Chapter 24
Riven turned over.
Heart pounding, breath shaking, his body obeyed before his mind caught up. He got to his knees, bracing on his elbows, face burning against the sheets. He felt exposed. Open in a way that wasn’t just physical.
Thane’s hand slid down his back—slow, possessive—before gripping his hip, hard.
“Look at you,” Thane said, voice low and brutal. “Acting like you hate all this, when your cock’s dripping onto the sheets.”
Riven bit his lip hard enough to taste blood.
He didn’t have time to respond. Thane spat into his hand, worked it between Riven’s cheeks, slicking him open with two fingers. Riven gasped at the intrusion, body jerking, but Thane held him firm.
“Relax,” Thane ordered. “You wanted this. Every filthy inch.”
Riven groaned—more need than denial now.
The fingers worked deeper, rough but practiced, spreading him open while Thane’s other hand gripped his ass, keeping him steady.
The stretch ached, but it was nothing compared to the burning low in Riven’s gut.
He pushed back without thinking, chasing the contact, and Thane gave a satisfied sound behind him.
“Fuck, you’re already begging without saying a word.”
Thane withdrew his fingers slowly, cruelly slow, and then Riven felt it.
The hot, heavy press of Thane’s cock against his hole.
“Breathe,” Thane murmured, the voice of a man about to devour. “And remember who you belong to.”
The first push had Riven seeing stars. His body clenched, mind flashing panic and pleasure, instinct and surrender. Thane didn’t give him long to adjust—he pressed in with slow, brutal insistence, burying himself deeper with every breathless second.
Riven’s fingers tore at the sheets. “F-fuck—Thane—”
“I know,” Thane said, voice rough with restraint. “You’re taking me so well.”
When he bottomed out, he stilled, chest heaving.
For a moment, everything paused—the air thick, heavy with sweat and want and something more dangerous than either of them wanted to name.
Then Thane began to move.
Deliberate. Deep. Possessive strokes that had Riven shaking, groaning into the sheets, meeting every thrust despite himself.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet. But it wasn’t cruel, either.
It was hunger. Precision. Thane driving himself into Riven like he meant to brand his shape into him from the inside out.
Riven moaned again, louder this time, unable to stop it. “You—fuck—you’re—so fucking big—”
“Too much for you?” Thane panted, leaning forward to bite his shoulder. “Tell me if it is.”
“No,” Riven gasped. “Don’t stop.”
Thane’s laugh was dark and wrecked. “Didn’t plan to.”
Thane’s pace picked up—harder now, rougher, each thrust punching a ragged moan from Riven’s throat. His body rocked with every stroke, sweat slicking his skin, hair sticking to his temple as he clutched the sheets like they could anchor him.
He was unraveling. Everything inside him coiled tight, aching and desperate, spiraling toward a point of no return.
Then Thane shifted—angled his hips just enough—and Riven broke.
“Fuck,” he gasped, eyes rolling back. “Right there—gods—Thane—”
Thane groaned, fingers digging bruises into Riven’s hips. “Say it again.”
“Thane—”
“Say whose cock’s inside you.”
Riven bit down on a cry. His pride flared, but it drowned under the weight of pleasure—under the sound of Thane’s breath behind him, the brutal rhythm of his hips, the feeling of being utterly, wholly claimed.
“Yours,” he whispered, then louder, desperate. “Yours.”
That earned him a sound—half-growl, half-moan—as Thane slammed into him again, and again, faster now, harder.
Riven felt his own orgasm crawling up his spine like fire, every muscle tight, sweat dripping off him as he jerked himself in time with the rhythm, matching Thane thrust for thrust, groan for groan.
“You gonna come for me?” Thane panted, his voice wrecked and close. “Gonna spill all over yourself while I fuck you full?”
Riven whimpered. “I—I can’t—Thane—”
“Yes, you can,” Thane snapped, one hand tangling in Riven’s hair, yanking his head back just enough to growl into his ear. “You’re gonna come for me. Now.”
It was that voice. That command. That awful, devastating tenderness hidden behind cruelty.
Riven cried out, spine bowing, and came with a shudder, spilling hot across the sheets beneath him, thighs trembling. The orgasm tore through him so hard he saw black at the edges of his vision, his whole body seized in pleasure.
Thane followed a heartbeat later with a low, guttural noise, slamming deep one last time before he came with a violent shudder, hips jerking, cock pulsing inside Riven as he filled him. He held himself there, buried to the hilt, panting like he’d just fought a war—and maybe he had.
The silence after was deafening.
The only sound was their breathing—labored, unsteady, tangled with sweat and come and something too fragile to name.
Thane eased out slowly. Riven winced, oversensitive, body shaking. He collapsed onto his side, still catching his breath, and felt the mattress dip as Thane laid beside him.
Neither of them said anything.
Until Thane reached out and brushed Riven’s hair back from his damp forehead, fingers surprisingly gentle.
“You okay?” Thane asked, quiet now.
Riven’s throat worked. His pride screamed at him to snarl, to run, to bury this whole thing under anger or shame or anything else.
But instead he nodded.
And didn’t pull away from the hand still resting in his hair.
Riven stayed where he was, cheek pressed to the sheets, breath finally slowing.
His body ached in that fucked-out, oversensitive way that almost felt like peace.
Thane hadn’t moved much, only shifted onto his side behind him.
One of his hands still rested on Riven’s waist, thumb tracing lazy, absent circles into his damp skin.
Not possessive now. Not demanding. Just… there.
Riven closed his eyes.
“This isn’t going to become a habit,” he muttered, voice hoarse.
Thane hummed low in his throat. “No?”
“No.”
A pause.
“You say that every time I have my cock in your mouth.”
Riven groaned and buried his face in the pillow, though not before Thane caught the flicker of a smile at the corner of his lips. Bastard.
They laid like that for another long stretch. No words. No biting remarks. Just the hum of something unspoken hanging in the stillness.
It should have been awkward. It should’ve made Riven bolt for the door.
But the warmth of Thane’s skin against his back wasn’t something he wanted to lose just yet. Even the man’s breath was steadying. Grounding. It was terrifying.
“You came to the infirmary,” Riven said after a beat, not looking at him.
“I always would have,” Thane said, quiet.
That silenced him.
He didn’t know what to make of that, and the way Thane said it like it wasn’t a favor. Like it wasn’t obligation or anger that had brought him through that door.
Like it was a fact, unchangeable.
He turned, just enough to glance at Thane over his shoulder. Thane met his eyes, unreadable as ever, expression softer now than Riven had ever seen it. Still intense, but not cruel.
Something clenched behind Riven’s ribs. “You could’ve told me you were watching,” he said, “instead of sending your dogs to babysit me.”
“I didn’t think you’d listen if I asked you not to go.”
“I wouldn’t have.”
“There’s your answer.”
A moment passed.
And then Thane moved, pulling back just enough to sit up. The distance was sudden—cold in the absence of heat.
“Don’t read into this,” he said, voice flat again. “You wanted it. I let you have it. That’s all.”
Riven rolled to his back, watching him.
“Sure,” he said. “That’s all.”
Thane stood, walked to the nearby dresser, and grabbed his discarded shirt, pulling it back over his scarred shoulders with efficient detachment. Like the night hadn’t happened. Like his mouth hadn’t been on Riven’s skin like he needed to devour him.
Riven watched every movement, heart still thudding too fast in his chest. But he didn’t say anything, because he could already feel the walls going back up.
It was easier to let them.