Riot let out a noise between a laugh and a groan. “Yeah.”
“And I liked everything before that part. The fingers and the spot inside and the—” His face heated. “The cumming. All of that was good. But then it went somewhere I wasn’t ready for.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s not that I’m scared of you.” This felt important. Important enough that Cass pulled back to look at Riot’s face, needing him to understand. “Being scared of you feels wrong. You’re the person who helps me even when I don’t ask for help and stops when I’m scared and puts blankets on me when I’m cold. That’s who you are.”
Something cracked open behind Riot’s eyes.
“But that part of you—” Cass gestured vaguely downward, “—I don’t understand how it’s supposed to work. Because it felt like it would break me.”
Riot exhaled. Slow. Controlled. The gold was still glowing, but he was holding steady. “We don’t have to do that.”
“But my body wants something.” The frustration leaked through in the pitch of his voice, rising steadily. “It keeps wanting and wanting and I don’t know what to give it because the thing it seems to want is the scary part.”
“There’s a lot of things between fingers and... that. More steps.”
“Oh.” Relief flooded through him so fast his eyes stung. “Nobody told me that. I thought it was just—fingers and thenthat. And I kept trying to figure out how it could possibly—” He stopped himself. “There are really steps?”
“Really.”
“So it doesn’t just have to go from good to terrifying with nothing in between?”
“No, princess. There’s other things.”
Cass considered this. His body was still twitching—small involuntary movements, hips rocking slightly against Riot’s thigh. The wetness was getting worse.
“When you caught me last time,” he said slowly. He frowned, trying to work out what he meant. It was hard to explain something his body understood better than the rest of him did,but he wasn’t known for being terribly articulate in the first place. “After I asked for the head start. And ran. Everything just... stopped fighting. The scared part and the wanting part stopped being different things when I was running because I think my body figured out what to do.”
Riot’s breathing had changed. Faster. The gold glowed brighter.
“Right now my mind is arguing a lot,” Cass mumbled, biting his lip. Did any of that make sense? Or did he just sound like regular, stupid Cass?
Then a cramp hit—savage, twisting—and he cried out, curling forward. Riot’s arms tightened around him, one hand pressing against his abdomen, the other steadying his shoulder. The pressure helped but the ache underneath was deeper than pressure could reach. “It hurts,” Cass gasped. “It really, really hurts, and I can’t—”
He was off Riot’s lap before any thoughts finished forming. On his feet. Heart hammering. The ache so intense his legs almost buckled, but the burst of adrenaline carried him to the door.
Riot’s eyes blazed full gold. “Cass. What are you doing?”
I don’t know. I don’t know but my legs know.
“Count to five,” Cass said breathlessly. His hand was on the doorknob. His body was screaming two things at once—runandlet him catch you—and for the first time they weren’t fighting each other. They were the same thing. “For real this time.”
“Don’t—,” Riot began.
Cass’s whole body shuddered. Fear and want, tangled so tight he couldn’t tell them apart anymore.
And ran.
He made it to the kitchen before he heard the bedroom door slam open.
His bare feet slapped against the wooden floor, Lilac’s house was all wood and worn carpet, hallway stretching toward thefront of the house, and behind him, he heard the heavy footsteps. Fast. Faster than they should have been, like the sound of something predatory let off its chain.
Run run run—
His body sang with it. The ache was still there, the cramps still rolling through him, but the adrenaline turned everything sharp and electric. Every nerve felt alive. Every sense screaming and overriding the pain and discomfort. He hit the entryway and grabbed for the front door handle. Locked. His fingers fumbled with the deadbolt—
A hand slammed against the door above his head, pushing it shut.
