he made Riley sit at the kitchen table, where Seth could keep an eye on his shamelessly horny ass.
Riley sat meekly enough, although he kept biting back a grin, so he couldn’t have been too chastised. “My moms said your grandma taught you to bake?”
“Mm.” Seth had somehow managed to pop the rolls into the oven despite the distraction, and now he was filling a bowl with simple icing ingredients. “Yeah, she was amazing in the kitchen.”
“What about your parents?”
Seth shrugged. “They weren’t as interested.
They…I mean, they’re great, I love them, but they didn’t always…
get me, early on. They kept buying me toy cars and action figures for every holiday and wondering why I would hardly play with them.
And then we’d go to my grandma’s, and she’d take me into the kitchen with her, and everything smelled amazing, and she had these frilly vintage aprons.
” Seth smiled at the memory. “She’d let me choose one for both of us, and we’d put them on and make something delicious.
Plus, she had some of my mom’s old toys, and she and I would dress up the dolls and stuff while we waited for our creations to bake.
I was well fed there, in more ways than one. I still use her recipes.”
Riley’s dark eyes were soft. “She sounds amazing.”
“She was.” Seth ignored the familiar pang of loss and set his icing aside.
They had a few more minutes for the rolls to finish.
He glanced around the beautiful kitchen.
He could imagine his grandmother here, poking through the cabinets and testing out all the high-quality vintage appliances.
“She would have loved this kitchen. The whole house.”
“I wish I could have met her.” Riley ducked his head suddenly, his gaze dropping to his folded hands. “Do you—do you think she’d have liked me?”
God, he was cute. It was ridiculous that he could be so bashful after turning Seth inside out hardly an hour before.
Seth scoffed, although he couldn’t completely hide his smile. “Are you kidding? She was totally weak for a pretty face. She would have flirted with you shamelessly, tried to steal you away.”
“I wouldn’t have let her.”
Riley sounded so fierce about it that Seth had to laugh. “You wouldn’t have let my elderly grandmother seduce you? Your loyalty is unmatched.”
Riley lifted his head again to grin at Seth’s teasing, but his next words were solemn, with that perfectly serious Riley edge to them. “You have no idea.”