18. Fin
Chapter eighteen
Fin
Kissing Ricky felt like I was floating on the lake on a warm summer day. My skin got hot all over while my head floated away. I wanted him naked and alone, under me while I sank into his body. Maybe while he was wearing something lacy. If I was honest with myself, I wanted Ricky for more than sex.
My wolf was fully on board, and I got the impression he was saying, Duh, at my revelation. Something in my wolf recognized Ricky’s beta wolf as important. Needed.
The urge to tell him how I was feeling was only overpowered by my desire to keep kissing him, to hold the younger man against me and never let him go. I’d tell Ricky later, I reasoned, and stopped thinking to trail my tongue along his.
When my son’s exclamation reached me through my fog of lust, I had the wild thought that I imagined it. Ricky tensed up and I wrenched my mouth from his, turning in horror to find Rowen staring at us with a surprised expression. I couldn’t tell if he was upset before Rowen ran back in the house.
Calling after Rowen, I pushed away from Ricky to follow my son, “Wait!”
Running up the back steps and through the kitchen, I heard Rowen talking to Cam as they went out the front door. “Time to go.”
“Okay, but-” Cam started, but didn’t finish as they were dragged across the front porch.
Pushing the front door open, I found them approaching Rowen’s bike. “Rowen,” I yelled, not wanting him to drive while upset. He started the engine before Cam was on the back.
“Stop right now, Red,” I commanded with his nickname, knowing my voice was low enough not to wake people in the house, but he’d still hear it over the engine with his heightened senses.
Rowen looked down at the gas tank of his red Harley before cutting the engine. He took a deep breath but wouldn’t meet my eyes. I needed to know if he hated me for hooking up with his friend, and I couldn’t read him at that moment.
Cam looked back and forth between us, still holding the helmet instead of wearing it. “What’s going on?”
“Rowen saw something that surprised him,” I supplied, unsure how to say I was making out with one of his closest friends.
“Surprise, you’re fucking Ricky,” Rowen said with a humorless chuckle. I could argue we hadn’t fucked yet, but we’d traded blow jobs and slept in bed together.
What we had done was more intimacy than I’d ever shared with another person. Plus, I felt like Ricky had become inevitable. I would sleep with him again.
Cam gasped and grabbed onto Rowen’s leather-clad arm as if it was too shocking to stay standing after hearing the news. “I told you.”
Scrunching up my face at Cam’s words, I looked back and forth between them. Rowen had a mix of grimace and humor on his face, but Cam looked delighted by the news. The whole thing was confusing as fuck.
“You told him what?”
“I told him Ricky had a crush on you, and Rowen tried to argue that you’d never be interested,” Cam explained with a self satisfied smirk. The little barista was good at reading people. “But you are, aren’t you?”
Sighing, I sat down on my bike. “Yes. I’m more interested than I have any right to be. I was so worried about Rowen finding out that I’ve barely allowed myself to think about my feelings for Ricky. And now you know and probably hate me.”
“Hate you?” Rowen said, and his sharp tone drew my attention. He stood from his bike and walked over to me. Stopping right in front of me, Rowen held my eyes with a fierce look on his face. “I could never hate you, Superman.”
“Not even if I’m falling for one of your friends?” I asked, a spark of hope lighting in my chest. “And he’s twenty years younger than me?”
“Well, I don’t love that part,” Rowen chuckled, and I knew he didn’t mean it. His expression darkened again. “But he’s such a flirt. How do you know if you’re just another notch on his bedpost?”
My wolf growled in my head at the idea that Ricky wasn’t mine to keep. I had never had a partner, but apparently my wolf didn’t share.
“That boy–man,” I corrected when I realized how it sounded. “He’s been flirting with me for a decade. I used to smell other people on him when he came home from a trip. But I haven’t smelled anyone else since he stopped traveling last year…”
Trailing off, I realized the truth of my words. My wolf knew, but I hadn’t allowed myself to process the information that Ricky hadn’t been with anyone since we hooked up last June.
“You’re saying this has been going on for almost a year?” Cam asked with a squeal and I shook my head.
“No. Well, it started then. But it wasn’t a thing until recently.”
“Stop,” Rowen held up a hand. “I do not need details of my dad’s sex life.”
“I wouldn’t mind hearing a few,” Cam teased and winked to let me know they were teasing Rowen more than me.
“Gross,” Rowen teased back and kissed their cheek before looking at me again. “Do you want more than that, though?”
He didn’t have to say what he meant. Did I want more than sex with Ricky? I didn’t know how to be in a relationship, or if Ricky even wanted that. “I don’t know.”
“So what are you going to do?” Rowen asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you just left his arms to chase after me,” Rowen pointed out, and I stood abruptly when I realized he was right.
“Shit, I should go check on him.”
“You should,” Rowen nodded his head and pulled Cam into his side.
Listening closely though, I couldn’t hear him walking around in the house or behind it. I could hear snores from a few rooms, and Patty doing the dishes, but the sound of padded feet told me Ricky had a different path.
“I can hear him running toward the border of the property like his tail’s on fire.”
“Guess you have some groveling to do,” Cam smiled and I was glad Rowen brought them into our lives.
“I think I do,” I admitted.
Hugging them goodbye, Cam suggested the four of us have dinner soon, but I didn’t have the same confidence they did.
Deciding I didn’t want to literally chase after Ricky, I sat down on the front porch and waited.
I occasionally heard Ricky when he was closer to the house, but then he’d veer off to check on another part of the property.
I wasn’t worried like I had been before the MacTaryns were taken care of, but I also wanted everyone in the house to feel safe.
Patty left to go home an hour later, and King came downstairs shortly after that. He could probably use more sleep, but I wasn’t going to argue when he told me to call Ricky in and for us to go home for the night.
Letting out my best howl in human form, I signaled for Ricky to return to the house. Pulling the phone out of my saddlebag, I sent Ricky a text and heard it go through, dinging from his own bike. The ball was in his court now.