Chapter 34 Riley #2
“That’s romantic.”
“He’s a romantic man. Hides it well, but it’s there.” Caelan’s eyes found mine. “We used to come here for picnics when I was young. The whole family: my parents, Patt, Thessa. We’d spread blankets under this tree and eat ourselves into food comas.”
I could picture it. A younger Caelan, less burdened, laughing with his siblings while his parents watched with soft eyes. It was disgustingly wholesome. Hallmark would weep.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “For sharing this with me.”
“Thank you for letting me.”
And through it all, he flirted relentlessly.
“Has anyone ever told you,” he murmured, leaning closer, “that your eyes hold entire universes?”
“That’s absurd.”
“It’s true.” His voice dropped lower. “I could get lost in them forever.”
The man was shameless. I kind of loved it.
The air between us was charged. Electric. Every accidental brush of fingers sent sparks through my skin. Every lingering look made my pulse quicken.
I knew where this was heading. Had known since I agreed to the date.
Then he pulled out the final item from the basket.
Pancakes. Fluffy pancakes, topped with cream and strawberries.
My stomach flipped.
We both remembered. That first morning in my apartment, after he’d claimed me. The pancakes he’d made. The cream and strawberries. The way we’d eaten them together, lazy in bed, before everything went wrong.
“I thought...” He set the plate between us. “I thought we could make a new memory. A better one.”
I picked up a strawberry. Took a bite. Let the sweetness burst across my tongue.
“It’s good,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I ate another strawberry. Then a bite of pancake, piled with cream. Some of it caught on my lip, a smear of white against my skin.
Before I could wipe it away, Caelan leaned in.
His tongue traced across my lower lip, slow and deliberate, giving me every opportunity to pull back.
I didn’t.
Instead, I grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him into a kiss.
The kiss was fire. All the tension that had been building for days, the groveling, the touches, the charged looks, ignited between us. My hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer, and Caelan groaned against my mouth.
I was already wet. Had been since he licked the cream from my lip, since before that, since he read me those smutty passages in that deep, devastating voice.
His hands found my waist, pulling me into his lap. I went willingly, straddling him, the skirt of my dress pooling around us. Through the fabric of his pants, I could feel him. Hard. Straining. Wanting.
“Riley-” His voice was rough, broken. “We don’t have to-”
“Shut up.”
I kissed him again. Harder. My tongue slid against his, and he made a sound that went straight to my core.
I reached between us. Found the laces of his pants. Pulled until his cock sprang free, hard in my hand, and I stroked him once, twice, watching his face contort with pleasure. His jaw clenched. His eyes squeezed shut. His hips bucked into my grip.
“Fuck,” he gasped. “Riley-”
I didn’t put him inside me. Not yet.
Instead, I lifted my skirts higher, shifted forward, and dragged my wet heat across the length of him. Caelan’s entire body shuddered.
“What are you - oh goddess-”
I did it again, sliding against him, his length between my wet folds, coating him with my arousal, letting the head of his cock catch against my entrance before pulling away. Teasing him. Tormenting him.
He groaned, the sound desperate, his hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise, but he didn’t try to guide me, didn’t try to take control. He just held on and let me torture him.
“Please,” he breathed. “Riley, please-”
“Please what?”
“Please let me - I need-” He broke off with a moan as I ground against him particularly hard. “You’re killing me.”
“Good.”
I kept it up. Slid and teased and rubbed until he was a trembling mess beneath me, until his head was thrown back and his whole body was shaking and he was making sounds that I wanted to record and play on repeat forever.
And then, when I’d tortured him enough, when I couldn’t stand the emptiness anymore, I positioned him at my entrance and sank down.
We both cried out.
He filled me completely. Perfectly. I took a moment to adjust, to feel every inch of him inside me, and then I started to move.
I rode him slow at first, savoring every sensation.
Then faster, chasing the pleasure building low in my belly.
His hands were everywhere, my hips, my waist, my breasts through the fabric of my dress, and his mouth found my neck, my jaw, the sensitive spot behind my ear.
“You feel so good,” he groaned against my skin. “So perfect. My perfect mate.”
I moved faster. Harder. The sounds of our coupling filled the greenhouse: skin against skin, gasps and moans, his name on my lips.
“I’m close,” I panted. “Caelan-”
“Come for me.” His thumb found my clit, pressing, circling. “Let go. I’ve got you.”
I shattered, the orgasm crashing through me in wave after wave of pleasure. I cried out his name, clenching around him, and then my teeth found his shoulder. I bit down. Hard. Breaking skin. A claiming bite to match the one he’d given me all those weeks ago.
I didn’t plan it. My wolf took over, acting on instinct, marking him as mine.
I tried not to give it too much importance. Tried not to think about what it meant. But Caelan’s reaction made that impossible.
He made a sound, raw and primal and utterly wrecked, and followed me over the edge. His hips jerked up into me, his release flooding me, his arms wrapping around me so tight I could barely breathe.
We stayed connected for a long moment, breathing hard, my forehead pressed against his, our eyes locked.
“You claimed me,” he whispered. Wonder in his voice. Awe.
I licked the blood from his shoulder, tasting copper and salt. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“It is a big deal. It’s-” His voice broke. “I love you. I love you so much, Riley. You’re everything to me. Everything.”
I looked at him. This devoted, groveling fool who cleaned the cabin at 3am and read me smut and built me a date in a magical greenhouse.
“I love you too,” I said.
His whole face transformed. Joy breaking through, pure and overwhelming.
“Say it again.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you, you impossible man.”
He laughed, actually laughed, bright with joy, and kissed me again.
Later, we were lying on the blanket, tangled together, when Caelan spoke.
“Do you want to go visit your friends?”
I lifted my head from his chest. “What?”
“Your friends. In the human world.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Thessa is going. She’s leaving today. I thought... if you wanted... we could go with her.”
My heart leaped. “Really?”
“You’ve been gone for months.” His expression was soft, understanding. “They probably think you’re dead. They deserve to know you’re okay. And you deserve to see them.”
Months. I’d been gone for months. Time moved differently between the realms, and I knew that, but hearing it stated so plainly made my chest ache. My friends. My book club. The girls at the tattoo shop. They must be worried sick.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I want to go.”
“Then let’s go.”
We cleaned ourselves up as best we could, straightening clothes, fixing hair, trying to appear presentable and not post-coital. We were not entirely successful, but I didn’t particularly care.
We found Thessa waiting by the portal chamber, dressed for travel, a bag slung over her shoulder. She took one look at us and her nose scrunched in disgust.
“You two reek,” she announced. “Sex. All I can smell is sex. It’s disgusting.”
“Nice to see you too,” I said.
Thessa grunted and stepped through the portal.
I paused at the threshold.
I’d only been through the portal once before, and I’d been dying at the time. Now, with clear eyes and a healthy body, I could actually appreciate it. The swirling light. The way the air seemed to bend and shimmer. The faint hum of power that vibrated through my bones.
“Ready?” Caelan asked, taking my hand.
“Ready.”
We stepped through together.
The nausea hit immediately, a lurching, spinning sensation that made my stomach revolt. I stumbled on the other side, Caelan steadying me, and took a moment to breathe through the queasiness.
“It gets easier,” Thessa said, already walking.
We followed her through familiar streets. The human world looked different somehow. Smaller. More mundane. After weeks in Lytopia, in castles and forests and magical greenhouses, the brick buildings and asphalt roads seemed almost surreal.
We were approaching the tattoo shop when it happened.
The door of Ink & Iron burst open. Sloane, beautiful and fierce, froze in the doorway, her eyes going wide.
“RILEY?!”
And then she was running, sprinting across the sidewalk toward me.
I barely had time to brace myself before Sloane slammed into me, arms crushing me in a hug that threatened to crack my ribs. She was crying, actual tears streaming down her face, and cursing at the same time.
“You absolute bitch,” Sloane sobbed. “You fucking bitch, we thought you were DEAD. Gone for MONTHS. No word, no nothing. Do you have any idea what we’ve been going through? I’m going to KILL you, and then I’m going to hug you again, and then I’m going to kill you MORE-”
“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t - it’s complicated-”
“Complicated my ass!” Sloane pulled back, mascara running, and punched my shoulder. Hard. “You scared the shit out of us!”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You better be!”
We went upstairs to my apartment. Someone, probably Sloane, had been keeping it clean, watering my plants, making sure everything was maintained. The sight made my throat tight.
Sloane called the others. Within an hour, my apartment was full.
Margo arrived first, bursting through the door with tears already streaming down her face, yanking me into a hug that lasted a full three minutes.
After that, the book club girls descended in a chaotic wave, five of them piling through the doorway at once, all talking over each other, demanding explanations and proof that I was real.
“Touch her!” someone yelled. “Make sure she’s not a ghost!”
“Ghosts aren’t real, Becca-”
“Neither were WEREWOLVES until months ago!”
Fair point.
They crowded onto my couch and chairs, squished together, all of them staring at me with varying degrees of shock and anger and relief. Jade sat in the corner, quiet, her eyes occasionally drifting toward Thessa.
I told them most of it. The rejection, the kidnapping, the battle, the conspiracy, the rescue. I left out certain details. The near-death experiences. Not everything needed to be shared at this reunion.
And then I told them about the baby.
The chaos was deafening.
“YOU’RE PREGNANT?!”
“Oh my GOD!”
“A BABY! A WEREWOLF BABY!”
“IS IT GOING TO COME OUT FURRY?!”
“That’s not how it works,” I laughed, my ears ringing. “I think. Probably.”
Note to self: ask Caelan about werewolf baby mechanics later. Preferably when I wasn’t surrounded by five screaming women.
They crowded around me, touching my stomach, which was still flat since it was way too early to show, asking a million questions, crying and laughing and talking over each other.
Through it all, I noticed Jade.
She was sitting slightly apart from the group, quiet, her eyes not on me but on Thessa. And Thessa was staring right back. Had been staring since we arrived, watching Jade with an intensity that bordered on desperate.
I caught Caelan’s eye. He nodded, understanding.
“Hey,” I murmured, nudging Jade. “You two should go talk.”
Jade startled. Looked at Thessa. Looked away.
“I don’t know if-”
“Go,” I said. “She’s been waiting for this. You both have.”
Thessa stepped forward, hesitant for the first time since I’d known her.
“Only if you want to,” Thessa said. Her voice was soft, vulnerable. Completely unlike her usual snark.
Jade nodded, slowly at first, then with more certainty.
They slipped away together, toward the back of the apartment. Toward privacy.
“They’re not coming back tonight,” I predicted.
Caelan laughed softly. “Probably not.”
He stood, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll give you time with your friends. Catch up. I’ll be nearby if you need me.”
He left. The door closed behind him.
And I turned back to my girls, my wonderful, chaotic, beloved girls, and let myself be folded into their embrace.
I was so, so happy.