He decided, for once, to not ruin it by thinking too hard.
Cass stirred. Shifted. Made another of those small sounds that Riot was rapidly collecting alongside the different sounds—the distress ones, the pleasure ones, the I’m-trying-to-hide-something ones. This was a new category: theI’m comfortable and waking up slowly and the world hasn’t ruined this yetsound.
Then Cass smiled. Before his eyes opened. His mouth curved against Riot’s chest and hesmiled, and the warmth that spread through Riot’s body had nothing to do with the bite wound and everything to do with the fact that this was the first time he’d seen Cass begin to wake without a furrowed brow.
“Hi,” Cass murmured.
“Hi.”
Cass opened his eyes and blinked at the stone walls, the dawn light, down at the sleeping bag they’d destroyed. He glanced down at himself and Riot, both of them still naked and turned pink.
“That happened,” he said.
“That happened.”
“All of it.”
“All of it.”
Cass pressed his face into Riot’s chest and made a sound that was partially a laugh and partially mortification. “I’m just going to be a person who is here in this cellar and not think about—”
“‘Oh heavens oh fuck ohheavens’.”
Cass’s fist connected with his chest with zero force behind it. “You’re terrible.”
“We established this.”
Cass tried to sit up and his whole body stiffened, wincing with a sharp inhale through his teeth, his weight settling wrong and his face tightening in a way that told Riot exactly how sore he was. He moved carefully to one side, then the other.
“Ow,” Cass said.
“Yeah.”
“Ow.”
Riot’s jaw locked. “I was too rough with you.”
Cass paused mid-wince and looked at him.
“In the morning light,” Riot said. He sat up, running a hand through his hair. Not looking at Cass. “In the morning light, some of the things I—said. Did. Are you—?”
Cass was quiet for a moment as his fingers found the bite mark on his own shoulder—Riot’s bite, the one that had preceded everything else. He touched it. Then reached across and touched the wound on Riot. His touch was gentle, careful, and whenhis fingertips grazed the raw edges, Riot felt that pulse again—warmth, spreading, and with it a flicker of something that didn’t belong to him. Tenderness. Curiosity. The emotional equivalent of Cass tilting his head.
“I’m okay,” Cass said with a small smile.
Riot’s mouth twitched. “We should get moving.”
Sage was waiting at the top of the cellar steps.
She’d been up for at least an hour, from the look of it—her pack was loaded, the jeep’s engine was idling, and she had the blank expression of someone who had formed opinions she was keeping to herself. Her rifle was slung across her back, her hair scraped into a knot, and she was holding two tin cups of something that steamed in the morning air.
“Coffee,” she said, handing them over. “Before you ask—no, it’s terrible. Instant crystals.”
Riot took a sip. She was right. It tasted like someone had described coffee to a person who’d never had it and they’d done their best.
“Thank you,” Cass said, wrapping both hands around his cup like it was precious.
Sage looked at Riot’s neck. “Rough night?”
