Cass shifted a few times, tensing with discomfort, but then his breathing evened out within minutes. Riot sat perfectly still, one hand in Cass’s hair, the other curled into a fist. Ken’s scent was fading, slowly being replaced by theirs—strawberries and cream mixing with caramel and cinnamon. It smelled right. It smelled liketheirs.
I’m so fucked.
He ran through threats while Cass slept. Ken Nakamura, using old intimacy as leverage, escalating recruitment attempts, was now marked for a very uncomfortable conversation. The Syndicate’s pharmaceutical interference was designed to keep Riot unstable and desperate. The mission deadline that Casstalked about, the one Riot could see weighing on him more each day.
And underneath all the tactical planning, the hunger that wouldn’t quiet.
Mine.
He closed his eyes and held on.
Chapter eleven
Spiritual Consultation
Riot
Dawnsnuckintothehotel like an unwelcome witness.
Riot hadn’t slept. He couldn’t, not with Cass unconsciously scenting him every few minutes, his warm breath ghosting across his throat in slow, even puffs. Not with the way Cass kept seeking friction against his thigh with subtle movements that had started as small shifts hours ago and gradually become something else entirely.
Around 3 AM, Cass hooked his leg over Riot’s hip, halfway rolled on top of him, and started grinding against him in his sleep. Slow, rhythmic rolls of his pelvis, accompanied by soft whimpers that went straight to Riot’s cock. The first time it happened, Riot tried to ease him away. The second time, he held very still and let it happen. The third time, his hand had found Cass’s hip and guided him into a better angle.
He hated himself for it.
His cock had been hard for so long the ache had become background noise, a constant throb he compartmentalized along with all the other sensations his body was screaming at him to act on. What he couldn’t compartmentalize was the compulsion to touch. To explore. To map every inch of skin he could reach while Cass slept and didn’t know any better.
He traced the constellation of birthmarks and scars across Cass’s left shoulder—seven of them, forming something like Pleiades if he squinted. He followed the curve of his ear, the line of his jaw, the impossible softness of his lower lip. He slid his fingers along the hollow where Cass’s hipbones jutted out, dipping into the gap between fevered skin and loose cotton, feeling the sharp architecture of bone beneath.
You’re a fucking predator. He trusts you and you’re touching him in his sleep.
The self-loathing was familiar by now. It didn’t make him stop.
Cass shifted again, making a sound that was less whimper and more moan—throaty, needy, the kind of sound that belonged in a very different context. His hips rolled forward, his cock pressing hard against Riot’s thigh through thin fabric, and Riot’s hand was on his surprisingly supple ass, fingers digging into soft flesh and pulling him closer.
Fuck. Fuck.
He forced his hand to go still. He didn’t remove it—he couldn’t make himself do that—but he stopped actively groping an unconscious Omega.
The kid’s skin was burning. Three nights of this, and each one had been worse than the last. Riot could feel the heat radiating through their clothes, he could smell the way Cass’s scent was deepening and ripening with each passing hour—less caramel and cinnamon now, more honey and musk, something thicker and more demanding. Cass’s mouth found Riot’s throat again, his lips parting against his carotid artery, and his hot, wet tongue dragging across scarred skin.
He’s licking me. In his sleep.
Riot’s hips jerked hard, grinding his cock against Cass’s stomach before he could lock them down. His hand tightened on Cass, pulling him impossibly closer, and a sound escaped his throat that was more growl than anything human.
Stop. You have to stop.
But he didn’t want to stop. Every night the lines blurred a little more, every night he took liberties he knew he shouldn’t, and every morning he told himself it wouldn’t happen again.
It always happened again.
The silver circlet sat on the nightstand, catching the first grey light. Riot picked it up twice during the night—once before the grinding started, once after—turning it over in his fingers, imagining how it would look. Both times, he’d put it back.
What am I going to tell him? That I’ve decided he belongs to me? That I spent half the night with my hand on his ass while he humped my leg?
Cass stirred, consciousness surfacing slowly, making Riot grab the circlet and shove it inside his inner jacket pocket before he could see it. Cass’s hips gave one more slow roll against Riot’s thigh—deliberate or not, it was impossible to tell—and then those eyelashes fluttered. Impossibly long, brushing hischest. Hazel eyes blinking up at Riot with sleepy confusion that sharpened into recognition.
Into warmth.
