Chapter 19 Riley
RILEY
Riley still couldn’t believe he got to do this. It felt illicit. Stolen. A dream he was going to wake up from at any moment.
“I’m pretty sure my back is very, very clean now.”
Riley hummed, maneuvering Seth under the showerhead to rinse off the soap Riley had been so carefully working into every bit of naked skin he could reach. “That icing got everywhere.”
Although, true, it hadn’t exactly gotten on Seth’s back, way under his shirt, but it didn’t hurt to be thorough.
“That’s because you kept distracting me.”
Riley grinned. Guilty as charged. He hadn’t been able to help himself. Because for someone who’d worked so hard to keep distance between them from the beginning, Seth was endearingly susceptible to Riley’s new methods of distraction.
He’d put Riley in a time-out at the kitchen table, sure, but as soon as Seth had been pouring the icing over the rolls and Riley had asked for a taste—first from the mixing spoon and then from Seth’s finger—Seth had gone all flushed and bright-eyed and had let Riley steal kiss after kiss after kiss.
He’d tasted like sugar and oranges, and he’d let Riley back him into the counter and—
“You’re not putting that thing inside me again today. I’m too tender.”
Riley glanced down. He’d been rubbing his erection against Seth’s plush cheeks while reminiscing under the hot spray. Oops.
“I won’t,” he promised.
But that reminded him. Seth didn’t have to stay tender. Riley could fix it.
He dropped to his knees on the shower tile.
“What are you— Oh!”
Riley grabbed Seth’s hips, keeping him still as he tongued at Seth’s hole. He leaned back to tell him, “My saliva has healing properties.”
“H-How convenient.”
Seth didn’t seem to have any other comment, so Riley went back to work. He was pleased when Seth placed his hands on the wall and pushed his ass out at an angle for him. That was helpful.
Riley hummed. He’d helped Seth wash here too—soaping and rubbing and dancing his fingers over furled skin until Seth had swatted him away and told him he was being a horny menace—and Seth tasted like clean skin and soap.
Riley was getting water in his nose, but he didn’t care. He liked being here, pressed against Seth’s soft flesh, his tongue sweeping circles around that place no one else was allowed to touch.
Riley wrapped a hand around his cock, stroking himself as he pressed his tongue in further. Deeper. Hopefully it was okay if he touched himself, as long as he wasn’t trying to put “that thing” back inside Seth again.
Seth didn’t seem to mind. He was moaning now, grinding himself back into Riley’s mouth.
It must have felt pretty good. Riley used his free hand to keep Seth’s cheeks open and jerked himself with enthusiasm.
It didn’t matter that he’d taken Seth twice already—just being here, tasting him, was enough to make Riley desperate to come.
“Ungh. Fuck. Fuck.”
Seth’s swearing sounded almost pained. Riley forced himself to withdraw and lean away again, gripping his own cock hard at the base to try to hold steady. “Should—should I stop?”
“No! No.” Seth arched his spine at an even deeper angle. “Don’t stop. Jesus. I’m gonna come.”
The little whine in his voice went straight to Riley’s dick. He was desperate. Desperate for Riley and what he could give him.
Riley’s balls drew up tight, and he growled, planting his face back between Seth’s cheeks and sucking hungrily at that perfect, soft entrance.
Seth keened, and Riley could hear him stroking himself too. He really wanted to come, didn’t he? Fuck, that was hot. Too hot.
Riley groaned as he lost control, heat erupting from the base of his spine through his cock, spilling over onto his fist. He shuddered, tonguing and sucking through his orgasm until Seth stiffened with a strangled yell.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the shower and Seth’s desperate panting.
“Feel better?” Riley asked. That had been the point, right? Healing any soreness? He’d lost track, but he was pretty sure he’d started with very noble intentions.
Seth let out a breathless chuckle. He was slumped against the shower wall now, that teasing arch gone from his spine. “You’ll have to wash my front too. I don’t think my knees will hold.”
Riley didn’t stop grinning until they were out of the shower and Seth dropped his bomb with zero warning.
“Time to take me home, don’t you think?”
Seth was already in a fresh pair of Riley’s sweats, and he was searching through Riley’s shirts for something acceptable. He looked so cute with Riley’s waistband rolled over three times that it took Riley a second to hear him.
His stomach immediately dropped. “What?”
Seth turned, hands on his hips. “Riley. I have a life. A business. I know you want things settled, but that takes time, and you can’t keep me holed up here all the while.”
Riley stood there, at a loss for words. Of course Seth was right. Of course he couldn’t stay here forever. Even Riley’s voice wasn’t protesting, for whatever reason.
Oh fuck, was Riley’s voice the sensible one?
Because for the first time, Riley understood Wolfgang, who’d turned and sort of kidnapped his mate at their first meeting and then figured the rest out after. Riley finally got it. He really did.
Riley wanted Seth to be his. Now. Always. He didn’t want to wait. He didn’t want to let him go back to town and the life he was making, where Seth might decide vampires and their nonsense weren’t worth the pain.
But that wasn’t right. And convenient as it had been, what Wolfe had done wasn’t right either. To be a good mate, Riley had to consider what Seth wanted.
And Seth wanted to go home.
“Can I come with you?” Riley asked, searching for any solution that might stop that sinking feeling from taking over his whole being. “Can—can I sleep over?”
Seth tapped his foot, considering. Riley tried to look as appealing and nonthreatening as possible. He didn’t exactly know how to do that, so it mostly involved standing very still and keeping his eyes open wide. He might also have been pouting a little, but Seth was probably used to that by now.
“You can come,” Seth finally said. “But I will be sleeping tonight. I wake up very early and—”
“And you get grumpy if you don’t sleep,” Riley finished for him, fighting back a massive grin.
“Exactly.” Seth cocked his head. He was still staring at Riley, and Riley wasn’t sure about the odd look that suddenly gleamed in Seth’s eyes. He looked…devious.
“You can come with me to the bakery too,” Seth said after a moment. “And we’re going to start something. Maybe a book club.”
“A book club?”
Seth nodded, a little wicked smile quirking at his lips. “Yeah. You like to read, right?”
“Yes?”
“Good.” Seth tugged on one of Riley’s shirts. “That’s settled.”
Riley’s pout was no longer a maybe. “But…why?”
“Because you need to be around people,” Seth told him. “You need to make friends. Have interests that aren’t me and…me.”
“But I like you.”
Seth turned away, rifling through Riley’s sweatshirts now. “Maybe Violet can help,” he murmured. “She seems to be well connected.”
He wasn’t even talking to Riley anymore, was he?
“Violet?” This was getting worse and worse.
“Yeah.” Seth dug deeper into Riley’s drawer.
Riley wished he could see his face, since the back of his neck was giving nothing away.
“I’m gonna see if she wants a job. I can stay open later on the weekends, get my prep done while she finishes out front.
And I’ll have backup in the event of any more… accidents.”
Hadn’t they just been in the shower, coming their brains out while they discovered the wonders of Riley’s tongue in Seth’s ass? How had things devolved so quickly? Riley stepped forward, determined to get things to make sense again. “I’m your backup.”
Seth waved a hand. “You’re my boyfriend, not my backup.”
Riley froze in place.
“I…am?”
“Yeah. We’re dating, aren’t we? I don’t let just anyone eat my ass in the shower while they hog all the hot water.”
If Riley had been human, he would have drowned in all that hot water, but he let that slide to focus on the important part.
“We are? We’re dating?” The sinking feeling finally stopped spreading through Riley’s body. It was replaced by a new warmth in Riley’s chest. He was being given a lifeline, wasn’t he?
Before Seth could speak, Riley answered for him. He couldn’t have Seth changing his mind in the next three seconds. “We are,” he said hurriedly. “Yes. Boyfriends. I’m the boyfriend. Your boyfriend.”
“Okay, boyfriend.” Seth shot him a glance as he held up a sweatshirt for perusal. “Go get your moms to fix my car.”
Mama Sybil set her book on her lap with a frown. She and Mama Daphne were curled up on the living room couch together, taking turns reading out loud. On a different day, Riley might have joined them with a book of his own.
“I still think it would be better if he were leaving with a claiming bite.”
Riley crossed his arms. “Leaving as a vampire, you mean.”
Mama Sybil raised an eyebrow at Riley, as if to say, Well? What of it?
Riley frowned at her. “I’m not doing that to him.
Not against his will.” He’d decided he wasn’t going to be a Wolfgang.
He was going to be a Riley. And a Riley respected his mate’s wishes, even if his mate’s wishes involved horrible book clubs and hiring sullen goth teenagers instead of devoted boyfriends.
His mothers didn’t say anything. Mama Sybil’s eyebrow stayed arched.
A standoff.
“Fix. The. Car.” Riley waited a long moment, the tension in the air growing thicker with each passing second, then added, “Please.”
Mama Sybil opened her mouth, and Riley steeled himself for a scolding.
Maybe she was going to tell him he had to turn Seth right away or be locked in the attic.
Not that they’d ever locked him in the attic—or anywhere—but there was a first time for everything.
And the whole mate thing had everyone on edge in a new way.