23. Harmony Circle of Two #2
Cass turned in Riot’s arms and pressed his face against Riot’s throat. Strawberries and cream. The scent that meant safe even when his body was also saying big and scary and want. “What was your real name?” he asked quietly. “Before Riot?”
The silence stretched long enough that Cass almost said you don’t have to—
“Brennan.” The name came out rough, like it cost him something to say. “Brennan Loudon.”
Brennan. It felt softer than Riot. Like the person who rubbed circles on Cass’s back and remembered to wave a breeze near his face.
“Why don’t you use it?”
“Because Brennan wanted to help people and was somebody who trusted the people who did this to him.”
“What happened to him?”
“They broke him. They took what made him useful and turned it into something dangerous. Then threw him away when it didn’t work right.”
Cass thought about that as Riot stroked his hair.
Not in the big complicated way that Honey would have—analyzing and connecting and building theories.
Just the simple shape of it. Someone who wanted to help people got turned into something that scared people instead.
And now he didn’t want to use his own name anymore because using it meant remembering the person he’d been before the scary part.
Oh.
“Do you miss him?” Cass asked. “Being Brennan?”
Riot took in a deep breath and sighed. “Sometimes. He was curious about how people’s minds work. He thought he could make a difference.”
“He sounds kind,” Cass said. “Like someone who would sit with a confused Omega and explain things without making him feel stupid.”
Riot went still.
“I don’t think there’s as much difference between Riot and Brennan as you think,” Cass said against his neck. “I can tell when you take care of me.”
Something happened to Riot’s breathing. A hitch, almost like a cramp of his own. His arms tightened around Cass, not Berserker tight, just holding on tight, and for a moment he didn’t say anything.
Then the heat crashed through in the worst wave yet.
Cass gasped, arching against Riot’s body. His skin was on fire and the deep craving returned so intensely it blurred his vision. Not just aching—demanding. Centered and specific in a way it hadn’t been before he’d learned what Riot’s fingers could do to that spot inside him.
“Sorry—” He pressed harder into Riot’s neck, breathing in desperately and tasting the salt of his sweat on his lips. The scent helped. The scent also made it worse. “You smell really good and I can’t—”
His body was moving without permission again, squirming as he turned all the way around to straddle Riot’s lap and cling to him.
His hips kept rolling against Riot’s thigh, chasing that friction and that bright cresting feeling.
More slick pulsed out of him, getting on Riot’s pants and on the bed as he whimpered.
He knew what it meant now. His body wanted things.
His body wanted things badly.
“I’m sorry,” he said, face burning. “I know I keep—I feel so—”
Riot had gone rigid beneath him, every muscle locked as his breathing shallowed. “Cass…you need to stop moving.”
“I can’t.” He hated how pathetic it sounded. “It aches and you’re warm and your scent is doing something to my brain where I can’t think about anything except getting closer—”
“Princess.” Riot gripped his hips hard. “Listen to me.”
“Okay?”
“The way you’re moving—” The gold started to glow brighter in his eyes. “It’s making it very hard for me to be careful.”
“Oh.” Cass’s face burned hotter. “Because I’m making you feel things too?”
The word came out like a growl: “Yes.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to, I just—” He shifted, trying to find a position that didn’t press against the ache, and felt Riot against his thigh. Hard. Unmistakable. His body surged toward it as the rest of him tried to pull the brakes.
That’s what was pressing against you in the bathroom. That’s what was too big. That’s—
He went still.
The wanting didn’t leave. That was the confusing part. The memory of the bathroom flooded in and the wanting stayed exactly where it was. Both at the same time, pulling in opposite directions, and Cass was stuck in the middle with no idea which one to listen to.
“Hey.” Riot’s voice softened. He must have felt Cass tense. “What happened? Talk to me.”
“I want things.” Cass swallowed hard. “But I keep thinking about... before. On the bathroom floor. The scary part.”
Riot let out a noise between a laugh and a groan. “Yeah.”
“And I liked everything before that part. The fingers and the spot inside and the—” His face heated. “The cumming. All of that was good. But then it went somewhere I wasn’t ready for.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s not that I’m scared of you.” This felt important.
Important enough that Cass pulled back to look at Riot’s face, needing him to understand.
“Being scared of you feels wrong. You’re the person who helps me even when I don’t ask for help and stops when I’m scared and puts blankets on me when I’m cold. That’s who you are.”
Something cracked open behind Riot’s eyes.
“But that part of you—” Cass gestured vaguely downward, “—I don’t understand how it’s supposed to work. Because it felt like it would break me.”
Riot exhaled. Slow. Controlled. The gold was still glowing, but he was holding steady. “We don’t have to do that.”
“But my body wants something.” The frustration leaked through in the pitch of his voice, rising steadily. “It keeps wanting and wanting and I don’t know what to give it because the thing it seems to want is the scary part.”
“There’s a lot of things between fingers and... that. More steps.”
“Oh.” Relief flooded through him so fast his eyes stung. “Nobody told me that. I thought it was just—fingers and then that. And I kept trying to figure out how it could possibly—” He stopped himself. “There are really steps?”
“Really.”
“So it doesn’t just have to go from good to terrifying with nothing in between?”
“No, princess. There’s other things.”
Cass considered this. His body was still twitching—small involuntary movements, hips rocking slightly against Riot’s thigh. The wetness was getting worse.
“When you caught me last time,” he said slowly.
He frowned, trying to work out what he meant.
It was hard to explain something his body understood better than the rest of him did, but he wasn’t known for being terribly articulate in the first place.
“After I asked for the head start. And ran. Everything just... stopped fighting. The scared part and the wanting part stopped being different things when I was running because I think my body figured out what to do.”
Riot’s breathing had changed. Faster. The gold glowed brighter.
“Right now my mind is arguing a lot,” Cass mumbled, biting his lip. Did any of that make sense? Or did he just sound like regular, stupid Cass?
Then a cramp hit—savage, twisting—and he cried out, curling forward.
Riot’s arms tightened around him, one hand pressing against his abdomen, the other steadying his shoulder.
The pressure helped but the ache underneath was deeper than pressure could reach.
“It hurts,” Cass gasped. “It really, really hurts, and I can’t—”
He was off Riot’s lap before any thoughts finished forming. On his feet. Heart hammering. The ache so intense his legs almost buckled, but the burst of adrenaline carried him to the door.
Riot’s eyes blazed full gold. “Cass. What are you doing?”
I don’t know. I don’t know but my legs know.
“Count to five,” Cass said breathlessly. His hand was on the doorknob. His body was screaming two things at once—run and let him catch you—and for the first time they weren’t fighting each other. They were the same thing. “For real this time.”
“Don’t—,” Riot began.
Cass’s whole body shuddered. Fear and want, tangled so tight he couldn’t tell them apart anymore.
And ran.
He made it to the kitchen before he heard the bedroom door slam open.
His bare feet slapped against the wooden floor, Lilac’s house was all wood and worn carpet, hallway stretching toward the front of the house, and behind him, he heard the heavy footsteps. Fast. Faster than they should have been, like the sound of something predatory let off its chain.
Run run run—
His body sang with it. The ache was still there, the cramps still rolling through him, but the adrenaline turned everything sharp and electric.
Every nerve felt alive. Every sense screaming and overriding the pain and discomfort.
He hit the entryway and grabbed for the front door handle.
Locked. His fingers fumbled with the deadbolt—
A hand slammed against the door above his head, pushing it shut.
The heat of Riot’s body behind him was close. So close Cass could feel his breath against his neck, could smell strawberries and cream and something darker underneath, something that made his knees want to buckle.
“Caught you.”
The growl vibrated through Cass’s spine. He was trapped between the door and Riot’s chest, pinned, breathing so hard his vision spotted.
And underneath the hammering fear, something else. Something that felt like the opposite of the panic.
Yes. This. This is what my body was trying to get to.
Riot’s hand closed,grabbed his waist and spun him. Cass’s back hit the door and then Riot was pressing him into it, one hand beside his head, those gold eyes blazing down at him.
“Why did you run?”
Cass’s heart was slamming against his ribs. Fear and want and something fiercer than both burned through him like a wildfire. He looked up into those—the eyes of the Berserker, the weapon, the dangerous thing everyone warned about—and told the truth. “Because I wanted you to catch me.”
Riot’s hands slipped beneath his thighs and Cass was being lifted, his legs wrapping around Riot’s hips on instinct, and then they were on the floor. His back chilled against the cold wood, the full weight of Riot pressing him down. Pinned. Caught. Held.
The scared part was still there. A flutter in his chest, a voice saying big, too big, remember the bathroom—
But the running had done something to it. Burned through it, maybe. Or rearranged it so it sat next to the wanting instead of blocking it. Because Cass, who should have been terrified—who was terrified, his heart pounding so hard his vision pulsed with it—
—arched up into that weight instead.
More. Finally. More.