Chapter 12
Riley had never invited someone to his home for sex. The only ones who had stepped foot inside these walls were family and close friends—namely Quinn and Sebastian. He kept those lines separate for a reason. He didn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea and thinking that he cared about having them for more than a single night. He didn’t live a life that had room for anyone else, and he no desire to make room for them.
He always left immediately after they were both satisfied and never thought of them again. He couldn’t remember their names or their faces. They didn’t exchange pleasantries, or numbers, or lie to each other about calling. Riley preferred it that way.
Dawson and Gideon made him feel the opposite. He didn’t have the urge to kick them out, remove them from his space so he could be alone again.
He could hear them out there in his home, just outside the door of the bathroom. Voices that weren’t his family, in the heart of his world.
Riley finished towelling off his hair and slipped on a pair of comfortable, soft pants, not bothering with a shirt.
Gideon puttered around the kitchen, mugs on the bench and steam coming from the freshly boiled kettle. Making himself at home. He looked like he belonged there, had taken less than a night to fill the space with his bright energy.
Dawson sat on the couch, one knee up with an arm draped over it, smiling, his own hair wet from his shower.
The entire scene felt… cozy. Riley had the sudden familiar urge to kick them out. Not because he didn’t like having them there. The opposite, in fact. A warning to heed, not encourage.
“I still think we could have showered together to conserve water,” Dawson said. His voice had a slight rasp to it, courtesy of Riley’s dick. Riley liked hearing it. Liked causing it even more.
“Then you’re doing it wrong.” He padded over to the bedroom section of the room and into his walk-in closet. He rolled on a pair of socks and found a long-sleeved shirt, tugging it over his head. He rolled the sleeves up to his elbows and secured them there.
Dawson turned his head when Riley ventured back out, and his eyes widened. “Holy shit.”
Riley frowned. “What?”
“You look like a…” Dawson cut off, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. Red spread across his cheeks.
“Like what?” Had he put his shirt on backwards?
“Like a normal human being, I think is what he’s trying to say.” Gideon leaned back against the counter, a steaming mug in his hand. “You clean up nice, boss. Very sexy.”
They were being ridiculous. “It’s just casual clothing; let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“It’s more than that,” Dawson said. “You look touchable.”
“I distinctly recall a lot of touching taking place not that long ago,” Riley said. That was the whole reason they’d needed to shower in the first place.
“Physically, sure, but you’re always so…” Dawson stiffly straightened his hand. “You know?”
“I hope that you’re planning on sharing that coffee,” Riley said to Gideon instead of responding. He assumed Dawson meant stiff and unyielding. His clothes didn’t change his personality, no matter how he looked in them.
“It’s hot chocolate,” Gideon replied. “There’s not a lot of coffee in this place. An unopened jar of instant and a bag of beans with a note on it.”
Riley knew what that note said. If you don’t appreciate coffee, fuck off. He hadn’t written it himself, but as far as warnings went, it could have been worse, considering.
“We decided to fuck off,” Dawson said pleasantly. “Because appreciation is subjective, right? What do you consider appreciative enough to have whatever the hell flavour it was?”
“I would think if you don’t know the flavour, then it’s safe to say your appreciation level is not up to snuff.”
“You don’t drink a lot of coffee at work,” Gideon said. “You only put in an order two of every seven days for morning-coffee runs. I didn’t expect that level of snobbery. It’s kind of hot.”
“Then you’re finding someone else attractive. I didn’t write the note.” Gideon knew his handwriting and should have deduced that the fancy cursive didn’t belong to him.
“Got their number handy?”
“No.”
“I thought there’d be a really posh, like, coffee setup,” Dawson remarked. He leaned back, spreading one arm over the top of the couch. “You know, with creamers and a machine and those obnoxious. tiny little mugs that can only fit a mouthful in and were not made for anything other than snobbery.”
Riley didn’t have a particular feeling about coffee one way or the other. He could take or leave it and only drank it when he felt like it. Sebastian—the culprit of the very friendly note—called only one coffee a day the first sign of the apocalypse. If he didn’t have three by the time he made it into work, he wasn’t worth speaking to. Riley had no idea how his four men dealt with him first thing in the morning; he would have murdered him already.
“Your lawyer friend, right? Sebastian? The one that caught us at the station?”
“Caught you doing what?” Dawson asked, grinning with a twinkle in his eye. “Were you two getting busy at work? That’s hot.”
Riley pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think risking our careers by almost getting caught should be considered hot.”
“We have different definitions,” Dawson said. “Like appreciation for coffee.”
Save him from sarcastic idiots. “Sebastian’s love story with coffee should not be something to aspire to.”
“Kind of like your love story with hot chocolate? There might not be much coffee, but there are almost ten different kinds of that. And a container with powdered milk and expensive specially made actual chocolate bark for making it on the stove .” Gideon waved his hand in a flourish. “You have a special cupboard for all your hot chocolate. An entire buffet. The only thing missing are the marshmallows. Did you run out?”
Riley wasn’t answering that.
“That’s definitely a love story,” Dawson agreed. “A cinematic experience with multiple sex scenes.”
“Melted-chocolate sex scenes,” Gideon added.
Dawson deliberately adjusted his pants. “Is it just me, or is it hot enough in here to melt some chocolate?”
Christ. “Are you two ready to leave yet?”
“No, but here, have a cup,” Gideon said, passing him one of the mugs. “Give this one to Dawson.”
Riley bent to take a kiss from Dawson before delivering it as requested, which said a lot about how they turned his brain into mush.
“Do your brothers have kids?” Dawson asked curiously.
Riley made himself comfortable beside him. Quinn—and Riley’s brothers—were fond of telling him how uncomfortable they found his couch, but Riley had never agreed with them.
Gideon watched them from his position in the kitchen, holding his mug against his bottom lip with his ankles crossed. Too bad he’d put a shirt on.
“No.” None of them had children, much to the disappointment of their mother, who struggled at times with her empty nest.
“So it is a chocolate love affair.”
“I thought it was a love story,” Gideon said.
“Same thing?”
“I think ‘affair’ implies some kind of tragedy.”
“Are you two done? My brothers enjoy hot chocolate, as does my mother, as do I—don’t make that face, it’s not that surprising—so I make sure I stock up.” He hoped they appreciated how difficult he found being vulnerable, and sharing personal information, and the effort he attempted to put in for them.
Dawson nudged him. “‘Likes hot chocolate’ wasn’t on my Riley bingo card.”
“I had Irish coffee.”
“Guinness.”
“You know,” Riley drawled, leaning forward to take Dawson’s mug out of his hands and placing it on his coffee table. “I like you better when your mouth is occupied. Or full.” He tugged Dawson into his lap, his heavy weight settling comfortable on Riley. He’d never been with anyone this much bigger than him. Another type of vulnerability he generally avoided. He liked the way Dawson felt on top of him, solid and hard. He smelled nice, too, woodsy with a hint of citrus.
“Yeah?” Dawson asked, smiling against his mouth. “Why don’t you show me how you like it?”
With pleasure.