For half a second where his hips pressed forward instead of pulling back, just long enough for Cass to feel it—the difference betweenRiotand the thing that lived inside him. Then he stopped. Barely. His arms trembled on either side of Cass’s head, the tendons standing out in his neck, gold blazing so bright the stone walls threw shadows.
“Breathe.” His voice was wrong. Too deep. Forced through a cage. “Push out.”
”Ican’t—you’re so—Riot, it’s too—” Cass squeaked out, his lower lip trembling as he felt a cramp building and Riot trying to push in and it was all too much happening.
“Push. Out.” It wasn’t a request.
Cass pushed out. Something shifted. The pain eased fromimpossibletoa lot, tears streaming down his face, and he exhaled through his teeth. Riot kept trembling. Cass kept trembling. But something in Cass’s mind told him it would be okay so he nodded at Riot to keep going.
Riot pressed forward. Every inch was a negotiation between Cass’s body and something it had never accepted before—the pain constant, grinding, his breath coming in hitches that were half-sob.
It wasn’t getting better. It just keptbeing.
He wanted it to feel good. He wanted the pleasure to arrive the way it always did with Riot’s fingers—sudden, bright, the spot lighting up and the pain dissolving. But this wasn’t that.This was his body stretched past anything it had done before, a deep, burning ache that had nothing to do with the spot and everything to do with it being too much.
“Riot…” His voice was small. Not frightened. Just honest. “It really hurts.”
“I know.” Riot’s forehead dropped against his, his gold eyes close enough that Cass could see himself reflected in them. Riot’s whisper shook, “I know it does. I’m sorry. I’m so—fuck, Cass, you’re so—”
Cass blinked away more tears and touched Riot’s face again, tracing the freckles across his cheekbone with a trembling finger. “It’s o-okay…I just need—” he searched for the right words for the strange feeling beyond the pain, “I didn’t know you could be this close to another person.”
A sound came out of Riot that wasn’t a word. He pressed a kiss to Cass’s palm and his hips shifted, just slightly, and the angle changed.
Something inside Cass unclenched. There wasn’t a good feeling yet, but it was like his body was giving up the fight. Yielding. Accepting the intrusion the way a bruise accepts pressure—still tender, still aching, but no longer resisting.
Riot sank the rest of the way in.
Cass’s mouth opened and nothing came out except a stuttered gasp. He was full. So full it felt like Riot was in his chest, displacing his organs, rearranging him from the inside. The pain was still there as a deep throb that pulsed with his heartbeat, but now there was something underneath it. Not pleasure. Not yet. Something like rightness. Like a key in a lock that was the wrong size but the right shape.
“Tight.” Riot gritted out.
He couldn’t finish the sentence. His jaw locked. His arms trembled. The gold was blazing but his hands—his hands were gentle on Cass’s face, thumbs wiping tears, and the contradictionof it, the tenderness fighting through all that desperate hunger, made Cass’s eyes flood.
“Move,” Cass whispered. “You can move.”
Riot moved.
The first stroke hurt. A dragging ache, the friction strange and overwhelming. Cass’s hands gripped Riot’s shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
The second stroke hurt less. His body adjusting, the slick felt like it was doing something, making it…not easy, but possible. A faint warmth began to stir deep inside, like the first hint of dawn breaking through fog with not quite pleasure yet, just the promise of it, easing the edges of the discomfort.
The third stroke found the edge of the spot that made Cass feel good, like the ghost of sensation that flickered like a candle in the dark. It sent a tiny shiver through him, but it was fleeting, teasing, leaving him wanting more.
“There!” Cass gasped. Riot adjusted the angle, his hands gripping Cass’s hips, and his next stroke hit it dead-on.
The pain didn’t disappear. But a bright, sharp shock detonated in the middle of the ache, and the two of them tangled together until Cass couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. His back arched. The sound he made bounced off the cellar walls. That initial burst of pleasure spread slowly, like ripples in water, warming his core and making his skin tingle.
“Shut the fuck up.” Riot hissed as his hand slammed over Cass’s mouth. His hips snapped forward, chasing the angle, and the gold was blazing. “You want Sage to hear what I’m—fuck—what you sound like when I—”
He couldn’t finish the sentence. His hips moved again and the spot lit up and coherent thought left both of them. The pleasure deepened now, no longer just sparks but steady pulses that radiated outward from that perfect point of contact. Cass feltit coiling in his belly, a growing tension that made his muscles flutter involuntarily, each thrust stoking the fire a little higher.
It wasn’t smooth. It wasn’t pretty. Cass’s body kept clenching at the wrong moments, making Riot groan through his teeth. His hips tried to find a rhythm and kept stuttering, losing it, finding it again. His hands couldn’t settle, gripping Riot’s shoulders, then his arms, then the sleeping bag, then back to his shoulders. He was making sounds he’d never heard himself make, and they were loud, and Riot kept clamping his hand over his mouth and he kept pulling it off to kiss Cass and swallow his loud sounds like he could drink them. With every adjustment, every shared breath, the sensation layered on: a low hum in his veins that started to sync with Riot’s movements, turning discomfort into something electric that made Cass’s toes curl and his pulse race.
“Don’t stop—I need you…” The words were tumbling out and he couldn’t control them. “I want…mmph…Riot, I want—”
Riot’s hands gripped Cass’s hips and wrenched him onto his lap, the new position pushing deeper and Cass felt it somewhere impossible and his mouth said something his brain hadn’t approved.
“Make me cum!”
