The sound he made was loud. Too loud.
Riot’s free hand clamped over his mouth, sealing the sound in, and his gold eyes burned close. “Sage is fifty yards away. You need to be quiet.”
Cass nodded against his hand as tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. The cramp was dissolving, replaced by the bright pleasure Riot’s fingers could find in seconds that Cass’s couldn’t find at all. But it wasn’t enough. The fingers helped—heavens, they helped—but the ache beneath the relief was deeper now, more specific. He pulled Riot’s hand away from his mouth. “Riot. What will make it stop? The heat. What makes it actually stop?”
Riot’s fingers went still inside him. His jaw clenched. The gold pulsed. “I can’t.”
“Please,” Cass whimpered, pushing down on the fingers inside him for more relief. “Please help me.”
“The part you didn’t like. The scary part.” Each word cost him something. “But it’s not…Cass, you’ve been through so much and I don’t have a lot of control right now. What I’ve got is duct tape and stubbornness and if I lose it—”
“You won’t.” Cass touched Riot’s face and traced his clenched jaw. “You keep telling me you’re dangerous. And then you keep being careful.”
“Cass—”
“I want to choose this. Not because the heat is making me. Because I want to.” His voice was steadier than he expected. “I want you to help me.”
Riot stared at him. Cass watched a war happen in his eyes. Part of it was frightening, but also comforting to know that Riot felt the same kind of wanting and fear as he did.
“Okay,” he said, his voice dropping into something that made the hair on Cass’s arms stand up.
Riot undressed him with hands that shook.
Then Riot pulled his own shirt off, and Cass saw him in the gold light, his body taut, vibrating almost. Cass reached out and pressed his palm against Riot’s chest, feeling a violent heartbeat slamming against his fingers like it was trying to get out.
“It’s okay,” Cass said. He wasn’t sure it was, but it seemed like something Riot needed to hear.
Then the pants came off and Cass tried really hard not to look, but he looked anyway. He had already seen it, he knew what was waiting there, and he knew it made him incredibly nervous, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Don’t look at that right now.” Riot kissed him, hard enough to swallow a gasp, one hand cupping the back of his head as his fingers slipped between Cass’s legs again. This kiss tasted less like their terrible dinner and more like the last thread of control being held between teeth.
Cass moaned into Riot’s mouth as those fingers pushed inside again, stretching, working him open with a focus that had nothing to do with gentleness and everything to do with need. Then three fingers. He gripped Cass’s thigh hard enough to bruise, and his mouth moved down to Cass’s neck, biting, licking, whispering things on his skin that made Cass’s whole body flush. “So wet for me. Fuck, princess, you’re dripping—I can feel it running down my wrist—”
“I’m sorry—” The apology came out before Cass could catch it.
“Don’t.” Riot’s teeth caught his earlobe. “Don’t apologize for being wet. I want you wet. I want you soaking. I want this pretty hole so loose and ready that when I push in you take every inch without a fight.”
Cass whimpered. His hips were moving against Riot’s hand, rocking into the stretch, and every time Riot’s fingers found the spot his body jolted and a sound escaped him, the cellar walls threw it back at him and he heard himself and wanted to die of embarrassment and also never stop.
“More—” Cass gasped, grabbing Riot’s forearm as that desperate tickling ache began to form. “Please, I need—”
“You need to be patient.” But Riot was already pressing a fourth finger against his rim and the burn made Cass cry out. “Shh.Shh. That’s it—fuck, look at you, opening up for me—you look so goddamn hot right now, princess.”
“I think— it’s from the heat—oh heavens—Riot, please—”
“It’s not enough.” Riot’s voice had gone somewhere dark and certain. “It’s not going to be enough. You need more than my hand and I need to be inside you before I lose what’s left of my fucking mind.”
He withdrew his fingers and the sudden emptiness made Cass gasp a bereft, desperate sound, his body clenching around nothing, reaching for what was gone. His thighs were shaking. Tears were running down his face. He couldn’t tell if they were from the heat or the pleasure or the overwhelmingeverythingof being this open, this vulnerable, this wet on a cellar floor in the Static Zone with a Berserker whose eyes were burning gold above him.
Riot positioned himself between Cass’s thighs and he took a deep breath, closing his eyes and plunging them in darkness for a moment. “Cass, I need you to remember to breathe, okay?”
He nodded, wanting to say something about how he usually didn’t have to remember how to breathe, it was just something he did, but then Riot moved a little.
The first presshurtlike a blunt, splitting pain—his body being asked to open around something that felt impossible.
“Wait—” He forgot to breathe. “Oh—oh, that hurts, Riot, that really—”
Riot didn’t stop immediately.
