Chapter 19
Unfortunately for us, Shi and I didn’t get much time to recover. They from their wicked hangover, and I from my startling realization.
I’d tasted those silly little words on my tongue more than I cared to admit over the last few weeks, but now they didn’t seem so silly. My stomach roiled at the thought of spitting them out. By that time, Shi showed up at the bar looking as green as I felt. They carried a bottle of Gatorade in one hand and held an ice pack to their head with the other. Teasing them gave me a break from trying to figure out how to tell James that I lov—nope. My stomach wasn’t ready for me to even think the words. In the midst of it all, a thought crept in.
He’ll just leave like everyone else.
But I shoved it away. I had to. I had too much else to think about.
“Regretting that last mojito, Shi Baby?”
“I’m regretting a lot of things,” they muttered, bypassing the bar and heading to the back to put their coat away.
I glared after them. I wasn’t going to tolerate tension betwee n us over a drunken almost-kiss. I followed, blocking the doorway when they came out of the office. “Move, Ryder,” they commanded. I had to admit, it almost worked. The fire in their eyes had me squirming on the spot.
“Not this time. I’m not going to have things between us get weird when nothing even happened.”
They let out an exasperated sigh and collapsed against the wall. “This wasn’t me getting drunk and belting out ‘Islands in the Stream’ at the top of my lungs, only for a video to end up on YouTube.”
“Wait, does that exist?”
“Ryder!”
“Okay!” I held my hands up in surrender. “Sorry, not the time.”
“I tried to kiss you,” Shi said. “We work together. Your boyfriend is my boss— our boss. That shouldn’t have happened.”
I shrugged. “That’s what alcohol does to people, Shi. I’m not offended. I’m not uncomfortable. You were hurt and you latched onto someone who gave you what you needed. Frankly, I’m flattered.”
They rolled their eyes. “Of course you are.”
When our gazes met, I made a show of looking them up and down. “I mean, can you blame me? Look at you.” I grunted when they shoved me back with a hand on my chest.
“You’re ridiculous.” But they were laughing now, and that was a complete one-eighty from the scowl they’d given me. My job was done.
“Are we good?” I asked.
Shi sighed, rubbing that ice pack over the back of their neck. “As long as you don’t get mad at me if I have to run off to throw up again, we’re good.”
I followed them closely into the front of house, leaning down t o talk louder than necessary in their ear. “I promise not to get mad if you puke your guts out the whole shift!”
They wiggled away, muttering, “You’re such an asshole,” as the ice pack found their forehead.
By the time we closed the doors, both Shiloh and I were on the verge of collapsing. We made it through the shift—barely. I was in better shape than they were, but not by much. James insisted on driving them home while I did the cleaning, and they gratefully accepted. I wasn’t nearly as sick as they were, but damn I was exhausted. The combination of the hangover, the restless sleep, and the stress of the last few months weighed on my shoulders.
I managed all of the cleaning in the time James was gone, and while I waited for him to return—because he also refused to let me drive despite my objections—I found myself sitting at the counter, eyeing the bottles of top-shelf scotch. My eyes found the same bottle he poured for me when he confessed to being a vampire. God, that conversation was so long ago. It felt as if he’d been a part of my life forever. Like there hadn’t been a time where he wasn’t there.
“Don’t even think about touching any of those bottles, Ryder Clark.”
I spun, not expecting James to come through the main entrance instead of the back. “I wasn’t! I was just thinking?—”
“Exactly. That’s never good.” He grinned, and I couldn’t fight the smile that crept onto my face. He stepped up to where I sat on the barstool, situating himself between my legs and snaking his arms around my waist. “Can I take you home now?” he asked, his lips brushing mine with the tease of a kiss that was infuriatingly out of reach.
“Damn, at least buy a man dinner first.”
“Oh, I’ll feed you all right.” My laugh was swallowed by his mouth capturing mine, his tongue sweeping along my bottom lip. I opened happily, letting our tongues tangle briefly before James pulled back. “What are the chances of me getting you in a hot bath tonight?”
“Slim to ha-ha,” I responded. “You’ll be lucky if I don’t fall asleep on the drive home.”
James snickered. “Then I guess I’ll have to figure out some other way for you to unwind.”
I cocked a brow but was met with silence. James tugged me off the barstool and led me out of the building.
Once we got to the house and Carlos was freed, James led me to the bedroom. There, he leisurely undressed me, one article of clothing at a time. Every inch of exposed skin was accompanied by a kiss that sent shivers up my spine. He stripped me down to my boxer briefs, then stepped away to put my clothes in the basket. I hooked my thumbs behind my waistband to discard the final piece of clothing, but he closed in behind me and halted my hands. “Not yet, love.”
“Okay…?” Confused, I let him guide me over to the bed—where a towel was strategically laid over the sheets. When had that happened?
“On your stomach,” he instructed.
I happily obeyed. I lowered myself onto my stomach with my arms crossed under my head, the towel under my hips. I didn’t need to be instructed to close my eyes—they did that on their own. Though when something wet drizzled over my back, I gasped. “What the hell?”
“Relax,” James said. His strong hands massaged the warm oil into my skin. He started with my shoulders, his thumbs digging into the tight knots that had formed there.
I groaned, tears in my eyes when he hit a particularly sore spot.
“Shh,” he soothed. “I know. Let me fix it.”
I focused on my breathing while James’s hands undid the knots in my shoulders and slowly worked their way south. The farther they got, the more my cock became interested. My hips began to rock against the bed. “That’s it, love,” he praised. “Take what you need.”
I fucking whimpered . I don’t know when I became such a praise slut, but damn —it did something to me. James’s hands squeezed my ass cheeks and I cried out, bucking back into his touch. He kneaded the flesh harder on each pass, drawing more indecent sounds from my mouth. And when he delicately tugged my underwear down, I nearly lost it. My cock wept, desperate to be touched. James knocked my legs apart and knelt between my thighs. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the base of my spine.
I arched toward his mouth, his tongue darting out to lick between my cheeks. A dark, rumbling laugh pulled from deep in his chest when I jolted at the action. “I love how responsive you are.”
Words eluded me. I could only answer with another pathetic cry. He flattened his tongue in my crease, trailing a hot, wet path right to my eager hole. I shuddered, his hands spreading me apart for his tongue to ravish my entrance. I rocked against his mouth, chasing more. My fists clenched, body tense with the effort of holding off my orgasm. James ate my ass like a man starved, my panting and his obscene slurping sounds the only ones in the room.
“Please,” I begged when he pulled off.
“Don’t hold back.”
“Then don’t stop!” I cried, halfway to a growl. I was so close, my orgasm tantalizingly out of reach.
A low, guttural groan escaped me as his tongue pushed through. Almost without warning, my orgasm raced down my spine. I came hands free, my release spilling into my boxer briefs and the towel beneath me. James held my hips tight, easing me throug h every wave. Fatigue quickly took over and as he peeled my underwear off me, I collapsed onto the towel. “I need to shower,” I mumbled, breathless.
“Let me clean you, love.”
Something clattered to the nightstand, and I cracked an eye open to see his chain sitting there. He disappeared into the bathroom, and I heard the water running. He returned and lifted me off the soiled towel, placing me gently on the other side of the bed. He cleaned me with the warm, wet cloth. I felt like I was floating somewhere between consciousness and sleep. I was vaguely aware of James in the room, could hear the sounds of him getting ready for bed, but I couldn’t move. When he got into bed, he lifted me again, settling me on his chest and covering us both with the blanket. He held me, tracing lazy shapes over my back while I began to drift into what would hopefully be a deep sleep.
Until a glass-shattering shriek jolted me awake.
“What the hell?” James groused, covering his sensitive ears. “It’s the middle of the night! Does Carlos really need to sing now?”
“Something’s wrong,” I said, feeling like I had cotton in my mouth. I shook away the sleep fogging my brain. “That’s not his normal howl.”
I scrambled out of bed, fumbling for a pair of sweats on the floor and stepping into them as I ran out of the room. Normally, Carlos would sneak his way over the baby gate and sleep on the couch at night. He never created a mess or destroyed anything, so I pretended not to know about it. So when I found him lying in the middle of the kitchen floor, still emitting that high-pitched scream, I knew something wasn’t right. His cries stopped when I flipped on the light, but he didn’t jump up to greet me like he usually did .
“What’s wrong, boy?” I asked, opening the gate and sitting on the floor next to him.
James appeared behind me in the doorway, keeping his distance. “Is he okay?”
“I don’t know.” I stroked Carlos’s back, wanting to pull him closer to me but not wanting to hurt him further if he was injured. I wasn’t sure what he could have gotten into in the few hours it had been since he came inside. He was panting like it was a hundred degrees in the kitchen. I knew he was part Husky, but he’d never been uncomfortable with the temperature in the house before.
“He’s stopped screaming,” James pointed out. “Come back to bed, love. I’m sure he’s fine.”
“I—” More screaming cut me off, each ear-piercing howl like a shrill cry for help. I felt along his back. Nothing. He let me check his front paws without incident, but when I reached for his back left leg, he nipped at my hand, barely missing my fingers.
“That’s it.” I leapt to my feet and started toward my bedroom again. I was wide awake now. “I’m taking him to the vet.”
It wasn’t until I was dressed and trying to figure out how to get Carlos into the car without hurting him that James halted me in my step. “You’re exhausted, Ryder.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m not going to let him sit there in pain all night.”
“That’s not what I meant.” His hand appeared in front of my face. “Give me the keys. I’ll drive.”