CHAPTER 15
C HAPTER 15
M ORNING LIGHT SPILLED softly into the room through the open patio doors.
On his side in the grand bed, Raider lay stretched out beside Seth. Seth was on his back, still asleep. Raider had one leg draped over Seth’s and an arm resting on Seth’s muscled abdomen. His head was on Seth’s shoulder. He loved this, getting to be with Seth like this. He could enjoy it now as he hadn’t a few days ago. His mind was more settled in the present. His body felt like his own again.
He realized now, by contrast, how confused and angry he’d been. He’d thought he was fine, but Seth had been right. He hadn’t been.
Raider lifted himself onto an elbow so he could study Seth, relishing the chance to do it so fully. Raider loved his face, how broad and strong it was, how handsome.
Seth had kept himself clean shaven since they’d gotten out of the Kesh. Raider had enjoyed seeing his Curator rugged with a beard, but he liked this better. The cleaner lines. The smooth, tanned skin. In spite of that tan, Seth was fairer than Raider. He was fairer than most folk of the Sands. He was bigger too.
Raider had always been taller than most men, but Seth topped him by several inches. Raider liked that, and he liked that Seth was so much heavier than he was. He liked how Seth could pin him down, dominate him with his body. Raider shivered deliciously at the memory of Seth fucking him into the patio bed last night.
Raider smoothed his hand down Seth’s notched belly to the V of muscle that cut toward his groin. Seth’s cock lay long and heavy against his muscled thigh. His body was so powerful. No wonder Seth could fuck him like that.
Raider watched Seth’s cock thicken slightly against his thigh, his body responding to Raider’s touch. Raider wanted to run his fingers through the trimmed hair at Seth’s groin, to feel the heat there and the heavy root of his cock. He wanted to cup the heavy weight of Seth’s balls. But he didn’t want to wake him.
Seth woke anyway. His chest expanded on a deep inhalation. His eyes slitted open and he squinted up at Raider. He groaned and stretched, and his cock twitched up from his thigh. Then he rolled Raider’s way.
Raider turned onto his other side so Seth could hold him from behind. Seth tugged Raider against his body, laying his swiftly hardening cock along the cleft of Raider’s ass. Seth’s arms were banded tight around Raider’s torso, and Seth was breathing against the back of his neck. It was bliss, and Raider could even enjoy the simmer of his own arousal as his stiffening cock lay untouched. He wanted this first.
And … he needed to talk to Seth.
“Seth?”
“Yeah, baby,” Seth murmured comfortably.
“I’m really sorry—”
“ No .” Seth abruptly lifted his upper body, propping himself on one hand.
Raider could feel Seth looking at him, but didn’t want to be looked at, not like that. He turned his face into the pillow. Why the hell had Seth cut him off?
“Please don’t be angry with me, Raider, but I don’t want you to apologize for anything that happened last night, or even the last few days.”
“I attacked you. I can’t say sorry for that?”
Seth took a deep breath like he was thinking. But Raider didn’t want to have this conversation anymore, not with the direction Seth was obviously taking it. He started to slide out of the bed.
Seth clamped a hand on Raider’s hip, rekindling some of his fading arousal. Was that why he yielded? Because Seth’s touch always commanded him, because he needed it so damn much? Or was it Seth’s words when he spoke next?
“Please don’t leave. Please, baby—gods, please talk to me.”
Raider owed Seth that. He knew he did.
But.
“You want me to talk, but you won’t let me say what I want to say.”
Seth relaxed his grip but kept his hand on Raider’s hip. “I’m sorry I cut you off. I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just that I know you weren’t yourself. It was almost like … you weren’t even really there.”
“I’m still responsible for the things I do.” Raider sat up and drew back against the wall, away from Seth’s hand. “I’m still responsible for the people I hurt.”
“Baby …” Seth let out a heavy breath. “I don’t think you have a clear perspective on this. On the things that have happened to you.”
Raider looked away. “It doesn’t change the facts.”
“What facts? That you killed Hassan? What about the other facts? The things Kahzir did—”
“They’re separate.”
“They’re not separate, Raider. You want to cling to your guilt without seeing it in relation to anything else. You’ve spent ten years pretending that the past doesn’t exist, that Kahzir didn’t torture you—”
“ Stop .”
“—but in Aqarat, when you were asked about Hassan’s death, you immediately said that you murdered him, fully accepting blame without any context. So you want to cling to that one fact but ignore the rest.”
“That’s because I can’t—” Raider broke off. He squeezed his eyes shut.
“Can’t what?”
Tears slipped past his closed eyelids. “I can’t handle the rest, Seth.”
“Oh, fuck.” Seth sounded choked. Then he made a gasping sound, like he was crying too.
Raider drew up his knees. “I can’t think about any of it. I’ve been trying so hard to keep all of it out of my head.”
“Baby …”
“I kept thinking I was fine.” Raider swiped at his cheeks. “Then I wasn’t.”
Seth’s hands started tugging at Raider, asking him to come closer. It was really damn hard for Raider to open his body right then, to let his knees part, to let Seth reach into that tight, solitary space he’d made. But Seth was strong and determined and so goddamn gentle that Raider found himself pulled forward. He found himself tugged into Seth’s lap. His knees settled on either side Seth. Seth’s arms wrapped around him. One hand cupped the back of Raider’s head and pressed his face into the crook of Seth’s neck.
Seth held on tight, absorbing Raider’s shivering until, eventually, it stopped. And the tears stopped. Eventually, Raider felt calm. He felt safe. He felt everything fade away but Seth.
“Thank you,” Raider murmured against him, “for getting me out of there.”
“Oh, baby, I fucking love you.”
Those words made Raider’s throat so tight that he couldn’t speak to return them, so he started kissing Seth’s throat, trying to show him instead. Seth’s head tilted back as he opened to it, letting Raider worship him. Seth probably didn’t know that was what Raider was doing, but it was.
Then he was able to speak. “I love you, Seth. I love you more than anything. I don’t have words for how much I love you.”
“Oh, fuck,” Seth murmured, his throat moving under Raider’s lips and his cock lifting against Raider’s ass.
Raider’s cock stiffened between their bellies and, fuck, it felt good. Raider started to nibble at Seth’s jaw then his ear.
“Baby, are you sure you want this right now?”
“Yes,” Raider breathed. “Be with me.”
Seth’s head tilted down. One of his hands came up to Raider’s face. His thumb swiped away the remnant of his tears. There were tear tracks on Seth’s face too. As Raider kissed them away, Seth closed his eyes and said, “There’s nowhere else I want to be.”
Raider took Seth’s face in his hands and drew their foreheads together, giving himself a moment to take that in. Then he hooked his legs around Seth’s waist and leaned away to grab the oil from the bedside table. Seth groaned as Raider’s body pressed down against his erection. While Raider was stretched out, Seth wrapped a hand around Raider’s jutting cock.
Raider moaned and lay back, the oil bottle loose in his grip, his thoughts dissolving further with every stroke of Seth’s hand.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” Seth murmured. “All of you. But this”—Seth’s thumb rolled across Raider’s cockhead, smoothing the precum across it—“this, I can’t get enough of. The way you respond. The way you come. The way you make me come.”
Part of Raider wanted to stay there and let Seth keep stroking him, but his ass was clenching on nothing. He needed Seth there, inside him.
He sat up on Seth’s lap. Uncorking the bottle, he poured a little oil into his palm then secured the cork again. He set the bottle aside and reached behind himself to take Seth’s cock in an oiled grip.
Seth’s eyes closed as Raider stroked him. Raider marveled at the size of Seth’s cock, the thick root and long shaft, the fat tip that would soon bring him so much pleasure.
Then Raider lifted himself to let that stiff rod rise up. He gazed down, taking in the erotic sight of it jutting up so hard and thick and ready to penetrate him. He sank down, gasping as that wide crown breached his tight ring.
“Easy, baby,” Seth murmured. “Slow.”
Raider squeezed his eyes shut as he lowered himself, all his awareness on the way that huge cock pressed into his tight channel, filling him, taking him over. When Seth was fully inside him, Raider shuddered against him, overwhelmed by the sensations. Seth’s hands ran up and down his back. Seth’s breath puffed against his throat.
“I love this,” Raider whispered. “I need this. I need you.”
“Then ride me.”
“Ah, fuck,” Raider murmured as he started to lift and plunge, pleasuring himself on Seth.
Seth lay back, giving himself over to Raider. Raider ground against him, rocking to feel Seth’s cock rub against his prostate. His own cock twitched and leaked as he milked himself there. Seth’s eyes were locked on it like he couldn’t look away.
“Watching you,” Seth gasped, “is gonna make me come.”
Raider moaned at that and picked up his pace, lifting and plunging, growing frantic with it because it felt so damn good. He chased that feeling, losing himself in it, in the way his body hummed and tightened.
Gods, he could do this forever.
But then Seth started to punch up into him and growled out, “Let me see you come. Let me see that pretty cock shoot its load all over me. Let me feel your ass strangling my dick.”
“Fuck, Seth, fuck!”
“Harder, baby, fucking come .” Seth drove into him from below as Raider pounded down. “Let me see you— fuck !”
They both shouted as Raider’s orgasm triggered Seth’s. Raider’s release spurted from his cock as Seth punched up into him. Seth’s cock was kicking against Raider’s prostate as his own creamy strands fell on Seth’s belly and chest. The sight sent Raider into a frenzy. He lost all sense of himself as his hips jerked and his cock continued to spurt and Seth came in heavy waves inside him.
When Raider pitched forward, Seth lurched up to catch him. They held onto each other through the aftershocks, their bodies still joined and shuddering, their mess so perfectly beautiful.